Intercultural communication as an academic subject was introduced into linguistic Bachelor and Master education in Russia about twenty years ago. Unlike various aspects of linguistics, English studies, British and American literature which have been part and parcel of the curriculum in foreign language departments for many decades, this subject is new both to teachers and students. Its appearance in the curriculum is due to Russia's entering the global educational environment. This subject as central theoretical component of training specialists in foreign languages requires practical manuals with reference to new educational standards. Intercultural communication as a field of study is so wide that it requires the efforts of specialists in linguistics, psychology, cultural anthropology, etc. It is but natural that teaching intercultural communication in universities is limited mostly to contrastive insights into communication between representatives of two linguo-culturesthose of Russia and the country/countries of a foreign language (mostly English). This paper discusses various ways and means of developing intercultural competence, practiced in Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education. The paper also presents the results of regular anonymous questionnaires among our students dealing with teaching intercultural communication. The authors conclude that theory of intercultural communication is firmly rooted as the subject that forms young people's cultural awareness. Our experience shows that students are genuinely interested in the subject, mostly because of its possible application to their future profession.

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Of special interest is two-fold nature of the "nobility" concept, which includes both a noble origin and a high standing in society, as well as moral qualities of a person, and the fact that there is not a single word in the Kazakh language that exactly corresponds to the Russian word "nobility." The purpose of the study is to describe ways of conceptualizing nobility by speakers of different languages, modeling the associative field of the stimulus NOBILITY in the Russian and Kazakh languages, identifying similarities and differences in the conceptualization of nobility among representatives of the Russian and Kazakh cultures. The article presents the results of a psycholinguistic study, within the frame of which a mass associative experiment was conducted with groups of Russian and Kazakh respondents from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan. The obtained associative data were distributed according to the frequency criterion, followed by modeling the associative field and its cognitive structure. The common and specific components identified in the associative meaning to the stimulus NOBILITY are due to differences in the structures of languages and the ethnic specificity of the Russian and Kazakh cultures. While comparing associative fields in the Russian and Kazakhs languages, the quantitative asymmetry of semantic zones and their associates is revealed. The most voluminous semantic zone in both languages is that of moral personal qualities. The results of the study can be effective in further exploring of the linguistic consciousness and ethnic specificity of different nations, and cross-cultural research.

The article deals with verbal and non-verbal means of reflecting the present situation of pandemic in humour from linguo-cultural and intercultural point of view. The pandemic brought about numerous outbursts both in traditional mass media and social networks. One of its manifestations is a great number of jokes, anecdotes and memes about COVID-19. Various online platforms present innumerable humorous short texts. Mass media and social networks generate jokes, memes, anecdotes and caricatures. The corpus is drawn from popular social media platforms (Russian and English) and examined through derivational, stylistic, pragmatic and interpretative analyses. The paper explores the ways of creating a humorous effect on the word level (puns based on blends), on the level of short monologues and short dialogues (jokes). Special attention is paid to internet memes – multimodal (polycode) user-generated digital elements consisting of pictures or photos plus captions. The humorous effect in jokes is revealed by means of defeated expectancy when both primary and secondary meanings are manifested. The humorous effect in memes is achieved with the help of text reminiscences displayed by proper names and set phrases typical of various types of texts. The main topics distinguished in these humorous texts are quarantine, social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing and distance learning both in Russia and in English-speaking internet communities. It is shown that humour — even coronavirus and quarantine jokes — bring people together and help them feel connected in the face of adversity and uncertainty. The research will be continued by means of involving German and French humorous texts.

In the former Soviet Union translators/interpreters-to-be were trained only in a few field-specific linguistic (and in a couple of military institutions. Later, in XXI, Russia signed the Bologna Declaration, Russian institutes and universities got an opportunity to choose what they teach, were allowed to provide commercial services and many introduced both short-term training courses for translators/interpreters and long-term BA / MA translator training programs as the social demand for translators increased. This paper discusses various ways and means of translator/interpreter training both in Russia and abroad together with those practiced in Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education. The paper also presents the results of regular anonymous questionnaires among the students dealing with links between our teaching and students' views in order to facilitate both students' professional training and to make the curriculum more adaptive to the present-day situation on the job market. The results showed that though most students' views on their future profession are rather vague, most of them are not disappointed in the profession chosen. Bachelors' and masters' attitudes and assessments, however, differ as senior students have more experience and can critically evaluate their future career perspectives. Master students value their university and practical experience more than bachelor students, they know more of the situation in the job market and are ready to face the challengers of this profession. The authors conclude that the existing BA / MA programs need changes considering both students' and their potential employers' interests and demands.