Эйхман Т.П.

г. Тобольск, ГПИ им. Д.И. Менделеева

Linguistic competence and its role in language communication

Language is a method of communication and the language of communication is not just the rules of grammar, suffixes and prefixes. It is rather a complex of background knowledge about existing subjects or events denoted by the language. Language reflects the world. There is a great cultural layer, which includes attitudes to the world, people etc. Man learns this with his native language. We notice some disagreement very often, when speakers of different languages meet. Some problems and conflicts appear not out of pronunciation and grammar but in cultural communication. Language is a means of socialization, his link with his own culture, created by many generations. Only during communication and experience between people and nations, a person can gain some special knowledge of his cultural inheritance which forms his social essence and attach some importance to it.

From the scientific point of view culture is the totality of results and processes of any human activity. In other words it is a unity of spirituality and materialism, reached by people during their historic development, their achievements in science, art, literature, economics, social life, customs and traditions, moral, psychological and ethic orientations. All these things are attained by native speakers because they absorb it through upbringing and education. So many peoples so many countries.

Intercultural communication is a complex process of specific interaction, of partner communication, belonging to different cultures and languages. The success of intercommunication depends upon the level of communicative competence, which supposes not only good language skills but also mastery of non-verbal communication, which is necessary for adequate contact and reach mutual understanding.

Countrystudying competence is a whole concept of national traditions and customs of the country, helping to take from the language the same information as native speakers. So-called lingvocountrystudying competence is a necessary condition of full language communication.

To master a foreign language is a link to a new culture, new mentality, a new method of forming thoughts. It means, that to study any foreign language cannot be effective, unless it passes through the appropriate national background, that is why lingvocountrystudying has a special meaning. Firstly the term “lingvocountrystudying was used in an article by E.M. Vereschagin and V.G. Kostomarov “Linguistic problem of countrystuding in teaching of Russian language for foreigners” in 1971.

The term lingvocountrystudying includes countrystudying and a special attitude for foreign language studying (getting some cultural facts by means of learning language). There is also an educational value to it, because meeting with the culture of a language occurs when comparing former knowledge and ideas with new ones and with ideas about your country.

The main aim of lingvocountrystudying is to give communicative competence to intercultural communication by means of adequate speech perception of the partner and also an understanding of original texts.

Nowadays in the modern multicultural educational field, people, learning languages address lingvocultural problems in studying foreign language and culture. During the process of teaching language, elements of culture correlate with language phenomena. Mastering the language, we gain cultural knowledge and the ability to understand the mind of native foreign speakers.

The foundation of lingvocultural competence is background knowledge which includes mutual understanding of cultural traditions by the speaker and the listener, providing the basis of language activity.

V.P. Furmanova emphasizes some parts of background knowledge for successful communication in the situations of intercultural activity:1) historical background, including information about culture during historical development. 2) social background. 3) ethnocultural background, including information about traditions and customs. 4)semiotic background with symbols, signs and peculiarities of language.

Within background knowledge, some information on etiquette is very important too. It includes behavior rules, acceptable in a particular ethnolinguistic community and rules of speech and non speech etiquette in various situations of communication.

Nowadays, we all know that foreign language is studied in close connection with the culture of the country. It is so important that new educational programs and methodical standard programs include this requirement. On finishing school our graduate students should understand cultural peculiarities of the country together with the language. They must realize interpersonal and intercultural communication, using the information about national and cultural peculiarities of their country and the country of their second language. One of the most important qualities is a desire to reach mutual understanding between people of different communities and a tolerant attitude towards cultures. Talking to foreign people, we must remember the dissimilarity of cultures, because this is not just a man speaking another language, he is a representative of another culture. Without lingvocultural knowledge we could easily insult or surprise our interlocutor with our gesture and behavior. For harmonious dialogue of cultures, we need to accept that the accepted facts of another culture are not less correct, even if these facts are contrary to things in your native language and culture.

Studying another culture through foreign language, students learn to “feel” another nation, another person, nature and society and to get over national cultural centrism. It brings a special humanistic method to studying language and makes an important contribution to raising the level of liberal education.