The role of forming linguocultural competence in Japanese language teaching

• Mikhail I. Prokofev

  Mikhail I. Prokofev. Moscow City Pedagogical University. Moscow. Russia

Abstract. The subject of this article is the formation of linguocultural competence in the process of teaching Japanese. The aim of the study is to substantiate the significance of this set of skills within the framework of mastering this language system. The paper provides a comparative analysis of the existing definitions of this concept; the characteristic features of Japanese culture reflected in its language system are given. The article concludes that such specific features of the Japanese national character as: the division of society into "their own" and "strangers" (the categories of uchi and soto), the observance of strict subordination between superior and inferior (not only the social status, but also the age of the participants of communication is considered), increased attention to the implicit component of the statement (most of the communicative message may remain unspoken, but at the same time remain available to the recipient – a native speaker of Japanese) – are vital to the development of linguistic skills. The essential component of linguocultural competence – the perception of culturally labelled content of linguistic units – allows to control the mentioned factors both in the interlocutor's speech and in one's own speech activity, which allows us to speak about the necessity of its formation within the framework of Japanese language teaching. Considering the current lack of specialised manuals aimed at forming linguocultural competence in Japanese language teaching, this article can become a theoretical basis for further research in this area, including practical orientation.
Keywords: linguocultural competence, Japanese language, linguodidactics, foreign language communication, implicit content, social status.