Role of the communicants in determining the parameters of the ecology of communication (on the material of the English-language literary discourse)

Abstract

The research aims at establishing which of the communicants plays the main role in determining the ecology of communication: the speaker or the listener. The work is novel in that it is the first to put forward and confirm the thesis that the role of the listener is more important than that of the speaker. In other words, when assessing the ecology of communication, the impact on the listener prevails over the intention of the speaker, which was mostly emphasised in the previous studies on this topic. To confirm this thesis, two studies were conducted: a survey of first-year students of the Ufa University of Science and Technology and an analysis of an English-language literary text. After analysing the obtained results, it was confirmed that the role of the listener is more important. Indeed, the positive intention of the speaker does not guarantee the success of communication, since the impact on the listener in some cases can be negative. Communication can be considered ecological if no (moral) harm has been inflicted on the listener as a result of it. Since the findings of both studies coincided, this makes it possible to assert with greater confidence the correctness of the thesis put forward.