Language and intercultural communication

In the XXI century, intercultural communication is an integral part of any person's life. This is due to the ongoing processes of globalization of the economic, political and cultural aspects of cooperation. In this regard, the study of the features and factors contributing to effective intercultural communication is a promising and relevant area of scientific research. First of all, it is necessary to ensure effective communication between representatives of different cultures for the general development and promotion of cooperation.

Expansion of the information base of intercultural communication, increase of competence of intercultural communication of the modern manager is a requirement of the epoch. The practice of looking at the experience of other cultures is called "intercultural communication." Due to the increase in international relations and the interaction of different cultures, their research attracts a lot of attention. The attention to the issue of intercultural communication is growing day by day. National culture, reflections of behavior are expressed through communication. The same verbal and non-verbal symbols of communication more strongly represent the customs, culture, characteristics of the people and the country.

Probably, the date of birth of intercultural communication as an academic discipline should be considered 1954, when E. Hall's book was published and D. Traggepa "Culture as Communication" ("Culture as communication"), in which the authors first proposed for widespread use the term "Intercultural communication", reflecting, in their opinion, a special area human relation. Later, the main provisions and ideas of intercultural communications were more elaborated in the famous work of E. Hall. The Silent Language (1959), where the author showed a close connection between culture and communication. Developing his ideas about the relationship between culture and communication, Hall came to the conclusion that it is necessary to teach intercultural communication. The process of formation of intercultural communication as an academic discipline began in the 1960s, when this subject became taught at a number of US universities.

On the European continent, the formation of the academic discipline "intercultural communication" took place somewhat later than in the United States, and it was caused by other reasons. The creation of the European Union opened the borders for the free movement of people, capital and goods. Practice has set the problem of mutual communication between carriers of different cultures. Against this background, the interest of scientists in the problems of intercultural communication was gradually formed. In domestic science and the education system, the initiators of the study foreign language teachers, who were the first to realize that for effective communication with representatives of in other cultures, knowledge of a foreign language is not enough. Each culture has its own language system, with the help of which it carriers have the ability to communicate with each other. In science, various forms of linguistic communication are called verbal means of communication.

The most famous verbal means of communication is, first of all, human speech. However, human speech is only one of the elements of language, and therefore its functionality is much less than the entire language system as a whole. Language does not exist outside of culture. This is one of the most important components of culture, the form of thinking, the manifestation of specifically human life activity, which itself, in turn, is the real being of the language. Therefore, language and culture are inseparable. The relationship between language and culture is a complex and multifaceted issue. Topics however, their close relationship is obvious. As noted in one of his works S.G. Ter-Minasova, “language is a mirror of culture, it reflects not only the real world surrounding a person, not only the real conditions of his life, but also public self-awareness of the people, their mentality, national character, way of life, traditions, customs, morality, value system, attitude, vision of the world”. Language is not just a tool for reproducing thoughts, it is itself shapes our thoughts. Language does not just represent the world, it builds an ideal world is in our mind, it constructs a second reality. Man sees the world the way he says. Therefore, people speaking different languages see the world differently. Thus, thinking stands between the real world and language, the word reflects not the object itself or the phenomenon of the surrounding world, but how a person sees him through the prism of the picture of the world that exists in his mind and which is defined by his culture. After all, the consciousness of each person is formed both under the influence of his individual experience, and as a result of communication, in during which he learns the experience of previous generations.

A promising direction in the study of intercultural communication in modern society has become the emergence and development of trends aimed at study of the features of verbal etiquette (language tendency) and non-verbal etiquette (cultural and behavioral tendency). Etiquette situations are closely related to everyday communication, which is diverse and can vary widely depending on various factors. Variety of etiquette situations may depend on gender, age, origin, meeting place, time of day and / or year, occupation, social status, etc.

Today, within the framework of the study of intercultural communication, such a term as "global village" (world global village). It was introduced by Marshall McLuhan to describe the prevailing a new communication and later cultural situation. McLuhan describes how the globe "shrank" to the size of a village as a result of the development of electronic means of communication, when it became possible to instantly transfer information from any continent to any part of the world. Today the term “global village” is mainly used as a metaphor to describe Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, the physical distance between interlocutors do not play an essential role for communication, they are erased not only space and time, but there is a convergence of cultures, worldviews, traditions and values. Communicating with each other through electronic means of communication, people reason and act in such a way as if they were very close, they would live in "one village". Are they willingly or involuntarily more and more deeply intrude into each other's lives, reasoning about everything seen and heard. In this context, intercultural verbal communication is an extremely interesting process, although it may be insufficiently studied. In this sense, effective verbal intercultural communication is not an easy and accessible mechanism interaction in intercultural contacts.

To conclude, we would like to mention that it is very important to speak foreign language, especially English language to understand the people of the world. As our president N.A.Nazarbaev integrates triangle of three languages: Kazakh, Russian and English, we can surely say that for bright future of tolerant and peaceful nation Intercultural communication should be under great consideration.