Abstract

The article deals with the main language concepts that existed in the history of philosophic views, considers some peculiarities of foreign languages teaching, and defines teaching tasks in the context of language education. Interests in language, its origins and characteristics and other problems related to language go beyond linguistics limits and are regarded as one of the most important philosophic problems. The philosophers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages paid attention to the study of a word as a basic element of language. Later, in the Middle Ages, much attention was paid to the relation of words and notions that shifted the emphasis from words to sentences. The development of philosophy of the sentence made linguists, philosophers, psychologists, scientists in the field of logic focus their efforts on the study of the theory of sense and meaning and the laws of syntax. Modern scientists consider language in terms of philosophy of value attitude; they believe that language is created and used by people not randomly but according to their purposeful activity, practice, and people are not interested in the truth, that shows an object as it is, not regarding a person’s purposes, but considering the importance of this object for the person. Scientists put an equality sign between scientific and everyday knowledge as the language world picture reflects mass, everyday consciousness, and a human being let their impressions from the outer world through themselves and then arrange them. The world picture varies from one culture to another, so there do not exist the same ethnic cultures, so each linguistic society has its own ’world picture’, which corresponds to the orientation and existential needs. Language education supposes that students acquire skills to understand the informant of different language image, of foreign world picture; thus the ’target of educational ideas influence’ in the process of teaching foreign languages should be not only communicative ability of a student, but his secondary language consciousness and secondary cognitive consciousness. In the context of foreign language teaching opinions stated above enables making the conclusion that teaching non-native language must be aimed not only at developing students’ ability to use the target language in various situations that are socially determined, but also to attracting students to the different mode of consciousness. Hence, foreign language teaching should result in developing students’ ’language world picture’ that is typical for a foreign language speaker and corresponding picture of the world, and in the ability to recognize a personality’s motives and guidelines that belong to a different community where there are other values, and to understand a bearer of different ’language image of the world’. Foreign language teachers, along with developing students’ basic grammar and lexical skills, have to expand their individual view of the world by attracting students to the world picture of a different culture ; to explain and help learn new cultural lifestyle and behavioural models that are typical for this lifestyle ; to use linguistic and extra-linguistic means in authentic situations of intercultural communication which, in the context of multicultural paradigm, provides foreign language learning with a great potential of personality development. Modern civilization challenges necessitate, while learning a foreign language, developing new students’ outlook – the outlook of citizens of their native country and citizens of the world, who have a planetary thinking, who are able to be open to the ideas of peace and social and cultural values of other nations, who are ready to perform various forms of communication with the bearers of different language and ethnic cultures, and process the information obtained in the process of communication and to make necessary decisions. Waiting and planning this result in the sphere of language education and its actual achievement is determined by the fact that language is nowadays regarded as one of the most valuable elements of national, European and world cultural heritage, as the philosophy of intercultural social interaction. Language is the means of adequate interaction between different language societies that should not be a factor that blocks dialogues between different cultures, but should turn into the means of mutual understanding and enrichment. Thus, grounding on relevant philosophic foundations and using innovative educational technologies, language can become a means of non-violent social change at the national and planetary levels.