Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Interaction in professional Communication: Knowledge and Sense Dinamics

In recent decades in the field of linguistics dynamic aspects of language have acquired particular relevance for scientific research and it is the influence of external factors on language that requires a detailed analysis. A wide scope of problems related to the functioning of language can be efficiently solved when exploring language phenomena through the prism of cognitive approach. Linguistics and cognitive science correlations viewed in the light of meaning, communication, and translation issues provide new insight into comparative study of principles regarding cognitive structuring and linguistic presenting of knowledge and human experience which are conceived to guarantee not only the comprehension and mutual understanding in the cross-cultural communication, but also the efficacy of this dynamic and complex process itself. The aim of this article is to consider pragmatic specificities of correlations between linguistic and cognitive structures in languages with different systems (Russian, English, Spanish, French) in the realm of medical discourse. Methods of semantic and comparative analyses are carried out in this study, along with translation and native speaker’s questionary methods. Ph.D. students (n 277) of People’s Friendship University of Russia from Albania, Algeria, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Russia, Syria, Viet Nam are involved in the study. This article offers an in vivo analysis of how some cross-cultural differences may interfere with the special background knowledge in medicine. We highlight the issue concerned with interchange and change of the participants’ conceptual scientific systems, particularly in cases when neologisms emerge in terminology within scientific language and form part of background knowledge shared by scientists of certain countries in contrast to others, leading to failure of disambiguation and the lack of understanding. It is necessary to emphasize that differences in cultural stereotypes and the cognitive content associated with the use of an expression in a particular language can give rise to problems in understanding and producing parallel knowledge structures within translation into Russian, English, Spanish, French as well as some other languages. This research is based on predominant cognitive approach taken in Russian school of translation and Bykova Irina A. vice-head of the Department of Foreign Languages of Agrarian-Technological Institute of RUDN University, 117198, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklay str, Bldg. 8/2 (phone: +7 (495) 787-38-03; e-mail: irinabykova16@ yandex.ru). Notina Elena A. is the head of the Department of Foreign Languages of Agrarian-Technological Institute of RUDN University, 117198, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklay str, Bldg. 8/2 (phone: +7 (495) 787-38-03; e-mail: lena.notina@ yandex.ru). interpreting and treats multidimensional and multifaceted phenomena of translation as a special type of communication strongly connected with cognitive dynamics of sense generation and verbalization processes, the situationally determined sociocultural aspects of language use, as well as contextual effects and different constraints presented by the latter on implications in different languages. We conclude that the strategy of decision making and problem solving in translation into languages involved in this research, especially in case of English/Russian, Russian/Spanish, etc. combination of languages, outlines the need for correlating and matching new information about the objects or situations with background knowledge in the target and source languages, neutralizing the difference between non-identical meanings by using different types of transformations to convey the same sense. The practical value of the article is to use the results of the research in the comparative study of languages within the field of lexicology, semantics, cognitive linguistics, cross-cultural communication, translation theory and translation teaching.