Peculiarities Of Language And Style Of Texts For Construction Workers

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description of linguistic and stylistic features of the codified Russian language for construction workers. On the basis of the analysis of current Russian textbooks on construction, modern terminology dictionaries on construction, standards and regulatory documents, dissertations and articles devoted to the description of the Russian language for construction workers there have been defined morphological, lexical and syntactic features of the construction language. Considering morphological peculiarities of construction texts, the most common word-formation processes have been revealed and the derived words have been classified according to their meaning. The lexical features of texts on construction, mainly, include the presence of special professional terminology. The examples of construction terms classified according to their meaning are presented in the article. The typical for construction language syntactic constructions have been described, the belonging of construction texts to different substyles of a scientific style has been established. The analysis of the language and stylistic means allows one to determine the belonging of construction texts to the following substyles: scientific-business, academic-scientific, academic-scientific-business, which in turn can help develop methodology models and integrated courses teaching Russian and foreign construction students to professional language more effectively.

Keywords:

Introduction

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest of linguists and methodologists in studying a language used in a particular professional sphere of communication. The language can be named as a professional language, a sublanguage of a specialty, a professional dialect, a professional style, a special language, a language for specific purposes (LSP).

The LSP is often used in the methodology of teaching foreign languages and Russian as a foreign language (Tokareva et al., 2018). Also, this term can be found in scientific and methodological literature devoted to the issues of teaching Russian students to Russian and speech culture with emphasis on the language of students’ future occupation (Skorikova, 2016).

There is a large volume of published studies describing the role of a professional language for communication and education (Bryson 2016), emphasizing the importance of studying lexical and morphological features of a professional language (Volokhova, 2021; Volokhova & Karelova, 2018). Moreover, the necessity of analyzing professional language, namely, construction texts based on genre-approach in order to facilitate an access of construction workers to information is underlined by Condamines and Péry-Woodley (2007).

Thus, the study aims to describe the features of the codified Russian language of construction and to analyze the selection of language and stylistic means allowing to determine the belonging of construction texts to different substyles of a scientific style, such as scientific-business, academic-scientific, academic-scientific-business. In this context the term ‘academic’ is used for academic student activity or academic sphere of communication. So, the study of the language of a specific professional field, which provides the language understanding and mastering by a closed group of people with the same scientific-professional worldview and inducted into profession through the shared use of professional words and terminology, defines the topicality of our work.

Problem Statement

The results of studies on special or professional language can solve several problems. First, they can enrich the genre studies, since language means are normally used according to a genre peculiarity and in accordance with a specific functional style. Second, they can help solve some linguo-didactic problems concerned with teaching future specialists to have a good command of Russian and foreign professional languages which is one of the requirements to quality of training future graduates of technical universities.

Much of the current literature on studies of construction language pays particular attention to its lexical, morphological, word-forming and syntactic peculiarities (Budagyan et al., 2015; Khisamova, 2014; Trofimova & Shchitova, 2020; Zhakhanova, 2015). However, there are no works devoted to the relationship of the construction text with the functional style. Thus, the study aimed at defining the belonging of construction texts to the scientific style, namely, its substyles sets a number of research questions to consider.

Research Questions

There are several questions to be considered within our study. Firstly, on the basis of previous researches it is necessary to identify what lexical, morphological, syntactic features of construction texts are by classifying their linguistic and stylistic means. Secondly, there is the need for analyzing the construction texts to define what specific functional style they correlate with.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to describe the features of the codified Russian language for construction workers and to analyze the language and stylistic means allowing one to determine the belonging of construction texts to different substyles of a scientific style, such as scientific-business, academic-scientific, academic-scientific-business and distinguish different genres within the substyles. The obtained results can allow developing the methodology for teaching Russian and foreign students to Russian for construction workers through forming and development of students’ genre competence in scientific / professional sphere of communication (Kolesnikova & Ridnaya, 2019, p. 387).

Research Methods

The analysis was conducted on the material of the current Russian textbooks on construction, modern terminology dictionaries on construction, standards and regulatory documents, dissertations and articles devoted to the description of the Russian language for construction workers. Moreover, the distinction between different genres within construction sublanguage was drawn on the basis of the genre approach widely used for teaching special/professional language (Bhatia, 1991; Henry & Roseberry, 1998).

Findings

As a result of analysis of construction texts there have been distinguished morphological, lexical, syntactic and stylistic features.

Conclusion

As a result of the conducted research, the literature on the topic was reviewed, word formation peculiarities of construction terms and language means of construction texts were identified, the peculiarities of syntactic structure of sentences used in text for construction workers were analyzed.

The analysis of the language for construction workers and the established belonging of construction texts to academic-scientific-business substyle allow developing methodology models and integrated courses teaching Russian and foreign construction students, as well as students of different engineering courses more effectively.

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