Building intercultural communicative competence through poetry translation

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)1IntroductionStudent exchange programs and international mobility have resulted in the increased number of international interactions between representatives of different countries. Simultaneously, it must be underlined that a perfect command of English does not guarantee successful intercultural communication. Since it is widely accepted that one of the primary goals of learning foreign languages is to reach the level of effective participation in intercultural interactions, it should be emphasized that it is hard to be successful in the aforementioned contacts without being aware of cultural differences (Gal'skova, & Gez 2009: 69). Accordingly, foreign language teachers should be aware of the important role of culture in teaching and learning and include it in their curricula. All the evidence suggests that students ought to be familiar with differences and similarities existing between their own culture and other cultures. Accordingly, it may be assumed that the fundamental step made towards reaching the level of effective intercultural communication is to understand the significance of gaining intercultural communicative competence, the concept of which has been abundantly analysed and studied by various researchers over the last decades. Unfortunately, no common definition of the notion in question has been agreed upon (Perry, & Southwell 2011:455).2Intercultural communicative competenceIn this paper one follows the model by Elizarova (2004), who defines intercultural communicative competence as a set of fine grained units of learning including knowledge, attitude and skills (Elizarova 2004:193). According to the above researcher, intercultural communicative competence is not identical to the communicative competence of a native speaker as the acquisition of intercultural competence enables learners to gain qualities of a cultural mediator, i.e. an individual who realizes his or her own cultural identity, can go beyond their own cultural identity and discover the differences and similarities between his/her indigenous culture and the foreign one (Elizarova 2004:193).Intercultural communicative competence comprises such elements as culture-general knowledge (what is culture, components of culture, how culture is embedded in language, cultural self-awareness, the role of one's own culture in the perception of foreign culture), attitudes (empathy, being respectful of differences) and skills (the ability to act in accordance with the ideas characteristic of foreign culture, the ability to identify cultural elements of lexical units and the ability to act as a mediator of cultures (Elizarova 2004:193).3Language as a special reflection of cultureThe basic assumption of the view under analysis is that any language is perceived not only as a tool or means of communication but also as a reflection of culture (Wierzbicka 2001; Elizarova 2004, 2009; Ter-Minasova 2008; Leontovich 2003). In other words, a national language reflects reality within the framework of native culture (Elizarova 2009; Maslova 2007; Telija 2004; Kubrjakova 1988). The meaning people attribute to linguistic forms is, therefore, affected by their native cultural background.In order to exemplify the aforementioned problem, one can refer to the concept of privacy. In American culture it definitely does not signify loneliness, whereas in the Russian one there is even no word that relates to the notion in question (Leontovich 2003). The aforementioned American idea of privacy is clearly noticeable in the poem Mending Wall written by the American poet Robert Lee Frost:Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,And spills the upper boulders in the sun;And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.The work of hunters is another thing:I have come after them and made repairWhere they have left not one stone on a stone,But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,To please the yelping dogs. …