scholarly journals INFORMATIONAL POTENTIAL OF THE ENGLISH POLYCODE DICTIONARY ENTRIES

Author(s):  
O. Tomchakovskiy

The article is devoted to the study of the informational potential of the polycode dictionary entries in English learner’s lexicography. The communicative specificity of learner’s dictionaries consists in their targeting to a clear segment of the readership. These are non-native speakers of English, studying it as a foreign language and living outside the area of its functioning, and, therefore, outside the situational context. The features of users to whom learner’s dictionaries are addressed determine the content and presentation of lexicographic material, which is aimed primarily at expanding the vocabulary of the reader and, moreover, familiarizing him more closely with the culture of Englishspeaking society. The main task of a lexicographic article in an explanatory dictionary is to provide a certain amount of information necessary for the reader to adequately understand a particular word of interest. To solve this problem, compilers of dictionaries resort to using both typesetting and pictorial non-verbal communication means. A polycode lexicographic article is a combination of two definitions of the same sememe, which are made with signs of two different semiotic systems: symbolic (linguistic) and iconic (pictographic). The analysis of the informational potential of polycode articles in English learners’ dictionaries gives grounds to claim that the appearance of the pictographic component in any case optimizes the transmission and perception of information. In addition, the iconic message, as a rule, increases the amount of information conveyed by the verbal message (definition), firstly, by explaining the ontological characteristics of the structure, existence and functioning of the nominated referent in the world, and secondly, by creating clusters semantically and linguistically related lexical items. As a result, new quanta of information appear (absent in the definition) and the information itself is structured into some microsystems that permeate the macrosystem of the dictionary.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Samar Alharbi

English language considers a global language spoken by a majority of people around the world. It is a language used mainly for communication, trades and study purposes. This widespread of English language being wildly spoken lead to different varieties of English as a lingua franca (ELF) means that non native speakers of English still be able to communicate with each other. Using ELF as a legitimate variety of English in language classrooms is questioned by some researchers. This paper will provide an overview of the concept of ELF. It will also present implications and limitations of using ELF in Saudi English as foreign language classrooms.


English Today ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chit Cheung Matthew Sung

English is used as an important means of international and intercultural communication around the world more than ever. Because of its widespread use in the global context, non-native speakers of English around the world outnumber native speakers by far (Crystal, 1997). According to Kachru and Nelson (1996: 79), ‘accepting even cautious estimates, there must be at least three nonnative users of English for every old-country native user’. A similar phenomenon is also observable in the English Language Teaching (ELT) profession, with the vast majority of teachers of English as a second and foreign language in the world being non-native speakers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-262
Author(s):  
Svetlana S. Vasilenko

The paper discusses possibilities and ways of studying concepts in teaching foreign languages to students-interpreters. The author notes that modern didactic research has interdisciplinary nature, analyzes the theory of the concept from the point of view of linguistics, cultural studies and psycholinguistics. The author also notes the fact of creation of linguo-conceptodidactics as a new scientific direction. The paper presents a linguodidactic understanding of the concept, analyzes its structure and semantic content. The author describes in detail the process of foreign language concepts acquisition and presents it as a sequence of several stages. The acquisition of foreign language concepts is associated with the development of concept competence. The paper notes that the acquisition of foreign language concepts should go in parallel with the acquisition of foreign language lexis. In addition, it is necessary to use authentic materials in teaching foreign languages that allows forming a conceptual picture of the world of native speakers. Acquisition of foreign language concepts is especially important for students-interpreters who study several foreign languages and are faced with the problem of translating foreign concepts and phenomena of foreign language reality. The paper presents how conceptuality can be realized in teaching foreign languages. The author gives a practical example of studying the English concept Travel, offers examples of exercises and tasks for mastering it, as well as mnemonic techniques for memorizing lexemes that represent the concept. In the paper is stressed, that the concepts should be included in the content of foreign language teaching to students-interpreters. This contributes to the development of correct ideas about foreign language reality, understanding the facts of the native and foreign language culture, i.e. cultural reflection development.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Priya K. Nair

In India acquisition of English language is imperative if one wants to sell oneself in the increasingly competitive job market. With a booming population the nation is filled with educated, technologically literate youth. English is not merely a foreign language in India. As India is separated by a plethora of languages knowledge of English is imperative. As the teachers in India are not native speakers of English the language they teach is not free from errors. The articulation is quite problematic as the mother tongue influence is quite pronounced. Technology helps to reduce these errors. Movies as a tool can enhance the listening and speaking skills of our students. It is quite boring to work with disembodied voices and the recorded conversations available in language labs do not sustain the learner’s interest. However learners are often forced to listen to recorded conversations of people they never see, the conversation is often stilted and contemporary idiom is hardly used. However, a completely new dimension to aural practice can be added in the classroom by using movies. <br /><p><strong> </strong></p>


Babel ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-259
Author(s):  
Judith Rosenhouse

Due to various reasons, proper names (personal names) are often considered a separate group within the noun category of a language. Nowadays, foreign names are much more wide-spread, perhaps, than ever before. This fact causes pronunciation difficulties to speakers in the native-language environment. Moreover, the foreign origin of a name remains long after an individual’s immigration, and many foreign names are integrated into the absorbing language. Two problem areas arise for speakers of a certain language who have to pronounce foreign names: on the written modality level, letter-to-sound correspondence, and on the aural modality, the pronunciation of the foreign name (according to the speaker’s L1). These issues require decisions about phonological and phonetic features of the foreign language which are to be adopted or discarded in pronouncing a name. Based on our field study, various solutions of these problems are here described and discussed. It appears that native speakers of English (not only American English, as our study reveals) do not base their decisions only on the graphic form of the names (letter sequences); their experience with other languages affects their productions. In addition, not all letter sequences yield identical pronunciation decisions. Thus, solutions are not uniform. Examples are given from French surnames and personal names that occur in English in the USA.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaëtanelle Gilquin

Abstract Light verb constructions (LVCs), that is, combinations like take a walk or make a choice, are often claimed to be problematic for non-native speakers of English. In this paper, spoken data from the Trinity Lancaster Corpus are used to explore the use of these constructions across different sections of the corpus, representing different proficiency levels (from lower intermediate to upper advanced) as well as different types of acquisitional contexts, namely English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL). The results of the study reveal a tendency towards an increased frequency of LVCs, as well as more complex and abstract uses, as we move from an intermediate to an advanced level and from an EFL to an ESL context. For the EFL speakers, this development corresponds to a better approximation to native English. For the ESL speakers, on the other hand, LVCs seem to have become ‘constructional teddy bears’, used more often than by the native speakers themselves.


Author(s):  
Noelia Navarro Gil ◽  
Helena Roquet Pugès

Abstract This paper explores the use of adversative Linking Adverbials (LAs) in the academic writing of advanced English Foreign Language (EFL) learners with different linguistic backgrounds. The learner corpus used in this study consists of 50 argumentative texts, which are contrasted with a native corpus: the American university students’ corpus (LOCNESS). Liu’s (2008) comprehensive list of adversative LAs has been used for the analysis. Findings reveal that both non-native (NNS) and native speakers of English (NS) use similar types of adversative LAs, but NNS place them regularly in sentence- and sometimes in paragraph- initial position, which often results in punctuation issues and misuse. A total of 9 LAs were found to be overused (e.g., nevertheless) and underused (e.g., actually) by NNS. The analysis performed according to L1 has yielded unexpected results in terms of preference, frequency, and placement of adversative LAs. The so-called ‘teaching effect’ is considered one of the main factors influencing the learners’ choices.


MANUSYA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amara Prasithrathsint

Hedging means mitigating words so as to lessen the impact of an utterance. It may cause uncertainty in language but is regarded as an important feature in English academic writing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the style of academic writing in English with particular reference to the significant role of hedging and the linguistic features that mark it. The data was taken from academic articles in the humanities written by native speakers of English, Filipino speakers of English, and Thai speakers of English. It is hypothesized that speakers of English as a foreign language use fewer and different hedging devices than native speakers of English. The result of the analysis shows that the prominent linguistic markers of hedging are the auxiliaries may, might, could, the verbs suggest, appear, seem, and the adverbs perhaps and often. They are divided into three groups according to their stylistic attributes of hedging; namely, probability, indetermination, and approximation. The use of hedging found in the data confirms what Hyman (1994) says; i.e., that hedging allows writers to express their uncertainty about the truth of their statements. It is also found that English native speakers use hedges most frequently. The Filipino speakers of English are the second, and the Thai speakers of English use hedges the least frequency. This implies that hedging is likely to be related to the level of competence in English including knowledge of stylistic variation, and that it needs to be formally taught to those who speak English as a second or foreign language.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieke Verheijen

Because quotation is a fundamental aspect of academic texts, this corpus study examines the language of quoting in (L2) academic writing. To find out whether there are subtle linguistic differences in the use of quotation by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and professional academics who are native speakers of English (NSE), I compare two corpora of scholarly writings: one by upper intermediate and advanced EFL students and one by NSE experts. 1201 Quotes were extracted from the writings and examined for a broad range of lexico-grammatical features relevant to using quotes, including introductions to quotes, lexical items in introducing quotes, ‘special’ quotes, and punctuation surrounding quotes. The findings make clear that EFL students and NSE experts differ significantly on various points in their language of quoting. Making students aware of these differences could make their academic writing more professional, native-like, and sophisticated.


English Today ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rining Wei ◽  
Jinzhi Su

In the mid-1980s, Crystal (1985) lamented that there were no reliable figures available for the number of learners to whom English is taught as a foreign language in many regions of the world, and that ‘China has always been excluded from the statistical reviews, because of the shortage of information from inside the country’ (Crystal, 1985: 9). More recently, Bolton (2008: 6) similarly notes that because of ‘the absence of accurate language surveys’ academics have to make educated guesses regarding the total number of those learning/knowing English. The figure of the total English learners/users in China has been estimated to be somewhere between 200 and 350 million (cf. Bolton, 2003: 48; Kachru, 1997; McArthur, 2003; Zhao & Campbell, 1995; Graddol, 2006: 95). Fortunately, a national language survey in China conducted at the turn of the century does provide some hard statistics on the number of English language learners/users in the world's most populous country, and also sheds some light on the realities of use of English and English proficiency among the Chinese people.


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