The Magic of Innovation: LANGUAGE and LANGUAGE TEACHING in a CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Bio

Olga Viktorovna Kulikova (Russia), D.Sc. in Philology, is Professor at the English Department of the School of International Relations, MGIMO University. She authored over 100 academic papers and books, including courses of English for professional purposes The Basics of Economics (2003, 2006, 2012, 2013), International Marketing course of English (2013), The Master’s Skills. A Сourse of Professional English for Students of Masters Programmes in International Management (2015), English for Students of Information Security (2020) and others. Among her other works are "Heuristics of Argumentation" (2010), "Discourse of Corporate Ethics in the Communicative-Pragmatic Paradigm of Linguistic Research" (2019). She also co-authored a number of studies in modern linguistics and language teaching. Olga V. Kulikova is also a research advisor for postgraduate students of the Moscow State Linguistic University and Master’s program students at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). In her research, she has mostly focused on theoretical linguistics, communication theory, communicative and cognitive linguistics, discourse theory, argumentation theory, text pragmatics, efficiency in professional communication, language teaching, and content and language integrated learning (CLIL).

Abstract:

Linguistics and language teaching in the changing academic and educational environment. Teaching foreign languages for specific purposes.

The talk will cover the most significant transformations in the current academic and educational environment and their impact on linguistics and teaching of foreign language for specific purposes. Its relevance is stipulated by the need to acknowledge the ongoing changes and identify the most effective strategies in research and teaching language for professional purposes to university students. One of the specific features common to both linguistics and language teaching is the ongoing paradigm shift that brings to the fore the anthropocentric paradigm, which implies the dominance of the human factor both in research and learning. Analysis of research papers and conference proceedings has proven that at present, teaching a foreign language aims at more than the transfer of knowledge and skills through competence acquisition. Instead, it stands for teaching to learn, i.e. interiorizing the acquired knowledge and skills. The very concept of knowledge is currently undergoing change as it is affected by two trends: specialization vs. integration of knowledge. With this in mind, the trends for convergence and transition to integrated knowledge are becoming increasingly apparent in linguistics and language teaching. Phenomena that have been studied in detail in specialized sciences, as well as in modern linguistics, are now at the foreground of language teaching, leading to multidisciplinarity in language and other subjects. Anthropocentrism, integrative learning and interdisciplinarity as the primary attributes of the modern academic and educational environment have laid the groundwork for the epistemic model reflecting the transfer of knowledge in teaching a foreign language for specific purposes. Given the contemporary transformations in research and education, there are three factors that ensure the successful transfer of (specialized) knowledge: student-centered education, building meta-competence in the learning process and an outright focus on the learning outcome. These indicators are closely intertwined, serving as a solid basis for building a cohesive and effective system of teaching a foreign language for specific purposes.

Bio

Andy Gillett is currently a lecturer at University College London: Institute of Education, where he works mainly on research methods and student research for MA dissertations. He has many years of experience of working in further and higher education in the field of TESOL and specialises in ESP and EAP. He worked for many years at the University of Hertfordshire where he was programme leader for the MA in English Language Teaching. Since 2009, Andy has been involved in consultancy work in various countries, as well as continuing to teach MA students. His main research interests are connected with ESP, especially EAP, including the role of language in academic and professional success, course design, testing and teaching. He is also interested in the use of technology and the integration of computer assisted language learning into the ELT curriculum. He has recently been teaching a research methods module to MA business students in Hertfordshire and has produced writing materials for an ESRC funded project at Coventry University and a course for vocational English teachers for the British Council. He is a member of IATEFL & TESOL and has been involved in the ESP SIGs since they began. He has been a leading member of BALEAP, for which he was chair from 2003-2005.

Abstract:

Languages for Specific Purpose: A View from 2021

The talk is concerned with the recent development of the teaching and learning of Languages for Specific Purposes. Although my examples will be from English for Specific Purposes (ESP), much of what I will say will be relevant to the teaching of other languages. I want to look at what ESP was considered to be when it was first widely written about in the 1960s and see how our understanding of what language is and how language - especially English - is used now is different in 2021. This should influence how we now understand and teach Languages for Specific Purposes. This may also be useful for all language teaching!

Bio:

David Singleton took his B.A. at Trinity College, University of Dublin, and his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, where he was, until his retirement from that institution, Professor in Applied Linguistics. Thereafter he held the title of Professor at the University of Pannonia, Veszprém (Hungary) and at the State University of Applied Sciences, Konin (Poland). He served as President of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics, as Secretary General of the International Association of Applied Linguistics and as President of the European Second Language Association. His publications number more than 220, his books and articles ranging across a wide spectrum of topics – but focusing mainly on cross-linguistic influence, the second language lexicon, the age factor in language acquisition and multilingualism. He is the founding editor and continuing co-editor of the Multilingual Matters SLA book series. In 2015 he received the EUROSLA Distinguished Scholar Award and in 2017 was awarded Honorary Membership of AILA.

Abstract:

Phraseological answers to grammatical conundrums

This paper will address the definitions and scope of phraseology as a domain which is primarily lexical, but which very much connects with grammatical issues. It will discuss the widening scope of phraseology, resulting from impact of large language corpora, and will claim that both statistical models of learning and usage-based models of language use provide theoretical support for the claim that language use is to a very considerable extent formulaic. Reference will also be made to important schools of linguistic thought which blur the distinction between lexis and grammar, such as the Hallidayan concept of lexicogrammar and valency grammar. The paper will conclude with the observation that, while these and other developments in the field of syntax fulsomely acknowledge the role of lexis, academic publications which cover typically lexical issues rarely acknowledge the crucial phraseological interconnection between lexis and grammar.

Bio

Irina Vladimirovna Zykova (Russia), D.Sc. in Philology, Professor, Leading Researcher in Theoretical Linguistics, Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences. She authored more than 150 scientific papers, including four monographs Ways of Сonstructing Gender in English Phraseology (2003), Culture as an Information System: Spiritual, Mental, Material and Semiotic Aspects (2nd ed, 2016), Сonceptosphere of Culture and Phraseology: Theory and Methods of Linguocultural Studies (2nd ed., 2019), Linguocultural Meta-language: Constants and Variants (2017). Author of A Practical Course in English Lexicology (3rd ed., 2008) and compiler (co-author) of the fundamental dictionary The Big Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language (4th ed., 2014). Research interests include theoretical linguistics, linguo-cultural studies, phraseology, cognitive linguistics, linguistic and interdisciplinary metalanguage of the 21st century, lexicography, poetics of cinematic discourse, creative semiotics, avant-garde idiomatics, cognitive poetics. Leader of research projects on Russian avant-garde idiomatics and linguistic creativity in discourse and language. Member of two dissertation councils and several international scientific organizations (RALC, EUROPHRAS, PHRASIS, UK-CLA). One of the editors of the international scientific collection Language, Culture, Creativity: World Practices of Study (2020).

Abstract:

A multidimensional character of linguistic creativity and its study in the poetics of cinematic discourse

The era of big data and high technology transforms the discursive landscape of contemporary culture, enhancing academic interest in polycoded (creolised) discourse and activating the need to develop new approaches to its study. Among diverse types of polycoded discourses, researchers give close attention to cinematic discourse. One of the important factors of ever-increasing interest in cinema discourse is an arsenal of various expressive (verbal and non-verbal) means, artistic techniques and technomedial innovations developed in cinematography throughout its rapid evolution and having a certain (psychological, aesthetic, manipulative, etc.) impact on the recipient. These cinematic means are widely appropriated and effectively used by other discourses (political, mass-media, advertising, artistic, etc.) to form a certain public opinion about an event that is represented in a certain way.

Currently, great emphasis is placed on the study of the peculiarities of constructing a film polycode structure as well as on the interaction between different modalities in film production. In this regard, language can be defined as one of the most significant means of artistic expression of a cinematographic work and a tool to convey the underlying ideological and aesthetic concept. The paper highlights the results of developing the research methodology for studying linguistic creativity in the creation of film discourse poetics. The proposed approach allows us to explore the creative potential of language in the construction of the film's verbal structure and representation of fictional events, as well as in the formation of complex figurative polymodal means - cinematic tropes. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of a set of interrelated notions, designed to evaluate the role of language as a creative modulator in organizing a film’s fictional space, developing its storyline, achieving its key pragmatic goal and providing a certain linguistic and pragmatic impact on the audience. These are such notions as "linguo creativity parameter", "universal linguo creativity", "discursive linguo creativity", "(un)creative phenomenon", "cinematographic trope", "poiesis of film perception" and some others. In general, the developed methodology is aimed at studying the manifestation of creative possibilities of language at various levels and stages of the polymodal construction of the image system of different film genres, as well as film discourse as such.

Bio:

Dr Heather Lotherington is Professor of Multilingual Education at York University in Toronto, Canada, and a Fellow of McLaughlin College, York University, and Massey College, University of Toronto. She has been involved in language teaching and learning for over 40 years, having taught English for Academic purposes in Canada, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore; lectured in TESL and Applied linguistics at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, and Linguistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia where she was Executive Director of the Language and Society Research Centre. In 1999 she joined the Faculty of Education at York University where she has just stepped down as Associate Dean, Research. Her research focuses on multimodal digital literacies and innovative plurilingual pedagogies. She currently leads a research team exploring production pedagogies for mobile digital language learning. She has published and presented widely on multimodal, plurilingual teaching and learning, and language in digital environments

Abstract:

@digitalcommunication: Language, digital mediation, and academic writing

In academic language instruction, there is a tendency to rely on dated paradigms of language to teach a skill set established in pre-digital print culture: speaking-listening-reading-writing towards essay writing, note-taking and successful standardized test taking. However, in 2021, when most daily communication is mediated on smartphones, teaching writing as linear alphabetic process perpetuates conservative academic text production that is a poor fit for current, much less future social and economic needs.

This presentation surveys changes in the shape and use of (English) language corresponding to developments in digital mediation. Three waves of socio-technical evolution ensuing from the public release of the Internet three decades ago are mapped onto innovations in language conventions and discourses in digital environments, from Web 1.0 page to screen through Web 2.0 interactive, collaborative and dynamic multimodal texts into Web 3.0 posthumanism and mobile communication.

The relevance of conservative academic language teaching aims and materials: static textbooks, traditional essays, decontextualized vocabulary and language skill test materials and so forth is queried, given that language learners could—and I would argue should—be creating collaborative multimodal assignments. I invite participants to participate in my follow-up workshop on production pedagogies where you will have the opportunity to share changes in the languages you speak and teach and perspectives on how or whether digital language is educationally acknowledged in your teaching context.