Dictionary of IT terms as a tool for Russian language studies and linguodidactics in the context of digitalization in education

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Introduction

Methodological research states that currently modern methodological, pedagogical and scientific thought is developing in an interdisciplinary aspect, with mutual influence and interpenetration of “NBICS technologies (nano-, bio- and information technologies, cognitive and socio-humanitarian research)” (Kovalchuk, 2011: 3). This means a direct “juxtaposition” of “pedagogy, linguistics and linguo- didactics with computer, digital and Internet technologies”: in terms of professional ICT-competences a teacher should not only be a professional user of basic computer programs, but should also understand actual programs, digital resources, programming languages, understand typical rules of work with neural networks and AI (artificial intelligence) (Bozenkova, Rubleva, 2021: 237) An additional “trigger” for humanities and information sciences merging was certainly the COVID-19 pandemic: its economic and social consequences not only changed the global community (and the teaching community as its most important part), but also “urgently” transformed the entire educational system (Russian and not only), including the foreign language teaching system.

Immersion in the “off-screen” format became a stress-test for teachers and students and provoked numerous emotional reactions, leaving no time for thorough reflection. At the same time, a certain stumbling block and a fundamental question, which has become urgent due to the transition to distance learning techno- logies, was the search for adequate methodological tools and comfortable conditions of effective work in the digital educational environment for each participant of the educational process. This situation was complicated not only and not so much by the unpreparedness of the education subjects (both sides), but first of all by the lack of a unified terminological system describing methods, techniques, and the learning system as a whole with information and communication techno- logies, the Internet environment as its basic and structuring components. It was pointed by E.G. Azimov (2020), E.N. Strelchuk (2021). In this regard, there was an extremely increase in interest in the available dictionaries and reference books in the linguistic and methodological field with a certain unified taxonomy of terminological units, reflecting modern pedagogical realities. The search for scientific and scientific-methodological literature, satisfying the needs in describing IT-definitions in the educational process showed the lack of specialized dictionaries, glossaries, etc.

The analysis of dictionaries existing at the time of collecting the material on IT in the field of language education/language teaching methodology showed that there were no specialized editions (specialized editions for linguists, philologists, students of profile faculties in English were not found either ‒ a typical IT dictionary is considered to be a universal one, describing basic terms in the field of information technologies¹). In related fields the following edition can be cited as an example:

1. “Explanatory Dictionary of terms in the Conceptual Apparatus of Education Informatization” (Robert, Lavina, 2009), according to the authors, is intended for teachers, researchers of educational institutions (including secondary professional education), which determine informatization of education as their specialization, as well as for specialists in the field of education, whose professional activity is associated with the creation, development and use of information and communication technologies for educational purposes. The dictionary contains more than 200 definitions, mainly technical ones, mostly from the field of infor- matization, but not the field of language education or language teaching methodo- logy. There are widely presented terms like database administrator (Robert, Lavina, 2009: 4), automated control system (Ibid.: 5), open system (Ibid.: 17), etc., which rather refer to the administrative and management sphere of an educational organization than to the sphere of the educational process itself.
2. “The New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts (Theory and Practice of Language Teaching)” by E.G. Azimov and A.N. Shchukin (2009), which is the most voluminous in terms of the number of definitions (more than 2500), describes only basic ICT terms that can be referred to already classic ones: interactive whiteboard (Azimov, Schukin, 2009: 83), multimedia (Ibid.: 149), means of new information technologies (Ibid.: 291). But the development of e-learning tools has moved to a qualitatively new technical and technological level, since “The New Dictionary” has been published ‒ now we do not only use digital resources in language education, but also introduce AI (artificial intelligence) (Dukhanina, Maksimenko, 2020). So other publications on this issue are urgent.

In our opinion, one of such glossaries, contributing to IT knowledge systematization and, as a consequence, optimizing the interaction of all the subjects of the educational process, is the “Concise Dictionary of IT Terms for Language Education Specialists” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017).

In the process of working on the “Concise Dictionary of IT Terms for Language Education Specialists” we studied theoretical works of famous lexico- graphers: Y.D. Apresyan (1993), M.L. Apazhev (2005), A.S. Gerd (1996), Y.N. Karaulov (1988), M.V. Leichik (1993), V.V. Morkovkin (1990, 2006), etc.; works describing the issues of translation studies and terminology: O.G. Dudochkina & O.A. Zadorozhnaya (2019), S.V. Grinev-Grinevich (2008), Z.I. Koma- rova (1995), V.N. Komissarov², A.S. Trifonov (2015), and others; studies in the field of linguodidactics and methods of teaching foreign languages by E.G. Asimov & A.N. Schukin (2009), N.D. Galskova & N.I. Gez (2006), W. Reinecke (1979) and others.

The demand for this publication gives reason to believe that the very research method of working on the structural organization of a dictionary entry, the principles of selecting the actual language base, methods and ways of defining terms can not only be extrapolated, refined and expanded in further lexicographic practice, but also serve as a basis for methods of teaching foreign languages (for example, to foreign philologists/linguists). The aim of the research was to identify and describe the specific features of a convergent dictionary, which determine the achievement of linguo-methodological goals and objectives, taking into account the changing pedagogical tools and educational space in general in the era of digitalization.

Methods and materials

The material of the study included terms from the “Brief Dictionary of IT Terms for Language Education Specialists” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017) published by Zlatoust publishing house, as well as partially materials from the section “Education” of the “Atlas of Emerging Jobs” developed by ASI and Skolkovo (authors D. Peskov, D. Sudakov, D. Varlamova, 2013‒2021³).

In the process of research, the authors relied on a set of methods, including component analysis of dictionary entries, comparative method, functional analysis of term systems in English and Russian (if there are equivalent terms), linguistic-cognitive analysis, data systematization and clustering, qualitative interpretation of the glossary in the aspect of difference from other niche dictionaries.

Results

The conducted research allowed us to identify and characterize the place of the “Concise Dictionary”⁴ in the modern linguistic-pedagogical discourse and the degree of its integration into the Russian educational space.

In the process of studying the features of the present dictionary project:

1) we proved that it relates to theoretical lexicography ‒ both in the aspect of developing its macrostructure (it includes the selection of quoted vocabulary, the volume of the vocabulary and its nature, the basic principles of the material arrangement) and in building the microstructure of the glossary (determining the structure of the dictionary entry, presenting the types of described dictionary definitions, types of verbal and polycode illustrations, correlation of different types of information about a word, etc.);

2) we determined the importance of the dictionary for linguodidactics, which is in the need to unify the terminology actively integrating from the IT sphere into language teaching, both for clarifying the meta-language of professional communication of teachers/methodologists of foreign languages, in particular, Russian as a foreign language, and for successful communication with students studying in the fields of “Linguistics”/“Pedagogy”/“Philology”, etc.;

3) we established the target audience of this publication, which, first of all, includes young specialists (teachers of foreign languages/Russian as a foreign language, who are just starting their pedagogical activity; master's students of edu- cational programs in the methodology of teaching foreign languages, including Russian as a foreign language; graduates of the above-mentioned directions, who wish to improve their professional qualification and aspire to be in the trend of educational innovation processes, related to the introduction of ICTs in language teaching practices) and foreign students (for the latter, this dictionary will be not only a tangible help in mastering a number of specialized disciplines, but also a certain reconciliation of concepts in the social and everyday sphere, related to the computer domain, with the terminological base in their teacher's repertoire).

In the process of research and description of the terminological base of the “Concise Dictionary” and methods of term selection, the authors faced a number of linguistic-cognitive problems caused by a significant number of borrowings from English and the resulting difficulties of adequate and unambiguous translation of some definitions. The authors’ principles and methods of solving these problems with various ways of semantization (including polysemiotic design of the dictionary entry) considering the basic methodological provisions and the actual linguistic and cognitive problems were determined.

The obtained theoretical results can be included in the general paradigm of the description of linguodidactic innovations and serve as a basis for further study of the processes of Russian education transformation.

Discussion

Active development of ICT in education and pedagogy, their intensive integration into all forms of work ‒ classroom, mixed and extracurricular ‒ has led to the fact that a significant number of terms, which also refer to the IT-sphere, are interpreted in a multivalent and polyvariant way. In this regard, “the request to create such a dictionary came ‘from within’ when there was a rather urgent need to organize and regulate IT terms used in pedagogical, methodological and professional literature in the field of Russian as a foreign language. Work with new technologies, digital resources (both specialized and general), changes in the target audience, in particular, pedagogical communication with representatives of gene- ration Z (Mememe, YaYaYa ‒ the name varies depending on the source) ‒ also stimulated the authors of the dictionary to replenish the terminological base” (Rubleva, 2015: 115). External stimuli included the specification of new meanings and concepts in language research, scientific and methodological literature, practice of language teaching in the modern educational process, professional communication with colleagues.

As in any other science, in methodology one of the indicators of this science development is a group of basic categories/definitions. In language teaching methodo- logy (in our case, Russian as a foreign language), “the lack of common approaches to the selection of the most important concepts and to their definition is particularly acute” (Azimov, Schukin, 2009: 3). The linguodidactic concept proposed by W. Reinecke (Reinecke, 1979: 267) is based on argumentation of the existence of independent and yet convergent scientific disciplines constituting the theory of foreign language teaching. These are:

1) linguodidactics;

2) didactics of a particular language;

3) language teaching methodology/private methodology.

Thus, it would be logical to assume the necessity of terminology unification.

In this aspect, the authors of the described dictionary will focus on the systematization and ordering terminological units of the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language (from the IT sphere as well) through their definitions.

The authors will base on the tasks of linguodidactics (as defined by N.D. Gals- kova & N.I. Gez (Galskova, Gez, 2006: 38), among which it is necessary to:

‒ “to develop and substantiate the theoretical foundations of linguocentric and anthropocentric concepts of language education;

‒ describe and explain the content of the language teaching process (inclu- ding Russian as a foreign language) and the conditions of its effectiveness;

‒ to theoretically substantiate adequate methodological systems of language teaching, its components being the goals of subject education, basic principles of selecting teaching material, its structuring, means, methods and techniques of language teaching, forms and methods of various kinds of control;

‒ to theoretically comprehend the modernization of organizational forms of language teaching, emerging new teaching systems and technologies”.

Given the spread of information and communication technologies in education, the “Concise Dictionary” is intended to solve the existing problems of termino- logical lacunas in language education, caused by the change of educational paradigms and, as a consequence, to rethink the terminological base not only for solving methodological problems of linguodidactics, but also for the successful implementation of mental operations in teaching foreign languages, including Russian as a foreign language.

For example, the parallel use of the terms distance education vs e-learning is indicative. The content of these terms in the methodological literature on teaching Russian as a foreign language often coincides, although the definitions themselves differ in terms of structure and essence. This fact is reflected in the “Concise Dictionary” in the dictionary entries devoted to these types of teaching.

We should note that the “Concise Dictionary” also presents terms that in the context of teachers' innovative activity have received new meaning in addition to the previous one (for example, the term tutor, which thanks to the “Atlas of Emerging Jobs”⁵ was reinterpreted and supplemented, and the terms startup mentor and mind fitness coach were introduced because of the emerging pedagogical realities and the demands of the professional audience).

Most of the terms of the “Concise Dictionary” were interpreted unambi- guously for the first time in similar publications (that is what happened with the concept of Web 2.0 technologies, which began to be actively used after 2007 because of the emergence and active spread of social networks, as well as the term Web 1.0, this became possible only after comparing these Internet phenomena).

Dictionary entry “Web 2.0 Technologies”:

“WEB 2.0/WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES. A bidirectional environment based on creativity and collaboration; a methodology for designing systems that, through network interactions, evolve and improve as the user audience expands by involving the users themselves in the content and repeatedly checking the content. ‘Web 2.0 technologies’ include blogs, wikis, social networks, etc., which, in our opinion, systematizes and streamlines the use of IT vocabulary in language teaching, gives teachers the opportunity to adjust their work in accordance with the received information, check their understanding of new realities with the dictionary, fill the existing lacunas in terminology” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017).

This glossary is no less significant in the aspect of lexicography. Thus, according to the results of analyzing the development of this dictionary macrostructure and microstructure, it can be referred to the section of theoretical lexicography. And if “a dictionary is a snapshot of an ever-renewing and in-motion language” (Apresyan, 1993: 8), then the “Concise Dictionary” is a valid proof of it. Let us agree with Y.D. Apresyan that “lexicographic recording of linguistic innovations... lags behind the development of the language as a whole, ...whereas a dictionary is obliged to guess behind a snapshot the constant movement of a living language” (Apresyan, 1993: 12). Following this logic, the authors have included in the dictionary terms that were not actively used in the pedagogical environment at the time of publication, but which are already being introduced into the educational space with their potential activation in the speech of teachers, methodologists, and educators. This does not contradict with the words of Y.N. Karaulov that “one of the main tasks of lexicography is to bring the dictionary, with its structure, content, and mechanisms of functioning, closer to the needs of a native speaker or a person studying the language as a non-native one, who turn to the dictionary” (Karaulov, 1988: 57).

Taking as a basis for classification the works of M.L. Apazhev (2005), Z.I. Komarova (1995), M.V. Leichik (1993), and V.V. Morkovkin (1990, 2006), the presented dictionary can be referred to the terminological dictionary in the section of scientific and technical lexicography, and more specifically ‒ to its specia- lized part.

Such a dictionary according to V.M. Leichik's classification (Leichik, 1993) is characterized by:

‒ thematic coverage (here ‒ IT sphere);

‒ terms and term elements in the left part (title word) of the dictionary entry (for example:

HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure),

SYNCHRONOUS LEARNING TOOLS);

‒ in the right part of the dictionary entry ‒ translated terms, glossaries;

‒ alphabetic order of the vocabulary (for example:

А

authorization

automatic analysis of sounding speech

automatic text analysis

automatic synthesis of sounding speech

automatic text synthesis

avatar;

‒ in its purpose and function the dictionary is educational, informative (due to its using vocabulary in pedagogy);

‒ in language coverage it is bilingual⁶;

‒ novelty ‒ many terms are presented for the first time in the aspect of linguo- pedagogical process ‒ language teaching (for example:

THE COORDINATOR OF EDUCATIONAL ONLINE PLATFORMS,

PODCAST (podcasting ‒ iPod broadcasting everywhere),

FLIPPED LEARNING, etc.).

While compiling the dictionary, the authors addressed traditional for lexico- graphy issues (Gerd, 1996: 300):

‒ the basic principles of selecting terminological units were determined;

‒ the ways of describing terms were determined;

‒ links between the definitions were established;

‒ the range of sources of the analysis was expanded (as one of the important principles of material selection);

‒ terms from related sciences (IT, information and communication techno- logies in education, programming, etc.) were included in the dictionary.

The primary task was to select and systematize IT-related definitions, IT terms to be included in the dictionary. Special vocabulary was selected according to the following criteria (Morkovkin, 2006: 25):

‒ thematic. When creating a dictionary of this kind, we considered the general principles of the dictionary, its aims, its target audience;

‒ synchronicity (time factor). The importance of the time factor in selecting definitions for a terminological dictionary of this kind can hardly be overestimated: Moore's Law⁷ does not work anymore, i.e. information technologies are updated much more often than once every two years. And, of course, we are no longer talking about doubling of information, but about its exponential increase, as well as the emergence of new digital realities;

‒ usage (frequency);

‒ importance (semantic value) of the term.

The way of presenting the headword was also evaluated through the prism of modern requirements:

‒ the headword in the “Concise Dictionary” is indicated in capital bold letters with the obligatory accent mark;

‒ the headword is given in its initial form ‒ nominative case singular or plural (depending on how often the form is used);

‒ the current terminological name used in English-language specialized literature is given with a slash (AVTOMATICHESKII PEREVOD/AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION);

‒ synonyms are italicized and placed in alphabetical order with reference to the main terminological unit (see: MACHINERY TRANSLATION. See automatic translation);

‒ if available, an etymological commentary is given (see: AVATAR (from Sanskrit avatāraḥ ‒ descent of a deity to earth, incarnation of a deity // from English avatar ‒ incarnation));

‒ abbreviations most common in linguodidactics and methodology of teaching (ICT, etc.) are given as headwords in alphabetical order and contain “a refe- rence to the full name of the term” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017).

An important task of the glossary was the additional correlation of dictionary entries in Russian with their original English version, which undoubtedly allows not only to significantly expand the target audience of the dictionary, but also to determine the features of the English and Russian terminological sphere in the field of language teaching.

The issue of borrowings and translation of terminological apparatus from English into Russian, which is topical in compiling the dictionary, was solved with the help of theoretical works in the field of lexicography. According to S.V. Grinev-Grinevich: “A term is a nominative special lexical unit (a word or a word combination) adopted for precise naming of concepts” (Grinev-Grinevich, 2008). Paraphrasing the statement, the main property of a term is its meaningful precision, specific boundaries, which are regulated and defined with the help of scientific definitions. V.M. Leichik interpreted a term as “a lexical unit of language, which designates a certain concept of theory of a particular field of knowledge or activity and is used for special purposes”. V.N. Komissarov describes terms as “words and word combinations denoting specific objects and concepts used by specialists in a certain field of science or technology”⁸. As the examples show, all definitions are special terminological units that methodologists, teachers use in professional literature “to designate concepts characteristic of a certain sphere of activity” (Dudochkina, Zadorozhnaya, 2019: 44).

In this aspect, the dictionary contains (according to the classification of S.V. Grinev-Grinevich):

‒ interdisciplinary and special terms (multimedia, podcast, blog);

‒ single-component (IP-address);

‒ multi-component (HTTPS ‒ HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure);

‒ polysemantic (m-learning, e-learning).

Translation of English terms can be direct, i.e. literal, and indirect.

V.N. Komissarov in his concept of translation of terminological lexicon points out three types of translation transformations: lexical, grammatical, complex lexico-grammatical⁹. The first includes calquing, transliteration, lexico-semantic substitutions, transcribing; the second includes replacement of parts of speech and word forms; the last one is represented by antonymic and descriptive translation, the latter being the most accurate.

If full equivalents are available, the translation of terms is not energy-consuming, if the specifics of the text is taken into account, otherwise the term may get a completely different meaning.

The actual procedure of writing the dictionary included certain stages corresponding to the requirements form A.S. Trifonov's work “Criteria for Selecting Terms for the Vocabulary of a Terminological Dictionary. Theoretical and Applied Linguistics” (Trifonov, 2015):

1) the structure of the “Concise Dictionary” from the point of view of the existing theoretical provisions and aspects was justified, the principles of term selection and their subsequent interpretation were described;

2) the terminological selection was made on the basis of analyzing the already published methodological and educational literature in the field of language education;

3) the comparative analysis of the final terminological vocabulary with the current conceptual apparatus in the field of foreign language teaching metho- dology was carried out;

4) when different variants (synonymy, homonymy, polysemy) were found in the definition, the “core” term was chosen;

5) on the basis of the most authoritative sources: monographs, methodo- logical manuals, articles in the field of language teaching methodology, including Russian as a foreign language, the adequate variant of the definition (if any) was chosen;

6) if there was an English-language variant, the Russian-language term was correlated with similar definitions in the original language; if possible, a translation of the term into English was given;

7) lexico-semantic relations of terms were defined and their transposition in the dictionary by cross-references (if any) was given (Trifonov, 2015: 80).

After systematization and description of the terminological lexicon, 241 terminological units arranged in alphabetical order were included in the dictionary. In the English version out of the total number were also presented 30 terms, with 7 of them currently having no Russian-language analog.

For example, such a term as HTML has no Russian version, so the dictionary presents the following article:

“HTML (from English HyperText Markup Language ‒ hypertext markup language). Standard markup language for documents on the Internet, which allows you to place texts, tables, pictures. The HTML language is perceived and interpreted by browsers; the resulting interpreted formatted text is displayed on the screen of a computer monitor or mobile device. Many web pages contain a description of markup in the HTML language” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017).

Other terms are duplicated with Russian versions and referenced:

“MOOC. See Massovyi otkrytyi onlain-kurs”.

“MASSOVYI OTKRYTYI ONLAIN-KURS (MOOK)/MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE (MOOC). One of the popular forms of electronic and distance education, represented by training courses on certain subjects, posted on the Internet and free for users to access...” (Belova, Rubleva, 2017).

The terms were chosen considering the frequency of their use (at the time of writing the dictionary) in the professional environment – by Russian language teachers, teachers of Russian as a foreign language, methodologists ‒ and/or the use of these or those terminological definitions at seminars, conferences, events devoted to the problems of language teaching. For example, thanks to the “Atlas of Emerging Jobs”, such notions as moderator, mentor, tutor¹⁰ were reinterpreted, which was reflected in the corresponding articles of the “Concise Dictionary”.

Some terms and terminoids, which are not widely used in language education, but are potentially relevant for the professional vocabulary of pedagogical staff, were not included in the dictionary. Thus, for example, the notion of NBICS (despite the existing convergence in the field of technical and human sciences) has only recently begun to be associated with language education; the notions of landing page, Big Data, scrolling in relation to language teaching are only just finding their niche and might be considered in the future.

Some dictionary entries are provided with illustrative material, which gives a visual representation of both the term and the way it is used (see the article COMPUTER NETWORK (from English net and work)/DATA NETWORK).

The macrostructure of the analyzed edition also has a certain peculiarity: terminological units described in the dictionary are allocated in a special alphabe- tical index; in addition to the alphabetical index, the “Concise Dictionary” contains an index of authors of the studies mentioned in the edition, there are thema- tic and subject indexes necessary for adequate understanding the place of the defined concept, designated by the term.

It seems that the prospects for subsequent editions of the “Concise Dictionary”, supplemented and clarified (as well as other “similar” editions), are not in doubt: in the few years that have passed since the publication of the dictionary, the perception of IT in pedagogical and linguistic education has changed significantly, if not radically. Not only new terms reflecting the modern essence of the educational process have appeared, but also new realities where the teacher works, new jobs converging IT and pedagogical sphere have appeared and have already been established, and a number of concepts are requiring terminological specification and differentiation from the existing, established definitions due to changes both in the sphere of Internet technologies and directly in the pedagogical process¹¹.

It goes without saying that it is necessary to describe such technological phenomena as AI (artificial intelligence) in linguistics, language education, metho- dology of teaching foreign languages/Russian as a foreign language. The Chat GPT neural network is not yet so actively used by teachers, but the first experiments with this neural network show the “technological toy” will soon become a teacher's assistant when composing texts, tests, assignments and questions for students. We think that potentially (according to the structural organization of the “Concise Dictionary”) the terminological description of this IT phenomenon may look as follows:

“Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot¹² with an artificial intelligence algorithm that allows to communicate and support user queries in natural languages. The use of GPT chatbot is based on the method of reinforcement learning based on human feedback, which is common in machine learning. The GPT chatbot is based on a multimodal language model (GPT-4) that works on the principle of the reward model: the more people communicate with the chatbot, the more accurate its responses become in the long run.

In the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language this chatbot can be used for compiling simple tests for texts of A1‒A2 level with the subsequent linguo-methodological control of the teacher. Also, the chatbot can be used as a simulator when practicing the simplest grammatical constructions and imita- ting dialogical communication in written speech (A2‒B1)”.

Russian language teachers, philologists, linguists, teachers working with foreig- ners, students of philological faculties in the new edition of the “Concise Dictionary” also need descriptions (or at least nominal references) of such digital resources as “Textometer” (Laposhina, Lebedeva, 2021), “Russian Construction” (Endresen et al., 2020), which are already actively used both in the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language and in linguistic research.

Terminological description, from our point of view, is necessary for both “language corpus” in all its diversity (Piperski, 2020) and the abbreviation RNC (Russian National Corpus), which are actively used by students and teachers in the practice of learning and teaching Russian as a foreign language in the last 2‒3 years. This is necessary, among other things, because the very definition of language corpus requires concretization, as there are several similar corpuses today.

A detailed lexicographic description including ways of working with the RNC (or one of its subcorpuses) will be a good practical example for learners (both native speakers and non-native speakers of Russian) and for teachers-methodologists, Russianists, linguists and philologists in general.

Conclusion

The multilevel restructuring of the modern educational paradigm under the influence of a significant number of civilizational factors directly necessitates both the revision of methodological positions of scholars and changes in all subjects of the learning process. In this regard, the described glossary demonstrates diverse approaches and solutions in the field of theory and methodology of teaching foreign languages, where information and communication technologies have confidently taken a leading position (for example, it is the introduction of new educational courses in higher education programs: “ICT in language teaching”, “New computer technologies in linguistics”, “Information technologies in philological education”, etc., with the important position in the curricula of Russian universities). It seems that the “Brief Dictionary of IT Terms for Language Education Specialists”, which has filled one of the lacunas of modern linguodidactics, due to the potentiality of its structure for further expansion/clarification in the scope and content of terminological units can become one of the tools for improving the professional and methodological literacy of specialists in the field of linguistic and linguopedagogical education.

 

_{¹ See, for example: IT Terminology Glossary. Internet Technology Terms & Definitions. Retrieved from dpsolutions.com; IT Terms Glossary. Information Technology Definitions. Dataprise, Free Computer Terms, Dictionary, and Glossary. Retrieved from computerhope.com; The Computer Dictionary. Retrieved from TechTerms.com}

_{² Komissarov, V.N. (1990). Theory of translation (linguistic aspects): Textbook for institutes and faculties of foreign languages. Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola Publ. (In Russ.)}

_{³ Peskov, D., Sudakov, D., & Varlamova, D. (2013). Atlas of emerging jobs. Skolkovo. (In Russ.) Retrieved from March 11, 2023, from https://atlas100.ru/}

_{⁴ Here and below – the contracted names are made by the authors.}

_{⁵ Peskov, D., Sudakov, D., & Varlamova, D. (2013). Atlas of emerging jobs. Skolkovo. (In Russ.) Retrieved from March 11, 2023, from https://atlas100.ru/}

_{⁶ In some cases, we can speak (with some limitations) about the polycodicity of the dictionary entries, as some terms are digits (see the dictionary entry 1:1).}

_{⁷ According to which “the number of transistors placed on an integrated circuit crystal doubles every 24 months”; it is one of the symbols of the information technology revolution in computing devices.}

_{⁸ Komissarov, V.N. (1990). Theory of translation (linguistic aspects): Textbook for institutes and faculties of foreign languages. Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola Publ. (In Russ.)}

_{⁹ Ibid.}

_{¹⁰ Cf. the definition of a tutor presented in the “New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts” by E.G. Asimov and A.N. Shchukin: “TUTOR (from Latin tutor ‒ protector, guardian). Teacher-consultant or mentor of a student, helping him to organize individual learning and providing educational and methodological guidance of the educational process within the framework of a specific curriculum” (Azimov, Shchukin, 2009: 314) and a refined, supplemented de- finition of tutor in the “Concise Dictionary”: “TUTOR (from English “mentor”). A teacher who accompanies the individual development of students within the disciplines forming the educational program, working out individual tasks, recommending the trajectory of career development; a mentor, a mediator, a person who teaches to independently solve problems (translate them into tasks); it is a position that accompanies, supports the process of self-education, individual educational search. ...There are different directions of tutoring: educational, research, project, career guidance, etc.”}

_{¹¹ Thus, (going back to the beginning of the article) the constructs “distance learning” and “online learning” require close attention and terminological detailing. The latter definition has not yet found a unified definition in Russian terminological system, which is primarily due to the weak differentiation of the concepts of “distance”/“online” in relation to learning. Perhaps, the next edition of the dictionary will consider “online learning” as a logical evolutionary development of “distance learning” with Internet availability 24/7.}

_{¹² The term “chatbot” also needs to be included in subsequent editions of the dictionary, since this type of Internet communication using artificial intelligence algorithms has a clear tendency to spread, including in pedagogical discourse.}

About the authors

Natalia A. Bozhenkova

Pushkin State Russian Language Institute

Author for correspondence.
Email: natalyach@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2381-5865

Doctor of Philology, Full Professor, Professor at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics

6 Akademika Volgina St, Moscow, 117485, Russian Federation

Ekaterina V. Rubleva

Pushkin State Russian Language Institute

Email: ekaterina.rubleva@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6569-2736

PhD, Associate Professor of the Department of Methods of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language

6 Akademika Volgina St, Moscow, 117485, Russian Federation

Hadi Baharloo

Tarbiat Modares University

Email: baharloo@modares.ac.ir
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7473-4638

PhD, Assistant Professor at the Department of Russian Language

7 Jalal Al Ahmad St, Tehran, 1411713116, Islamic Republic of Iran

References