Abstract
Whereas positive communication is generally seen as an appealing phenomenon of interaction, it remains under-researched from the theoretical point of view. The topic warrants special attention because in today's Russian world negativity prevails, which is due to opposing political views, incompatible values in public discourse. The paper aims at the study of the constituent characteristics, structural components and basic mechanisms of positive communication. The analysis of the dictionary definitions of the term positive and its combinability in the National Corpus of the Russian Language, the British National Corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English allows to describe positive communication as an interaction based on positive attitude, aimed at mutual understanding and satisfying for all the parties involved. Positive communication is constructive, effective, supportive and coloured with good emotions; these characteristics can be regarded as its constituent features. The universal components of positive communication include: positive intentionality, initiative, adaptation to the interlocutor, empathic listening and social support. On the other hand, assertiveness is culturally specific: it is regarded as part and parcel of positive communication in the US, but is not seen as desirable in Russia and a number of other countries. The research will be continued in order to further identify the characteristics of positive communication, trace and test the validity of the theoretical claims and predictions on the basis of real-life situations.
Highlights
Whereas it is generally accepted that positive communication is an appealing phenomenon, it is not easy to give it a distinct definition
Whereas positive communication is generally seen as an appealing phenomenon of interaction, it remains under-researched from the theoretical point of view
The topic warrants special attention because in today’s Russian world negativity prevails, which is due to opposing political views, incompatible values in public discourse
Summary
Whereas it is generally accepted that positive communication is an appealing phenomenon, it is not easy to give it a distinct definition. The topic warrants special attention because, sad as it might be, in today’s Russian world negativity prevails, which is due to opposing political views, incompatible values, and growing financial differentiation. This is especially obvious in public discourse and is easy to encounter on social. The application of the definitions of the term positive to the nouns listed above characterizes positive communication as: 1) accepting and affirmative; 2) favourable, having a good effect; 3) supportive, encouraging and helpful; 4) optimistic and tending to promote development; 5) effective and constructive. In human interaction positive communication is regarded as a desirable skill that has to be developed, and it is critically important to understand what in particular makes it positive
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