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Conclusion

Modern youth of generation Z is open to everything new, can experiment and find new combinations of subjects and fields of science. Nonlinear thinking is peculiar to them; they are accustomed to construct their own path of knowledge on the Internet independently, which obeys the laws of hypertext, nonlinear text. But, the modern generation of young people has not learned to analyze the result of their activities, to draw conclusions and take into account the mistakes of past experience. It is always easier for them to close a page on the network and start a new one, format a memory card, downloading information into the cloud and start everything from scratch. Meanwhile, a student who meets the standards of the FSES (Federal State Education Standards) should be able to analyze their actions, achievements and build a further path of self-education, taking into account existing experience. A person who knows how to think globally will not separate his classroom learning and personal experience acquired during after-hours. All this information should be harmoniously combined in personal characteristics of a teenager, making him unique.

Younger generation does not know how to organize their leisure. Most often, young people spend their free time online or do something that does not require active analytical work. Teachers organize students' educational activities on a daily basis, but without their help, they are unable to plan their leisure time in the same way. Some adolescents use the services of the entertainment industry, attend quests, concerts, matches, but this is also an activity within the proposed framework, and teenagers are still not able to go beyond it.

In order to bring up a decent generation of young professionals, with the help of modern techniques and teaching methods, teachersfacilitators should strive to achieve such a “point of no return” when external motivation is transformed into an internal one and the student becomes a person capable of self-development and self-analysis without any further help and control. In our opinion, such an approach to the process of modern youth teaching certainly will not give a guaranteed and immediate result, but it can significantly change the attitude of adolescents to the learning process in a positive way.

References

[1]Malyuga Ye.N. K voprosu ob obuchenii inostrannym yazykam s ispol'zovaniyem novykh informatsionnykh tekhnologiy // Voprosy prikladnoy lingvistiki. – 2009. – № 1 – S. 91-95.

[2]Khar'kovskaya A.A., Krivchenko I.B. Kontseptual'naya organizatsiya diskursa sotsial'nykh setey (na materiale sotsial'noy seti FACEBOOK) // Voprosy prikladnoy lingvistiki.

–2017. – № 3 (27). – S. 60-77.

[3]Popova S.N. Individual'nyy podkhod v obuchenii sovremennoy molodozhi (pokoleniya Z)./ Rossiyskiy universitet druzhby narodov, M., 2016/ UDK 81 – C. 114-125.

[4]Geymifikatsiya v obrazovanii./ URL: https://4td.fm/article/geymifikatsiya-v- obrazovanii/ (vremya obrashcheniya - 15.11.2018).

[5]Polyakova N.V., Ivanova A.G. Interaktivnyy metod – veb kvest – v professional'no oriyentirovannom obuchenii v nelingvisticheskikh vuzakh // Voprosy prikladnoy lingvistiki. – 2014. – № 15-16. – S. 90-95.

[6]Geymifikatsiya v obrazovanii./ URL: https://4td.fm/article/geymifikatsiya-v- obrazovanii/ (vremya obrashcheniya - 15.11.2018).

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[7]Podberezkina A. Blended Learning: perekhod k smeshannomu obucheniyu za 5 shagov

/zillion onlayn-akademiya/ URL: http://zillion.net/ru/blog/375/blended-learning-pieriekhod-k- smieshannomu-obuchieniiu-za-5-shaghov (vremya obrashcheniya - 16.11.2018).

[8]Kuznetsova M.A. Intellektual'nyye igry kak interaktivnyye formy massovykh meropriyatiy dlya molodozhi. /Metodicheskiy material v pomoshch' rabote massovykh bibliotek.// Krasnodar, 2015 – 19 str.

[9]Danetki. Golovolomki i zagadki. / URL: http://gadaika.ru/danetki (vremya obrashcheniya - 15.11.2018).

[10]Karazeyeva N.YU. Metapredmetnost' na urokakh angliyskogo yazyka./

Analysed sources

[1*]Vzaimodeystviye prepodavateley i studentov v vuze. / URL: http:// www. klgtu. ru/upload/structure_kgtu/uvrmp/pss/vzaim_prep_stud.pdf (vremya obrashcheniya - 17.11.2018).

[2*] Ivanova T.V., Kireyeva Z.R., Sukhova I.A. Tekhnologii i metodiki obucheniya inostrannym yazykam: uchebnoye posobiye dlya studentov napravleniya podgotovki

«Filologicheskoye obrazovaniye». Chast' I / Ufa: Izd-vo BGPU, 2009. – 196 s.// URL: http://studfiles.net (vremya obrashcheniya - 17.11.2018).

[3*] Graham Brown-Martin, What is school for?/ Re-thinking education. Issue 2. pp. 20-23. [4*] What is Charisma? Category: miscellaneous./ URL: https: //www. wisegeek .com

/what-is-charisma.htm (vremya obrashcheniya - 17.11.2018).

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UDC 881.111 : 316.772.2

GESTURE AS A NONVERBAL COMPONENT OF COMMUNICATION

IN VIRTUAL PEDAGOGICAL DISCOURSE

(ON THE VIDEO LESSONS OF ENGLISH WITHOUT FEEDBACK)

A.Y. Golukovich, L.A. Antonova

____________________________________________________________________________

Voronezh State Pedagogical University

Faculty of Foreign Languages

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of the English Language Department Alla Ye. Golukovich

e-mail: aallaavrn@inbox.ru

Voronezh State Pedagogical University

Faculty of Foreign Languages

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the English Language Department

Lyudmila A. Antonova e-mail: luantono@mail.ru

____________________________________________________________________________

Statement of the problem. In this paper, based on video lessons of English, the basic characteristics of gestures and their functions in the teacher’s communicative activities, if there is no feedback from virtual students, are discussed. The article focuses on the frequency of different types of gestures, the peculiarities of their functioning in the discourse, as well as the possibility of combining gestures with other nonverbal components.

Results. The authors describe the basic functions of gestures in the analyzed pedagogical discourse (video lessons of English in the Internet environment: phatic, emphatic, indicating, informative or emphatic and illustrative). The average frequency of gestures in the discussed variety of virtual pedagogical discourse and in its certain parts is studied and defined. The possibilities of combining various gestures, as well as of using gestures together with other non-verbal or verbal means (position of the body, mimics, looks or utterances conveying various communicative intentions) are considered. The polyfunctional character of analyzed gestures and the succession of gestures with similar or different functions within the framework of one utterance are noted as typical of the discourse discussed.

Conclusion. The specific characteristic of the virtual pedagogical discourse without feedback is that it is highly saturated with such non-verbal components of communication as gestures, which manifests itself both in the frequency of their use in communication and their increased density in certain parts of discourse. This specificity is also observed in the predominance of phatic, emphatic, and illustrative functions of gestures, determined by the need to establish and constantly maintain contact with the virtual interlocutor. The conclusion is also made as to the desirability of further research on certain aspects of the problem, in particular, a comparative analysis of the gestures accompanying English and Russian teachers' verbal behaviour as well as the possibilities of interference, or a comparison of non-verbal components in virtual and nonvirtual pedagogical discourse.

Key words: nonverbal components of communication, gesture, virtual or non-virtual pedagogical discourse, feedback, polyfunctional character, phatic function, rheme, utterance focus, interference, linguistic personality.

For citation: Golukovich A.Y., Antonova L.A. Gesture as a nonverbal component of communication in virtual pedagogical discourse (on the video lessons of English without feedback) / A.Y. Golukovich, L.A. Antonova //

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-didactic Researches”. – 2018. - №4 (23). – P. 76-87

Introduction

Pedagogical discourse is increasingly becoming an object of study in linguistics, and

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© Golukovich A.Y., Antonova L.A., 2018

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what naturally attracts the most attention is the teacher’s communicative behaviour, especially his linguistic personality as a communicator, largely determining the course of communication. Yet non-verbal components of communication (gestures, facial expressions, body position and etc.), as well as the peculiarities of their combination with verbal components of communication, unfortunately, remain insufficiently studied, which automatically leads to its low coverage in methodological literature while non-verbal components of communication are its integral and extremely important constituents. According to various classifications, non-verbal communication can be divided into four or five traditionally distinguished subsystems: interpersonal space, gaze, mimicry, pantomime (poses and gestures), and voice characteristics (which are not studied in this article). Noting the insufficiency of the existing literature on applied paralinguistics, i.e. studies of specific interactions of verbal and non-verbal (paralinguistic) components in speech activity, the researchers point to the possibility of including similar components (in other words, averbal actions – squeaking with a chair, rumbling with a door, nod, gaze, etc.) in a communicative act or replacing verbal reactions by non-verbal components [1, p. 10-15].

The study of the non-verbal aspect of communication can be considered the most relevant if it is impossible to establish direct contact with students during the submission of educational information. Such a variety of pedagogical discourse as a virtual lesson without feedback (that is, one of the forms of distance education) is meant. This refers to a lesson on a specific topic, conducted in the Internet environment by a teacher without the presence of students. The virtual audience is not limited – it actually includes all users who are going to use this lesson any time after it is published on the web. There arises a hypothetical assumption about the greater importance of non-verbal components, gesture in particular, in a communicative situation like that.

The object of this study is the gestures used by a teacher in virtual pedagogical discourse, namely, in the video lessons of English conducted without an actual audience.

The subject of the research is the basic patterns of the teacher’s communicative gesture use in the course of communication with a virtual audience.

The purpose of the paper is to identify, represent as a system and describe the main characteristics of the gesture as a non-verbal component of virtual pedagogical communication. Accordingly, the objectives of the study include:

(1)Identification of the degree of frequency of use of gestures in the analyzed variety of discourse and comparison of the saturation with gestures of certain fragments of the discouse;

(2)Analysis of the functional orientation of gestures received during a continuous sample of video lessons in the English language (in the absence of direct contact with students);

(3)Consideration of the most typical combinations of various gestures in relation to verbal means in the teacher's utterances.

Methodology

Non-verbal components of communication (gestures, facial expressions, body position, movements, etc.) are considered by researchers in close connection with verbal components [2], taking into account the communicative orientation of the utterance and other aspects of the speech activities of communicators. The means of non-verbal communication form a sign system that complements and strengthens, and sometimes replaces the means of verbal communication [1]. Restraint of English-speaking communicators is noted when they use gestures in other types of

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discourse, the typical position of the arms along the body or on the knees (not hiding them in the pockets, but leaving them in sight) is indicated [3, p. 48]. By representatives of the Englishspeaking communicative culture abundant gesticulation can be considered as a sign of insincerity in the speaker or mark him as not belonging to this linguistic community. Researchers mention the low frequency of kinetic characteristics in the English-speaking culture, as well as interlocutor's personality orientation, their respect for personal space [4, p. 68-69].

In modern linguistics, the peculiarities of English-speaking non-verbal communication culture are analyzed [5], because when using both verbal and non-verbal means, there is a danger of interference for the speaker, that is, in other words, interventions of the use of native language in the communication process in a foreign language, deviation from the norms of communication in the framework of a foreign culture. As a result, linguistic studies of non-verbal components of communication acquire relevance from the point of view of the theory and practice of teaching foreign languages, since the data obtained as a result of discourse analysis can be used to prevent interference of the native language habits in the process of forming communicative competence.

Virtual pedagogical discourse is both a type of virtual discourse (understood as a text immersed in a virtual reality communication situation, which is a special model of reality that is based on new information technologies and the principle of interaction carried out as communication of images [6]) and pedagogical discourse (a subtype of institutional discourse).

Institutional discourse is defined as a special kind of communication between people who may not know each other, but must communicate in accordance with the norms of a given society, and the interaction between the two basic participants (in this case teacher and student) can be treated as the core of such a discourse (including the pedagogical variety) [7, p. 196]. Pedagogical discourse, a variety of the institutional discourse, is characterized by specific educational goals, pedagogical and communicative strategies and tactics, values, subtypes and genres, precedent texts and discursive formulas [8, p. 99]. M.N. Tlenkopacheva [9, p. 57] identifies such communicative strategies of pedagogical discourse as explanatory (transfer of knowledge, but not the search for new information), evaluating (the main feature of which is the presence of an evaluating scale); supervising (manifested in the verification of learners' learning), facilitating (the purpose of which is supporting and correcting the student’s mistakes and creating favorable conditions for carrying out his activities), organizing (directing joint actions of participants in pedagogical discourse).

Among the characteristics of virtual discourse, interactivity and mediation of communication are noted, and the virtual linguistic personality is distinguished by phatic tonality domination over the informative one and does not have a clear and precise idea of the communication partner, which, as research on the issue shows, results in greater degree of democracy and freedom of expression in communication [6]. Presumably, this fact may also affect the use of non-verbal communication components in virtual environment.

Gestures as non-verbal components of communication can be classified according to various characteristics. In particular, the following types of gestures are distinguished: 1) gestures-symptoms (performing an expressive function or, in other words, the function of selfexpression – state expressions, personal processes and evaluation); 2) gestures-regulators (realizing the function of influencing a partner, including the phatic function – gestures of establishing contact, of maintaining and strengthening the contact, as well as end of contact – and the incentive function); 3) gestures-informers (implementing mainly the informative-

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communicative function). This classification of gestures is developed by the author [10, p. 172] in the course of analyzing patterns in the use of gestures in the lessons of the humanities and sciences. Certain gestures correlate with certain communicative intentions – for example, expressing approval / disapproval, agreement / disagreement, mistrust, regret, sympathy, gratitude, threat, incitement, etc. Semantic characteristics of various gestures are considered: informative-communicative, the gestures of quantity, the image of the size or shape of the object, the imitation of the action, as well as the gestures of enumeration, separation, opposition, approval or denial, pointing gestures are distinguished [10, p. 174].

Taking into account the correlation of the gesture with the intonation pattern and the communicative division of the utterance or some fragment of discourse, gestures (like other nonverbal communication components) can be divided into dynamic, i.e. working at the level of the prosodic core, and static, which are implemented in larger stretches of discourse – syntagmas, phrases, text [4, p. 131-132].

The material of the study was examples of gestures used in the virtual variety of pedagogical discourse, obtained as a result of continuous sampling from 21 video fragments of English lessons (total duration is 1 hour 51 minutes 58 seconds) conducted without an audience (with remote students) by 10 different teachers [1*; 2 *; 3 *; 4*; 5*; 6 *; 7 * and others]. The list of analyzed sources includes only quoted video fragments. In processing the empirical material, such methods of linguistic analysis as functional and pragmatic, as well as semantic analysis and descriptive techniques were used in disclosing the nature of the gesture. At certain stages quantitative data verification techniques were applied.

Research results

First of all, it is necessary to clarify that in the empirical material received by the authors (video lessons of the English language in the absence of a non-virtual audience) an absolutely static position of the hands is rarely encountered. In cases where it is registered, it can be correlated with the following factors: 1) features of the linguistic personality (for example, the teacher is relatively restrained in terms of gestures and body movements and is more active in facial expression and phonetic emphasis — he teaches phonetics), 2) little pauses in the pedagogical discourse, in a break between active gesturing before and after a pause (in this case, the static position of the hands performs a regulatory function, indicating the stages of the lesson), 3) the virtual lesson stage (at the final stage of the analyzed discourse high frequency of nonverbal components, gestures in particular, is rarely observed).

When considering the first objective of the paper, connected with the frequency of gestures in the analyzed video material (which was selected without any preliminary analysis of gesture frequency), a high frequency of gestures was noted (an average of 17 gestures per minute with a minimum of 6 gestures and a maximum of 23). Frequency varied depending not only on the type of video lesson (teaching grammar, phonetics, vocabulary), on gender or other characteristics of the linguistic personality (which could become the subject of a separate study), but also on individual characteristics of the particular fragment of the virtual pedagogical discourse within one video (which means variations are possible within the communicative activity of the same linguistic personality).

In any case, we can register high frequency of gestures used in this type of discourse in contrast to the low degree of gesture usage in English-speaking culture noted by linguists. Accordingly, in future it would be desirable to compare the use of gestures in different types of

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discourse (the analyzed institutional discourse and the conversational variety, for instance), analyzing them outside and not only within the framework of one communicative culture, as is done in this article, which could provide accurate data on quantitative and qualitative discrepancies. For the time being, we can only say that the preliminary pilot analysis of three video fragments of English lessons (not included in the list of analyzed sources given below due to the preliminary nature of the analysis) conducted by representatives of the English-language culture in the classroom in the presence of students (that is, non-virtual pedagogical discourse) indicates a significant frequency of the gesture (an average of eleven gestures per minute) and other non-verbal components (changes in distance, smile and other mimic interaction signals, the body slightly inclined towards the audience, etc.), which makes it possible to hypothesize that the gesture is more frequent in the pedagogical discourse in English as a foreign language, the testing of which is beyond the scope of this work. Interesting data was also brought up by an attempt to analyze three video fragments of English lessons in a Russian-speaking class: there is a low frequency of gestures – no more than 6 gestures per minute, if we don’t take into account the stages of using the board. As a preliminary observation, it allows to outline the directions and objectives for further investigating the problem, if it is carried out in a comparative research plan.

As for the high frequency of non-verbal components in some stretches of the analyzed discourse, the greatest number of gestures is registered when the teacher is explaining the principles of constructing sentences or the use of language units (reaches the number of 25-27 gestures per minute), and frequency also increases at the moments of culmination or with the increase of difficulties, although it doesn’t concern all the teachers. In other cases, it cannot be stated that there is a definite natural connection between the number of gestures and the nature of the educational material, the pedagogical tasks or the communicative intention of the speaker. It should also be noted that in some cases an increased density of gestures (i.e. the use of a number of gestures – from three to six) within the framework of one utterance, if it is represented by one sentence. Below there are two examples of such an utterance without inserted descriptions of non-verbal components and with the description of non-verbal components inserted in the examples where they are used by the speaker and represented in brackets. Later on, the second method of giving examples is used.

Well, basically, a cleft sentence is a way of cutting a sentence in half so that you can give emphasis to the important or new information [1*].

Well, basically (1 — a slight movement of the left hand from top to bottom with the free position of the fingers), a cleft sentence (2 — an even smaller movement of a clenched hand) is a way of cutting a sentence in half (3 — a cutting movement of the right hand in relation to the left one) so that you can give emphasis (4 — an open energetic, but soft gesture with both hands from the speaker forward) to the important (5 — an energetic movement of the left hand with the noticeable rounding of lips) or new (6 — very slight movement of the left hand, similar in type to the previous one) information [1*].

Illustrative material is presented in table 1.

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Table 1 Using multiple gestures within the same utterance in virtual pedagogical discourse

This series of photographs of gestures can also be used as an illustration of the communicative intention rendered by the gesture in accordance with the illocution force of the verbal components of communication and the division of the utterance into a theme and a rheme. It should be noted that the gesture usually coordinates with the rhematic components of the utterance, and the degree of communicative (or, in other words, informative) significance of the component correlates with the energy of the gesture (the numbers in brackets indicate the numbers presented in Table 1).

Well, (1) basically (2) cleft sentence is a way of (3) cutting a sentence in half so that you can give (4) emphasis to the (5) important or (6) new information [1*].

The researchers' attention was attracted by the alternative gesturing with the right and the left hands, the nature of movements, as well as the fact of changing the direction of the gesture and its intensity. All this leads to emphasizing the accents made in the utterance and simultaneously helps to reinforce the contact with the virtual audience, thus performing a phatic function. In many other instances, as well as in this one, a dynamic transition from one nonverbal component to another is noted – due to such smooth transitions and the high frequency in the analyzed pedagogical discourse, gestures form a continuous chain, thereby constantly maintaining contact with the virtual audience of students.

The above-mentioned functions of gestures (emphatic and phatic) can be described as highly frequent in the analyzed variety of pedagogical discourse – more than half (56%) of the analyzed gestures perform these two functions at the same time. Purely phatic functioning of gestures is also encountered: 1) greeting gestures at the beginning of a class ( a raised, bent at the elbow arm with a relaxed hand lowered down [1*], an open palm raised up [2*], a body movement towards the audience [3*]) , 2) farewell gestures at the end of a lesson (an open palm with spread fingers raised [1*], an indication of the arm bent at the elbow towards the teacher, or both arms bent at the elbows, two index fingers pointing at the audience or one finger motionless, the other pointing at the audience [4*]), 3) gestures of attracting attention in the course of communication (pointing to the speaker without using any verbal components (the fingers touch the speaker's chest or the hand is clenched into a fist, two thumbs touch the speaker's chest, the speaker brings the fist to the chest, and holds it while pronouncing the entire statement, while

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turning away from the camera [6*])).

The emphatic function (emphasizing some part of the utterance as the rheme, the focus of it, according to its informative significance) is found in the overwhelming majority of examples (72%).

Species (the index finger of the right hand points to a virtual audience) is a noun (the index and thumb of the hands touch each other to form a circle, a slight movement downwards, the arms are bent at the elbow) whose singular (disclosure of the right palm) and plural (disclosure of the left palm) verb forms are exactly the same (top down movement of open palm) [4*].

We should stress the possibility of repetition concerning certain gestures which perform an emphatic function, and not only in case of verbal repletions during the video lesson, as in the following example:

… whose singular (disclosure of the right palm) and plural… (disclosure of the left palm);

Are you talking singular (disclosure of the right palm) or plural (disclosure of the left palm)? [4*]

In a certain sense, they can be recognized as gestures-informers, since they perform mainly an informative function connected with the communicative focus of the utterance, while according to some classifications, gestures, with a phatic function can be treated as gesturesregulators that contribute to the organization of the educational process.

Pointing gestures are less frequent (21%) in the analyzed discourse than emphatic ones, and are mainly found when the teacher is working with some visual aids (a sheet of paper, a table, a object used as a visual aid, etc.), which is done only occasionally in the videos discussed. Gestures of this type in the analyzed discourse are almost inseparable from phatic ones, i.e. one gesture simultaneously performs two functions: phatic, as it helps to make contact with the virtual audience, and regulatory, as it regulates the course of educational activities. If the pointing gesture is not directed at a sheet of paper or another object of visualization, but to a certain part of a phrase written on that sheet of paper, it can be simultaneously treated as an emphatic one (highlighting the rheme or the focus of the utterance). As a result, functional analysis of gestures in teachers' utterances proves the polyfunctional nature of most gestures, with two or even three functions combined (as a rule, regulatory and phatic; or informative / emphatic and phatic).

Here are 3 points (a raised hand with the back of the hand with three fingers raised up is demonstrated - illustrative and emphatic functions) to help you (a circular alternate movement of two arms bent at the elbow, hands clenched into a fist, two index fingers put forward - indicating and emphatic functions).

Make sure (a movement of the right arm bent in the elbow with the palm open toward the head - informative and emphatic functions) that your subjects (a slight movement of the right arm bent at the elbow with an open palm downwards) and verbs (a slight movement of the left arm bent at the elbow with an open palm downwards) always agree (a static demonstration of open palms) [4*].

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But for a slight pause after the first part of the utterance (and the first two gestures) which in fact separates it into two utterance, the example above would represent a record number of gestures per utterance in the analyzed fragments of discourse.

Much less common is the combination of three functions performed by the same gesture, and the frequency of such cases is so low that it does not allow us to draw any conclusions about the regularities in the functioning of such combinations.

Hit it! (a movement of the right arm bent at the elbow with the open palm toward the back of the head, the palm open touching the back of the head - regulating, emphatic and informative functions) [4*].

It is necessary to touch at least briefly upon the possibility of combining gestures with other non-verbal components of communication, for example, posture (more relaxed when the teacher is sitting and more strained in a standing position and when going outside the room in which classes are usually held).

Table 2

Combination of gestures with various non-verbal components in the analyzed virtual pedagogical discourse

In the first two cases gestures (gestures 1 and 2) attract attention to the relevant verbal components of the utterance (an informative and communicative function; or a phatic (increased contact) and regulatory function of other non-verbal components – creating a relaxed atmosphere of communication, which is important for establishing contacts with a remote audience).

Gestures are combined in the analyzed virtual pedagogical discourse not only with nonverbal components of the same pantonymic system, but also with elements of other non-verbal subsystems – using interpersonal space, eye contact, a smile and other mimic non-verbal signs.

When we use stop plus ING, the activity in the ING form stops. (a turn of the head and a nod of the head together with the movement of the hands in different directions) [7*]

You don’t actually want to add a full [j] sound. (a nod of the head together with the movement of the arms bent in the elbow with the hands open to the audience) [3*]

So a gesture performs its function in a definite non-verbal context (in combination with

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