Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication

The main focus of this course is to look at the interrelations between different types of contexts (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal and others) within the intercultural communication process using Russian – Western communication as an example.
The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing past, present and future interactions between Russia and the West focused on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans.
This course looks at the cases when Russian basic cultural values show up through linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is - Russian, or English - the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture.
We will tackle some basic questions:
What are concepts of culture that have most influence on communication?
What are Russian basic cultural values and how they shape modern Russian consciousness?
 What are specific communication patterns of modern Russian, including that of public and electronic discourse?
What is important to know about communication with Russians in organizational contexts?
This course is NOT just a list of instructions of what to do and not to do while dealing with Russians.
View the MOOC.