Language Education as a Factor of the Development of Intercultural Communication in the Context of modern Business Policultural Environment

Abstract

The article is dedicated to a number of theoretical and practical problems of intercultural business communication. The main focus is put on the analysis of the existing data and didactic sources designed to develop intercultural competence, required skills and abilities that ensure efficient communication in multicultural environment. It is generally accepted that conflicts arise as a result of a clash between individuals that belong to different social, cultural, religious and other groups, having negative psychological effect on communicators. These conflicts are difficult to avoid since people pursue individual self-interests lacking skills that could help them succeed in cross-cultural communication. In order to identify the underlying causes and issues of communication barriers and origins of cultural conflicts the authors investigate the content of the notion “intercultural communication” and speculate on its historical development. Despite the burgeoning interest paid to the issue in academic and business circles, we still witness lack of attention given to the development of intercultural communication and intercultural competence within the framework of educational process. The authors justify the need for implementation of some alternative technologies and resources such as multimodal texts, social networks, individual and group projects, role-play and debates as supplementary sources for existing Business English textbooks.

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