Methods of developing cross-cultural competence in the framework of career guidance while training linguists-translators

Abstract

The issues of cross-cultural competence and cross-cultural communication have always been relevant, especially nowadays as the world is open because of globalization. Rapid technological development, the spread of social networks, academic mobility programs, openness and accessibility of mass media are crucial factors that increase the importance of cross-cultural communication as well as the necessity and importance of the English language proficiency as a means of international communication. The aforementioned points play a special role when working with linguists-translators as these ones study English from a professional point of view thus the learning process takes place in a constant comparison of two language systems - the native language system and the foreign language system - each of which has its own patterns and rules; at the same time the native language system often has an interfering effect on the foreign language system. On the one hand, when learning a foreign language, linguists-translators master it as a "hard" skill, i.e., a skill necessary to perform professional activities. On the other hand, while doing this linguists-translators develop one of the "soft" skills due to the specifics of their professional discipline - the skills and abilities of cross-cultural communication. At the same time, other "soft" skills are not always fully developed, which, in turn, hinders the success of graduates in the labour market. In the given study, the researchers focused on the methods of developing cross-cultural competence to increase the competitiveness of graduates of a linguistic university by means of career guidance, namely, the implementation of a project aimed at preparing a set of documents - a resume and self-presentation in two languages - native and foreign - taking into account the characteristics of the cultures involved.