Metaphor in intercultural communication

The subject of the research is the cognitive function of metaphors and their role as an important tool in intercultural communication. The object of research is metaphors as lexical and semantic units. The relevance of this article is due to the fact that intercultural communication is becoming increasingly important in the context of globalization, as interaction between different cultures is becoming more frequent and diverse. Understanding the role of metaphors in this process is important not only to improve the quality of translation and communication, but also to promote the formation of cultural identity and mutual understanding, which is especially important in today's multilingual and multicultural world. The purpose of the study is to determine the role of metaphors in the process of intercultural communication. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the functioning of metaphorical units in the framework of intercultural communication and the problem of transferring metaphors into a foreign language. Special attention is paid to the importance of metaphors in shaping cultural identity and mutual understanding between different communities. The methodology of the work corresponds to the tasks set and includes several research methods. Qualitative text analysis is used to interpret metaphors and comparative analysis is used to compare metaphors in different languages. The main conclusions of this study are the following conclusions: 1) metaphors in intercultural communication are an important tool for information exchange, 2) successful decoding of metaphors is impossible without knowledge of the cognitive context (associations, representations, concepts that determine the transfer) and the linguistic context (ways of integrating metaphors into sentences and texts). The author also notes that recognizing a metaphor is the first step towards "metaphorical competence," that is, to interpret and use metaphors competently in one's speech and in written texts of different styles to achieve communicative success in an intercultural environment. Metaphors not only enrich language, but also serve as a means to interpret complex social and cultural processes. The novelty of the research lies in the emphasis on the importance of cognitive and linguistic context for the successful decoding of metaphors, which opens up new perspectives for the scientific community to further study metaphorical terms in various fields of human activity.