The Phenomenon of Cultural Distance in Modern Conditions (Linguistic and Religious Factors)

The phenomenon of cultural distance was described by psychologists A. Furnham and S. Bochner and in the framework of research on the distress experienced by students studying in a foreign culture (the concept of cultural shock). In the modern conditions of the information society, in the conditions of globalization, we observe the processes of actualization of the cultural identity of minority ethnic groups. As a result of the growth of cross-cultural and economic interaction, the phenomenon of transnationalism and the concept of transculturation arise. There is no doubt that cultural distances between ethnic groups tend to gradually decrease, as shown by the data of seven mass surveys of the World Values Survey from 1981 to 2020, but today they are preserved through certain transformations of their basic components: language and religion. The native language of minority ethnic groups, in the modern conditions of globalization, reduces its identification value, which is expressed, among other things, in the appearance of mixed language codes. The use of mixed code is so widespread today that the term translanguaging is very popular. Religious values, since the end of the twentieth century, have become the basis of national cultural revival in post-communist countries, being in fact a compensatory factor for strengthening cultural identity, in the context of the weakening of the language factor. The relevance of the religious factor of cultural distance is confirmed by all modern classifications of cultural differences: the typology of G. Hofstede, R. Inglehart, L. Harrison. Since the 1990s, Russia has been demonstrating the growth of traditional religious values. The role of religious values in the context of post-secularization increases, which leads to an overesti-mation of the significance of these specific factors in the context of cultural distance.