PROVERBS AND SAYINGS IN TEACHING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

This article emphasizes the importance of proverbs and sayings in teaching a foreign language for cross-cultural communication. Language is considered as a mirror of culture, which reflects not only the reality, the current state of life, but also the social consciousness of people, their mentality, national character, traditions, customs, and value system. Language creates its own specific picture of life. It transmits the national culture from one generation to another. The language stores cultural values in the vocabulary, in grammar, in folklore, in proverbs and sayings, in oral and written form. Cross-cultural communication cannot be achieved only by mastering foreign languages: it requires overcoming the cultural barrier. This barrier is intangible and is only felt when two or more cultures collide. Cultural differences can provoke major conflicts, even wars. The article pays special attention to the works devoted to the problems of American-Russian and Kazakh intercultural communication.