Council of Europe. European Framework of Reference for Languages

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is an international standard used to describe the level of proficiency foreign language. It is used around the world to describe the language skills of learners. According to the CEFR scale, knowledge and skills are divided into three categories, which, in turn, are further divided into six levels:

For each level, the knowledge and skills that a student should have in reading, listening, speaking and writing are described:

Level	Description
	I understand and can use familiar phrases and expressions in speech that are necessary to perform specific tasks. I can introduce myself / introduce others, ask / answer questions about the place of residence, acquaintances, property. Can engage in simple conversation if the other person speaks slowly and clearly and is willing to help.
	Can understand single sentences and common expressions related to major areas of life (for example, basic information about myself and my family members, shopping, applying for a job, etc.). Can perform tasks involving the simple exchange of information with acquaintances or everyday topics. In simple terms, I can talk about myself, my family and friends, describe the main aspects of everyday life.
	Understand the main ideas of clear messages made on literary language on various topics that typically arise at work, study, leisure, etc. I can communicate in most situations that may arise during my stay in the country of the language being studied. I can compose a coherent message on topics that are known or of particular interest to me. I can describe impressions, events, hopes, aspirations, state and substantiate my opinion and plans for the future.
	I understand the general content of complex texts on abstract and concrete topics, including highly specialized texts. I speak quickly and spontaneously enough to constantly communicate with native speakers without much difficulty for either party. I can write clear, detailed messages on a variety of topics and present my perspective on a major issue, showing the advantages and disadvantages of different opinions.
	I understand large complex texts on various topics, I recognize the hidden meaning. I speak spontaneously at a fast pace, without difficulty in choosing words and expressions. I use language flexibly and effectively to communicate in scientific and professional activity. Can produce precise, detailed, well-structured messages on complex topics, demonstrating mastery of text organization patterns, means of communication, and aggregation of text elements.
	I can understand almost any oral or written communication and can compose a coherent text based on several oral and written sources. I speak spontaneously with a high tempo and a high degree of accuracy, emphasizing shades of meaning even in the most difficult cases.

The following table shows the relevance of the international Cambridge exams to different levels of English proficiency.

If you know your level, then using the table below, you can choose the exam that suits you. When successful delivery the exam you choose, you will receive an international certificate confirming your language proficiency at this level.

For more information on which exams are right for you, visit www.cambridgeenglish.org.ru.

Also, to determine your level of English proficiency on a common European scale, you can take a free online test on the website

The process of world globalization, which accelerated at the end of the 20th century, inevitably affected national systems education and, first of all, the system of teaching foreign languages. The question arose of determining the level of knowledge of a specialist in a foreign language. The result was the creation of a document of the Council of Europe called "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment".

Main content of this document

The document consists of nine chapters that describe approaches to the organization of teaching foreign languages, the creation of curricula and the level certification of students. It has two main purposes. The first goal is to systematize approaches to teaching foreign languages. The second goal is to standardize assessments of language proficiency levels.

As a result of extensive research in different countries and procedures for approbation of the assessment methodology, the experts agreed on the number of levels allocated for the organization of the process of learning the language and assessing the degree of proficiency in it. Exists 6 major levels:

AT developed a system of language proficiency levels and a system for describing these levels.

First of all, this activity approach: that is, the mastery of speech activity should take place directly in communication.

Competencies is the sum total of knowledge, skills and personal qualities that allow a person to perform various actions.

Communicative competence allows you to carry out speech activity using language tools.

Speech activity is the practical application of communicative competence in a particular area of communication.

In speech activity, its types are distinguished: speaking, writing, reading, listening.

AT "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages" classification is given in a slightly different way. Stand out:

reception as an internally active speech activity;
production as externally active speech activity;
interaction, in which at least two speakers exchange statements in oral or written form;
mediation focused on translation and interpretation, that is, the transfer of the content of the statement to a third party.

All speech acts are carried out in order to solve the problem of communication in a certain field of activity.

Under sphere of communication refers to the broad spectrum of social life in which social interaction takes place.

Within the spheres of communication, topics of communication are distinguished. In secondary school, a number of topics were identified, each of which can be represented by a set of sub-themes:

personality
home and surroundings
leisure and recreation:
travels
relationship
health and lifestyle
education
purchases
food
service
Attraction
foreign languages
weather

Communication within a certain topic is carried out in context.

Context- this is the spectrum of events against which communicative actions are carried out. The context is also revealed by the concept communication situation.

"Common European Framework of Reference for a Foreign Language" offer a table that allows you to foresee almost any communication situation and simulate it for training or control purposes. We give the beginning of this table in an abbreviated form.

		Public	professional	educational
	House, room, garden... At home, with relatives, with friends, in a hotel ...	Street, park... Public transport, shop, clinic… Stadium, theater...	Factory, port, station, farm, airport, shop, hotel…	School, classroom, playground, university, auditorium, dormitory…
Members	Parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, acquaintances...	Salesman, policeman, driver, passenger, player, fan…	Employee, director, colleagues, secretary...	Teacher, parents, classmate, librarian, secretary...
Items	Clothing, furniture, toys, books, pets, utensils, plants...	Money, documents, goods, luggage, food…	Industrial and craft technology…	School uniform, questionnaires, sportswear, computer, briefcase ...
	Family holidays, visits, walks, excursions…	Incidents, illnesses, meetings, matches, performances, competitions...	Meetings, interviews, congresses, conflicts…	Interschool exchanges, disciplinary challenges, competitions…

How student responses are assessed

There are six main levels for which the level assessment scales are made.

There are two types of rating scales: analytical and holistic. The analytical scales are for the use of examiners only.

Holistic scales are intended for the user. They describe what a person can do when trying to determine their level of foreign language proficiency. Let us give an example of a level scale of the most general type (levels of fluency C1 and C2 are excluded from the scales, since in secondary school students can reach the maximum B2 level):

Elementary possession		I understand and can use familiar phrases and expressions in speech that are necessary to perform specific tasks. I can introduce myself / introduce others, ask / answer questions about the place of residence, acquaintances, property. Can engage in simple conversation if the other person speaks slowly and clearly and is willing to help.
Elementary possession		Can understand single sentences and common expressions related to the main areas of life (for example, basic information about myself and my family members, shopping, getting a job, etc.). I can perform tasks related to the simple exchange of information on familiar or everyday topics. In simple terms, I can talk about myself, my family and friends, describe the main aspects of everyday life.
Self Ownership		Can understand the main ideas of clear messages delivered in standard language on a variety of topics typically encountered at work, school, leisure, etc. I can communicate in most situations that may arise during my stay in the country of the language being studied. I can compose a coherent message on topics that are known or of particular interest to me. I can describe impressions, events, hopes, aspirations, state and substantiate my opinion and plans for the future.
Self Ownership		I understand the general content of complex texts on abstract and concrete topics, including highly specialized texts. I speak quickly and spontaneously enough to constantly communicate with native speakers without much difficulty for either party. I can write clear, detailed messages on a variety of topics and present my perspective on a major issue, showing the advantages and disadvantages of different opinions.

In the level scale given as an example, in the very general view human competencies in all four types of speech activity are described. Considering the fact that competence in a foreign language can be uneven for different types speech activity, it is customary to compile more detailed scales for each of them.

Scale assessing skills in the field of oral reception

listening

	I can understand single familiar words and very simple phrases in slow, clear-sounding speech in everyday situations that involve me, my family, and my immediate environment.
	I understand certain phrases and common words in statements about topics that are important to me (for example, basic information about myself and my family, about shopping, about where I live, about work). I understand what is being said in simple, clearly spoken and small messages and announcements.
	I understand the main points of clearly spoken statements within literary norm on topics that I know that I have to deal with at work, at school, on vacation, etc. I understand most current affairs radio and television programs and programs related to my personal or professional interests. The speech of the speakers should be clear and relatively slow.
	I understand detailed reports and lectures and even complex arguments contained in them, if the topics of these speeches are familiar to me. I understand almost all news and current affairs reports. I understand the content of most films if their characters speak the literary language.

The following table allows you to qualitatively assess speaking skills:

A1 (Survival level):

RANGE	He has a very limited vocabulary of words and phrases that serve to present information about himself and to describe specific private situations.
ACCURACY	Limited control over the use of a few simple grammatical and syntactic structures memorized.
FLUENCY	Can speak very briefly, utter individual statements, mostly composed of memorized units. Makes many pauses to find the right expression, pronounce less familiar words, correct mistakes.
INTERACTION	Can ask personal questions and talk about himself. Can respond elementarily to the speech of the interlocutor, but in general, communication depends on repetition, paraphrasing and correcting mistakes.
CONNECTIVITY	Can connect words and groups of words using simple conjunctions expressing a linear sequence, such as "and", "then".

A2 (Pre-threshold level):

RANGE	Uses elementary syntactic structures with learned units, collocations and standard expressions to convey limited information in simple everyday situations.
ACCURACY	Uses some simple structures correctly, but still systematically makes elementary mistakes.
FLUENCY	Can communicate clearly in very short sentences, although pauses, self-corrections, and reformulation of sentences are obvious.
INTERACTION	Can answer questions and respond to simple statements. Can show when he/she is still following the interlocutor's thought, but very rarely understands enough to carry on a conversation on his own.
CONNECTIVITY	Can connect groups of words using simple conjunctions: and, but, because.

B1 (Threshold level):

RANGE	Possesses sufficient language knowledge to take part in the conversation; vocabulary allows you to explain with a number of pauses and descriptive expressions on topics: family, hobbies, hobbies, work...
ACCURACY	Fairly accurate use of a set of constructs associated with familiar, regularly occurring situations.
FLUENCY	Can speak clearly, despite the fact that pauses for the search for grammatical and lexical means are noticeable, especially in statements of considerable length.
INTERACTION	Can initiate, maintain, and end one-on-one conversations if the topics of discussion are familiar or individually meaningful. Can repeat previous lines to demonstrate understanding.
CONNECTIVITY	Can tie several fairly short simple sentences into linear text consisting of several paragraphs.

B2 (Threshold Advanced):

RANGE	Has a sufficient vocabulary to describe something, to express a point of view on general issues without an explicit search for a suitable expression. Able to use some complex syntactic constructions.
ACCURACY	Demonstrates a fairly high level of grammatical control. Doesn't make misunderstandings and can correct most of his own mistakes.
FLUENCY	Can generate statements of a certain length with a fairly even pace. May show hesitation in selecting expressions or language constructs, but there are few long pauses in speech.
INTERACTION	Can start a conversation, enter into a conversation at the right moment, and end a conversation, although sometimes these actions are characterized by a certain clumsiness. Can take part in a conversation on a familiar topic, confirming his understanding of what is being discussed, inviting others to participate, etc.
CONNECTIVITY	Can use a limited number of means of communication to combine individual statements into a single text. At the same time, in the conversation as a whole, there are separate “jumps” from topic to topic.

It is possible to provide for an even greater degree of detail of the level scales. This is achieved by creating descriptors for evaluating skills in the implementation of specific speech actions. A large number of such scales are given in the document "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages". For example:

Understand correspondence	Can understand everyday correspondence in a field close to him and understand the main meaning.	Can understand descriptions of events, feelings and desires to maintain regular friendly correspondence.
Recognizes the main types of standard household correspondence (request for information, order, order confirmation, etc.).
Can understand simple and short personal letters.	Can understand a simple and short message on a postcard.

All the above examples of scales are designed to assess the level of formation of the speech component of the student's communicative competence. Recently, efforts have been made to create rating scales for measuring other elements of foreign language communicative competence. Here are some examples:

	Lexical competence
	He has a good vocabulary in the field of communication known to him and the most common topics. Can vary vocabulary, avoiding repetition. However, ignorance of a number of words can lead to slowing down of speech and the use of paraphrases. Uses vocabulary with a high degree of accuracy, but makes mistakes in word choice that do not hinder communication
	Has a vocabulary sufficient for communication within the framework of the most frequent everyday topics. He has a good command of this elementary vocabulary, but he makes serious mistakes when expressing more complex thoughts.
	Has a limited vocabulary, but sufficient to meet their elementary / primary communication needs
	Owns individual words and expressions used in specific situations of communication.

	Grammatical competence
	Good grammatical correctness of speech. Errors are non-systematic, do not lead to difficulty in understanding.
	Maintains sufficient grammatical correctness in familiar situations. Errors are noticeable, including those caused by the influence of the native language, but the general meaning of the statement remains clear.
	Uses simple structures correctly, but systematically makes elementary mistakes. However, the general meaning of the statement remains clear.
	Uses a limited stock of learned grammatical forms and syntactic structures.

	Sociolinguistic competence
	Communicates confidently and politely in formal and informal situations. Avoids serious sociolinguistic and sociocultural errors.
	Can communicate using most common neutral case expressions. Knows about the most important rules of behavior and courtesy adopted in society, about their difference from the rules adopted in his country.
	Can enter into brief social contacts using the simplest expressions, respecting the basic norms of communication.
	Can establish social contact using the most elementary formulas of politeness.

As required State standard general secondary education, at the end of grade 9, secondary students general education schools must reach level A2.

Certification of foreign language training received by students in the framework of school education is increasingly subject to the idea of level control. Therefore, the methodology and techniques of level assessment must certainly be in the methodological arsenal of a modern teacher.

Promotes democracy and defends human rights and the rule of law in Europe.

Education plays a central role in upholding the core values of the Council of Europe, as well as in preventing violations of human rights. Education is increasingly seen as a defense against rising violence, racism, extremism, hatred, discrimination and intolerance.

Priority themes of the Council of Europe in the field of education

civic and human rights education;
teacher training;
study of history;
language policy;
higher education and science;
provision of education for Roma children.

Civic and Human Rights Education
- Studying history
  
  The Council of Europe is also involved in various history-related topics in history textbooks, curriculum modernization and teacher training.
  
  As part of the Image of the Other in the Study of History project, the Council of Europe has published many teaching materials on the history of the 20th century, as well as guides for history teachers.
- Language policy
  
  The Council has developed a European framework document for language learning, which serves as a common basis for the development of language learning curricula, as well as related instructions, examination materials, textbooks, etc. throughout Europe.
  The framework document provides an overview of what knowledge language learners need to acquire in order to be able to use the language in communication, as well as what knowledge and skills should be developed in order to work effectively in this area.
  The framework document, among other things, defines levels of language proficiency that measure student progress at all stages of language learning throughout life. On the basis of the framework document, a language map has been developed to motivate students to expand and diversify their language skills at any level and take care of registering acquired skills.
Youth policy

The youth policy of the Council of Europe is based on the basic principles:
- a strong civil society;
- protection of human rights;
- cultural diversity;
- social unity.
In the field of youth, the participation of young people is also added as an important point.
The cooperation is based on the youth sector document Agenda 2020, the main themes of which are human rights and democracy, living together in a multifaceted society and the social inclusion of young people. The principles of the document are implemented on the basis of more specific priorities and programs of activities, the latest of which was drawn up for the period 2014-2015.
Separate programs are created for cooperation with the European Commission, Russian Federation and the European Youth Information and Counseling Agency (ERYICA). The cooperation organizes many important youth courses, projects and initiatives, including courses for youth organizations, as well as review visits to Commonwealth countries. The initiatives are supported by voluntary contributions collected through European Youth Foundation competitions.
Cooperation of the Council of Europe in the field of youth is carried out with the Commonwealth countries and youth organizations. The Steering Committee for Youth CDEJ and the Advisory Council on Youth AC meet twice a year and have joint meetings (Joint Council on Youth CMJ). The second place for joint decision-making between young people and officials is the Programming Committe on Youth, which monitors and evaluates the work of the European Youth Centers and the European Youth Foundation.

^ Intercultural competence

To determine what skills a communicant should have for successful intercultural communication, we consider it appropriate to consider the concept of intercultural competence, which, from our point of view, is a conglomerate of at least three components: linguistic, communicative and cultural competence. Combining together, they form a qualitatively new whole, which has its own characteristics, different from each of the components taken separately. Competence in the terminological meaning of this word means not just the sum of the acquired knowledge and techniques that a person can use in MC as necessary - it implies the presence of a set of skills that allow one to adequately assess the communicative situation, correlate intentions with the intended choice of verbal and non-verbal means, bring to life communicative intention and verify the results of the communicative act with the help of feedback. The distinction between different types of competence is rather conditional, but it is necessary for research that "dissects" the concept of competence in order to analyze it in detail.

^ Language competence

The concept of competence in relation to language was first introduced by N. Chomsky, who developed it on the basis of an internal learned generative grammar and meant by it “linguistic intuition”, “language knowledge”, “language behavior”, and, ultimately, the ability of an ideal speaker to master an abstract system of language rules (Manfred 1987: 198).

According to Chomsky's concept, linguistic competence includes phonological, syntactic and semantic components of linguistic knowledge. J. Manfred considers grammatical competence, which, from his point of view, is "the ability of the speaker / listener to make the right choice from the available inventory of linguistic signs and the rules for their combination to create language structures" (Manfred, op. cit.: 198). Along with the above components of linguistic competence, G. I. Bogin calls the possession of spelling norms, language functions, styles and the ability to freely operate with the whole text (Bogin 1980: 7 - 11). Thus, language competence is a multifaceted phenomenon that requires versatile linguistic skills and abilities.

J. Schumann identifies the following factors that affect language acquisition:

social (length of residence in a foreign culture, the nature of the relationship between a group of non-native speakers and native speakers, etc.);
affective (instrumental and integrative motivation, culture shock, attitude to culture, etc.);
personal (tolerance towards uncertainty, level of self-esteem, ego-orientation);
cognitive (cognitive style, dependence / independence from the environment);
biological, etc. (Schumann 1974).

Good knowledge grammar rules and a rich vocabulary are not sufficient to speak of a high level of language competence. A. A. Leontiev rightly believes that a true understanding of the language arises only as a result of active reflection of reality and active communication (Leontiev 1997: 174).

Despite the importance of knowing the pronunciation norms, vocabulary and grammar of a foreign language, this is not enough for its correct use in specific communicative situations. Language is one of the aspects of a person's general psychological ability, which determines the fate of communication. This idea is consistent with the position of Chomsky, who distinguished language competence (linguistic competence), that is, "mental representations of language rules, acting, in his opinion, as the internal grammar of an ideal speaker-hearer" (Zalevskaya 1996: 9) and linguistic performance(linguistic performance) - understanding and production of speech in real situations of communication. According to Chomsky, linguistics should not be limited to the description of competence. Its purpose is to show how a person constructs a system of knowledge from daily experience (Crystal 1987: 409). Thus, it is not only about the ability to express one's thoughts, but also about the ability to think like a native speaker, which implies the ability to visualize the cultural images reflected in it.

Language competence goes far beyond mastering the rules of using the language - it involves the expansion of one's own conceptopher and modification of the picture of the world based on intercultural experience. According to the concept developed by Yu. N. Karaulov, a person functions at three levels of linguistic competence: 1) verbal-semantic (personal lexicon); 2) linguo-cognitive (personal thesaurus, which captures the system of knowledge about the world, or “the image of the world); 3) motivational (activity-communicative needs of the individual, reflecting his pragmaticon: a system of goals, motives, attitudes) (Karaulov 1987: 238).

V. I. Karasik also comes to the conclusion that “language competence allows for several dimensions”:

1) on the basis of actual/virtual language proficiency - actual knowledge of the language and socially prestigious approach to the language;

2) on the basis of normative correctness - the language competence of educated and uneducated native speakers;

3) on the basis of system correctness - the linguistic competence of native speakers and those who speak a non-native language;

4) on the basis of linguistic wealth - the linguistic competence of language users and experts who own a variety of literary or proto-literary styles (Karasik 1992: 63 - 64).

Under the conditions of MC, language competence is responsible for the correct choice of language means that are adequate for the communication situation; correct reference; correlation of mental models with the forms of reality; comparison of mental schemes and constructions with cognitive experience; the ability to repeat once acquired language experience in similar communicative situations. The problem of mastering a foreign language lies in the fact that learning situations can be far from real experience, so repeating them in real communication can present significant difficulties.

In essence, language competence is a relative concept, especially in relation to MC. First, relativity is manifested in the fact that different criteria are used to assess the linguistic competence of representatives of different social groups. Secondly, different cultures may have different ideas about what is the correct and incorrect language usage. For example, some forms that are considered normative for American English may be perceived by the British as incorrect. Thirdly, the requirements for owning natives are higher than for owning foreign ones. Fourth, the assessment of the level of competence differs depending on the goals of communication: a person may be excellent at everyday communication, but not have a sufficient level of competence to perform more qualified actions, for example, explain professional topics with colleagues or discuss philosophical problems.

Since language is closely related to thinking, the process of intercultural communication can give rise to an internal conflict between the levels of language competence in the native and foreign languages. For a person who is used to accurately expressing his thoughts in his native language with a high degree of detail and semantic nuance, the lack of linguistic means in a foreign language can be painful. In situations where regular participation in MC is inevitable, this contradiction becomes an incentive to improve language skills and move to a higher level of competence.

G. I. Bogin identifies five levels of language proficiency: 1) the level of correctness, compliance with the speech norm; 2) the level of internalization, the presence or absence of an internal plan of a speech act; 3) the level of saturation, an indicator of poverty or richness of speech; 4) the level of adequate choice, possession of synonymy; 5) the level of adequate synthesis, compliance with the tone of communication (quoted from the book: Karasik 1992: 4). In addition, in the theory and practice of teaching foreign languages, there are many methods for determining the level of language competence of students for dividing them into groups, differentiating the learning process and assessing their knowledge.

Considering the dynamism of the linguistic meaning, one must also keep in mind that it is subject to changes depending on the nature of the linguistic personality that “appropriates” it, the context of communication, the time of use, etc. The meaning in the thesaurus of each linguistic personality has a certain “tail” due to the fact the experience of linguistic perception and use that a person has received during his use of the language. This "train" includes connotations fixed in certain chronological periods of the development of a language unit, changes that the meaning undergoes in the course of language development, the degree of word assimilation, etc. himself in his homeland and having brilliantly mastered phonetics and grammar, he often uses a "naked" language, devoid of this divided linguistic knowledge.

Communicative competence

Since language competence covers only a part of the skills necessary for adequate communication, great importance acquires the concept communicative competence, first proposed by D. Himes. The criteria on the basis of which the concept of communicative competence was developed in American science were co-orientation and coordination. Coorientation is seen as the ability to achieve a certain degree of mutual understanding through such verbal strategies as confirmation (acknowledging), reflection (mirroring), paraphrasing (paraphrasing), explanation (clarifying), etc. Coordination, in turn, means the ability to adapt one's own verbal actions to the actions of other communicants, as well as to individual and group goals of communication. Coordination strategies include apologies, disclaimers, meta-accounts, etc. Lack of co-orientation and coordination is associated with chaotic, asynchronous communication characterized by repeated questions and interruptions (Matyash 1999).

Communicative competence includes the mechanisms, techniques and strategies necessary to ensure an effective communication process. The requirements for communicative competence in MC are even more stringent than within the same culture, since it is supposed to understand not only patterns human communication as such, as well as taking into account numerous cultural differences, sensitivity to the slightest changes in the communicative situation and behavior of the interlocutor. The communicator must always proceed from his own ignorance something, admitting the possibility of their own mistakes and readiness to correct them. Here the role of intuition and empathy increases many times over.

The components of communicative competence in relation to MC are:

activity:

the ability to interpret culture-specific signals of the interlocutor’s readiness to join the MC or, on the contrary, unwillingness to communicate (the so-called “unmessages” - Gamble and Gamble 1990: 28);
the degree of involvement in communication, the ability to determine the share of speaking and listening, depending on the situation and cultural norms;
efficiency, that is, the ability to adequately express one's thought and understand the interlocutor's thought;
the ability to direct the conversation in the right track;
the ability to give and interpret signals for the change of communicative roles and signals for the completion of communication that are acceptable for a given culture;

appropriateness, that is, an adequate choice:

communication distance;
topics of conversation;
discursive genre, register and tone of communication;
verbal and non-verbal means;
speech strategies;

dynamic:

empathy - a sensitive attitude to the mood of the interlocutor, "reading" verbal and non-verbal feedback signals, the ability to empathize;
adaptability, taking into account the social status of communicants and intercultural differences;
flexibility in choosing and switching topics;
a high degree of readiness to adjust their own communicative behavior.

Of particular importance for the success of MI is the “reading” of signals of impaired understanding and the timely “switching on” of feedback.

^ Cultural Competence

Another the most important factor What is essential for effective MC is cultural competence, which has been repeatedly pointed out by scholars (see, for example, Damen 1987: 215). Cultural competence involves the understanding of presuppositions, background knowledge, value attitudes, psychological and social identity, characteristic of a given culture.

The concept of cultural competence to a certain extent coincides with the concept of cultural literacy. The identification of indicators of cultural literacy is a complex, controversial and much discussed problem in the scientific world, which is not only theoretical, but also applied in nature (how much information should a person have in order to be considered culturally literate? should it be local or world culture7 and if world, then whether it should be almost completely reduced to Western culture, as is customary in modern world? can it be expressed in quantitative and material form?).

The most famous and (perhaps for this reason) the most criticized attempt in this direction is the monograph ^ Cultural Literacy and the dictionary of the same name by E. D. Hirsch (Hirsch 1988; Hirsch 1993), an ardent supporter of American acculturation, who equates the national thesaurus with the American currency, the dollar (Hirsch 1988: 26). The essence of Hirsch's concept is an attempt to present the cultural thesaurus of the educated American as the basis for effective communication within American culture—what he calls "national communication" (op. cit.: xi). Hirsch writes about cultural literacy as a phenomenon designed to create a "spirit of communal cooperation." It includes background knowledge that allows the bearer of a culture to take a newspaper and read it with an adequate level of understanding of both explicit and implicit information, correlating what is read with the implied context that gives meaning to what is written. Cultural literacy, in Hirsch's view, "makes us masters of the standard instrument of cognition and communication, thus enabling us to transmit and receive complex information orally and in writing, in time and space" (op. cit.: 2–3). Hirsch's efforts seem to be commendable because, despite a certain degree of subjectivity in compiling the thesaurus, 90% of consultants agreed with his selection of language units included in the dictionary. Hirsch writes: "History has decided what these elements are. They are the medium of public discourse, the tools by which we can convey our views to another person and make decisions in a democratic way" (op. cit.: 107).

Hirsch's opponents believe that attempting a rigorous selection of a culturally literate thesaurus could become a tool of a class structure that aims to standardize American society. Thus, N. H. Seely writes that the Hirsch dictionary is useful only for that sector of the population that receives the most institutional education and, unfortunately, represents the country as a whole only to a small extent (Seelye 1993: 27).

Obviously, the cultural competence necessary for effective intercultural communication presupposes the coincidence of the volumes of cultural literacy of the interlocutors in that part that concerns the subject and context of communication. Since MK is inherently asymmetric (cm. relevant section), a heavier burden falls on the non-bearer of the culture in which the communicants are located.

The author of this study, in collaboration with E. I. Sheigal, compiled a dictionary based on the idea of cultural literacy and aimed at intercultural communication between Russians and Americans (Leontovich O. A., Sheigal E. I. Life and culture of the USA. Linguistic Dictionary, 1998; 2nd revised and enlarged ed. 2000). We set ourselves the task of reflecting in the dictionary the nationally specific knowledge of the average American, which, to one degree or another, may be incomprehensible to representatives of Russian culture. It was this idea that formed the basis for the selection of the dictionary and the definition of the structure of the dictionary entry. Therefore, the dictionary includes the following categories of language units:

actually Americanisms, that is, words and phrases that originated in the American version of the English language (for example, hippie; drugstore; bootlegging);
words that originally existed in British English but have changed their meaning in American English ( closet; corn; bathroom and etc.);
common English words and phrases, which, however, have specific associations in the American version or are associated with important regional information ( college; television; health care; rock music);
toponyms and anthroponyms that are culturally significant ( Louisiana; Cape Kennedy; Columbus, Christopher);
names of political realities, public organizations, US government agencies, etc.;
titles of famous books, films, paintings and other works by American authors;
trademarks, company names, stores, etc., which are part of the average American's mind;
quotes included in the fund of precedent texts: words from popular songs, poems, statements of famous personalities, etc.;
the names of types of dwellings, transport, clothing, shoes, food, and other realities that are an integral part of the life of Americans;
names of events of world significance, covered from the point of view of the participation of the United States in them ( ^ World War II; World War II; world fairs ).

The cultural competence of an MC participant also includes the ability to extract the necessary information from units that are not included in the dictionary: phraseological units, terms, slang, jargon, dialectisms, etc. It involves the ability to differentiate information in terms of its significance for intercultural communication. For example, you need to know that T. Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, a famous scientist and a man of encyclopedic thinking. However, there is hardly a person who can accurately name the circumstances of his death. On the other hand, everyone knows the time and tragic circumstances of the death of A. Lincoln or J. Kennedy. Obviously, the amount of cultural literacy of a potential interlocutor (conditionally, "average Russian" and "average American") should serve as a guideline.

It should be borne in mind that the volume of cultural literacy consists not only of culturally specific information, but also of information about the world as a whole (outside the countries represented by the communicants). E. D. Hirsch complains that in recent decades, American high school graduates have been deprived of the cultural vocabulary that previous generations possessed, and calls this phenomenon "new illiteracy" ("new illiteracy", Hirsch 1988: 108). The experience of communicating with young Americans and teaching in American universities allows us to agree with this point of view and argue that the "new illiteracy" interferes with intercultural communication.

Cultural literacy is the most dynamic component of competence. Along with rather stable historical and geographical data, there are elements related to the current political situation, scandals, fashion, etc., which quickly appear and smooth out in the memory of cultural bearers. This dynamism requires constant replenishment of cultural literacy.

Depending on the approaches and aspects of consideration, further detailing of the types of competence can be carried out. So, A. A. Zalevskaya suggests, along with linguistic and communicative competence, to consider the pragmatic, socio-cultural and strategic competence of the individual (Zalevskaya 1996: 9). Yu. Manfred operates with the concept of linguo-social competence and sociolinguistic competence (Manfred 1987: 189).

Competence does not exist apart from communication. It is in specific situations of communication that the level of language and other types of competence is revealed. The communicant is not aware of his incompetence in those areas of communication that, due to circumstances, remain closed to him.

MC is that rare area where different kinds competencies (linguistic, cultural, communicative) can exist in isolation from each other. A person who is fluent in a language may also have an insufficient level of communicative or cultural competence (as was often the case in the Soviet Union, when texts for learning English were based on stories about the telemaster Ivanov, a member of the Communist Party, who lives on Gorky Street in Moscow). On the other hand, a communicant may be well acquainted with the history and culture of another country, but not speak a foreign language. A person who does not know either one or the other, but who has a natural talent for communication, who knows how to listen to the subtle nuances of the mood of the interlocutor, can find with him " mutual language", using non-verbal means of communication or the services of an interpreter. A typical situation is also when an immigrant who does not speak a foreign language well, but has lived in a given culture for a long time, is able to communicate effectively using a minimum set of learned verbal and non-verbal means. But one way or another, all these That is why it is extremely short-sighted that American journalists live in Russia for many years without learning the language, and in their assessments of the situation are based on the opinion of a narrow circle of acquaintances who speak English.

Different levels of MC provide a different degree of usefulness of functioning in a foreign culture: 1) the level necessary for survival; 2) a level sufficient for "entry" into a foreign culture; 3) the level that ensures a full-fledged existence in a new culture - its "appropriation"; 4) a level that allows you to fully realize the identity of a linguistic personality.

For adequate intercultural understanding and effective activity in the context of MI, a directly proportional relationship between the levels of linguistic, communicative and cultural competence is needed. In the case of asymmetry, there is a high probability of misunderstanding, since a person who is fluent in the language is expected to have an appropriate level of cultural literacy and is treated as a carrier, expecting that he has a sufficient amount of cultural information.

The level of linguistic, communicative and cultural competence can be considered as part of the identity of a linguistic personality (LP). S. A. Sukhikh and V. V. Zelenskaya distinguish formal or exponential, substantial and intentional aspects in the discourse structure, which reflect different levels of SL. The linguistic competence of a person is projected at the exponential level, and the communicative competence is projected at the level of the intentional organization of discourse, which includes a system of speech actions, dialogic modality, communication schemes and strategies (Sukhikh, Zelenskaya 1998: 81).

Under the conditions of MC, an individual may be inclined to underestimate or overestimate the level of his cultural and linguistic competence. This is largely due to the psychological characteristics of YL. Some communicators experience uncertainty when using a foreign language, others are ready to get by with minimal language tools.

Both underestimation and overestimation of one's own intercultural competence, as well as the competence of the addressee, becomes a hindrance in communication. Having overestimated the level of competence of his foreign partner, the native speaker ceases to make allowance for the lack of his linguistic and cultural knowledge, as a result of which a significant part of the information may be lost. When underestimating the interlocutor, the communicant begins to use simplified speech, which is usually addressed to marginal native speakers - children, foreigners, the sick -, as a result of which the recipient of the speech has a question: “Who do you take me for?” (Karasik, 1992: 60).

For a sufficient level of intercultural competence, we take the total level of linguistic, communicative and cultural competence, which provides the possibility of adequate communication in a particular social group (including professional, age and status parameters).

Understanding as the goal of intercultural communication.

Levels of Understanding

To express in words what you understand, so that the other understands you, as you yourself, is the most difficult thing; and you always feel that you are far, far from achieving what you should and can do.

^ L. N. Tolstoy

Misunderstandings do not exist, only the failure to communicate.

South East Asian proverb

One of the most important human desires is to be understood by others. The reasons for which a person seeks understanding may be different: love, ambition, a sense of duty, scientific, cultural or economic interests - however, in all cases, the task remains to most fully convey one's information to the interlocutor. Individuals as carriers of cognitive structures "seek to explicate them, make them available to others, seeing this as the basis for self-expression and self-affirmation, in order to achieve certain practical goals" (Dridze 1980: 110). This desire leads to the fact that the thoughts and emotions of the individual are embodied in acts of speech communication.

Problems of understanding are developed by psychologists, philosophers, linguists, specialists in the field of communication, computational linguistics, etc. (see the works of F. de Saussure, L. S. Vygotsky, A. A. Leontiev, P. Thorndike, C. Osgood, A. R. Luria, I. A. Zimney, L. V. Sakharny, V. Z. Demyankova, T. M. Dridze, A. A. Zalevskoy, R. Vodak, N. I. Zhinkina, T. A. van Dyck, V. Kinch, G. I. Bogin, V. I. Karasik, M. L. Makarov, etc.). At the core modern approaches- the difficult path traversed by hermeneutics, from the art of understanding someone else's individuality, developed by G. Schleiermacher, through the phenomenology of E. Husserl, to the ontology of G. H. Gadamer.

B. Russell, L. Wittgenstein and other researchers of linguo-philosophical problems note a number of weaknesses of natural language, which do not always allow it to be an adequate carrier of meaning: polysemy of words and expressions, fuzzy logical structure of phrases, tacit agreements and psychological associations. "Language disguises thoughts," writes L. Wittgenstein. Just as behind the outer forms of clothing the forms of the body are only guessed, so the true logical essence of thought is hidden behind the linguistic shell. Since the language is aimed not only at the exact expression of thought (and sometimes used for directly opposite purposes), it contains many obstacles to the implementation of this task (Kozlova 1972: 57 - 58).

The effectiveness of communication is directly proportional to the level of mutual understanding between the communicants. By mutual understanding in this case, we mean the coincidence of the amounts of information encrypted in the message by the sender and correctly decrypted by the addressee. However, S. A. Sukhikh and V. V. Zelenskaya provide data showing that only 30% of the information communicated is understood, the rest of the information is lost in the communication process (Sukhikh, Zelenskaya 1998: 52). If these startling figures are correct, then it can be assumed that in the process of MI, due to cultural and linguistic differences, the loss of information will be even more significant.

To achieve mutual understanding, a certain set of invariant knowledge is needed that is common to all communicators, which in the works of scientists has received different names: "a single total horizon", "life world" (E. Husserl), "pre-understanding" (H. D. Gadamer), " shared knowledge" (D. Hirsch; E. Roche and others).

Understanding necessarily implies the possibility of misunderstanding as its opposite. "Where there can be no misunderstanding, there can be no understanding" writes G. I. Bogin (Bogin 1986, p. 8). A similar thought is expressed by M. Birvish: "Different types of misunderstanding provide an additional illustration of the levels of understanding." He views misunderstanding as a specific type of understanding in which the listener attributes to a sign an internal representation that differs on one or more levels from what the speaker has in mind (Birvish 1988, p. 97).

Thus understanding is relative. It is based on knowledge, and the latter reflects the dialectic of relative and absolute truth. "Human thinking is constantly moving from ignorance to knowledge, from the superficial to ever deeper, essential and comprehensive knowledge" (Philosoph. Enc., 1983: 192). Understanding can be schematically represented as a scale, on the poles of which there will be complete misunderstanding and complete understanding as internal contradictions, which, on the one hand, exclude each other, and, on the other hand, cannot exist one without the other. Denying each other, they are at the same time mutually permeable and are an internal source of self-development of the information process.

J. Steiner expresses the paradoxical opinion that true understanding is possible only with complete silence (Steiner 1975: 286). In this case, silence must be understood as the absence of the use of any semiotic system. In fact, silence in discourse can be very eloquent and can be interpreted differently by communicants.

Both complete misunderstanding and complete understanding will be an ideal construct, since in the communication of individuals, neither one nor the other can exist in its pure form. Even in the interaction of people belonging to different civilizational types and not those who know the language each other, anyway, at least a small part of the communication signals will be deciphered correctly, due to the presence of universal human properties and reactions to the world around. On the other hand, full understanding would be achieved if the decoding process mirrored the encoding process. But this is even theoretically impossible for a number of reasons, including the individual differences of communicants, their belonging to different sociocultural groups, as well as the dynamic nature of the communicative process.

The following factors allow us to speak about the dynamic essence of understanding:

the simultaneity of a number of heterogeneous processes that are carried out in a complex manner, together forming an understanding as a qualitatively new whole;
"activation and use of internal, cognitive information" (Dyck and Kinch 1988: 158) as an integral part of understanding;
relationship between past experience/knowledge and expected meaning (Bogin 1987; Zalevskaya 1992; Solso 1996);
consideration of understanding in the mobile and changing social context common to communicants.

An original approach to the representation of the dynamic nature of understanding found its expression in the spiral model of text understanding by A. A. Zalevskaya. According to this model, the word as a key unit "launches a complex set of processes of functioning of individual knowledge", carried out "with the constant interaction of "ascending" and "descending" processes of identification with the products of previous experience, synthesis and forecasting. Zalevskaya likens the process of identifying a word to "a bidirectional unwinding of a hypothetical spiral", the lower part of which symbolizes the person's previous experience, and the upper part symbolizes the prospect of unfolding this message (Zalevskaya 1992: 90 - 91).

N. I. Zhinkin interprets understanding as a translation from the national language into the language of the intellect (Zhinkin 1982). One of the paradoxes of language as a means of expressing thought is the decomposition of disordered thinking into units corresponding to linguistic ones, about which F. de Saussure writes: "Thinking, chaotic in nature, is forced to refine itself, decomposing." He further concludes that the mysterious interconnection of thought and sign "requires divisions, and that language develops its units by taking shape between two formless masses" (Saussure 1933: 116). Recognizing the validity of this point of view, we return to the traditional "vicious circle": what is primary - does the language divide chaotic thinking in accordance with how it categorizes thinking, or, conversely, does national-specific thinking dictate the way of division into units for the language?

It can be assumed that initially the decomposition of the language into elements occurred under the influence of the surrounding world. As human thinking and language as a way of expressing it became more complex, these two processes began to be carried out as mutually directed and complementary. Today one can find many examples of how language sets the boundaries within which our thought must fit. For example, numerous objects denoted in Russian by the words shawl, kerchief, scarf, pioneer tie, muffler, in English language are included in the concept of scarf. No one will deny that Russians see a similarity between a scarf and a headscarf, but this similarity is not enough for Russians to call them the same word, as happens in English. Native English speakers perceive the kneel action as monolithic, while in Russian it is interpreted as a separate form: kneel.

But even in those cases when linguistic units are considered equivalent during interlingual comparison, they, according to the classical opinion of W. Humboldt, act as "boundary signs of the same space in the field of thinking, which, however, never completely cover each other", as a result, “no matter how rich and fruitful an eternally young and eternally mobile language may be, it is never possible to present the true meaning, the totality of all the combined features of such a word, as a definite and complete value” (Humboldt 1985: 364).

Obviously, the decomposition of thought into components occurs at the stage of formation of inner speech. If the generation of speech is carried out in a non-native language, then the conflict between the native and foreign languages \u200b\u200bmay begin already at this stage. Depending on the level of cultural and linguistic competence and "involvement" in a foreign cultural and linguistic space, chaotic thinking will break up into units in accordance with the way it will be prescribed by the native or foreign language. The utterance may be generated immediately in this language or may be mediated by internal speech in the native language. Even if the speaker knows how to think in a foreign (for example, English) language, this does not mean that he is able to divide the world in the same way as a native speaker of this language - using foreign words does not guarantee the appropriate mindset. As a result, the so-called. "Russian English", "Chinese English", "Japanese English", etc. Thus, the "internal programming code" of a native speaker and a foreigner can be different. Further, interlingual differences act at the stage of "re-signification" (the term of O. D. Kuzmenko-Naumova; cited by: Zalevskaya, 1988), that is, the recoding of a message from one language to another, mediated by the internal socio-mental picture of the world.

Scientists consider the meanings that are born in the process of communication as constructs that are not an exact copy of the ideas of the addresser (see, for example, Dijk and Kinch 1988: 157; Wodak 1997: 57). We share the opinion of those scientists who interpret communication as the joint creation of meanings. So, for example, A. Schutz writes about the "social world of everyday intersubjectivity" of a communicant, which is built in mutual reciprocal acts of presentation and interpretation of meanings (Makarov 1998; 21). Similarly, the "hermeneutics of the game" by the German culturologist W. Iser, creatively developed by the American scientist P. Armstrong, suggests "an alternating-oncoming movement of meanings open to each other for questioning" (Venediktova 1997: 202).

Does the mental construct that develops in the minds of individuals in the process of communication have national and cultural specifics? We tend to answer this question in the affirmative, since the communicants - representatives of different cultures - formulate their ideas on the basis of different physical worlds and different languages refracting the world in their own way. An important role in the formation of this difference is played by the connection established between the past experience of the communicant and the new epistemological image mastered by the linguistic personality in the process of communication, which G. I. Bogin calls reflection (Bogin 1986; 1987).

All understanding is interpretive. Interpretation of new experiences is seen as an essential element of understanding (see, for example, Dijk 1985; Wodak 1997). Discrepancies in the interpretation of the same facts of reality by different individuals are objectively due to the fact that the relationship between real objects and their images imprinted in the human mind is always approximate and incomplete and can only claim homomorphism ( Philosophical Enc. dictionary 215).

Differences in interpretations are also due to the fact that communicants interpret the relationship between surface and deep semantic structures in different ways. The material side of the linguistic sign in itself does not yet carry content, but only serves as a stimulus that activates the communicant's thinking. Often the meaning of the whole is not derived from the totality of the meanings of individual language units, as, for example, when using idioms, tropes, indirect speech acts: the same cabbage soup, but pour it thinner; pull the cat by the tail; cold turkey; you make a better door than you do a window(cf. Rus. you are not glass), etc. In addition to rethinking the components, such forms of linguistic expression are accompanied by an increase in meaning, which may have its own cultural and linguistic specificity. Understanding such semantic structures is the most difficult for participants in intercultural communication.

In addition, any discourse has an idiolectal character. The sender and receiver of information bring different types of sensitivities to communication, like "a set of electronic receiver frequencies, each of which can only listen to a specific program" (Salso 1996:321). An example of how individual meaning can be assigned to almost any form of linguistic expression is the following example from an American girl who lives in China and attends a British school where she is forced to sing in the morning God Save the King:

I was American every minute of the day, especially during school hours<...>I asked my mother to write an excuse so I wouldn't have to sing, but she wouldn't do it. “When in Rome”, she said. “do as the Romans do.” What she meant, “Don't make trouble. Just sing.” (Fritz, Jean. Homesick// Elements of Literature: 557) .

The mechanisms operating at the level of generation and interpretation of oral speech include the following actions of communicants:

phonetic-phonological analysis of the speech chain;
recognition of patterns at the phonetic-phonological level and division of the speech flow into words;
recognition of patterns at the morphological and lexical levels;
choice of meanings of polysemantic words in accordance with the context;
extraction of propositional structure;
integrating propositions with presuppositions, frames, scripts, schemas, and background knowledge and creating an appropriate mental model.

When perceiving written speech, phonetic-phonological analysis is replaced by a visual one, which requires knowledge of the corresponding alphabet.

Another issue that attracts close attention of scientists is the different hermeneutic depth of understanding. Based on the foregoing, the following relationships can be distinguished between the information encrypted in the message by the sender and decrypted by the addressee:

understanding;
misunderstanding;
quasi-understanding, that is, the appearance of understanding;
pseudo-understanding (false understanding);
misunderstanding.

In addition, finer gradations of levels of understanding can be considered, as, for example, in the analysis below:

Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war – congress – Stony Point: -

^ First level understanding a given textual passage is understanding the surface structure of the language. In general, there is nothing tricky here - all the words and the syntactic structure of the sentence are clear to the reader. Nevertheless, most of the information remains outside the brackets: who is "he"? why is he puzzled? Why doesn't he understand what is going on?

^ Second level. Replacing a personal pronoun with a given name "Rip Van Winkle" indicates the identity of the speaker and somewhat clarifies the situation for people familiar with American literature and history. However, a significant part of the information is still "behind the scenes".

^ Third level. The next level of understanding is achieved by placing the sentence in the context of Washington Irving's story. "Rip Van Winkle":

"Rip-van-Winkle", the most popular short story by W. Irving (Irving, Washington), whose hero - good-natured, but lazy and weak-tempered Rip - after another drinking bout under the influence of magic spells falls asleep for 20 years and wakes up many important events, including hours and the War of Independence (Leontovich, Sheigal 2000).

^ Fourth level understanding implies that the reader has background knowledge about what is Revolutionary War, Congress, Stony Point(the place where one of the largest battles of the War of Independence took place) and related cultural associations. The hero of the novel himself, who does not have this knowledge, does not understand why his life has changed so much in 20 years, what happened to his acquaintances and friends, etc.

^ Fifth level understanding requires familiarity with precedent texts and more extensive background knowledge, in particular that the idea of the story goes back to the German legend of the sleeping emperor, as well as the characteristics of the Dutch - the ancestors of Rip van Winkle - who arrived in America as settlers.

By the way, the short story itself perfectly illustrates the communication failure that occurs between Rip van Winkle and other villagers as a result of the fact that after his sleep, which lasted 20 years, the amount of his background knowledge no longer matches the knowledge of his fellow countrymen (during this time America gained independence , ceased to obey the British king, etc.):

The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important gentleman… demanded in an austere tone, "what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?" – "Alas! gentleman," Rip cried, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!"

^ Here a general shout burst from the by-standers – "A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!"

The highest level of development of a linguistic personality determines its ability to reflect on all human experience and thus makes understanding not only an individual-personal, but also a social phenomenon (Bogin 1986: 11-12, 56-59).

Understanding in intercultural communication depends on the following factors:

ratio of contact cultures;
similarities or differences of modal language personalities;
stratification of society horizontally and vertically;
crop locations on the timeline;
similarities or differences in language pictures of the world;
correlation of cultural and linguistic codes;
ability to use feedback effectively.

The last question we would like to consider in this section: what are the criteria for adequate understanding in human communication? We consider it possible to answer it as follows: we consider adequate understanding sufficient to coordinate the actions of individuals within a given society in a specific communicative situation. Since the concept of sufficiency is just as relative as the concept of completeness of understanding, it can be argued that the effectiveness of joint activities can increase in proportion to the depth of mutual understanding.

Conclusions on the first chapter

1. The paradoxical nature of the system of intercultural communication lies in the fact that it simultaneously confirms and refutes the postulates of normal communication, first formulated by P. Grice, and then developed and supplemented by other scientists (the principle of cooperation, postulates about the completeness of the description and sufficiency of information in MC, identity, general memory, semantic coherence, truth of judgment, etc.).

2. The leading mechanisms of MI include abstraction, filtering, simplification, association, combination and reorganization of information, placement of accents, gap filling and interpretation.

3. The communicative process is a dynamic entity that includes both invariant and variant features. The variables of the communicative process, endowed with intercultural specifics, include: participants in communication and the nature of the relationship between them, attitude to MC, form, channels and tools of MC, types communication activities, context, and various information content parameters.

4. To encrypt information, an internal code ("language of thought") or an external code (existing in verbal and non-verbal form) can be used. The ability to "join" codes is a prerequisite for successful intercultural communication. The transformation of codes is expressed in the formation of a "link" between the internal universal subject code and the new "external" code, which the person masters in order to participate in MC. The transformed code is based on the unity of the concepts used, background knowledge, presuppositions, allusions and other cultural and linguistic means.

5. Intercultural competence is a conglomeration of at least three components: linguistic, communicative and cultural competence. Language competence is responsible for the correct choice of language means that are adequate for the communication situation; correct reference; correlation of mental models with the forms of reality; comparison of mental schemes and constructions with cognitive experience; the ability to repeat once acquired language experience in similar intercultural situations. Communicative competence activates the mechanisms, techniques and strategies necessary to ensure an effective communication process: activity, the appropriateness of the choice of communication means, dynamism, “reading” signals of impaired understanding and timely “switching on” feedback. Cultural competence provides for the correct interpretation of presuppositions, background knowledge, values, signals of psychological and social identity. Optimal for MC is a directly proportional relationship between the levels of linguistic, communicative and cultural competence.

6. The system-dynamic model of intercultural communication proposed in this paper reflects the dialectical nature of intercultural communication, the possibility of its consideration in the aspect of synchrony and diachrony, the stratification division of society, as well as the complex interweaving of the collective and the individual in the process of communication. This approach allows us to present intercultural communication as a network of connections and relationships that permeate human society horizontally and vertically and due to the properties of its structure. The hierarchy of the IC system is also reflected in a multi-stage approach to the consideration of a linguistic personality, the relationship and mutual influence of language units. various levels on each other and creating a multidimensional effect in the transmission of information of a sociocultural nature.

8. The effectiveness of communication is directly proportional to the level of mutual understanding between the communicants. The mental construct that develops in the minds of individuals in the process of communication has a national and cultural specificity, since communicants - representatives of different cultures - formulate their ideas on the basis of different physical worlds and different languages that refract the world in their own way. We consider adequate understanding sufficient to coordinate the actions of individuals within a given society in a particular situation of MC.