Prospects for the evolution of a foreign language textbook for a non-linguistic university

We discuss issues related to rethinking the general status of a textbook as the main aid of teaching, its place and role in the system of teaching a foreign language (FL) at non-linguistic universities. A retrospective analysis of the main trends in the development of the concept of the foreign language textbook, the history of the transformation of its forms, functions and significance is given. The increasing role of modern multimedia textbooks and integrated digital linguistic educational environments as an alternative to the traditional textbook is shown. The need for the textbook authors to take into account modern scientific and methodic ideas about the target, content and procedural aspects of foreign language education is proved. The increasing relevance of intra-university publications is shown. An integrative methodology is proposed as a guideline for the development of the concept of a modern foreign language textbook at a non-linguistic university. The productivity of integrating profession-oriented foreign language training, the competencebased, communicative and intercultural approaches is substantiated. The contextual approach is considered as a way to actualize the profession-oriented vector of teaching foreign language at a non-linguistic university. It is shown that the implementation of the contextual approach requires that departments of foreign languages at non-linguistic universities of various profiles should specify the content of teaching a foreign language, in order to identify and clarify the features of professional communication of the specialists of a particular profile. In this case, it is necessary to take into account not only purely scientific and technical/ontological (subject context), but social, communicative, organizational aspects of communication (social context) as well. Summing up the results of the undertaken analysis, the author formulates the requirements for the content and structure of a modern textbook. A forecast is presented regarding the most probable directions of evolution of a foreign language textbook for non-linguistic universities.