The causes of verbal aggression and ways to overcome it

Бюллетень науки и практики / Bulletin of Science and Practice

UDC 81.1                                          

Currently, conflicts between schoolchildren and teachers are becoming a problematic issue that causes resonance in society. We all know that social networks, which are the main communication tool in the era of globalization, generate a variety of opinions and create an information clash between users of social networks. Someone writes an objective opinion, understanding the situation, while some social media users write an opinion just to annoy someone, provoke a conflict from scratch. It is no secret that in the conflict that often arises between a student and a teacher, almost all parents blame the teacher and hold a biased opinion. Unfortunately, it seems that the national value of respect for elders is disappearing among young people. While folk pedagogy adhered to common sense and counseling as a guiding principle in parenting, today it seems that parents are turning their children against their elders.

A simple example: when I was riding on a public bus, an elderly woman with a school-age child got on the bus. I vacated my seat (which became a habit for me). After a few stops, when the seat next to the woman was vacated, this woman sat the child in an empty seat, despite the fact that there were elderly people, pregnant women. It annoyed me that we live in a society where parents themselves do not bring-up their child properly. There is no doubt that the negative phenomena taking place at the present time will continue to gain strength if parents do not become role models and do not raise a child on the basis of folk pedagogy. No matter how much we imitate the West, there must be fears in the soul of every kyrgyz that if we do not belittle our authentic traditions and customs, we will lose our national identity.

The future of the smartphone-dependent computerized generation is moving from a dead end to a dead end. When we were children, we were happy when guests came to the house, and it seemed like bliss to sit and try with the guests at the table. Now, when guests come to the house, our children do not leave their room, they do not care who it is, which relative. It is precisely such situations that require studying the causes of verbal aggression in the school environment.

Also, the special severity of the problem of verbal aggression in the school speech environment and the need to study it are determined, first of all, by the unfavorable socio-cultural situation: the growth of child antisociality and crime, the propaganda of violence in the media, the distortion in the minds of our compatriots of the system of spiritual values, the loss or weakening due to prolonged social upheavals of mechanisms that traditionally restrained manifestations verbal aggression.

Meanwhile, verbal aggression hinders the implementation of the main tasks of effective speech communication: it makes it difficult to fully exchange information, slows down the perception and understanding of each other by interlocutors, and makes it impossible to develop a common interaction strategy. Therefore, a comprehensive study of the phenomenon of verbal aggression is today a necessary condition for ensuring the communicative security of an individual and society as a whole.

Considering the question of why speech aggression occurs and what its consequences are, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of speech aggression as a phenomenon of a particular society as a whole and as its specific manifestations in a certain communicative situation. In the first case, it is probably necessary to talk about the causes of verbal aggression, in the second -about the motives of aggressive speech behavior (or speech activity, depending on the degree of awareness and thoughtfulness of a particular aggressive utterance).

Most often, an aggressive person looks for a convenient opportunity to blame his opponent, find fault with the little things and focus on mistakes. Verbal aggression is also manifested through a threatening appearance, for example, in the active use of gestures, tapping on the table, etc.

Moreover, aggressive communicants are characterized by making demands, inappropriate distribution of orders, raising their voices, rude transition to personality, an abundance of caustic remarks and profanity in speech.

To avoid aggression, everyone should remain calm and try to avoid verbal sparring. First of all, when solving any problem, you need to start with yourself, so to overcome speech aggression, make sure that you do not provoke the interlocutor to such behavior. Self–control and self-control over your own speech behavior are your best friends in conflict situations. You should analyze your speech from the point of view of politeness and correctness.

I would like to highlight one point from my own practice.During the lesson, our teacher always embarrassed one of our groupmate in public. He always spoke negatively about her dress style, behavior, and what she said. If she was not ready for a lesson or could not explain the interpretation of certain terms, the teacher always made her feel ashamed in front of the students, calling it dementia. My groupmate, who was constantly humiliated, once got very angry and bitterly yelled at the teacher, which none of us expected. Even emphasizing the teacher's low professional competence, she also said that the teacher first needs to master professional ethics and communication styles, and then it is necessary to start classes. The lecturer did not know whether to apologize or yell at her, and found himself in a very awkward position, unable to gather the strength to leave the audience. At the end of the story, the conflict escalated and ended with the application of appropriate measures. That's why I think that preventing aggression requires, in particular, adults to remain calm and go to a meeting with the younger ones.

The best way to protect yourself from verbal aggression is to ignore it. There is no need to attach importance to the tactless statements and barbs of outsiders. As in the Kyrgyz saying "Tash menen urgandy ash menen ur" and in no case respond with rudeness to rudeness. If you value a relationship with an aggressive person and are not ready for conflict, try to change it. Try to change the hostile attitude by distracting from the problem, for example, using a joke to change his negative emotional state. You can also try to stealthily steer the conversation in a different direction, using the interests of your opponent that you know.

Speaking about human aggression, in particular about its verbal manifestations, it is necessary to recognize that the emergence and development of aggression depends mainly on social conditions, which include the social formation as a whole, and the nearest social environment, a small group.

On this basis, among the social causes of verbal aggression (as the main ones and determining the degree and nature of its manifestation in a particular society), the following can be distinguished, first of all:

• 1.    General social instability and, in this regard, a steady increase in crime, cases of antisocial behavior, in particular, in children and adolescents, and, as a result, the emergence and steady growth in the number of microgroups where speech aggression is cultivated, where it acts as part of the code of speech behavior. At the same time, there is practically no strict legal control over the manifestations of verbal aggression in modern society - a well-thought-out and actually functioning system of laws and regulations.

• 2.    Propaganda of violence in the media. Mass media, especially television, act as a source of verbal aggression.

• 3.    The loss or weakening due to prolonged social upheavals of the mechanisms that restrained the manifestations of verbal aggression. For example, due to dependence on smartphones or increased migration at home, the crisis of live communication between parents and children has intensified. It's no secret that this directly interferes with the upbringing of children. Young people who cannot get out of various traps of computer games, social networks, commit audacious offenses and rude statements.

In addition, one of the reasons for the spread of verbal aggression in modern society is the distortion in the minds of our compatriots of the system of spiritual values (the cult of power; the desire for power; the popularity of the idea of an end justifying the means, etc.) and the corresponding social attitudes (the idea of the world as cruel and full of violence; orientation towards achieving a high social position; the ideal of a successful and self-confident personality as a person capable of "verbally rebuffing", etc.).

The spread of verbal aggression is also facilitated by the popularity of the action and thriller genres in modern literature and cinema with appropriate models of character speech behavior and a set of verbal cliches; computer games and aggressive music; unhealthy interest in the details of crimes related to aggression in the press, etc. As J.T.Kadenova rightly believes, "One of the negative sides of globalization is that there is a "mass culture", "mass culture " slows down, slows down the development of national culture. The youth of Kyrgyzstan through mass culture: e-mail, TV shows, movies, the Internet, mobile phone, computer games, DVDs, karaoke, etc. their "heroes" can be found in action films, "Westernization" has overwhelmed us. As a result, secondary school students lose interest in reading, and their literary and aesthetic taste weakens."[ 3.]

In addition, according to the study of J. Kadenova, when raising a child by means of folk traditions, he was accustomed to constant respect for his elders. [4]

So, overcoming speech aggression, first of all, is the main task of philology teachers. Regardless of the age of the students and the material being studied, teachers should work to eliminate verbal aggression of schoolchildren in the form of study hours, extracurricular activities or a combination of them. It is necessary to search for effective ways to form a linguistic personality, effective means and methods of work for the development of speech culture. It is also important to awaken interest in sounding words, the true taste and meaning of the native word, as well as the desire to develop one's speech culture without manifestations of speech aggression.