Exploring Cultural Values and Beliefs in Academic Background: Experience of Teaching the Subject “Linguistics and Intercultural Communication”

Authors:

Pages: 121-130
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/TWHX3551

Abstract:

Cultural values and beliefs can be explored not only by ethnographic observation of everyday communication but also in educational context. In a case like this, both lecturer and students can become participants in a process of observation, the aim of which is to explore the cultural specifics of communicative behavior in a multilingual society and their linguistic manifestation. A modern interpretation of the classic theory of relativity, called thinking-for-speaking can prove to be revealing of the way speakers of a foreign language manipulate its grammar from the point of view of their own language. Thus, what is seen as an “error” in language use can turn out to be not the result of insufficient knowledge of grammar but of inappropriate application of grammatical rules. The guiding principle in communication is getting the message across rather than displaying knowledge of grammar. In our case, the message is centred around fundamental concepts like time-cyclicity, repetitiveness and duration. Each of these concepts is encoded differently in the grammars (tense and aspect systems) of the two languages used by the target group of students observed – Russian and English. While trying to cope with the task of telling a story, a student manipulates English aspectual system from the point of view of Russian grammar. The unsuccessful use of the foreign grammar can be accounted for by the cognitive processes, involved in the process of speaking a language different from one’s own.

Keywords:

intercultural communication, language, thought, thinking-for-speaking, aspect

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