Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 154 ( 2014 ) 1 – 2 THE XXV ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, 20-22 October 2014 Dear readers! It is indeed a great honour and pleasure for me to present this special issue of Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, containing the selected papers presented at THE XXV ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE (20-22 October 2014). The Conference was hosted by the National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia, and was dedicated to the year of culture in Russia. The conference “Language and Culture”, held for the 25th time, develops and enhances the tradition of conferences devoted to foreign languages and cultures, and creates an ideal platform for bringing together scholars, researchers, holders of research fellowships, teacher educators and school teachers. It is the platform to share the results of research, present various projects, share experiences and new ideas on all aspects of research in language, literature, culture and related fields, and create a truly international atmosphere of cooperation and understanding. More than 700 participants registered for participation in the Conference. 150 speakers representing different countries, educational institutions, including universities, Academy of Sciences, Academy of Education, federal and regional ministries and educational departments took part in the conference. The Conference united participants from Austria, Bulgaria, China, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Taiwan, the USA, Turkey, Vietnam, as well as from various cities in the Russian Federation: Barnaul, Biysk, Chelyabinsk, Ekaterinburg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Perm, Pyatigorsk, St. Petersburg, Surgut, Tambov, Tomsk, Tyumen, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Yalta. I am delighted to mention that among the keynote speakers are prominent scientists from Russia and abroad: Prof. Ter-Minasova, Doctor of Philology, President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies, Moscow State University; Head of the FLT Council (Ministry of Education and Science, the Russian Federation); Founding President of NATE Russia; Founding President of NAAL, Russia; Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Birmingham, UK; Doctor of Humane Letters of the State University of New York (SUNY), USA; Doctor Honoris Causa of the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University, Armenia; Visiting Professor of National Research Tomsk State University, Russia; Holder of Fulbright’s 50th Anniversary Award (1995) and Lomonosov Award (1996); Honorary president of IAFOR Language Research Institute; Member of IAFOR International Advisory Board; Prof. Nechayev, Doctor of Psychology, Deputy Rector for Academic Affairs, Head of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogical Anthropology, Moscow State Linguistic University; Vice-President of the Russian Psychological Society (RPS); Executive director of the RPS; Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education; Prof. Karasik, Doctor of Philology, Professor and Chair, English Philology Department, Volgograd State Social Pedagogical University, Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Psycholinguistics, Corresponding Member of International Academy of Science and Higher Education (IASHE, London, UK), Head of Laboratory “Akseological Linguistics”, 1877-0428 © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of National Research Tomsk State University. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.102 2 Ter-Minasova et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 154 ( 2014 ) 1 – 2 Russia; Prof. Baryshnikov, Doctor of Pedagogy, Head of Department of Theory and Methodology of Teaching Intercultural Communication, Head of Dissertation Council, Rector’s Adviser, Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, Pyatigorsk, Russia; Prof. Dr. Serova, Doctor of Pedagogy, Head of the Chair of Foreign Languages, Linguistics, and cross-Cultural Communication, Perm National Research Technical University, Editorial Board Member of Perm University Journal (Russian and Foreign Linguistics), Perm, Russia; Prof. Dr. Safonova, Doctor of Pedagogy, General Director of Research Centre “Euroschool”, Moscow, Russia; Prof. Gillespie, University of Bath, UK; Prof. Rawson-Jones, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. Prof. Ndiaye, University of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn, Poland. I would like to express my special thanks to our Guest Editors, who reviewed the papers for this volume, namely, Prof. Gillespie, David (University of Bath, UK), and Prof. Rijlaarsdam, Gert C.W. (Graduate School of Teaching and Learning (GSTL) of the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Prof. Kecskes, Istvan (State University of New York at Albany, USA), whose expert opinion and critical and valuable remarks helped us in working on the issue. The publication of these Proceedings was made possible by the paper contributors and due to the support of National Research Tomsk State University and its Rector, Professor Eduard V. Galazhinskiy, within the framework of the Programme on Competitiveness Improvement among world top universities. I would like to express sincere thanks to the Elselvier team for the splendid opportunity to publish the works of our colleagues and make them available for the researchers and practitioners on the global scale. I hope you will find these papers interesting and useful and I would be sincerely glad if this publication promotes further international communication and interaction inside the global professional community. Yours sincerely, Prof. Svetlana K. Gural (Doctor of Education), Conference General Chair, Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, National Research Tomsk State University; Member of the FLT Council (Ministry of Education and Science, the Russian Federation); Chair of the FLT Coordinating Board for Siberian Universities; Member of the Academic Methodological Association for Linguistic Education (Moscow State Linguistic University); Expert of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Fou nding Editor of “Language and Culture”; Editor-in-chief of the Annual International Academic Conference “Language and Culture” Proceedings. .