Магистрант
Ашанбаева Р.
Региональный социально-инновационный университет
Intercultural Communication in Foreign Language Teaching
A main concept in the sphere of applied intercultural communication is
intercultural sensitivity. Its increase in the conditions of multipliable
variety, uncertainty, ambiguity and changes, that characterize the society, is
becoming a significant component of a professional qualification of a
specialist. For this purpose there are a big number of educational and training literature
and trainings on intercultural communication. Different kinds of handbooks
and manuals on how to efficiently deal (teach, bargain, work, etc.) with the
representatives from different countries, give certain knowledge about the
peculiarities of this or that culture in the spheres of professional, social
and, in particular, interpersonal communication. They can be oriented on two or more comparative cultures. The information,
contained in it, expands the knowledge about another culture, but does not enable
the increase of intercultural sensitivity. This can be done by cross-cultural
trainings, based on the idea that it is not sufficient just to give the
participants certain information about this or that culture. This knowledge
should be assumed in the way that can change some communicative and cultural
presumptions and by this influence on the behavior of people in the situations
of intercultural communication. When discussing intercultural communicative
differences it is sometimes necessary to generalize as individual peculiarities
of a speaker or a concrete communicative situation may not be settled in a
certain cultural stereotype.
The question that lies both in the basis of linguo-culturology and
intercultural communication can be stated as follows: “Why do we need to learn
culture through language?”. The answer to this question, to our opinion, is
that it is necessary for one culture to learn another, which is necessary first
of all to understand another world, different from his own and formed by another
culture. That is why we can say that linguo-culturalties penetrate all the
spheres of the life of modern society and which is distinctly seen in the life
of government, consequently it should be reflected as well in the system of
education as a cross-cultural aspect of forming learner’s paradigm of
individual. [1;56]
Close relation and interrelation of teaching foreign languages and
intercultural communication is so obvious that there is not any necessity to
explain it in detail. Every lesson of a foreign language is a crossway of
cultures; it is the practice of intercultural communication, because every
single word in a foreign language reflects foreign world and foreign culture:
beyond every word there is a view of the world determined by a national
consciousness (or a foreign consciousness).
Teaching a foreign language in Kazakhstan is experiencing at the
moment, as any other spheres of social life, the most difficult and hardest
period of cardinal reconstruction, a period of reevaluation of values,
reconsideration of aims, objectives, methods and materials, etc. New period in the educational system and new
demands require immediate and cardinal reconstruction of both general
methodology and specific methods and techniques of teaching foreign languages.
These new demands are the new “discoveries” of Kazakhstan, its aspiration to
enter the world community, absolutely new objectives of communication, and all
these factors cannot help setting new objectives in the theory and practice of
teaching foreign languages. [2;78]
In this way the motivations of studying a foreign language have changed
completely in connection with which it is necessary to reconstruct the way of
teaching foreign languages and include a new specialty “linguistics and
intercultural communication” and begin training of new teaching staff.
The main objective of teaching foreign languages in Kazakhstan at
present time is teaching language as a real and true means of
communication. It is for this reason at
high schools teaching foreign
languages as a means of communication between professionals from different
countries is understood not just as an applied and narrowly-specialized
objective of teaching texts about physics to physicists, etc. An educated
specialist is a well informed person who has fundamental training.
Consequently, knowledge of a foreign language of such a specialist is both a
tool of industry and part of a culture, and a means of humanization of
education as well. All these factors suggest preparing of fundamental and
diversified training in foreign languages. For the solution of these problems
it is necessary to assume new methods of teaching directed to the development
of all the four skills of language and conceptually new teaching materials with
the help of which it will be possible to teach effective communication to
learners. At the same time, it does not mean that we should give up old
traditional methods: among them should be carefully selected the best and
useful ones, which got through facing of teaching practice. [3;76]
Both in linguo-culturology and intercultural communication the topical
objective of teaching a foreign language is teaching it as a means of
communication between the representatives of different cultures, and this
objective suggests teaching a foreign language with inseparable connection with
the world and the culture of the nation who speak this language. Teaching people to communicate (both orally
and in written), teaching them to produce and to create, but not only to
understand a foreign language, is a difficult task, and it is even more
complicated because communication is not only a verbal process. Its efficiency,
besides the knowledge of a language, depends on a number of factors: conditions
and culture of communication, rules of manner, knowledge of non-verbal forms of
expressions (gestures, mimes) and deep background knowledge, etc.
Overcoming a language barrier is not enough for providing efficiency of
communication between different cultures. For this reason it is necessary to overcome
a cultural barrier. In their very interesting investigation of
national-specific components of a culture Markovina I.and Sorokin Y. A. points
out the factors that cause problems in intercultural communication: “During the
communication of the representatives of different cultures (linguo-culturalcommunities)
a language barrier is not an only obstacle in the way to mutual understanding.
The national-specific peculiarities of different components of
cultures-communicators (the peculiarities that make it possible for these
components to implement ethno-differentiating function) can make the process of
intercultural communication even more difficult.” [4;88]
To the components that have national-specific character may refer the
followings:a) traditions (or stable components of a culture), as well as
customs (also determined as traditions in “socio-normative” sphere of a
culture) and rituals (that act as an unconscious inclusion in the predominance
of the system of normative requirements);b)
common, everyday culture, closely connected with the traditions, in
consequence of which it is usually called traditional-common culture;c)
everyday behavior, manner (habits of the representatives of some cultures,
adopted norms of communication in some communities), also connected with them
mimic and pantomimic (kinetic) codes used by the native speakers of some linguo-culturalcommunities;d)
“national view of world” reflecting specifics of perceiving surrounding world,
national peculiarities of the intellection of the representatives of a certain
culture; e) artistic culture, reflecting cultural traditions of a certain
ethnicity. [5;43]
In intercultural communication it is necessary to take into
consideration the peculiarities of national character of communicators, the peculiarities
of their emotional attitude and national-specific peculiarities of
thinking.
Under the new conditions, in the process of new setting of problems of
teaching foreign languages it has become obvious that radical increase of the
level of teaching communication, communication between the peoples of different
cultures may be achieved only when socio-cultural factors are clearly
understood and really taken into consideration. Long-term practice and experience of teaching lively languages as
dead ones have resulted in this: all the above mentioned aspects of the
language were left ignored and unclaimed. Thus, in teaching foreign languages
there has appeared a significant gap. One of the most important and crucial
condition for solving this problem is the expansion and deepening of the role
of socio-cultural component in the development of communicative skills.
According to Sapir E.: “every cultural system and every single act of a
social behavour, directly or indirectly, mean a communication”. Thus, here is
meant a necessity of deeper and thorough study of a world )not language, but a
world) of a native speaker, his culture in broader ethnographic meaning, his
way of life, national character, mentality and etc., as real use of a word in a
speech, real reproduction of speech is, pretty much, determined by the
knowledge of social and cultural life of
the speaker of a certain community. “Language does not exist beyond the
culture, i.e., beyond the socially inherited combination of practical skills and
ideas characterizing our way of life” [6,66]
Linguistic structures lie in the basis of the socio-cultural
structures. Knowledge of the meaning of words and of grammar structure of a
language is not enough for implementing a foreign language as a means of
communication. It is necessary to know deeply the world of a studied language.
In other words, besides the meanings of the words and grammar rules it
obligatory to know:
1) when you should say/write, how, to whom and where;
2) how this or that meaning/concept, the given subject of thinking
exists in the reality of the world of a studied language.
For this very reason it is
necessary to take into consideration linguo-culturaland intercultural
components of a language while teaching a foreign language.
A big number of the works of western researchers show that
intercultural communication differs from other educational spheres according to
several parameters. The main difference is that necessary knowledge and skills
are assumed through direct cultural contacts. It often requires a complete or
incomplete abstracting from usual system of interpretation of different
cultural phenomena and entails significant cognitive and affective changes. Mastering of knowledge and skills in
communication is the demand of the needs of real life. Processes of
globalization, democratization of social life, openness and availability of the
most recent achievements of the world culture make it possible for a huge
number of people to learn more about the behavior and ways of life of other
nations. New knowledge is acquired during touristic trips, at the scientific
conferences, symposiums, from the sources of mass media, at different meetings
and etc., i.e. by means of different forms of communication.
Training intercultural competence is one of the important objectives in the modern educational system and it should take the
responsibility to help people get rid of the old ethno-centric views and
replace them with the new , ethno-relative one which correspons to the realities
of the world where we live. Politics of
modern governments which are becoming more and more polytechnic should be
oriented at this which means that the problems of acculturation and formation
of intercultural competence should take the
first place.
In conclusion, it should be said that both linguo-culturology and
intercultural communication play great role in teaching a foreign language and
incorporating culture into language teaching process.
Literature:
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школа, 2006.
2. Кунанбаева С.С Современная методология
и теория иноязычного образования. Вестник КазУМОиМЯ, Педагогика, 2005. 5(12)
3. Нарымбетова Ж. С. Формирование
лингвокультурологической компетенции будущего учителя иностранных языков в
контексте его подготовки к межкультурной коммуникации (английский язык,
языковой вуз): Каз. ун-т международных отношений и мировых языков. - Алматы:
2009
4. Лингводидактические основы
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условия Высшей Школы».- Алматы: КазУМОиМЯ имени Абылай хана, 2008.
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/ Г. Р. Елизарова. - С-П, 2001.