The Importance of Teaching Intercultural Communication to ESP and BE Students

The article provides a review of publications concerning the role of intercultural knowledge in business communication. In business communication culture-imposed rules are even more important than linguistic rules. For business communication in English such rules are application of special request formulas and tentative discourse. It is essential that these peculiarities should be explained to non-native English speakers and concrete cases created. When students are unaware of them communication problems should be viewed to prove to students the importance of the issue. Examples of both phenomena and practical recommendations how to overcome the difficulty are offered in the article.