INTERDISCIPLINARY INTEGRATION AND PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE-COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE

Abstract

Modern higher education requires future specialists not only to acquire professional knowledge but also to use linguistic and communication resources effectively to solve professional tasks, interact with colleagues and other participants in professional activities, present and substantiate professional decisions, and adapt communication to changing professional contexts. At the same time, the subject-based organization of education may separate language training from professional content and authentic professional situations. In this context, interdisciplinary integration can be viewed not merely as a means of combining the content of different educational components, but as a pedagogical mechanism for developing professionally meaningful language-communication experience.

The aim of the study is to theoretically substantiate the relationship between interdisciplinary integration and the development of students’ professional language-communication competence, identify its structural components and development mechanism, and determine the pedagogical conditions for its development in higher education.

Methods. The study is theoretical and conceptual in nature. Its methodological framework combines competency-based, interdisciplinary, activity-based, communicative, and learner-centred approaches. The methods include analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, comparison, systematization and generalization of theoretical positions, structural-functional analysis, and pedagogical modelling. These methods were used to clarify the essence of professional language-communication competence, determine its structural components, conceptualize its development mechanism through interdisciplinary integration, and substantiate the relevant pedagogical conditions.

Results. Professional language-communication competence is conceptualized as an integrative capacity to use linguistic resources, professional knowledge, and communication strategies to solve professional tasks, interact with participants in professional activities, present and substantiate professional decisions, and reflect on one’s own communicative activity. Its structure comprises five interrelated components: cognitive-language, communicative-activity, professional-contextual, value-motivational, and reflexive-adaptive. Interdisciplinary integration is defined not as the mechanical combination of academic subjects, but as the coordinated interaction of educational content, concepts, activities, and communication around professionally meaningful problems and tasks. A conceptual mechanism of competence development is proposed: an interdisciplinary problem is transformed into a complex professional task, which creates a need for communication, the professional use of linguistic resources, reflection, correction of communicative behaviour, and the accumulation of professional-communication experience. A conceptual model is developed that includes target, methodological, content-integrative, activity-communicative, and result-reflective components. Five pedagogical conditions are substantiated: coordination of educational components, professional orientation of language activities, problem- and activity-based organization of learning, a communication-rich educational environment, and teachers’ readiness for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Conclusions. Interdisciplinary integration provides a basis for moving from fragmented acquisition of language and professional knowledge to their functional use in professionally meaningful situations. Its pedagogical value lies in creating educational contexts in which language activity is directly connected with professional content, interaction, decision-making, and reflection. The scientific novelty of the study consists in conceptualizing interdisciplinary integration as a mechanism for developing professionally meaningful language-communication experience rather than merely as a way of combining the content of academic disciplines. Further research should focus on operationalizing the proposed competence structure, developing diagnostic criteria, indicators and levels, and experimentally testing the conceptual model and the identified pedagogical conditions.

Keywords: interdisciplinary integration, professional language-communication competence, professional communication, professional training, higher education, professional-communication experience, competency-based approach.