Foreign language is an important element of general and professional culture, the most important means of communication. As a component of continuous professional education, this discipline can serve as a means of cultural communication for students in the early stages of training (1–2 courses). The main objective of the course – the formation of communicative competence, that is the ability to communicate cross-culturally, as presented in interpersonal and professional communication areas.
Professional communication refers to specific types of social communication. The main purpose of interpersonal communication in the field of professional interaction in a foreign language is the establishment and development of professional cooperation and therefore it involves the mastery of behavioral norms and rules, special foreign language communicative skills and abilities; expansion of cultural knowledge.
Developing a culture of business communication by means of a foreign language, in our opinion, should go in the following areas:
- development of skills to generate and adequately interpret information in a foreign language;
- better knowledge of socio-cultural features of the foreign partner and cultural conditions specific to professional environment;
- improving the skills of identification of communicative behavior of a partner in a particular situation.
In the process of the selection of learning content, in addition to the phonetic, lexical and grammatical minimum, it is advisable to allocate at least a communicative minimum (communication situations) because the most difficult aspect for participants is not the informational but the interpersonal interactive aspect of professional communication.
In our opinion, such communicative minimum should include the following communicative situations: introduction (establishing contacts); telephone, data processing; trends and results; plans and agreements; results of operations; products and services; travel, trip; business meetings; entertainment and techniques; systems and processes. Indicator of the level of cultural development of business communication can serve as the availability of knowledge about culture, national traditions of the country, whose language we study, regulations, rules of conduct; formation of skills to operate by means of verbal and nonverbal communication of business and professional sectors; development of communication skills to recognize the intention of communication with partners; presence of language skills, knowledge of the rules of etiquette and social behavior in various situations of business communication.
The representative of any profession must not only possess complete understanding of his chosen profession, but also the ability to adapt to new socio-cultural and economic forms of business interaction. Business communication involves the ability to establish and develop business contacts, which is of primary importance to intercultural (interpersonal and international) cooperation, the ability to choose an adequate behavioral scenario that involves not only language, but also the ability to decode and perceive the sociocultural context of communicants (Bondarev, 2013: 37). In the course of business contacts there is a professional cross-cultural communication. In the process of intercultural professional communication an exchange of information and contacts are established. Professional communication, including foreign language is a sociopsychological interaction of at least two entities that perform professional tasks with impact on each other’s intelligence, attitudes, behavior and emotions.
Intercultural professional communication is a process of direct interaction of professional business culture, which is carried out within distinct national stereotypes and behavior. It is not possible to correlate linguistic means of rules of verbal behavior without knowledge of the realities of the country of the language itself. For better understanding of intercultural communication, the expert must possess knowledge of not only the professional image of the world, but must also be able to establish contact, focus on specific features of the nation and his partner, experience and understand the interlocutor as a representative of a particular social group. Thus, in the process of intercultural communication specialist understanding of a problem can be seen at linguistic and socio-cultural level, in the context of the perception of partner communication (Hofron, 2005: 41).
Teaching intercultural competence aims to increase students’ ability to deal effectively with international business objectives. As a professional, successful in his familiar environment would not necessarily have a successful business in the new environment of diverse cultures. Among the skills that constitute competence are the following: observation, identification, comparison and contrast, discussion, expression of his point of view, taking into account the opinions of others.