Richard West
Moscow
November 2014
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WHAT is engineering vocabulary?
WHO should teach it?
HOW do learners learn/teachers teach it?
WITH WHAT? What resources are available?
Technical/
specialist
Sub-technical/
semi-technical
General/
common-core
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The terms of one field/a group of closelyrelated fields
Unfamiliar to the layman (pendlandite)
Includes confusing terms that look familiar
but are not (pillar, plug, pond)
Not included in a general ELT dictionary
Small vocabulary (mining = 400 terms)
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Non-specialist
Some common specialist terms
Included in a general ELT dictionary
Known to the advanced learner
25,000-35,000 words
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There is, of course, a vast vocabulary of
technical words, but the problem is not so
frightening as it looks. .... Much more
difficult are the semi-scientific or semitechnical words, which have a whole range of
meanings and are frequently used
idiomatically ... words such as work and plant
and load and feed and force. Words like
these look harmless, but they can cause a lot
of trouble for the student. (Herbert 1965: v)
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Items which express notions general to all or
several specialised disciplines, e.g. factor,
method and function.
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Items that have a specialised meaning in one
or more disciplines, in addition to a different
meaning in general language. Bug in
computer science, for instance, is different
from bug as we know it in everyday use.
Solution has different specialised meanings in
mathematics and chemistry, in addition to its
general language meaning.
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Items which are not used in general language
but which have different meanings in several
specialised disciplines. Morphological, for
instance, means different things to linguists
and botanists.
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Items which are traditionally viewed as general
language vocabulary but which have restricted
meanings in certain specialised disciplines. In
botany, effective simply means “take effect”; it
carries no evaluative meaning. In the same
discipline, genes which are expressed have
observable effects, i.e. are more apparent
physically, as opposed to being masked.
Expressed in botany is therefore not associated
with emotional or verbal behaviour as is the case
in general language.
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General language items which are used, in
preference to other semantically equivalent
items, to describe or comment on technical
processes or functions. For example, a
recent examination of a corpus of biology
textbooks revealed that photosynthesis, and
other processes such as digestion, do not,
apparently, ever happen’; they
overwhelmingly take place and occasionally
occur. Take place and occur can therefore be
regarded as sub-technical vocabulary.
Items which are used in specialised texts to
perform specific rhetorical functions. These
are items which signal the writer’s intentions
or his evaluation of the material presented.
Johns and Dudley-Evans (1980) give the
following examples of expressions used in
Plant Biology lectures: “One explanation is
...”, “Others have said ...” and “It has been
pointed out by ...”
(Baker 1988: 92)
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Technical/
Specialist
Specialist?
Sub-technical/
semi-technical
ESP teacher?
General/
common-core
General-English teacher
ESP teacher
 Can assume that general/common-core
vocabulary has been taught
 Can be expected to know/teach sub-/semitechnical vocabulary
 Should not be expected to teach technical/
specialist vocabulary
 Can be expected to teach technical
vocabulary recognition and learning
strategies
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Technical vocabulary or specialist
terminology has a low frequency in most
academic or professional texts – a figure of
under five per cent is often given.
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Specialist terminology varies not only from
discipline to discipline, but also between
different areas within the same discipline.
Therefore, the terminology in a paper in one
area may be very different from that in
another area within the same discipline.
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New specialist terminology is always being
invented, so there is no way that it can all be
learnt by an ESP student, let alone an ESP
teacher.
The ESP teacher can get the terminology
wrong, giving his/her students the wrong
definitions and getting into trouble.
(Dudley-Evans & St John 1998: 81)
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rank
1
2
3
4
5
strategy
Bilingual dictionary
Guess from textual content
Ask classmates for meaning
Analyse any available
pictures or gestures
Ask teacher for an L1
translation
use
85%
74%
73%
47%
usefulness
95%
73%
65%
84%
45%
61%
rank
strategy
6
Ask teacher for paraphrase
or synonym
7
Monolingual dictionary
8
Discover new meaning
through group work activity
9
Analyse part of speech
(Schmitt 1997)
use
85%
usefulness
95%
35%
77%
35%
65%
32%
75%
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Recognise definitions or glosses
Recognise paraphrases, synonyms, examples
Efficient use of bilingual dictionary or
translation
Efficient use of monolingual dictionary
Efficient guessing from context
Analyse pictures, diagrams, etc
Analyse word function and structure
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ELT dictionaries
Online ELT dictionaries
Native-speakers’ dictionaries
British Council’s Word Family Framework
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Possible Anglo-Russian project
Specialist glossaries
e.g. Mining (mining/metallurgy/geology,
management)
Mining – ESP teachers, mining engineer &
mining journal
Electronic version only
Customisable
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Electronic glossary
Cooperation between
- ESP teacher
- professional mining engineer
- professional journal Northern Miner
- Russian specialist?
Legal/copyright granted & acknowledged
Available online through central host
Customisable – users can personalise
Proposed sub-technical dictionary project:
 Words with semi-technical meanings
 Different meanings
 Examples
 Related parts of speech/word-family
members
 UK & US varieties
 Customisable – users can personalise
 Approximately 4000 items
west46@btinternet.com