Application of situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus for language acquisition

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Problem and goal. Department of Informatization of Education of Moscow City University celebrates its 15 anniversary this year. Mentioning this event is not accidental. If the department had not been created, new linguistic and pedagogical tools mentioned below would not have appeared and successfully developed. In addition to ethnical heterogeneity of the world’s countries, mass international migration in the context of globalization also contributes much to multicultural and ethnical diversification of population of individual states making demographic situation more and more complicated. Local authorities and governments are concerned about increasing “amount of conflicts because of religious, ethnic and cultural reasons among different ethnic and cultural communities.” Besides traditional dissention among small and leading groups immigrants nowadays face new forms of racism promoted by political situation strongly. Moreover, on one hand, values of education are mutually enriched due to globalization, on the other hand, aggressive nationalism, separatism, xenophobia are manifested by globalization also. Thus, we can observe contradictory influence of globalization on culture in multicultural communities and consequently on education itself. All above said contributes to prominent increase in polyethnicity and multiculturalism phenomena in the world and consequently their manifestation in educational processes [1]. The social, political, demographic, and cultural transformation of multi-ethnic, multicultural states has made it necessary to find adequate pedagogical models for solution in nation-states and post-colonial states of different old and new to solve the problems excluding violence and taking into account aspirations of all ethnocultural groups composing the society. Thus, successive educational processes (organization, implementation, result) can be considered as one of the tools to resolve the problem[6] [2]. Main components of pedagogy namely learning and education cannot exist separately especially for subjects of the humanities cycle and in the context of a variety of cultures. One should keep in mind that solving learning without thinking about the educational tasks does not mean that educational goals will not be achieved but the result may be completely different from needed under given conditions [3]. In “traditional” didactics the abovementioned aspects that have been well studied and repeatedly discussed by scientific and pedagogical community. Traditional courses with use of ICT tools integration into, or newly developed innovative ICT-educational tools and technologies with “traditional” methods bias, the educational component either overlooked or sometimes deliberately ignored, being completely unacceptable. Thus, the question of setting task and careful thinking-over solutions to educational tasks is quite acute under current conditions. To reveal the opportunities of application of innovative ICT linguistic and educational tools, namely of situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus, for foreign language textbooks is the study purpose. We want to show a wide range of learning and educational goals that can be reached via the tools. A term situational vocabulary stands for lexical constructions containing an ICT tool for specific communicative situations (sometimes small excerpts from the rules of behavior in the situations), as well as blogs, chats, forums, mailing lists, etc. composing modern ICT tools. Making possible supplement of the relevant material and discussion of various linguistic constructions or word meaning application in different ways and for different situations.[7] Moreover global computerization and development of computer support for information technologies allowed to obtain an absolutely new, powerful and very effective linguistic tool-linguistic corpora, which laid the foundations of a whole area in linguistics - corpus linguistics. From the point of view of methodology due to the concordance program allowing specific words and expressions location identification in text arrays and use a problem-based approach to learning “Research - Study - Use” linguistic corpora are to be widely used in developing and promoting lexical and grammatical students skills. To be representative, i.e. indicative in any field, a linguistic corpus is to contain more than a million of units. However, quite often there is a need to study not the use of a single word or phrase, but the whole text, for example, its structure or design methods. It is clear that an array of a very large number of elements is not suitable in such cases, since the analysis should be carried out not by a machine, but by a person. For such cases, in the opinion of the authors, the innovative ICT tool proposed by them - a linguistic quasi-corpus- is quite relevant. Quasi-corpus is: - a database whose elements are entire texts or specially selected passages from texts; - a set of text data from a particular language in written form, which is small in size, since it can only be analyzed by a user (i.e., a person, not a machine); - a set of natural written texts in any language that is stored in electronic form and allows its use, completion, correction, discussion through telecommunications and computerized search. Very often people in need to fill in/write a document but not knowing how to do it search in the internet for 2 or more variants, look it through, compare and make a necessary compilation i.e. work with linguistic quasi-corpus. Samples for business letters, complaints, invitations, writing essays, annotations, etc., demonstrated on various websites also can be considered as quasi-corpus for a given situation. It shows that prototype of linguistic quasi-corpus in a free form has been existed for a long time. Novoresume - a free resume builder [4] can be mentioned as an example. Methodology. Application of of situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus by the author and their potential in relevance to the aims of learning and educational tasks for different cases are demonstrated and analyzed. Results and discussion. It is obvious that improvement of professional and multicultural environment language competence demands consideration of correlated with different situations and different languages for different cultural environments speech model needs a methodical system for developing speech competence, the idea of which is being worked out by the authors. The first step in development of the system was suggestion that one can use thematic vocabularies (glossaries) including terms and lexicological units common to different disciplines. Group e-mail can serve an example of a network resource available for corrections and comments to all members of the group (learners as well as teachers) can contain the glossaries. When developing the thematic vocabularies it resulted in of situative vocabulary (vocabulary for the situation). For example, “a table demonstrating what lexic-grammatical structures match which motives of speech activity” and many others [5] at first can serve as a good supplement for students of non-humanitarian specialization to communicate, then it can be extended (by students or teacher), unified if necessary and used to perform a variety of educational or learning tasks. Use of of situative vocabulary are augmented by new opportunities due to current development of information and communication adds for. First of all, elaboration of of situative vocabulary (for foreign language) nevertheless improves and broadens own vocabulary of the learner in native language. Ways and situations of application of various linguistic constructions can be thoroughly discussed by learners via different associated chat rooms, blogs, forums, etc., thus they not only improve understanding of one or other lexicological unit but develop communicative skills as well. When somebody wants to share experience gained or the aroused problem to be solved by others, to find out ways being encouraged they can initiate discussion not only as necessity to fulfill learning/educational task but free due to various circumstances they were involved in obviously increasing interest and motivation [6]. Another wide and fruitful area of of situative vocabulary application is project activities of learners.[8] They can extend or updated and unify, develop new of situative vocabulary, illustrate them, make small videos, etc.[9] Language and behavior mistakes are often associated with cultural differences consequently education under multicultural conditions improves language skills and also helps learners to behave correspondingly. Unsurprisingly, next came of situative vocabulary compilation for abovementioned linguistic-cultural situations. On one hand for cultural differences not understanding and knowing proper samples or modes learners communicate in definite situations using noncorresponding expressions which on the other hand can be perceived by interlocutors as rude hurtful communication mode resulting in failure of communication unfortunately. Compilation of situative vocabulary for a definite situation is to serve as a solution for the situation. In this case questioning focus groups for which the tool is compiled should be considered as the first step. A questionnaire can be used to draw attention to reflection of the situation peculiarities in the focus group culture of. It should for sure contain questions revealing the situation as completely as possible. Development of proper questionnaire and a crucial role thereby has a teacher or another expert also plays a great role in solving the problem. Establishing relevant links and then selection of necessary expressions can be performed via comparison of the questionnaire cultural and linguistic situation information. Learners can use simply the resulting of situative vocabulary distributed among them or a teacher can use it as described above for educational purposes. Paying a visit to somebody of local residents people just come to the country especially from Asia or similar culture countries are often confused starting conversations. Thus, often resulting in the situation visitors being considered as rough intolerant persons and preventing not only making friends but even terminates communication. A questionnaire presented below in Table can serve an example of the first step on the way of solution to the problem. What people say starting a visit Situations presented in the questionnaire For your country/culture For the host country/culture Greeting formal/informal Introduction of new comers formal/informal Introduction of hosts formal/informal Other obligatory phrases formal/informal Encouraging learners to offer matter for discussion and questions of interest one can get a large variety of situations covered. Some columns of the questionnaire will be filled easily without discussion, the other via hot discussion the teacher moderating it (focusing on relevant information/expressions) and helping to communicate (giving lexica to be polite and convincing) as well. Nevertheless, the more learners do themselves the better. The work should motivate and assist learners to gain information “about the host country/culture” on the one hand and make it possible to them presenting native country/culture, on the other hand. Classmates inclusion in work with the of situative vocabulary [7] can be considered as further step in developing multiculturalism. Influence on learners emotivity in the telecommunicative media via of situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus in order to develop tolerance gives us another scope for application of the abovementioned tools [8]. The approach is based on research of V.I. Shakhovsky [9] and criteria of tolerant and intolerant behavior designed by G.U. Soldatova [10]. The laws of neurolinguistics say that positive or negative environment as well as proper attitude towards different events and phenomena can be fostered via vocabulary of individual i.e. the abovementioned tools are very helpful for the case. Especially it is important for groups/net communities of young people [11]. Situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus can also be used for some special goals in continuous education. It is obvious that language (mostly English) is one of the crucial points in the field. Learners in continuous education need specilized resources in English (another language in interest) for adequate translating, acquiring, mastering, brushing up foreign language. Also by means of the tools strengthening in competitive global education market positions as well as increase in the attractiveness of national educational institutions abroad and promotion of their efficiency as exporters of education can be reached. Moreover detailed comparison of certain native language speech situation samples and modes with farther compilation of vocabulary in foreign language promotes development of learners communicative skills in mother tongue. Preceding or following work of that type revealed of situative vocabulary and linguistic quasi-corpus application methods effectiveness in a wide range of areas. Also should be mentioned motivating factor of interaction in ICT media familiar to learners that increases the intensity of the activities and promote their effectiveness [11]. However, studies of new opportunities offered by the abovementioned tools are currently at the process. Authors prognosticate wide dissemination to the perspective and highly demanded area of research and practical activities in the nearest future. Conclusion. Relatively high application effectiveness for the tools for wide range of learning and educational tasks is already demonstrated. Furthermore, significant improvement can be reached in future while realizing great potential of abovementioned ICT-tools application. However, further theoretical and practical investigations are in demand being of international scale mostly.

About the authors

Olga V. Lvova

Moscow City University

Author for correspondence.
Email: LvovaOV@mgpu.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2054-8869

Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Assistant Professor, Department of Education Informatization

29 Sheremetyevskaya St, Moscow, 127521, Russian Federation

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