Modern perspectives in the study of intercultural pragmatics and their application in the educational process – from theory to practice

Contemporary foreign language teaching faces an increasing need to integrate intercultural pragmatic competence as an essential component of the educational process. Pragmatics, which studies language use in real communicative contexts, represents a key tool for understanding how speakers from different cultures structure their interactions and select strategies to express intentions in an appropriate and culturally acceptable manner. The aim of this project is to explore contemporary approaches in intercultural pragmatics and their practical application in the teaching of German and English as foreign languages, in comparison with the Macedonian language and the communicative practices of native speakers. Special attention is devoted to the analysis of speech acts, the phenomenon of politeness, and culturally specific strategies in cross-linguistic communication. The research combines a theoretical framework with empirical data, including the compilation of a corpus, the development of teaching modules, and contrastive analyses, with the objective of enhancing learners’ pragmatic awareness in foreign language acquisition. The expected results highlight the applied value of intercultural pragmatics in multicultural educational contexts, while the project offers innovation, scientific relevance, and potential for international academic cooperation. Keywords: intercultural pragmatics, teaching, speech acts, politeness, contrastive analysis, German language, English language, intercultural communication