Mediation as a Component of Communicative Competence in Training International Relations Professionals: Collaboration Between Russia and Kazakhstan

The world lives in the era of conflict, when the safety and well-being of states or individuals to a large extent depend on the availability of well-trained professionals who are able to perform mediating functions, keeping in mind ethnic, national, political, cultural and other differences between conflicting sides. However, employers increasingly claim that todays graduates lack the skills required for conflict management and mediation even in homogeneous working environments, let alone multinational teams and international interaction. This problem is particularly relevant for the field of international relations where conflict resolution by peaceful means is very important. Countries with transition economies, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, where there is a gap between labor market requirements and university teaching practices, have been searching for new ways to educate and train young specialists. This article presents the preliminary results of a collaborative project between Petrozavodsk State University of the Russian Federation and Gumilyov Eurasian National University of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The project includes a set of dialogue- and polylogue-based learning activities with special focus on addressing any discrepancies, misunderstandings and divergence of views. The aim of the paper is to assess the impact of professionally oriented cross-border communication in the English language on the readiness of international relations students from Russia and Kazakhstan for resolving future professional disputes through mediation. The authors used formal structured questionnaires with closed-ended questions for obtaining necessary data and the comparative analysis method for interpreting them. The results suggest that systematic English-language cross-border communication in a realistic work-like environment will demonstrate the importance of mediation as a component of professional communicative competence to the students and will better prepare future foreign affairs staff for conflict resolution and mediation.

Might Covid-19 Require Revision of Language Management?

Language management refers to state administrative regulations, policies, and activities on the language(s) use within educational, legal, and other public domains and to the scientific discipline which studies this phenomenon. We argue that during COVID-19 health emergency, the concept of language management might need revision as new topics and contexts have come to light within the discussion on language use amid the current pandemic. We explore key dimensions of this discussion representation in public communication, identify language-use related topics which have been mentioned in this discussion, study its levels and major actors. The texts from official sites of international organizations, national governments, public and non-profit social agencies, mass media were selected. The corpus of 238 sources with a total of 193478 words was subject to manual and computer-based thematic content coding and clustering. The results reveal language-use related topics within the information and discussion topics during the COVID-19, specify the levels at which the above topics discussed, outline those actors who initiate/take part/form the target audience within the discussion on language use during the COVID-19. The research also leads to the conclusion on the critical importance of such issues as the style of international and national leaderships addresses, production and timeliness of multilingual data on the pandemic, countermeasures against misinformation and anti-nation bias, development of protocols for the use of fact-based rational language. The mentioned items are considered as the key components of a language management framework for policy and actions which need a coordinated interagency response within local and global contexts during the COVID-19.

Registering the Impact of Words in Spoken Political and Journalistic Texts

Words in spoken political and journalistic texts may inspire, infuriate or even become mottos. Often, the entire spoken interaction may be forgotten, yet individual words may remain associated with the Speaker and/or the group represented by the Speaker or even the individual word or words themselves obtain a dynamic of their own, outshining the original Speaker. In the current-state-of affairs, connected with the impact of international news networks and social media, the impact of words in spoken political and journalistic texts is directly linked to its impact to a diverse international audience. The impact or controversy of a word and related topic may be registered by the reaction it generates. Special focus is placed in the registration and evaluation of words and their related topics in spoken political and journalistic discussions and interviews. Although as text types, spoken political and journalistic texts pose challenges for their evaluation, processing and translation, the presented approaches allow the registration of complex and implied information, indications of Speakers attitude and intentions and can contribute to evaluating the behaviour of Speakers-Participants. This registration also allows the identification of words generating positive, negative or diverse reactions, their relation to Cognitive Bias and their impact to a national and international audience within a context of international news networks and social media.

Enhancing Tools for Sustainable Health Communication within Covid-19

The paper provides short commentary on key features of public health communication during the current pandemic. The paper contains empirical analysis of field data from international, regional, and local national sources related to the industry, institutions, research in the field of study. The thematic content analysis through the computer-based coding served as the background investigation method. The study provides preliminary data on the key topics within official communication on health care issues during COVID-19, explores challenges to communication on health issues during COVID-19, identifies possible tools for sustainable health communication in the current COVID-19 pandemic, and outlines tentative recommendations to foster sustainable communication on health issues during the pandemic.

Using Technologies to Foster the Reading Habit in L2 (English)

In a society which is becoming more and more globalized, it is essential to promote teaching processes that enable the meaningful acquisition of knowledge, emphasizing the learning of English, as the main goal of the teachers. Reading in education is the paradigm of culture and is part of the language learning process. Nevertheless, its practice has declined in recent years. Consequently, through this Project, with the aim of motivating the Reading frequency, we intend to take a deeper look into the role of technologies in order to foster the Reading habit in a foreign language, highlighting the importance of reading for the student cognitive development. For that reason, an innovation proposal for promoting reading based on the use of ICT in the educational field is presented, with a specific focus on the Booktube community, as a tool to increase interest and motivation in reading.

International Negotiation Competition For Law Students: National Rounds Outward Glance

Language is an essential instrument for many professionals and lawyers are among those who occupy the first lines. The lawyers use the language to address the court, interview a client, negotiate a contract or a dispute. Communicative competence is crucial for the legal profession and participating in competitions for law students is one of the ways to foster and master it alongside taking traditional classes and courses. The article gives a brief overview of existing international competitions for law students and aims at finding ways of improving the International Negotiation Competition (INC) national rounds organization. This goal is approached by conducting a survey among former participants of INC national rounds in Russia and Norway and analyzing its results. The conclusions prompted are as follows: to conduct timely surveys among all participates, to engage former participants in national rounds organization, to work out new rules for holding online events.