Communicative category of politeness in German and Russian linguistic culture

Abstract

The article is devoted to the comparative analyses of politeness in Russian and German linguistic cultures. Ethnic and cultural peculiarity of politeness, defined as communicative category, is revealed on the basis of associative experiment research, conducted with participation of Russian and German respondents. In the analyzed ethnic societies we have established common and nationally specific strategies of positive and negative politeness. We have come to the conclusion that studying strategies characteristics of ethnic and cultural politeness, comprising obligatory component of cross-cultural competence and providing opportunity for cooperative, conflict free communication between different linguistic cultures’ representatives is perspective.