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Terminological Definition in Vocabulary Building Process
тельность параллелизма усиливается ещё и тем, что в большинстве случаев синтаксически эти конструкции оказываются самостоятельными, семантическая связь не поддерживается формально грамматическими средствами — они не связаны союзами. Например:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the reason of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we were going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way, — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil, in the superlative degrees of comparison only. (Ch. Dickens. A Tale of two cities, p. 3).
В данном симметрично построенном предложении можно выделить общие повторяющиеся члены синтаксического рисунка: it was the ... of. В подобных случаях неповторяющиеся слова оказываются выделенными. Эти слова выделяются в результате ритмического построения. Ритмически выделенными являются именно те слова, которые подчеркиваются как противопо-
ложности: best- worst, wisdom-foolishness, belief-incredulity. Параллелизм конструкций, повтор в данном высказывании создают особый ритм и способствуют раскрытию эмоциональной функции антитезы.
На основании выше изложенного можно сделать следующие выводы:
— антитеза отличается большими стилистическими возможностями и многообразием стилистических функций;
— в основе антитезы как стилистического приёма лежит явление контраста, который проявляется в противопоставлении понятий, явлений, предметов, признаков;
— ведущую роль в создании художественного контраста выполняет антитеза, как сложное, многомерное стилистическое явление;
— анализ лингвистической литературы свидетельствует о том, что антитеза в английском языке имеет фрагментарное описание в плане структурносемантических и функциональных характеристик;
— главной стилистической фигурой при воплощении контрастных художественных смыслов произведения, при создании контрастных художественных образов является антитеза.
Список литературы:
1. Ашурова Д. У Производное слово в свете коммуникативной теории языка. - Ташкент, 1991.
2. Гальперин И. Р. Текст как объект лингвистического исследования. - М.: Наука, 1981.
3. Виноградов В. В. Стилистика. Теория поэтической речи. Поэтика. - М., 1963.
4. Шинкаренко Ю. В. Контрастность и языковые средства её выражения//Словесность: традиции и современность. - Ростов н/Д: РГПУ 2006.
Medvedeva Elena S, Siberian Federal University Senior Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages for Engineering, Institute of Philology and Language Communication E-mail: Medvedeva@sfu-kras.ru
Terminological Definition in Vocabulary Building Process
Abstract: The article discusses the possibilities of using a terminological definition as a short text in the language for specific purposes teaching/learning. Representing an abundant supply of specialized vocabulary and general scientific speech patterns, a terminological definition should be taken into account as a full value language resource.
Keywords: Terminological Definition, Short Text, Vocabulary Building, Language for Specific Purposes, LSP, Specialized Dictionary.
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What is already known about this topic
1. The main problem of teaching and acquisition ofLanguage for Specific Purposes (LSP) is what vocabulary is to be taught/learnt and how its volume should be determined.
Coxhead (2013) mentions the difficulty of identifying specialized or technical vocabulary with narrow use within the bounds of a particular subject area. In that way, technical dictionaries can help find words, technical in their nature. Everyday words with a particular meaning in a specialized context present another difficulty [1, 115-132].
Nevertheless, researchers distinguish specialized dictionaries made on the basis of text corpora which are results of subject-field-internal or -external communication. So, Bergenholtz and Tarp (1995) distinguish texts representing messages from expert to expert (expert language), from expert to semi-expert (the LSP of textbooks, etc.), from semi-expert to semi-expert (jargon and the language used in texts by experts from related areas), from expert to layman (the language used in popularized texts), from semiexpert to layman (the language used in popularized texts) [2, 19].
As stated by Basturkmen (2006) and Coxhead (2013), there are two tendencies in determining where Language for General Purposes (LGP) and LSP should be separated: according to one of them specialization should begin early, another one suggests that there is a core LGP that every learner should know before starting an LSP course [3, 1529], [1, 115-132].
2. Presenting vocabulary to learners in the form of lists is now passing out of use since words are easier to learn in context. Thornbury (2002) considers different types of context for teaching vocabulary. Texts, corpora and dictionaries can provide us topically connected sets of words (lexical fields), significantly frequent vocabulary (key words), examples of synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and hypernymy, etc. The most attention in his How to teach Vocabulary is paid to short texts which are especially convenient for intensive grammatical and lexical study. In addition to lexical fields, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms, they offer examples of collocations, long noun phrases, non-finite verbs, etc. [4, 53-74].
Thornbury (2002) suggests a wide range of classroom activities for identifying lexical and grammatical items in a short text and developing classroom activities with them. These activities include looking for lexical chains and determining types of relationship between words therein (collocations, synonyms, antonyms, hyponymys and their superordinates), reconstructing the text from memory or writing a 50-word summary of it, finding examples of targeted lexical feature, such as long noun phrases or idioms, separating different types of noun phrases, completing the text with targeted items blanked out, describing functions of targeted grammatical items [4, 53-74]. As for dictionaries, they can provide reference in such activities as matching words to form collocations, completing grids or spidergrams of cognate words [4, 53-74].
What this paper adds
The point of this paper is to show the possibilities of using a terminological definition from a specialized dictionary as a short text in LSP classroom.
Representing an example of a very short text, terminological definition possesses all the features of the latter. First, as a text, a definition is a high level unit of language with its inner relations and means of their realization. Second, it’s the highest unit of communication, so it has certain communicative purpose, and its structural and functional organization is subject to this purpose. Third, it possesses a semantic completeness, but only exists in the system ofdiscourse, that is, in its overtextual and text-surrounding extralinguistic background [5, 18-19], [6, 12], [7, 15].
It is worth to noting that a terminological definition is firmly associated with a certain lexical field. It is, as well, extremely rich in terms and includes general scientific vocabulary, connectors and the core grammar patterns typical for scientific and technical texts.
So, it is evidently that a terminological definition has no drawbacks in comparison with other short scientific and technical texts regarding their lexical content. On the contrary, it is exceptionally dense with terms, which always appear within a group of closely allied vocabulary, displaying its hierarchic, spatial and other relations.
Thus, the use of explanatory dictionary of technical vocabulary in the classroom can be considerably widened due to its capacity as a text.
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Terminological Definition in Vocabulary Building Process
Examples of activities
It should be indicated that the activities offered here are developed for groups ofstudents ofLogistics with low knowledge of core LGP who are at the same time semi-experts or sometimes laymen in their field of knowledge. So, the chosen type of terminological dictionaries is “from expert to semi-expert”.
The first suggestion is to take a set of semantically connected definitions for each lesson (according to the topic of the lesson or the main text studied in it). The example in the Table 1 displays a definition set on the topic Buying and selling goods. The definitions are taken from a English-Russian explanatory dictionary of Logistics terms [8].
Table 1. - Vocabulary by topic: Buying and selling goods
Definitions
Acceptance When a buyer agrees to take goods from a seller and must therefore pay for them. Active stock (cycle stock, lot-size inventory, batch stock, base stock, working stock) 1. A stock that is being actively bought and sold. 2. Goods in active pick locations and ready for order filling.
Lexical chains
1. Process of buying and selling: buy (-er, -ing), sell (-er, -ing), goods, accept (-ance, -ing), agree (-ment, -ing), pay (-ment, -ing). 2. Buyer: accept, agree to take goods (from), pay (for). Process of buying and selling: buy, sell, stock, goods, order, fill.
Relationship types between words in the chains
buyer - seller (antonyms), accept - agree to take (synonyms), accept - pay (sequence of actions) bought - sold (antonyms), stock - goods (synonyms), active stock - cycle stock - lot-size inventory - batch stock -base stock - working stock (synonyms)
Collocations
take goods (from) actively bought, actively sold, ready for order filling
Participles
bought, sold
Noun phrases
(adj. + noun + noun): active pick location, (noun+gerund) order filling
Connectors
therefore that
To begin with, students may be encouraged to extract lexical chains from the given definitions and to analyze the relationship types between words in them (synonyms, antonyms, sequences of actions, hyponyms and their hypernyms, etc.).
Then, a semantic map can be made including the vocabulary of the whole set of definition.
Besides, the students can be offered to find noun phrases or participles, or other grammar items a buyer agrees — buyer’s agreement, a order filling — to fill orders, etc.
that are being studied at the moment. They can be translated into students’ native language or the teacher can prepare other classroom activities with them. For instance, an activity implying collocation transformations may be developed for this purpose. The teacher possibly will add some other grammar into it, as possessive case is added in this exercise:
buyer accepts — buyer’s acceptance;
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Section 3. Applied and mathematical linguistics
The teacher may also encourage students to grammatical transformations have been made: fill the gaps in one of the definitions where some
Acceptance means buyer’s_______to______goods from a_______and therefore
___________them. (Acceptance means buyer’s agreement to take goods from
a seller and therefore pay for them).
At the end ofthe lesson the students are supposed to be able to:
1. reconstruct the definitions (a more challenging modification is by making some grammatical transformations);
The seller company offers goods, then the buyer company fills orders, after that the seller company supplies goods, the buyer company agrees or not to take them from the seller, and if it does, it pays for them.
In the Table 2 the reader can see another set of definitions from the same dictionary.
2. give definitions to the words from lexical chains;
3. give a short descriptive talk on the topic or translate a descriptive text on the topic prepared by the teacher from their native language into English. For example:
Table 2. - Vocabulary by topic: Warehouse equipment
Del initions
Accumulator area The area of warehouse location with defined space and height, in which there are racks, shelves and bays with defined storage goods addresses. Aisle Passage between warehouse racks, between warehouse walls and racks, etc. The width of aisle depends on sizes of storaged goods, view of used FLT (and other transport equipment — reach trucks, pallet movers) and other factors. Pallet A horizontal platform, of minimum height compatible with handling by pallet trucks, and/or forklift trucks and other appropriate handling equipment, used as a base for assembling, storing, handling and transporting goods and loads. It may be constructed with, or fitted with a superstructure. Fork-lift truck (FLT) A small vehicle with special equipment on the front for lifting and moving heavy things, for example, large boxes of goods, on pallets.
Lexical chains
1. Warehouse: rack, shelf, bay, area, accumulator area, storage goods address. 2. Size: space, height. 1. Warehouse: wall, rack, aisle. 2. Dimensions: width, size. 3. Warehouse transport equipment: FLT, reach trucks, pallet movers. 1. Warehouse handling equipment: pallet trucks, forklift trucks. 2. Warehouse actions: assemble (-ing), store (-ing), handle (-ing), transport (-ing). 3. Pallet: horizontal platform, base, superstructure, goods, loads, construct, fit. 4. Space: horizontal, height. 1. Actions: lift (-ing), move (-ing). 2. Containers: box, pallet. 3. Equipment: vehicle, FLT, fork-lift truck, equipment.
Relationship types between words in the chains
warehouse — storage goods address — area — accumulator area — rack, shelf, bay (hyponyms and their hypernyms). warehouse—wall, rack, aisle (hyponyms and their hypernyms), warehouse transport equipment — FLT, reach trucks, pallet movers (hyponyms and their hypernyms). pallet trucks, forklift trucks, handling equipment (hyponyms and their hypernyms), pallet — horizontal platform (synonyms), goods — loads (objects to be transported). equipment — vehicle — FLT (hyponyms and their hypernyms), FLT — fork-lift truck (synonyms).
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Terminological Definition in Vocabulary Building Process
Collocations
depend on compatible with handling (by), appropriate equipment heavy things, small vehicle, special equipment, large box
Participles
defined storaged, used constructed, fitted, used
Noun phrases
warehouse location warehouse racks, warehouse walls, the width of aisle, sizes of storaged goods, view of used FLT, transport equipment, reach trucks, pallet movers minimum height, pallet trucks, forklift trucks, handling equipment large boxes of goods
Connectors
(in) which as for example
Another suggestion is to collect vocabulary by type and use it depending on the type being studied at the moment. It will possibly be:
• synonyms of general scientific vocabulary;
• specialized and other collocations;
• general scientific speech patterns;
• word-formation examples;
• connectors.
The teacher may create a database of terms with their definitions and sort them by topic or by type
of grammatical and lexical features they contain. It will be of great help at any time when the teacher needs to prepare classroom activities involving some of these features.
The example in the Table 3 shows definitions collected by type of grammatical and lexical items. They are taken from a Spanish-English dictionary of Logistics terms with Spanish definitions [9]. These 10 terms have been chosen at random:
Table 3. - Vocabulary by type
Definitions (Spanish/English) Synonyms (Spanish — English) Specialized and other collocations General scientific speech patterns Connectors
aceite multigrado/multigrade oil Tipo de aceite lubricante del motor que ofrece mayor resistencia a los cambios de temperatura, de modo que su grado de viscosidad se mantiene estable, sin espesar en exceso con el frfo, ni licuarse con el calor. de modo que (de forma que) - so that
admitase el contenedor vacio/empty container admittance pass Documento que el responsable de la gestion del contenedor expide a favor del transportista para que dicho equi-pamiento sea admitido por el deposito de contenedores. expedir (extender) un documento a favor de -to issue a document for, con elfin de (para) - in order to dicho - this, such con el fin de (para) - in order to
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agente de carga aerea/ air freight forwarder Cuando una empresa transitaria ejerce su actividad en el ambito del transporte aereo se denomina “agente de carga aerea”. Comercializa las bodegas de las li'neas aereas, constituyendo el sistema de distribucion de la carga aerea, y co-ordina la demanda de transporte aereo con la oferta de las compani'as. Si no esta registrado y reconocido por la Aso-ciacion Internacional de Transporte Aereo (IATA), no puede emitir contratos de transporte aereo internacional ni efectuar el cobro de los fletes. llevar a cabo (ejercer, efectuar) -carry out, denominarse (llamarse) -to be called, to be referred as emitir contratos - to issue contracts, en el ämbito de -in the field (area) of
carga rodada/ ro-ro cargo, roll-on/roll-off cargo Carga constituida por vehfculos que se deslizan sobre ruedas, como plataformas, remolques o semiremolques, camiones, vagones, etc., que pueden ser trasladados en una cadena de transporte intermodal albergando mercancfa en su interior. albergar (contener, llevar) - contain, house deslizarse sobreruedas -move on wheels
carretilla portico/ straddle carrier Carretilla automotora elevadora apila-dora disenada para el movimiento de contenedores entre sus cuatro patas, a horcajadas, bajo su bastidor y brazos portantes, que permite el apilado de los mismos disponiendolos entre pasillos lo suficientemente anchos como para que pasen las patas de la carretilla. de los mis-mos - of these, thereof, lo suficientemente anchos (the quatita-tive “lo”) -sufficiently large, broad enough
carretilla trilateral/turret truck Carretilla elevadora de toma lateral provista de horquillas que pueden girar 90° a derecha o izquierda. A diferencia de las carretillas bilaterales, estas pueden tomar la carga lateral y frontalmente, asf como recoger pales que se hallan a ras del suelo. Respecto a los cabezales, existen dos tipos, segun esten suspendi-das las horquillas de un cabezal superior con deslizamiento (cabezal “J”), o bien este situado en la parte posterior de las horquillas, de forma que no exista limit-acion a la altura de los pales (cabezal operar (fun-cionar) - operate, work girar 90° a (la) derecha o izquierda-to turn 90° to (the) right or left a diferen-cia de - in contrast to, asi como -as well as, respecto a - in regard to, segun - according to (whether)
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Terminological Definition in Vocabulary Building Process
“L”). Las carretillas trilaterales automa-tizadas pueden operar sin necesidad de cabezales.
muestreo de trabajo/ work sampling Operacion de seleccionar aleatoria-mente muestras con el fin de determinar la frecuencia con que se llevan a cabo de-terminadas actividades. con elfin de (para) - in order to, llevar a cabo (ejercer, efectuar) -carry out con el fin de (para) - in order to
orden de entrega del contenedor vacio/ empty container delivery order Documento que extiende el responsable de la gestion de un contenedor vacio a favor de un transportista, mediante el que autoriza a retirarlo de un deposito de contenedores. expedir (extender) un documento a favor de -to issue a document for mediante (el que) - by, through, by means of (which)
carretilla de mastil retractil/reach truck Carretilla elevadora retractil cuyo mastil se extiende hacia delante o hacia atras mediante un carro portador con rodillos. mediante (el que) - by, through, by means of (which)
montaje/assembly Accion de ensamblar o elaborar un conjunto partiendo de elementos o pie-zas individuales, subconjuntos o preens-amblajes. ensamblar (montar) -assemble Word-formation subconjunto/subset, preensamblaje/pre-assembly, montar - mon-taje/assemble - assembly
Conclusion
This paper has shown the terminological definition as a valuable source of specialized vocabulary representing a type of a short text. The author has attempted to demonstrate that the terminological definition has some advantages in comparison with other short scientific and technical texts concerning their lexical content.
The article suggests classroom activities based on the use of the terminological definition and two ways of dealing with it: collecting definitions by
topic or by type of grammatical and lexical features they contain. The teacher may create a database of terms with their explanations and may possibly sort them according to this criterion. This database will be of great help in the preparation of LSP classroom activities involving different grammatical and lexical items.
The author supposes that future research might focus on the possibilities that offer terminological definitions as texts to teach students scientific and technical grammar patterns.
References:
1. Averil Coxhead. Vocabulary in ESP. In: Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield (eds.). The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes. John Wiley&Sons Ltd, 2013.
2. Henning Bergenholtz and Sven Tarp (eds.). Manual of Specialized Lexicography: the preparation of specialised dictionaries. Volumen 12 of Benjamins Translation Library. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995.
3. Helen Basturkmen. Ideas and Options in English for Specific Purposes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006.
4. Scott Thornbury. How to teach Vocabulary. Pearson Education Limited, 2002.
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5. Taisia Popova. Structura ispanskogo nauchno-tekhnicheskogo teksta. Moscow: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, 2011.
6. Valeria Chernyavskaya. Interpretatsiya nauchnogo teksta. Moscow: DomKniga, 2006.
7. Valeria Chernyavskaya. Lingvistika teksta. Polikodovost. Intertekstualnost. Interdiskursivnost. Moscow: Librokom, 2009.
8. Anglo-russkiy tolkovy slovar logisticheskikh terminov. ECR, Aldata Solution, Seanews, 2008.
9. David Soler Garcia. Diccionario de logfstica. Marge Books, 2009.
Paci Margarita, Polytecnic University of Tirana Msc. in English Teaching E-mail: margaritapaci@gmail.com
Characteristics of English for Engineering
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to list the characteristics of English for engineering. We relied on several articles related to this field. The focus was on vocabulary and grammar. It was found out that most characteristics had remained the same through the passing of time but some others had changed. English for Engineering, being a branch of English for Science and Technology (EST), had most of its typical features.
Keywords: English for Engineering, EST and ESP.
Introduction
History of English for science and technology
English for Engineering is an example of English for Science and Technology and its history is the one of EST which on the other hand is closely related to English for Specific Purposes (ESP). In fact ESP in the ‘Tree ofELT’ (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) consists of three branches: a) English for Science and Technology (EST), b) English for Business and Economics (EBE), and c) English for Social Studies (ESS). Each of these subject areas is further divided into two branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP). An example of EOP for the EST branch is ‘English for Engineers’ whereas an example of EAP for the EST branch is ‘English for Medical Studies.
The large-scale international scientific, technical and economic developments after the Second World War, requested for an international language to serve the needs and demands of people. These people were doctors, scientists, engineers, merchants who needed English to update their knowledge or simply do their job in a global labor market. They had no time to learn general English they needed English related to their field of study or occupation. Hence, there were
made many attempts to focus on English for Specific Purposes and English for Science and Technology (EST). Most of the work in the 1960s was in the area of English for Science and technology (EST) and for some time ESP and EST were regarded as almost synonymous (Hutchinson & Waters).
Characteristics of English for Engineering
Being categorized under the umbrella of EST, English for Engineering manifests many characteristics typical of EST. We will focus mainly on vocabulary and grammar.
Vocabulary
There are several characteristics ofEST vocabulary.
1. Technical terms
Technical terms are widely used in EST. A great number ofthem come from dailylife and many ofthem derive from Greek or Latin. According to the U. S. science and technology expert, Oscar E. Nybaken, in 10000 common English words, about 46% of the vocabulary derives from Latin and 7.2% comes from Greek. These percentages are much higher in the highly specialized scientific English vocabulary.
2. One Word with Multiple Meanings
Polysemi is another characteristic of the
EST vocabulary. One word has multiple meanings
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