Sociocultureme as a unit of semantization of extralinguistic knowledge when teaching Russian as a foreign language

The study aims to present the taxonomy of extralinguistic knowledge, as wells as to analyze the units of selection and semantization of extralinguistic knowledge of foreign students at a polytechnic university when teaching Russian as a foreign language, which are found in scientific literature. In addition, the researchers justify the choice of the sociocultureme as the most suitable unit. The paper demonstrates verbal, non-verbal, meta-verbal and extra-verbal ways of expressing the sociocultureme in order to reveal its content and determine the extralinguistic knowledge that should be formed and evaluated by foreign students in the process of language training. The study is novel in that it is the first to provide a theoretical justification of the term “sociocultureme” as a way of semanticizing knowledge and to prove the effectiveness of using maps of socioculturemes to form extralinguistic knowledge of foreign students when teaching Russian as a foreign language at a polytechnic university. Maps of socioculturemes are understood to be tables developed for the multidimensional expression of the sociocultureme, the selection of materials for which is carried out taking into account their authenticity, extralinguistic value, compliance with a professionally oriented subject plan, relevance for sociocultural adaptation, the possibility of using the results of the project in real communication in Russian in specified areas. As a result of the study, it was found that the sociocultureme is a way of semanticizing extralinguistic knowledge, and maps of socioculturemes help to form extralinguistic knowledge among foreign students at a polytechnic university.