Overcoming Barriers in Intercultural Communication: A Case Study on Agricultural Idioms in English, Ukrainian and Chinese

Abstract

The paper deals with the case study, focused on exploring certain problems in intercultural communication of Ukrainian and Chinese students in the academic environment of Sumy National Agrarian University. The participants of the ethnographic-linguistic stage of the experiment learned, interpreted and compared the phraseological funds of the Chinese, Ukrainian and English languages, displaying the conceptual sphere “Agriculture”, in order to find out similarities and divarications in the outlook of people, engaged in agricultural production, as well as the perception of agricultural sphere in these cultural-ethnic communities. The qualitative stage of the experiment was conducted to discover the stereotypes about the representatives of other nations, which the informants had. It was revealed that learning idioms and participation in the experiment helped students overcome the stereotypes and improve the intercultural interaction amid academic groups. It was concluded that the students, who learned the target language idioms, belonging to the conceptual sphere “Agriculture”, gained knowledge of the geographical and economic conditions, moral values and traditions of the target language native speakers, became aware of the analogies in their own background. Thus, the participants realised that they could eliminate obstacles that impeded intercultural communication by mastering culturally marked target language material concerning the sphere of their future professional activity.