Cultural Concepts in Intercultural Communication

Alla Rogatiuk (Volyn Institute for Economics and Management in Lutsk, Ukraine)

Email: viem@privat-online.net

 

ABSTRACT:

Language reflects the culture in the form of the cultural concepts. Different languages have various conceptual systems. That is why languages differ as to the system of concepts existing in them.

A cultural concept presents the verbalized reflection of the perception of the reality. The difference of ethnical mentality of the speakers of different language communities determines the existence of certain national-cultural meanings in languages. Cultural concepts are elements of a lexical system of language, and they are characterized by metaphoric and emotive character of their meaning.

Cultural concepts should be learned both from the linguistic point of view as to the linguistic means of the realization of cultural meanings in different languages, as well as from the cognitive point of view. So the existing types of cognitive stereotypes in languages should be learned.

In intercultural communication it is very important to reveal, to describe and compare cultural concepts of different languages. These semantic entities have no equivalences in other languages and are difficult to be understood and to be translated. There is a tendency to transfer the mentality of one culture to the mentality of another culture that often leads to misunderstanding.

Stereotypic perception of the world by speakers with different cultural background may be a serious reason for communicative failures in the intercultural communication. Many concepts, such as freedom, justice, home etc., have specific semantic characteristics in different cultures.

In the process of translation it is very important to take into consideration the cultural concepts of other languages .The ultimate aim of translation is to find adequate ways of rendering the meaning of cultural concepts and thus prevent communicative failures in intercultural communication.