BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE IN RUSSIAN, ENGLISH AND JAPANESE IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The article describes a set of strategies that help to identify cross-cultural differences in discourse structures and the culture-specific mechanisms of speech acts production. This set of strategies can be used as a method of discourse analysis that will contribute to preventing miscommunication in intercultural interaction. Analysis of samples of business correspondence in English, Russian and Japanese shows that the three cultures are different in one of the five dimensions of culture identified by G. Hofstede, which is power distance. This difference gives rise to miscommunication or at least communicative discomfort. The analysis also reveals discourse tactics and strategies that each culture employs to produce a culturally appropriate text. The article also argues that miscommunication can be prevented if teaching a foreign language we aim at developing learners’ intercultural communicative competence.