ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ МОНИТОРИНГ ТРАНСГРАНИЧНОГО РЕГИОНА: АЛТАЙ ГЛАЗАМИ КИТАЙСКИХ СТУДЕНТОВ

The globalization of the human society has caused problems connected with forming the linguistic picture of the world of an individual as a speaker of a certain language from one side and as a participant of a foreign-language dialogue in the united communication space from the other. In such a foreign-language context the linguistic self of a speaker of a certain language should be directed at understanding both their national and cultural identity and comparing standards, values and behviour stereotypes of their own cultural comonness with the standards and rules of others. Russian-Chinese relationships in the political, cultural and educational, trade and economic and other spheres are becoming stronger and developing. The communication necessary for successful communication involves not only understanding on the language level but also perceiving the cultural and country realia, values and behaviour models typical of representatives of the other country and culture.
Studying the Russian language and culture, certainly, has an influence on forming conceptual ideas about the country of the language studied. The experience, gained in the classroom and during the stay in the country, forms the system of conceptual ideas which significantly differ from the national one.
This study is an attempt to systematize the data received during the free associative experiment in order to further investigate the conceptual data about Altai Krai among Chinese students studying on the investigated territory.
In this case the associative experiment is the initial method for explicating the language consciousness of Chinese speakers in order to recreate their conceptual ideas about Altai because “the associative field approximates to the reflection of some mental images and structures” [1], which means it can show the content in the national mental image of certain cultural realia.
The research of the language consciousness, according to Z.Popova and I.Sternin, means that their psychologically real content reveals itself in the process of studying language units and language structures: in what real, psychologically authentic number of semantic components this or that meaning exists in the nation consciousness, is kept in its language memory, how definite notion components, forming the word semantics, are related to each other, what the real notion connections of words and structures in the langauge memory of an individual are [2].
Thus we can speak about investigating the language consciousness with the help of associative experiments. As a result of analyzing such experiments we can identify the consciousness system which belongs to the collective unconscious of this society or ethnic group. Each stimulus word refers to a certain associative field representing “a fragment of the world image of this or that ethnic group, reflected in the consciousness of an average person belonging to a certain culture, their motives, evaluations, and, as a result, of their cultural stereotypes” [3].
This associative experiment involved 72 Chinese students aged from 18 to 25 and attending Barnaul institutes of higher education. 12 students have stayed in Altai Krai for 6 months, 40 – for 18 months, and 20 of them have been studying on this territory from 2 to 3 years. The students were offered a questionnaire with stimulus words, related to Altai realia, among which there were Altai and Barnaul, as well as a task to remember the first 5 associations to the stimulus word. More than 180 reactions to the stimulus were received from the respondents.
During the result processing it was revealed that the results which are the most common evalution characteristics of stimulus-words and the most common emotional  experience of the words are of greatest importance.
The result analysis has shown that the greatest number are evaluation associations, besides all of them have a positive connotation. This can be explained by the deep reverence for Russia and the fear to offend the interlocutor by giving a rude answer, this is why the desire of Chinese students to appeal to others and establish contacts reveals itself in praising the foreign cultural realia. This is why the flexibility typical of Chinese people in terms of evaluation or commenting the foreign culture reveals itself in realizing such reactions as beautiful (Altai – 60, Barnaul – 46), clean/dirty (Altai – 18/6, Barnaul – 22/4), rich (Altai – 22, Barnaul – 8), kind/good (Altai – 14, Barnaul – 20), interesting (Altai – 8, Barnaul – 14). There were also several reactions cool to the stimulus Altai, and also all right to the stimulus Barnaul.
As for other characteristics, Chinese students mostly outline the parameters of proximity-remoteness from a certain point, the population, age and the dimensional characteristics of an object. Such characteristics are necessary for characterizing any Chinese city by the Chinese. From the point of view of proximity/remoteness the respondents' replies were different: Altai 8(near)/6(far), Barnaul 4(near)/4(far). Speaking about the number of people, all respondents noted that the population on the investigated territory is small (8). The age parameter in this case means all reactions connected with the city's history, its roots and the modern state. We have a number of variations: old (Altai – 20, Barnaul – 14), modern (Altai – 28, Barnaul – 0), famous/popular (Altai – 6/14, Barnaul – 0/6), and also certain reactions to Barnaul: long hisory and ancient, which means the terms are used spontaneously due to the lack of knowledge and the desire to appeal to the interlocutor, characterising the city from a good side because age is of great importance in China. The reactions characterising the size of an object are the most common but do not show any general tendency because the respondents' opinions are divided equally: big (Altai – 44, Barnaul – 36), small/little (Altai – 18/4, Barnaul – 6/16).
Most Chinese students have come to Altai Krai from the north-east of China, where the climate is similar to the Siberian one, but many respondents mentioned cold (24+14), the abundance of snow (8+10) and regular weather change (4) as basic characteristics of the local weather.
There are also definite groups of reactions related to food and the most recognized objects. The first group includes such replies as milk, yoghurt, ice-cream and expensive meat, and also tasteless dishes (8). Such reaction can be explained by the fact that dairy products are not popular in China and are not sold in ordinary food shops while Altai Krai is famous for its developed agriculture. The dissatisfaction with the local food is the result of unpopularity of the food which is considered basic for the Russian cuisine: bread, milk and potatoes.
The group of the mentioned objects without certain replies includes hypermarket (20/10), the mountains and the Altai Mountains (16), the forest (the territory of the university skiing lodge) (6+6+woodlands), Mariya (18), Altai State University (2/10), Altai State Technical University (4), the Ob (4). All mentioned reactions are the result of the most memorable excursions, trips and daily strolls, which can help us judge about the peculiarities of space perception by the foreigners.
Besides all this a certain peculiarity has been identified which means a systematic substitution of one word by another. We bear in mind the fact that Chinese students mostly associate the words Altai and Barnaul, considering them synonyms according to the principle they identify Siberia and Novosibirsk.
Summarizing the main ideas, we can say that all respondents, belonging to a different culture, automatically project the most important peculiarities while structuring the new cultural reality. The constant comparison with Chinese values can be traced in all reactions which means appropriate differences in the pictures of the world and corresponding application of the same parameters while characterizing a worldview different from the usual one. We can get the initial idea about the general laws and the specific way Chinese students become familiar with the realia of Altai Krai with the help of the language. Such information gives us an opportunity to see ourselves, our culture and our fellow citizens as viewed by the representatives of a different nation, and also notice possible intersection points of the two nations. For that reason it becomes necessary to take the national and cultural diversity of the studied object into consideration, which defines the orientation of the analysis in the sphere of intercultural communication.