The Role of the Proxemic Factor in the Implementation of the Cooperative Strategy of Communication in the English Fairy Tale Discourse

Abstract

The functional and communicative potential of proxemic components is investigated in this article on the basis of the English fairy tale discourse. The interaction of proxemic components and verbal communicative components is taken into consideration. The regularities of the influence of proxemic means on the fairy tale speakers’ achievement of communicative goals within the cooperative communicative strategy are established, and the discursive personality’s tactical toolkit for its implementation is identified. The modulation of distance between fairy tale speakers and the change of a fairy tale speaker’s posture in relation to his/her communicative partner are the most communicatively significant and effective proxemic means used in the process of communication. Insufficient diversity in the repertoire of proxemic components in comparison with other nonverbal components is their characteristic feature. As a result, proxemic components are frequently used in combination with kinesic and prosodic communicative components, accompanying the verbal components in the utterances of fairy tale speakers. In this way the strengthening of the semantic load of a fairy tale speaker’s utterance takes place. The proxemic components are also used by a fairy tale discursive personality for more effective implementation of various communicative tactics within the frames of the cooperative communicative strategy in the English fairy tale discourse.