Abstract:

The conceptual system of languages preserves people's knowledge and culture. This observation gave rise to a new branch of linguistics. It evolved at the interface of cultural linguistics and cognitive linguistics and was called 'linguoconceptology' or 'conceptual linguistics'. Educators and teachers embraced the ideas of linguoconceptology because teaching a foreign language should include a cultural component in order to introduce students to basic spiritual values, ethno-psychological features and behavioral stereotypes of native speakers.

This article will be devoted to an experimental study on introducing a linguoconceptocentric approach to teaching a foreign language to Russian-speaking students of philology. Participants of the experiment were 12 students of the 3rd year and 15 students of the 4th year who study English as their first foreign language and German as the second foreign language. During the experiment, the students had to identify the main representatives of the three concepts (“Family”, “Profession” and “Beauty”) in German, English, and Russian languages to define distinct and similar features in the extreme periphery of the languages studied, to give examples of linguistic implementation of different values at lexical and phraseological levels in the compared languages. At the end of the experiment, a survey was conducted among the participants aimed at self-reflection and assessment of the effectiveness of using a linguoconceptocentric approach in practice.

The analysis of the data of the experiment helped to conclude that concepts are an effective tool which can be used to develop linguoculturological competence among students. Implementation of a linguoconceptocentric approach in teaching of a foreign language enables to demonstrate the uniqueness of different pictures of the worlds, contributes to cultural and spiritual development of a student.
Findings will help educators and teachers to confirm that implementing a linguoconceptocentric approach to teaching a foreign language is beneficial, as it assists in overcoming the fragmentary thinking of a modern student; it facilitates intercultural communication and boosts motivation in learning a foreign language.

Keywords:

Cultural component, linguoconceptology, teaching, foreign language, undergraduate student.