Cross- Linguistic and Cultural Analysis in a Foreign Language Targeted at Background Knowledge Sampling

The paper deals with the role of background knowledge in building the translating/interpreting competence of the students majoring in Linguistics. Methods/analyses: the leading approach used by the authors is observation, collecting and analyzing the data received via the experiment. The authors mark the main problems: lack of attention to background knowledge in teaching methodology of translation in academic major of linguistics. The article is provided by the experiment carried out with the second-year students of the Kazan Federal University. The authors come to the conclusion that background knowledge is crucial for future translators/interpreters and provide recommendations and tools to improve the academic background knowledge acquisition process for the sake of better understanding between communication agents.