Abstract:

The sociocultural component is a significant part of communicative competence, as it allows the speaker to function effectively in a multicultural environment, which is a condition of modern communication. In the field of learning foreign languages, the complexity of sociocultural competence is commonly recognized, as it includes not only knowledge of culture, but also the acquisition of models of communicative behaviour, the ability to build communicative strategies for speech and non-verbal behaviour in accordance with the conditions of communication.

The “Learn Russian in the EU” project implemented by Daugavpils University (Latvia) in cooperation with the company LatInSoft since 2014 offers the foreign learners, who are interested in the Russian language and culture, multi-level educational programmes that include both academic linguistic or cultural study courses, and study courses based on an interdisciplinary approach. Over the past five years, more than two hundred and fifty students from Europe and the USA have studied at university programmes of various lengths (from four weeks to one year).

Approximately one third of the students chose the study course Culture and Informational Communication, which is primarily aimed at introducing the students to the key vectors of the development of the global information and communication environment in its main manifestations (economy, politics, social life, art, sports, everyday culture). While working on the given material, the task of expanding and deepening the skills of using the Russian language in communicative cultural discourse is being implemented. As a result, the students who have mastered the above-mentioned study course develop their linguistic and sociolinguistic skills necessary for such communication in a foreign language, as well as the understanding of the key vectors of the development of the cultural and information vector in the modern world, and the skills of analysing, comparing and evaluating specific sociocultural phenomena.

Keywords:

Sociocultural competence, cultural and information communication, Russian as a foreign language.