Abstract:

The article is devoted to the issue of cultural differences in Spanish speakers’ background and their use as a teaching tool at the university. The questions of cultural identification and national identity are widely spread in modern linguistic investigations, especially nowadays in the period of globalization. The Spanish language is one of the most widespread languages in the world and it is a native language for different nationalities. This reason makes the Spanish language very diverse and ambiguous. Each nationality has its own variant of Spanish apart from the standard language and terminology and realia that are formed in different variants of the language under the influence of cultural features. The study of cultural identity as a nation’s background is very important in the language learning process, because it contains the basis of the cultural identity and the world cultural heritage.

The study used general scientific and private (linguistic) methods. For the analysis there were selected the most popular realia referring to culture and traditions of different Spanish speaking nationalities. Based on the survey conducted among the students of the Kazan Federal University, Russia, the most challenging realia for translation are the ones from the Catalan and Basque languages related to politics. Therefore special emphasis should be made on the investigation of cultural differences, which is essential in the modern world of international cooperation.

Keywords:

Realia, linguistics, translation, language education, world cultural heritage.