Abstract:

The analysis of social and cultural competence as the basic component of the communication competence in accordance with CEFR and research of paths to upgrade it are assumed to be appropriate to scientific and applied studies in the field of linguistics, intercultural communication and didactics.

The survey of Common European Framework of References for languages, analysis of practical work of students with cross-cultural material, inquiry in ethnolinguistics and psycholinguistics, comparison of texts translated from English into Russian and Russian into English proved the need to differentiate the social and cultural competence by structuring micro and macro skills of perception of intercultural and language differences on the process of teaching and learning of foreign languages.

Perception of outer world, foreign culture and languages is supposed to be built on a cognitive scheme focused on three coordinates of person (subject), space (place), time. Every language is thought to verbalize these profound concepts in accordance with national traditions of an ethnic community which explains the reasons of incongruence of linguistic consciousness of different nations. In this context the analysis of this incongruence in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages constitutes the basic component of social and cultural competence. Didactic activities should be targeted to develop multilingual mentality relevant to perceive foreign concepts of person, space, time.

The suggested cognitive scheme may become the basis to formulate didactic paths to test the level of social and cultural competence of students and to create a complex of speech tasks and exercises to upgrade it. This targeted didactic exploitation of scientific knowledge about ethnic peculiarities of linguistic consciousness is believed to build intercultural awareness, tolerance and motivated interest to cross culture studies.

Keywords:

Cognitive scheme, socio-cultural competence, didactics.