Abstract:

When studying Spanish Philology, Russian university students often reach good levels of speaking, writing, and translating. In order to avoid an inevitable “foreignness” in their everyday Spanish communication skills (which are influenced by their native Russian communicative style), and to develop the abilities necessary to interpret literary texts, it is very important to focus on Spanish communicative strategies. The field of comparative communication studies in Spanish and Russian aims to prevent psychological discomfort and misunderstandings in intercultural interactions.

Culture is connected to communicative strategies in a broad, anthropological sense, and also conditions them. Communicative strategies clearly emerge in speech etiquette, as ritualized forms of verbal behavior that are considered polite and socially acceptable. Politeness is a socio-cultural phenomenon with numerous facets revealed by comparative intercultural studies. In terms of contrasts and conflicts between Russian and Spanish communication strategies, we must remember that the Spanish-speaking world is very diverse, encompassing more than 20 countries. Hence, the Spanish communicative style is not a singular phenomenon. On the contrary, it includes various communicative styles and strategies. And it is quite logical. The formation of norms and ritualized rules of communicative strategies, as well as the canons of speech etiquette, influence how nations form, national character, and cultural trends of the linguistic worldview; they also relate to preferences and avoidances in the collective socio-cultural experience. Behavioral prescriptions are projected onto kinetic (gestural) rituals, as well as canons and formulae of speech etiquette. The development of the information society has led to new conventions of verbal communication.

The following communicative situations and their correspondent formulae seem most relevant for intercultural comparisons and teaching:
• Pronominal forms of address and their differences in Spanish-speaking countries.
• High style connotations of vosotros in Latin American Spanish.
• The wide range of the tú address in Spain.
• Lexical forms of address. From a lexical and semantic point of view, nouns used as a form of direct address are universal. These include proper names, kinship terms, zoomorphisms, abstract concepts, age and sex nominations, and professional titles. However, according to standard situations and in combination with pronominal forms of address, their distribution in Russian and Spanish usage is very unique and worthy of minor commentary.

Other areas where intercultural interference is more likely to occur include the following:
- Spanish-speaking people usually perceive Russians as too direct due to the Russian preference of the direct imperative. On the other hand, native Russian speakers tend to find indirect Spanish forms of request misleading.
- Russians give too much advice.
- In general, Latin Americans give compliments, especially to an women they do not know. Russian women usually reject compliments or justify them, saying that the compliment is not true.
- Spanish-speaking people use forms of address denoting the addressee’s age, sex, and internal and external features more frequently than Russians; meanwhile, Russians apply a wide range of proper name modifications.