LEARNING FRENCH AS A LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW DOMAIN

It is impossible to obtain fundamental higher education without any knowledge of one or more foreign languages. Historically, French was and remains the language of diplomacy, and international law. That is why in the era of globalization its study is important in the twenty-first century.

This article consideres some of the methods of teaching a foreign language (French) of specialty and training translation of the diplomatic documents and international law acts. Training specialists in the field of international relations and international law as one of the directions of international profile remains one of the most popular.

Students learning international relations and international law in the Russian universities, have a good command of English, but usually not enough proficiency level of French as a second foreign language. The urgent need appears to develop materials including electronic ones to prepare students with a high level of language competence. After analyzing the courses used now in the contemporary education environment and taking into account interdisciplinary connections with the professional courses in international law and international relations, the authors suggest their approach to learning vocabulary, grammar, stylistics and translation techniques of the materials on international relations and international law on the basis of authentic francophone texts and case-method, which helps to study and use the material better.

The proposed approach gives students the opportunity to learn the necessary strategies of pre translation text analysis. Students should be aware of the translator’s tools, learn how to use them in practical professional activity. In each case, students should be able to evaluate the facts from the professional (diplomatic, legal) point of view and to use the terminology and professional technology of translation both in a mother tongue and a foreign language.

Using multimedia dictionaries, the Internet as a source of information about the translation options, parameters of translation activities in different countries becomes necessary and compulsory stage of students’ work. Students acquire certain skills that enhance their translation competence in the international sphere.

The approach suggested by the authors seems to be relevant for training competitive specialists in the sphere of international relations and international law and is applied in the departments that realize bachelor and master training in this setting.