ADDRESSING INTERCULTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL-COMMUNICATIVE CHALLENGES IN TEACHING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE

Abstract

Annotation. The development of pragmatic competence has become increasingly significant in foreign language education, as learners must acquire not only grammatical knowledge but also the ability to communicate appropriately across diverse sociocultural contexts. This article highlights the essential role of instructors in fostering learners’ awareness of the communicative norms of the target language and in guiding them through the process of understanding the “other” in intercultural communication. It explores key barriers to pragmatic competence, such as interlingual interference, interlingual gaps, and pragmatic transfer both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic. Using the speech act of advice as an example, the article compares strategies used by native speakers of English and Russian, demonstrating how differences in modality, tone, and formality can impact communication.