Педагогические науки / 2. Проблемы подготовки специалистов

Candidate of science in pedagogics, V. V. Volkova

Zaporizhzhja National University, Ukraine

Social, linguistic and didactic aspects of intercultural competence formation of managers

Deepening of political and economic relations between states has affected the entire social sphere, first and foremost, culture and education. One of the distinguishing features of the present period is growing attention to the foreign language at all levels of the system of higher education. A modern specialist should be fluent in one foreign language at least, the language being a means of his professional communication. In addition to being a compulsory part of professional training, a foreign language is a factor of general cultural development of a personality.

Culture embraces everything a society thinks and does; it means that a language reflects both the mentality and behaviour of the society speaking this language. Culture is passed on and develops through communication, which forms the society and maintains mutual understanding of its members. Culture of communication is a competence to communicate in different situations (including business ones). It includes the system of codified patterns and standards of behaviour, activity, interaction and co-operation of people, who perform the function of regulation and control in the society. One of the major communication instruments is a language. Being social by nature, it makes part of human behaviour, which embraces both verbal and non-verbal forms; to a certain degree a language obeys the same laws as human behaviour on the whole. Greater part of human behaviour is known to be socially regulated, subjected to the ethics norms, traditions, and values of a society, i.e. based on the conventions which may not coincide in different cultures. These social conventions are inevitably reflected in a language.

Business culture is about the norms and values of labour exchange and activity exchange; it also includes forms and methods of people’s co-operation in business issues settlement, strategies and tactics of business goals achievement, methods of persuasion and exercising influence.

Every person unintentionally projects his automatic speech and language behaviour onto people he communicates with, regardless of their cultural, social, ethnic, religious or other differences. This often takes place due to the fact that common human standards and values become more important while national, social and unique are belittled. It is quite clearly observed in the discourse when a linguistic and cultural barrier can become not only an obstacle in the process of communication but also result in so-called "communication failures".

Due to expansion of intercultural business contacts the demand of society for managers speaking a foreign language is rising. Knowing a foreign code, which permits to successfully cooperate in a professional field, means mastering professionally significant concepts of a foreign culture, which determine the characteristic features of public and business behaviour influenced by historical traditions and customs, way of life, etc. Making a broad context of intercultural communication, the linguistic, social, psychological and culturological knowledge of a foreign society forms perceptive readiness for effective intercultural business communication and, consequently, for international professional cooperation.

Business communication in a foreign language determined by society demands is one of the most significant constituents of training managers. The course in a foreign language at college or university should be of a communicative character; therefore its tasks are determined by communication and cognitive needs of professionals. Linguistic, social and culturological peculiarities of speech and communicative behaviour of foreign business partners, imitation of speech and communicative interaction in professionally-significant situations ensure formation not only of linguistic but also of communicative competence.

In recent years the business communication field has become fairly complicated, the economic, management, commercial and legal fields of professional activities have expanded and developed. This stipulates the necessity for future professionals to acquire the skills of professional culture as a significant constituent of professional intercultural communication. The specific character of social intercommunication, having changed in the course of time, has revealed new components of the education content in terms of intercultural context, namely mastering new professional “roles” of joint company administrator, personal assistant in business or manager capable of concluding contracts, conducting business negotiations with representatives of a different cultural and language community.

Intercommunication of society members presupposes not only information exchange in different fields of communication, in the first place in a professional field, but interpersonal communication, whose character depends on communication intentions of partners and strategies to achieve them (cooperation, competition, conflict, etc.) determined by social-psychological and culturological peculiarities of the corresponding societies.

Up to the present time the research of the issue of professional competence mostly covered its lexical and stylistic aspects but did not embrace the analysis of cognitive aspects of professional communication organisation, which could be development of a frame system constituting the situations of business communication with the aim of choosing communication strategies.

Studying the strategies of communication behaviour of the business community members speaking the English language, their linguistic, sociological and culturological peculiarities promote familiarization of “non-speakers” of the language with the perception of the world and values of foreign language speakers, facilitate shortening of the intercultural gap, readiness to adapt to a business culture of another nation, another social and cultural context of interaction for the purpose of developing an optimal strategy of professional co-operation in a foreign language.

Successful intercultural professional cooperation of business communities’ members means adequate communicative behaviour in the process of mutual estimation, mutual understanding, establishment of relations of professional cooperation and, consequently, together with a relatively high level of a foreign language it presupposes a skill to adequately interpret and accept social and cultural diversity of communication partners when solving practical issues.

Therefore, we should teach future managers a communication-oriented foreign language in professionally-significant situations of intercultural business communication. Here we understand communication skills as an ability of future managers to accept social and cultural peculiarities of a foreign society and transfer information of a business character in a foreign language. Thus, training managers in business co-operation in a foreign language should ground on a concept including the integrity of linguistic and cognitive knowledge.

The major task of a foreign language course at any higher educational establishment is to teach students practical application of a language. However, under new economic conditions the essence of the concept of “practical application of a language” has changed significantly. It includes not only the language of a definite special subject but a business language as well as a skill to apply a language differentially in varying situations of business communication, knowledge of a culturological aspect, i.e. formation of a linguistic personality of a future specialist.

The course of Business English at the Management Department of the Zaporizhzhja National University includes a wide range of issues covering business culture, business traditions and ethics. However, even students with some practical experience in the management field are not familiarised with commonly recognized cultural standards of business communication. Some terms of business ethics existing in English do not have equivalents in Ukrainian and are difficult to be apprehended by Ukrainian-speaking students. The problem is not in difficulties of learning English but in peculiar features of the mentality of English-speaking countries possessing a rich experience of business communication, which forms national cultural stereotypes and promotes establishment of economic relations.

Even trivial differences in the social and linguistic models can result in misunderstanding and have more serious consequences. Mistakes in grammar and phonetics when speaking only say that a person has not mastered a foreign language completely but socially pragmatic mistakes evoke definite communicants’ feelings and emotions (surprise, indignation, resentment, distrust, etc.). It should be considered when teaching Business English.

The programme of the Business English course for masters at the Management Department is based on the activity approach, where a language is understood as a means of communication in a definite situation, in a definite context with a definite communicative task, i.e. speech activity is carried out in a wide social context. The grounds of proficiency in a language are the following competences: general competence, which is an amount of knowledge, skills and characteristics allowing to carry out speech activity; communicative competence, which allows to carry out activity, with language means being used.

Communicative competence consists of linguistic, social and linguistic and pragmatic constituents, each of them including all the categories of the general competence of a person.

In conditions of interaction of the given constituents, a social and linguistic constituent is of special significance being a connecting link between communicative competence and other competence types and therefore emphasizing an importance of a cultural constituent for communicative competence. Orienting to the social norms, a social and linguistic constituent have an essential effect on the language execution of communication between representatives of different cultures. The social and linguistic constituent of communicative competence concerns a language aspect of social and cultural competence.

One peculiar feature of communication-oriented teaching of a business language is combination of linguistic competence (knowledge of language norms) and communication (interactive competence) as a major activity line in the “human – human” model. Teaching intercultural professional communication covers mastering professional and linguistic and social concepts of “foreign phonic speech community” [ 1; 39].

Familiarization of future specialists with professional parts of the picture of the English-speaking world is significantly restricted by lack in their picture of the world of stereotypical communication situations, discourse strategies, professional concepts characteristic for the English-speaking society. As well there are numerous difficulties in teaching a foreign language for business, namely: establishing personal contacts, writing business letters, speaking on the phone, conducting meeting and negotiations; Ukrainian speakers have limited knowledge of the strategies of communicative development of the situations enumerated above at a cognitive level, are not familiar with the language signals of their structuring and interaction in them.

The subject of the cognitive activity of students learning a foreign language should be typical situations of business communication in the English-speaking society, their structuring and language manifestation. Formation of professional communicative competence, cognition of the professional communication world and its rules, development of skills of identification and generation of speech models of diverse situations of business communication are included in teaching the strategies of professional communicative influence on the partner. The purpose of teaching is reached by imitation of professional communication situations in the process of learning, where a foreign language is a tool of social interaction of the person and a professional foreign-speaking group, it reflects all the changes of social and cultural factors effecting the hierarchy of the senses and values in the person’s picture of the world, his mentality, pragmatic attitudes.

To crown it up, social, linguistic and didactic aspects of intercultural communicative competence formation is concerned with imitation of speech communication activities in the educational process and solution of a range of social, linguistic and didactic issues. As these aspects are closely connected in the real model of business comminication, successful teaching of professional discourse can only be provided with social, linguistic and didactic factors being taken into account.

References:

1. Халеева И. И. Основы теории обучения пониманию иноязычной речи (подготовка переводчика) / И. И. Халеева. - М. : Высшая школа, 1989. – 238 с.