CULTURAL BARRIERS AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: A LITERATURE-BASED APPROACH

GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 82 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17391637 CULTURAL BARRIERS AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: A LITERATURE-BASED APPROACH Khudoyberdiyeva Durdona Akmal qizi English teacher at school 265, Yunusabot district, Tashkent city Annotation. Language is intimately linked to culture: it grows within it, develops within it, and expresses it. Language and culture share common characteristics: they are forms that create and reflect the worldview of a people and an individual; they engage in a constant dialogue, as the subject of communication is always a subject of a particular culture; they have individual and social forms of existence; both phenomena are characterized by normativity, historicism, and the mutual inclusion of one sphere in the other. Language is an integral part of culture, the primary instrument for its assimilation, and the bearer of the specific traits of a national mentality. Key words: Intercultural communication, culture and language, interpretation, human behavior and communication, philology, foreign language. In everyday life, the concept of culture arises when discussing common manners and everyday ethics. However, this concept is limited to the cultural context of behavior. This concept is insufficient for understanding culture and identifying its essence. Thus, in 1964, American researchers A. Kroeber and K. Kluckhohn collected approximately 257 definitions of culture and made over 100 attempts to define the concept descriptively. Since then, these numbers have only grown. There is no shortage of definitions in Russian sociology and cultural studies. This alone clearly demonstrates the complexity of this social phenomenon—culture. GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 83 To understand the essence of culture as a social phenomenon, it is necessary, first of all, to consider some definitions of culture. The human world is a world of culture. In its original meaning, culture ("cultivated") stands in contrast to "nature"—the natural—and signifies that which distinguishes man from nature, distinguishing the artificial world from the natural world. This is a world created from beginning to end by man himself, and it stands in contrast to both the natural world and the divine world, which exists beyond man. In this very broad sense, culture encompasses all the material and spiritual values accumulated by humans and the means by which they are enhanced. In other words, culture is "the concentrated experience of previous generations, enabling each individual to assimilate this experience and participate in its enhancement." Undoubtedly, such phenomena as culture and language are closely linked. However, it should be noted that this relationship is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Language is what lies on the surface of human existence in culture, and therefore, from the 19th century (J. Grimm, R. Raek, B. Humboldt, A. A. Potebnya) to this day, the problem of the relationship and interaction of language and culture has been one of the central issues in linguistics [2, p. 107]. The first attempts to address this problem are found in the works of W. Humboldt, whose fundamental principles and concepts can be summarized as follows: 1) material and spiritual culture are embodied in language; 2) all culture is national, its national character expressed in language through a particular worldview; Language has an inherent internal form (IF) specific to each nation; 3) The IF of language is an expression of the "national spirit," its culture; 4) Language is the mediating link between a person and the world around him. The concept of V. Humboldt received a unique interpretation in the work of A. A. Potebnya “Thought and Language”, in the works of Sh. Bally, J. Vendries, I. A. Bodouenade Kurtenais, R. O. Jacobson and other researchers. The idea that language GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 84 and reality are structurally similar was first expressed by L. Elmslev, who noted that the structure of language can be equated to the structure of reality or taken as a more or less distorted reflection of it. How exactly are language, reality, and culture related? E. F. Tasov notes that language is included in culture, since the “body” of the sign (the signifier) is a cultural object, in the form of which the linguistic and communicative ability of a person is determined, the meaning of the sign is also a cultural formation that arises only in human activity [12, p. 102]. Culture is also included in language, since it is entirely modeled within the text. However, the interaction of language and culture must be studied with extreme caution, remembering that these are different semiotic systems. Intercultural communication is communication between representatives of different cultures. Therefore, to understand intercultural communication, it is important to understand what culture is and what role culture plays in the communication process. The definition of culture given in the first topic is closest to that of the English scholar Edward B. Tylor, one of the founders of ethnography and anthropology, who understood culture as "a complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other abilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society"[11]. This definition is important and interesting insofar as it seeks to encompass all the diverse components that representatives of various sciences attribute to the concept of culture. However, this also constitutes its main drawback: it is too broad. To analyze culture in its specific manifestations, we need a narrower definition. According to various estimates, there are between 400 and 1,200 different definitions of culture. It is, of course, impossible to cover them all within the scope of this textbook, so we will consider only three approaches to understanding culture. The last two of these— normative and anthropological—are, in our view, the most suitable for solving applied problems associated with the analysis of intercultural communication situations. For a more detailed overview of these and some other approaches to understanding culture, see A.P. Sadokhin’s textbook “Introduction to Intercultural Communication” [9]. GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 85 An anthropobiological approach to understanding culture is intriguing: the formation of ethnic groups and ethnic divergence in humans act as an analogy to speciation in nature; the development of cultures reflects and compensates for the decline of biological adaptation and speciation. A normative approach: culture consists of the norms and rules that govern human life. If we consider culture as a set of norms, then when analyzing a specific situation of intercultural communication, we can identify the norms of each interacting culture that are important in that situation and analyze the results of their interaction. Culture is a set of norms that define human behavior and communication, learned through socialization and reproduced by people through social practices. This definition emphasizes the following: - Culture is a set of norms, meaning it defines what is permitted and what is not, what is encouraged and what is prohibited. These norms are shared by a society, and by learning these norms, a person becomes part of that society. - Culture is not innate; cultural norms are learned. An important quality of culture is continuity: individual (the individual’s identity with itself throughout its development) and collective. Culture is dual: it is simultaneously the result of human activity and the mechanisms that regulate that activity. Culture, in this sense, is far from limited to a set of norms specific to a particular ethnic group. But not only are Englishmen and Germans representatives of different cultures; as already mentioned, you and your parents are bearers of different sets of cultural norms, i.e., different cultures. Moreover, in the latter case, the differences in cultural norms are likely less significant and noticeable than in the former. Anthropological approach: the primary meaning of culture is seen in activity. Culture is the sum of values, norms, and symbol systems of a society, which are reflected in the thinking, ideas, and behavioral patterns of its bearers. At the same time, representatives of cognitive anthropology see culture as a body of knowledge, i.e., as something intangible, existing in the consciousness of culture bearers. For Clifford J. Geertz, an American scholar and the founder of interpretive anthropology, culture is GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 86 not a system of knowledge, but of mechanisms, "plans, methods, rules, instructions," by which human behavior is regulated. This understanding is especially important for us, since we want to learn to analyze situations of intercultural communication, i.e., human behavior in these situations. Culture, in this understanding, is the mechanisms that determine such behavior. Within the framework of this course, culture is proposed to be understood as a system of norms and mechanisms assimilated during socialization, enculturation, and acculturation, which to some extent determine human behavior. Since the early 20th century, two approaches have existed in the sciences studying different cultures (particularly ethnic cultures): evolutionary and relativistic. The first, rooted in the teachings of Parvin, assumes a unified scale of human development, with each individual culture following a "standard," linear path of development (i.e., according to this approach, cultures differ from one another in their degree of development; there are more and less developed cultures). This approach is ethnocentric in nature. The second approach—relativistic—assumes that each individual culture is unique. According to this approach, it is not the parallelism of overall cultural development that should be investigated, but the particular character of each culture. Each culture is independent; the peculiarities of the cultural existence of all peoples should be understood only in the context of their own history, religion, and social reality. It is well known that language, as the most important element of speech, fulfills a profound social mission by transmitting the accumulated experience and knowledge of human society to future generations. Language, as a form of culture, perpetuates the fruits of thought and cultural values across time and space, which constantly presuppose each other and foster mutual coexistence and development. Thinking is unique to humans. It coexists with human labor and speech. Thinking manifests itself through speech and is encoded in language as its consequence. GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 87 Language is the mirror of a nation’s soul. Language reflects the art, literature, history, traditions, worldview, aspirations, and patriotic feelings of a nation. Every word and every form is the result of thought and feeling. Language expresses the characteristics of the homeland and its people. Respect for one’s native language and the appropriate use of its invaluable potential, the ability to speak and write clearly and effectively, and achieving literacy are the primary duties of every native speaker of that language. In recent years, as society develops, there has been a noticeable increase in interest and demand for learning foreign languages. Today, scientific and technological progress is the primary driver of learning not just one, but several foreign languages. In particular, everyday telecommunications, television, the internet, and radio channels deliver global information to their users via several languages. Various guidelines and recommendations are issued to facilitate their use of these same languages. Consequently, the problems of language teaching and learning have always been pressing. The need to know several languages is a key one. By learning a language, a person also acquires several national qualities, traditions, and the culture of its speakers. A person who knows several languages is one who has mastered the culture of the nation or people speaking that language. For each language is imbued with a nationality and culture unique to it. The purpose of language as a tool of communication is called its communicative function. By communicating with one another, people convey their thoughts, expressions of will, feelings, and emotional experiences, influencing one another in a specific direction, and achieving mutual understanding. Language enables people to understand one another and collaborate in all spheres of human activity. Language has been and remains one of the forces that ensures the existence and development of human society. GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 88 The communicative function of language is its fundamental social function. As it develops, becomes more complex, and becomes socialized, language acquires expressive and accumulative functions. The expressive function of language is its ability to express information, convey it, and influence the interlocutor [4, p. 105]. The expressive function is considered the unity of expression and transmission of a message (the informative function), feelings and emotions (the emotive function), and the speaker’s expression of will (the volitional function). The thought-forming function is where language is used as a means of thinking in the form of words. Language is not only a means of communication between individual speakers. Language is also a means of international communication, a means of preserving accumulated experience and knowledge for posterity. This function of language— reflecting knowledge and preserving it—is called the cognitive (epistemological) function. Language, as the most important means of communication, fulfills its social functions thanks to the flexibility of its units, the multidimensionality, and the dynamism of the language system and its categories. Different units of language contribute differently to the social functions of language, to the expression and transmission of messages. Nominative and predicative units of language—words and sentences—are used directly in the act of communication. Nominative units include not only individual meaningful words (house, walk, five, good, quickly, etc.), but also compound names and phraseological units (railway, give a lecture, with all my heart, etc.). Predicative units are various types of sentences. In addition to communicative units, language also possesses structural units necessary for constructing nominative and predicative units. These units of language include phonemes and morphemes, word forms, and patterns of word formation, inflection, and sentence construction. GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 89 The resources of language, its units, and patterns, have a tripartite relationship: to the linguistic system, to thought, and to the individual—the speaker, listener, and reader. Units of language differ in their material and ideal aspects, their form and content, and the nature of these aspects and their relationships to one another vary across the different aspects [, p8. 144]. All units, like all symbolic units, have a material aspect. They must be perceived by the senses, primarily by hearing and sight. The ability of language units to be perceived is called their perceptual function. Language units serve to designate and distinguish something else, something ideal and material. The ability of language units to designate and distinguish is called their significative function. The material aspect of language units is formed by phonemes and morphemes, as well as their typical combinations—phoneme and morpheme blocks. Phonemes and morphemes are the smallest units of language; they have distinctive functions. For example, the words "zhar" and "shar," "var" and "vor," and "vor" and "vol" are distinguished by one phoneme, each of which is not a morpheme. The words "nabor" and "podbor" (set) and "sobry" (collection) are distinguished by a prefix morpheme, while the words "sbornik" (collector) and "sbornik" (collector) are distinguished by a suffix morpheme. Thus, it can be argued that culture is the assimilated and embodied experience of human life. Experience, in turn, represents a coherent unity of knowledge and skills that has developed into a model of action in any situation; a program adopted as a model for solving all kinds of emerging problems. In other words, culture can be viewed as a specific set of stereotypes that define and thereby limit a person’s ability to act in any circumstances. Any historical type of culture represents an inseparable unity of two components: current culture and accumulated culture, or cultural memory. Current culture is understood as that part of culture that directly functions in a given society and is expressed in everyday manifestations—the culture of work, everyday life, and behavior [8, p. 90]. Cultural memory is a specific cultural activity that does not directly GOLDEN BRAIN ISSN: 2181-4120 VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 15 | 2025 Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal September, 2025 90 participate in the reproduction of social life. It represents ancient knowledge and skills, deferred but not erased by progress, that underlie the current level of development and, when necessary, can be retrieved from oblivion. Thus, matches are an element of current culture today, while the creation of fire by friction belongs to the realm of cultural memory. If necessary, we are capable of rubbing sticks, but only if our matches are hopelessly damp. To all questions facing them, people seek answers in the culture they’ve adopted. The latter offers them a choice: current or accumulated experience. Choosing a third option is impossible, for it’s impossible to choose something that doesn’t exist or that’s still unknown. When social upheavals shake society and human life becomes unbearable, and current culture offers no answers to pressing questions—whether in economics, politics, or ideology—people begin to look beyond its boundaries. And here, culture offers no answer other than accumulated experience and tradition. People seek answers in the past because they have nowhere else to look. The individual—the thinker, the genius—is capable of rising above the limitations of culture and seeing new horizons for development. The masses, however, always adhere to the principle, "What’s new is well-forgotten old." Such is the paradox of culture. To be fair, it must be said that, being semiotic systems, they have much in common: 1) Culture, like language, is a form of consciousness that reflects a person’s worldview; 3) The subject of culture and language is always an individual or a community, a person or a society; 4) Normativity is a common feature of language and culture; 5) Historicism is one of the essential properties of culture and language; 6) Language and culture are characterized by the "dynamic-static" antinomy. Language and culture are interconnected: 1) in communication processes; 2) in ontogenesis (the development of human linguistic abilities);