The Role of the English Article System in Developing Dialogical Context: A View from Russian Science
The Role of the English Article System in Developing Dialogical Context: A View from Russian Science
复制标题
英语冠词系统在发展对话语境中的作用：来自俄罗斯科学的观点
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.3862329
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
N. Popova
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. Beavitt;N. Popova
在国际科学交流中出现的一个常见问题是英语中零冠词、不定冠词和定冠词的使用。虽然现有的教学方法被成功地用于教授使用英语文章的近母语能力，但即使是高级ESL / EAP学生，特别是那些第一语言（例如俄语）不具备文章的学生，也无法达到母语能力的最后阶段。因此，目前的工作是旨在制定一个概念性的方法，文章使用的基础上考虑的发展情况下，科学交流。对现有理论研究的回顾表明，从语义和转换语法的态度到基于对话交际的语用解释策略，有了明显的发展。对俄罗斯科学家撰写的研究论文中出现的文章错误进行了定性内容分析，并由母语为英语的编辑进行了更正，发现存在9种主要的与文章相关的错误类型，其中使用零冠词与单数NP而不是定冠词（SxlingD）是最常见的。本文还根据Bickerton的NP语义功能类型学、Hawkins的定位理论以及Liu和Gleason的主要类型对含有冠词错误的句子中的NP进行了评价。有一种假设认为，受过高等教育的俄罗斯科学家通常倾向于过度使用the、a和an，以补偿受教育程度较低的俄罗斯人在使用英语时放弃冠词的倾向，但这一假设没有得到内容分析结果的证实。对一篇IMRaD研究论文不同部分中出现的冠词使用错误类型的分析表明，与定冠词的过度使用和使用不足有关的错误在引言部分尤为突出。然而，在讨论章节中发现的文章相关错误数量最多，与其他章节相比，Sxtumor D错误显著超过其他错误类型。虽然现有的概念方法来解释英语冠词系统的功能是有限的效用，一个全面的系统还有待开发。作者建议在科学交流的背景下，用对话的方法教授非英语母语者的英语冠词系统。
A common issue arising in international scientific communication concerns the use of zero-, indefinite- and definite articles in English. While existing pedagogical approaches are successfully used to teach near-native competency in the use of English articles, the final stage of native-equivalent competency continues to evade even advanced ESL / EAP students, especially those whose first language (e.g. Russian) does not possess articles. Therefore, the present work is aimed at developing a conceptual approach to article use based on a consideration of the development of context in scientific communication. A literature review of some existing theoretical approaches shows a clear development from semantic and transformational-grammatical attitudes towards more pragmatic explicatory strategies based on dialogic communication. A qualitative content analysis of article errors appearing in the text of research papers written by Russian scientists and corrected by a native English editor revealed the presence of nine major article-related error types, of which the use of zero article with singular NPs instead of the definite article (SxØ√D) was the most common. NPs in sentences containing article errors were also evaluated according to Bickerton’s NP semantic function typology, Hawkins’ location theory and Liu and Gleason’s major types. The hypothesis that Russian scientists, being highly educated, would generally tend to overuse the, a and an in an overcompensation for the tendency of less-well-educated Russians to drop articles when using English was not confirmed by the results of the content analysis. The analysis of article-use error types appearing in different sections of an IMRaD research paper showed that errors related to the overuse and underuse of the definite article the are particularly characteristic of the Introduction section. However, the largest number of article-related errors were found in the Discussion section, where the SxØ√D error significantly outweighed other error types as compared with other sections. While existing conceptual approaches to explicating the function of the English article system have limited utility, a comprehensive system has yet to be developed. The authors recommend a dialogic approach for teaching the English article system to non-native speakers in the context of scientific communication.