SPEECH CULTURE IN CODES OF ETHICS AND REAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION USING THE EXAMPLE OF CUSTOMER CARE AND SERVICE

Codes of ethics are a new genre of corporate communication, implemented since 2000 also in Russian companies. Following Minaeva [2010: 76] they establish moral — ethic and business norms of cooperation. They contain models of behaviour and prescribe unified standards of relationship and cooperation [Sternin, Panferova 2003, following Risinzon, Skripnik 2017]. About half of the codes include recommendations concerning communication in the company (intern communication) and with partners, clients, institutions (extern communication), as well on one level of status equality as on different levels of status (bottom-up and top down).

The paper contains excerpts of such recommendations on different levels of communication: verbal, paraverbal, nonverbal, as well as on the level of attitude and behaviour. Than the norms and recommendations in the codes were contrasted to the real verbal, paraverbal and nonverbal behaviour in authentic situations of customer care and service. The practice of customer care and service in general corresponds to the norms and recommendations in the codes, but there are also deviations. To sum up we can say, that the Russian style of speech [Kulikova 2009] still influences the realization of new (western) management norms in the Russian corporate communication. This concerns in the first place the preference of informal style of speech and the unstable border between private and professional levels of communication.