Understanding as a Phenomenon in Teaching Pluricultural Mediation at University

Pluricultural mediation prevents conflicts in academic environment. Understanding as a cognitive process is important for successful pluricultural mediation and teaching it as a subject at university level. The author developed and tested technologies for teaching university students to communicate with representatives of other linguistic cultures. The author investigated the levels, criteria, and conditions of understanding during mediation, as well as the concepts of language learning, mediation education, and understanding. The methodology involved psycholinguistic and communicative approaches to the phenomenon of understanding. The results involved the vertical and the horizontal levels of understanding, as well as the degree and level of understanding of translated speech. The paper reviews case studies of pluricultural range of concepts as the key unit of teaching pluricultural mediation. Misunderstanding stems from different semes and can be described based on different psychological approaches while understanding differs for processes / phenomena and men / women. Teaching understanding of verbal and non-verbal behavior requires different tools, depending on the culture and gender. As part of pluricultural mediation, understanding consists of pre-understanding, understanding, and check-up and has different criteria. Effective pluricultural mediation involves C1 language skills, pluricultural worldview, and excellent knowledge of the concept sphere of the target language. The article contains some recommendations on intercultural mediation training.