Digital Lexicography: Research of Usage of Different Dictionary Types at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

The current research focuses on the investigation of the VGTU students’ and foreign language teachers’ attitude towards the types of dictionaries: printed, electronic versions of printed dictionaries and dictionaries available online. The aim of the research was to set the most used type of the dictionaries by the students and foreign language teachers at VGTU. 296 students from different study programmes and 12 foreign language teachers were selected to participate in the investigation. The research data was analysed from two perspectives: qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively data was analysed with the help of literature review method, a questionnaire and a comparative analysis. Therefore, quantitatively data was analysed relying on the method of descriptive statistics. The collected data revealed the differences in the students’ and the foreign language teachers’ attitude. Majority of the students preferred online dictionaries to printed and electronic, whereas the selection of the dictionary type by the foreign language teachers was limited to a printed version. The same tendency could be observed relying on the question about the search of special terms. Majority of the students would rely on the dictionaries available on the Internet, hence teachers would select printed ones. Relying on the research, it could be concluded that while preparing study material and recommendations for the students, foreign language teachers should rely on students’ attitude.

Problems in Translating The Names of Dog Breeds From the Perspective of Different Nomination Principles and Linguistic Relativity

The paper analyses selected terms from the perspective of linguistic relativity. It examines how the speakers of English, Lithuanian, and Russian perceive similar phenomena, how this specific perception is reflected in the linguistic nomination, and what difficulties this difference may cause for a translator. The analysis has demonstrated that some dog breeds are grouped differently in given languages, which presents certain problems of translation. The translator must possess considerable knowledge of cynology vocabulary or seek for a professional advice in order to produce a correct translation of dog breeds from English into Lithuanian and Russian, and vice versa.

Pronouns as Means of Impersonal Presentation in English Quality Press

The current paper presents the analysis of pronouns as means of impersonal presentation in English quality press. The article gives the definition of the pronoun as a grammatical category and describes the use and purpose of impersonalization strategies. The data for the investigation was taken from the international English quality newspapers: The Financial Times (UK) and The Wall Street Journal (US), which are the leading daily broadsheet newspapers in the UK and the USA having millions of both print and online subscribers worldwide. The articles on political, economic, and social issues were chosen on a random basis and scrutinized for pronouns as means of impersonal presentation of fact. The body of 187 cases of impersonalization chosen for the analysis were divided into groups with focus on the grammatical category they belong to. The most and least often used classes of pronouns were identified and compared. The results of the current study may be useful for editors, journalists, writers, as well as for further study of impersonalization strategies in the English language.

An Overwiew of Lexico-Semantic Noun Anglicisms in The Modern French and Lithuanian Languages: Linguists’ Approach

The article examines noun anglicisms and their lexico-semantic integration in the French and Lithuanian languages. The notion of dynamics of the borrowing process and the concept of noun anglicisms are analyzed from the linguistic point of view. The article aims at describing different interpretations of anglicisms by French and Lithuanian linguists, problematics of lexico-semantic anglicisms, and the current approach to lexico-semantic anglicisms in the French and Lithuanian languages. It can be assumed that the intensive usage of anglicisms generates a new linguistic situation in which English terms are widely used in the French and Lithuanian languages. The use of new lexical elements in the French and Lithuanian languages improves text expressiveness and helps to move away from the formality of the text, thus creating a connection with the reader and realizing verbal expressiveness. To sum up, anglicisms in the modern French and Lithuanian languages appear to have a systematic character related to the diachronic and structural development of the language. Their relatively fast assimilation at phonological, morphological and semantic levels appears to be the key part of the borrowing process. A great number of anglicisms seem to be the result of the process of globalization. Anglicisms influence all languages of the world. Naturally, French and Lithuanian are not an exception.

Languages and their Usage in Research: An Examination of Academic Journals at Vilnius University

This paper aims to examine the usage and role of languages in different research areas in Lithuania. To answer these questions, a case study was undertaken, investigating the academic journals published at Vilnius University in the period from 2004 to 2013. The list of periodical publications chosen for investigation consists of 24 research journals. 8 journals cover the area of humanities, 11 the area of social sciences and 5 the area of natural and formal sciences. In the course of the investigation 5664 research articles were analyzed. The specific concern was the language of the article itself, the language of its summary/abstract and languages of reference works. The analysis of the whole period data shows that the main language of the articles in the area of humanities is the national language (Lithuanian, 60.9%), followed be English (22.6%). Among the other languages, German (7.4%) and Russian (6.9%) seem to be of importance. It can be noted that there was no significant change in the language usage tendencies between 2004 and 2013. In the social sciences area, the researchers publish mainly in Lithuanian (65.5%) and English (31.9%), whereby English clearly dominates in the papers on economics. The same two languages can be found in the area of natural and formal sciences with English as by far the dominant language (91.5%). In is noteworthy that during the period considered, the number of articles in English in both of these areas – social sciences and natural and formal sciences – has slightly grown (ca. 7–8%). To summarize the findings, English is the dominant language in 9 among the investigated 24 research journals and is mainly used in papers on economics, natural sciences, mathematics, informatics and Oriental studies. Lithuanian is the first language of choice in 11 journals (papers on history, religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, law, education studies, communication, information and geography). Multilingual are the journals covering linguistics, literature and archeology.

Change in Word Meanings as One of the Features Signifying the Development of Computer Terms

The article aims to analyse the change in meanings of standard language words viewed as a result of the development of computer terms. Words that, in the process of terminologisation and transterminologisation, have been transferred to computer terms from standard language or other subject fields and included in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Terms (Enciklopedinis kompiuterijos žodynas 2012) are analysed. The objects of the research were simple semantic formations and caiques, all of which were standard Lithuanian language words that either turned into terms in the field of computer terms or were transferred from other subject fields by inner borrowing. The research carried out has shown that most of the terms studied are semantic caiques formed – albeit merely outwardly – using own linguistic means yet having borrowed, most likely from English, their very concept and its definition. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Terms contains only a few single-word computer terms whose new meaning originated from the Lithuanian language and that could be regarded as semantic formations.

The Terms in the Special Language: Norms, Usage, and Tendency

One of the most important issues of terminology remains term variance (or synonymy). In order to find out the trends of terms usage in the language for specific purposes, the comprehensive analysis of dictionaries, coursebooks, students’ survey was carried out. It allowed to determine prevalent types in the terminology of economics and chemistry, to analyze the prevalence of Lithuanian and international terms synonymy, term usage tendencies in students’ language and academic texts. Summarizing the investigation results it can be stated that in the special language of economics and chemistry, term variants were both presented in dictionaries and used by teachers.

Linguistic Peculiarities of Methodical Educational Publications Issued in 2012

The article presents linguistic peculiarities of methodical educational publications prepared and published using European structural funds allocated to the VGTU Transport Engineering, Biomechanics and Aviation Mechanical Engineering project “Renewal of the Study Programmes in Accordance with the EU Requirements by Improving the Quality of the Studies and Applying Innovative Study Methods” carried out in accordance with the Lithuania’s 2007–2013 year Human Resources Development Operational Programme, priority axis 2 “Education and Lifelong Learning”, measure VP1-2.2-MES-07-K “Improving Studies Quality, Increasing Internationalization”. Characteristic properties of style and culture of writing, compliance with language norms, and instances of foreign words used in aviation are analysed.

Application of New Information and Computer Technologies in the Teaching of Foreign Languages

The paper describes the up-to-date methods of teaching or learning foreign languages, which are conditioned by the integration of information technologies in the teaching process. Internet gives a perfect opportunity to enliven the lectures of foreign languages, to improve their quality and effectiveness. The main advantage of internet is its authentic material in an authentic context. The examples of such authentic material can be Web 2.0 (website of second generation), Wiki, blogs and podcasts. The second advantage of internet is that it helps the learners to cooperate together. The teachers can lead the learners more effectively, consult each learner individually. It diversifies the teaching process, encourages the activity of students, who have learning difficulties.

Semantic Models of Sentences with Verbs of Motion in Standard Language and in Scientific Language Used in Biology

The semantic models of sentences with verbs of motion in German standard language and in scientific language used in biology are analyzed in the article. In its theoretic part it is affirmed that the article is based on the semantic theory of the sentence. This theory, in its turn, is grounded on the correlation of semantic predicative classes and semantic roles. The combination of semantic predicative classes and semantic roles is expressed by the main semantic formula – proposition. In its practical part the differences between the semantic models of standard and scientific language used in biology are explained. While modelling sentences with verbs of motion, two groups of semantic models of sentences are singled out: that of action (Handlung) and process (Vorgang). The analysis shows that the semantic models of sentences with semantic action predicatives dominate in the text of standard language while the semantic models of sentences with semantic process predicatives dominate in the texts of scientific language used in biology. The differences how the doer and direction are expressed in standard and in scientific language are clearly seen and the semantic cases (Agens, Patiens, Direktiv1) help to determine that. It is observed that in scientific texts of high level of specialization (biology science) in contrast to popular scientific literature models of sentences with moving verbs are usually seldom found. They are substituted by denominative constructions. In conclusions it is shown that this analysis can be important in methodics, especially planning material for teaching professional-scientific language.