Abstract:

The study deals with the problem of mastering the culture-oriented linguistics component of the instructional content by university students of foreign languages as a means of developing their sociocultural competence.

Despite the fact that the culture-oriented approach to teaching foreign languages has been paid a lot of attention to in recent years, the analysis of university teaching practice shows certain disregard of cultural component in the teaching process in favor of building up vocabulary and mastering grammar skills. Without a doubt sociocultural competence is a complex notion that involves a variety of social and communication skills acquired and developed throughout one’s lifetime like ability to adapt in a new environment, to navigate successfully cross-cultural relationships, to overcome stereotypes, to develop cultural sensitivity etc. At the same time, we should not forget that all those diverse social skills are based on a certain lexical content, adequate perception and use of culture-oriented lexis. We include into the lexis having an evident national cultural semantics component: realia, background lexis and connotative lexis, which reflect the culture of the country in the semantics of language units. We understand realia or non-equivalent vocabulary as lexical units used for defining national cultural objects or phenomena non-existent in another culture. We define background lexis as lexical units that have analogues in contrasted languages but differ in some national functional distinctions. It must be admitted that connotative lexis does not have a distinctive scientific definition. Analyzing concepts of various authors it is possible to say that these are lexical units having connotative emotional, evaluating, imaginative or expressive semes.

Although nowadays students have access to the infinite world of information, they reveal certain lack of interest and understanding of the cultural background of the language they study. Their sociocultural competence can be improved through training, education, and experience, but on the verbal level everything should begin with mastering culture-oriented lexis.

Keywords:

Sociocultural competence, culture-oriented linguistics, instructional content, intercultural communication, realia, background lexis, connotative lexis.