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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 315 International Conference on Pedagogy, Communication and Sociology (ICPCS 2019) Fiction As a Phenomenon of Intercultural Communication Valery Evseev Saltanat Makasheva Tatyana Somikova Department of Architecture Department of Intercultural Humanities Institute of and Design Communication Northern Studies Industrial University of Tyumen Industrial University of Tyumen Ugra State University Tyumen, Russia Tyumen, Russia Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia Abstract—This article treats fiction as one of the very important for the reader’s perception of another intercultural communication phenomena that promotes national culture because a literary work, thanks to its people’s awareness of a foreign culture, contributes to the imagery, is able to render all main components of this understanding of its peculiarities. Reading foreign fiction, culture: history, national lifestyle, religious beliefs and recipients interact with another culture, familiarize traditions, peculiar features of national character, and, at themselves with its artefacts, and adapt themselves to this length, masterly eulogized nature of the country. The foreign culture. Reading foreign fiction is seen as the most images of a birch tree and an ox-eye daisy flower, a pussy- effective way of intercultural communication, which provides willow branch and a red snow-ball tree, the images of red means for surmounting stereotypes and cultural differences. A summer and golden autumn, mother of winter and spring, dialogue of cultures inspiring creative work is an important the year’s new morning, have become national symbols of part of intercultural communication. This article presents this dialogue as a case study of literary works by Bernard Shaw Russian nature and its phenomena. and Eugene Zamyatin. II. THE ROLES OF FICTION IN INTERCULTURAL Keywords—intercultural communication, fiction, reader, COMMUNICATION culture, mindset, mentality, worldview, Pushkin, illustration, Bernard Shaw, Eugene Zamyatin, entropy, energy, Landscape images in the novel “Eugene Onegin” by reminiscence, dialogue Alexander Pushkin render different aspects of the national worldview, where nature reflects everyday life and practical activities of people in different seasons, national I. INTRODUCTION mindset peculiarities. The following poetic descriptions of Intercultural communication is based on a productive different seasons in Alexander Pushkin’s novel “Eugene dialogue between people of different nations. Such a Onegin” are taken as examples of such imagery, and the dialogue presupposes certain awareness about the images are analyzed with regard to the ethnocultural characteristic features and peculiarities of the interlocutor’s component they have. national culture. In this regard, fiction is a unique opportunity for the reader, who usually follows the story The following table contains excerpts with nature line and the heroes of a literary work with enthusiasm, to descriptions from the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander plunge into the life of another nation and get acquainted Pushkin [1]. Columns and lines of the table are numbered with its culture. The hero’s thoughts and feelings are to be referred to in the column “ethnocultural component of existentially close to the reader. Many national realia that the image”. were alien to the reader before in this context are taken for Thus, as it is seen in the above table, familiarity granted and viewed as an integral part of life, which with the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander triggers natural interest, understanding and acceptance, not Pushkin, which has been translated into many resistance and rejection. Such works as “War and Peace” languages, enables a foreign reader not only to get by Leo Tolstoy, “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander Pushkin, acquainted with the nature of Russia depicted in different “Quietly Flows the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov are called seasons, but also to perceive the culture of Russia, “encyclopaedias of Russian life” because there unfolds the to understand mental and psychic peculiarities of life of all strata of Russian society taken at a certain Russian people’s worldview. It should be noted in historical moment, with a detailed description of the this context that all the images created by the author national lifestyle: food, clothes, everyday life, holidays, of “Eugene Onegin” to portray winter, spring, traditions and beliefs, and, which is the most significant, summer and autumn are united by one common the mental peculiarities of people in Russia, their mindset, feature – dynamics. Landscape images by Alexander the so called “Russian psyche”. In this respect, fiction is Pushkin may be considered to render one of the peculiarities of the Russian mindset: to see the world Corresponding Author: Tatyana Somikova, Humanities Institute of not as something static, but as something dynamic, Northern Studies, Ugra State University, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. moving, constantly developing. This echoes the Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 235 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 315 dynamic image of the “bird-like troika”, through which Nikolai Gogol expressed his views on Russia. TABLE I. LANDSCAPE IMAGES IN THE NOVEL “EUGENE ONEGIN” BY ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Ethnocultural component of the # Seasons 1 2 image And now the north, its snow-clouds Winter! The peasant celebrating / Renews the Excerpt 1.1 depicts realia of Russian rolling / Has breathed, then howled - track as his flat sled jogs; / His nag, the snowy air peasants’ everyday life: “drovni” (a now here she comes, / The sorceress inhaling, / Somehow trots out, or homeward peasant’s sled to carry firewood or winter, who everything numbs. / She plods; / Two downy ruts in the roadway hay), “kibitka” (a tilt cart), comes, and snowy blobs she scatters, / crushing, / There flies the kibitka, swiftly “yamshchik” (a coachman), “tulup” And on the oak-tree branches spills; / rushing, / The coachman upon his box sits brash. (a sheep-skin coat), “kushak” (a And lies in carpets with wavy patterns 1 Winter / In his sheep-skin coat and bright red sash. / A wide belt, here a bright red sash), / Among the fields, around the hills; / servant-boy not a moment lingers, / On the “salazki” (a sledge). The sloping bank-sides of the river / sledge his puppy he has sat, / Himself becomes Excerpt 1.2 reproduces a generalized She levels with a downy cover; / The the horse like that. / The rascal's already frozen image of “Mother Winter”, “Fairy hoar-frost gleams. And we give his fingers. / They tingle with pain, and yet he Winter”, which is transforming the thanks / For Mother Winter's laughs. / While mother threatens him through the world. This image renders Russian mischievous pranks. (Ch. VII, part glass... (Ch. V, part II) specificity of world perception. XXIX-XXX) By sunny rays of springtime driven / From hills around, already the snow / In turbid streams the ice has riven, / And flooded all the meadow-land О spring, О spring, the time for love! / Excerpts 2.1 and 2.2 show a typical so. / And nature's smile is clear and warming, / And what a languid agitation / Moves for the North of Russia start of Through slumber greets the year's new morning; in my soul, and in my blood! / Under spring, joyful and boisterous after a / The skies are growing sparkling blue, / And still what a tender emotional pressure / I long winter period. The nature 2 spring transparent, the forests too / As if with finest fluff luxuriate, and take my pleasure, / In welcomes this time as “the year’s are greening. / The bees fly from their waxen the springtime breeze which fans my new morning”, the beginning of life cells / To gather the tribute of the dells. / The brow, / On the bosom of country quiet rebirth, and people look forward to it drying vales with flowers are teeming; / The now! (Ch. VII, part II) as the time of long-awaited love. herds are lowing, the nightingale / Is heard in the silent nocturnal dale. (Ch. VII, part I) And some young woman from the Excerpts 3.1 and 3.2 acquaint the But, as you know, our northern summer / Is a city, / For summer in the country reader with peculiarities of the southern winter's caricature. / It fades and dies, 3 summer pretty, / A-hastening headlong her northern Russian summer, short and leaves not a glimmer, / Though we won't admit horse-whip wields, / And gallops cold, which town-dwellers prefer to it, it's seen for sure (Ch. IV, part XL) alone through the (Ch. VI, part XLI) spend in the country. In excerpt 4.1 the reader sees a picture of autumn, a remarkable Already the heavens were autumn breathing, / feature of which is a personalized lready rarer the sun was gleaming, / And ever image of nature created by the poet shorter drew in the days. / The forest's secret using gradation of personifications: And soon begins the autumn golden. / shady ways / With the moaning noise of wind “autumn breathing”, “the sun was And nature's trembling, pale, 4 autumn grew barer; / On the fields the creeping mists gleaming”, “with the moaning noise beflecked, / Like an offering festively began; / With cries the noisy geese-caravan / of wind grew barer”, “on the fields bedecked... (Ch. VII, part XXIX) Stretched south; and winter drew ever nearer. / A the creeping mists began”. rather tedious time had arrived; / November In excerpt 4.2 the poet eulogizes the stood in the yard outside. (Ch. IV, part XL) image of golden autumn, which the reader associates with the picture “Golden autumn” by Isaac Levitan. National specificities of nature accompanying the plot The picture by Yury Clever [3] is an illustration to the of “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander Pushkin were masterly passage from the novel “Eugene Onegin” that starts with depicted by the artists who illustrated this verse novel. The the following words “Winter! The peasant celebrating…” picture by Lidiya Timoshenko [2] portrays Tatyana Larina [1, ch.