Selected recent works focused on the development of the Russian language under the conditions of a market economy should be included in the book in more or less modified form and in Russian. The publication of the book is planned through Jazyki Slavjanskich kul'tur publishing where the book “Pragmatika izvinenja. Sravnitel'noe issledovanie na materiale russkogo jazyka i russkoj kul'tury” (The pragmatics of apology. A comparative analysis on the basis of Russian language and culture), Moscow 2003, has already been published. Currently the following structure is planned:

Introduction

Lexis and concepts

·         Revivals, conversions and new formations in the vocabulary of perestroika.

·         On the origin of the concept quality of life

·         The concept of money at the beginning of the 1990s

Pragmatics

·         Courtesy

·         Argumentation methods

·         Negotiation strategies

·         Strategies of self-presentation

·         Russian conversational style in a national and international context

·         Russian business communication: prescription vs. description

·         Cultural specificity of functional texts

Résumé

The entire project is based on authentic texts from Russian business communication and interviews with the Russian business community and includes text types such as negotiations, job interviews, meetings, manuals, public inscriptions and job advertisements. The analysis methods are mainly qualitative content and discourse analyses but also include quantitative steps such as frequency analyses. The variety of methods of analysis should help to meet the requirements of the complex phenomenon of Russian business communication. The juxtaposition of real business communication in selected situations and the relevant educational and self-help literature allows conclusions to be drawn on the current state of the diffusion of Western European and American elements in Russian corporate communications.

Duration: 01.03.2012 - 31.12.2013

Contact: Prof. Renate Rathmayr