INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TEACHING JAPANESE

Professional activity of linguists, interpreters, foreign language teachers and other specialists who due to specifics of their work have to somehow interact with foreigners, implies the knowledge of the basic phonetic, lexical, grammatical and word-building phenomena, as well as the principles of foreign language functioning. However, this knowledge alone is not enough to accomplish the task ahead - to ensure a successful communication between representatives of different cultures. In the 20^th century under the influence of globalization and the practical needs that businessmen, diplomats and politicians encountered, the systematic study of intercultural communications started in the USA. The works written by Edward T. Hall and his colleagues laid the foundation of a new theory that was at the crossroads of such practice-oriented sciences as linguistics, anthropology, psychology, sociology. The intercultural communication theory studies the process of intercultural communication and dismisses the intercultural barrier that separates the participants. This barrier becomes gradually obvious at the stage of foreign language studying and can either complicate its exploration and practical implementation, or hamper the understanding of the academic material. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the importance of forming the student`s basic knowledge about the culture, mentality, realia, customs and traditions of Japanese people at the first stage of studying the language. To illustrate how the understanding of the basic principles of communication between people and their way of thinking contributes to the successful material mastery in the process of study and its practical implementation within the future professional activity. Also, the article contains several examples of homework given to the students that show how the lack of knowledge or the neglect of certain cultural peculiarities may lead to the situation when the Russian native speaker thinks the main idea has been accurately expressed to the Japanese interlocutor, whereas the latter considers common social norms to be violated, which cannot be regarded as a successful communication. Thus, in the course of the work we draw a conclusion that in the process of teaching the Japanese language it is necessary to pay due attention to the cultural aspects to prevent the possible mistakes in intercultural communication.