Language for Special Purposes
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U;>llVERSiTY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/languageforspeci21cowa / / x>.l TUDIES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY, STYLISTICS, AND LANGUAGE PLANNING. Special Issue on VNGUAGE FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES V, EDITED BY J RONAYNE COWAN Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 1977 •UBLICATION OF THE UNIT FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY AND RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN STUDIES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY, STYLISTICS, AND LANGUAGE PLANNING. EDITORIAL BOARD J RONAYNE COWAN (CHAIRMAN) HANS HENRICH HOCK; JAMES MARCHAND; SEIICHI MAKING; BRUCE MAINOUS (EX OFFICIO) Studies in Language Learning (SLL) is primarily concerned with applied linguistics, and specifically with language acquisition, language pedagogy, stylistics, and language planning. SLL gives preference to contributions which are of theoretical and/or meth- odological interest. SLL aims at developing an interdisciplinary cooperation between faculty and students working in language-related fields in humanities, social sciences, education, and other disciplines. In order to promote such interdepartmental exchange of ideas SLL has a number of editorial advisors representing various disciplines. CONTRIBUTIONS: SLL includes PREPUBLICATION versions of contributions from the faculty and stu- dents of the University of Illinois. Invited contributions from non- University of Illinois faculty and students may also be included. SLL encourages detailed papers which present the state of the art of various subfields of applied linguistics and focus on current insights and controversies in the language-related fields. Shorter notes and comments will be published in the Notes and Comments section. Contributions should be sent to J Ronayne Cowan, Department of Linguistics, 4088 Foreign Language Building, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801. The style sheet and details for the typing of manuscripts are available from the editor. BOOK REVIEWS: Publications should be submitted to Hans Henrich Hock, Review Editor, SLL, Depart- ment of Linguistics, 4088 Foreign Languages Building, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801. The Review Section will include detailed reviews or review articles, for which two review copies should be submitted. In addition, there will be Short Notices and a listing of Publications Received, for which one copy should be submitted. SPECIAL ISSUES: SLL will devote one issue each year to a special topic. The next special issue will be devoted to Language and Culture. (For details see back cover.) SUBSCRIPTIONS: SLL is published twice during the academic year in fall and spring. The subscription is $3.00 per issue. Orders may be sent to SLL, Subscriptions, Unit for Foreign Language Study and Re- search, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801. PUBLICATION OF THE UNIT FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY AND RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Price of this issue $3.00 CONTENTS ARTICLES iii Fvefaae Rasio Dunatov 1 Special Courses in Russian Karl J. Fink 17 Learning to Read German: A Searah for Relevant Models John E. Lackstrom k^ The Comprehension of English for Science and Technology Arguments and Definitions James W. Marchand G'J The Teaching of Pronunciation Bernice Melvin 89 Recent Developments in Memory Research and their Implications for Foreign Language Teaching Peter Strevens 111 English for Special Purposes: An Analysis and Survey Georges Zask 137 Trends and Issues in Teaching French to Migrant Workers BIBLIOGRAPHIES: LANGUAGE FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES J Ronayne Covan 155 Selected Bibliography of Literature Pertaining to the Teaching of English for Special Purposes Rasio Dunatov 170 Selected Bibliography of Soviet Literature in Special Register Russian Courses for Foreigners Karl J. Fink Y12. Selected Bibliography of Literature in German Special Register Courses and Word Frequency Counts for German REVIEWS Phillip S. Dale 175 Language Development: Structure and Function (J Ronayne Cowan) Joshua A. Fishman 186 Bilingual Education: An International Sociological Perspective (Yamuna Kaahru) 11 D. B. Fry I89 Acoustic Phonetics: A Course in Basic Readings (Chin- Woo Kim) Insup Taylor 192 Introduction to Psycholinguistios (S. N. SHdhar) ANNOUNCEMENTS 196 Catalan Conference *^ ^-T iii PREFACE A very decided trend toward specialization within the field of language pedagogy has developed over the past eight years. The appearance of articles dealing with aspects of "special piirposes" language training in applied lin- guistics journals has become almost commonplace, and textbooks purporting to teach languages for "specific" or "professional" purposes have begun to flood the commercial marketplace. In less than three years two journals devoted solely to language for special purposes, English for Special Purposes in the Middle East and North Africa (ESPMENA) and Linguas para Object ivos Specificos , and a UNESCO sponsored network of centers for the dissemination of develop- ments in this area, the ALSED-LSP network ( Anthropology and Language Science in Educational Development ) have been established. It therefore appeared most appropriate to bring out a special issue of Studies in Language Learning which focuses on this fast developing field. In order to provide coverage of the many dimensions of this topic, the Editorial Board invited guest articles by prominent authorities in the field. Chief among these is Peter Strevens, a scholar of international standing in applied linguistics. John Lackstrom is known for his work on the analysis scientific discourse and Georges Zask has pioneered the development of lan- guage materials and methodology based on a consideration of the society of a minority group, migrant workers in France. J Ronayne Cowan Urbana-Champaign October 1, 197T SPECIAL COURSES IN RUSSIAN RASIO DUNATOV Abstract The article discusses several types of special "reading only" courses developed in this country, as well as the special courses developed in the Soviet Union for teaching Russian to foreigners studying at their institutes of higher learning. The Soviet method consists of a preparatory four-skills course for students with minimiJiii knowledge of Russian, or none at all, followed by special register courses simultaneous with students* subject courses. An important element of these special register courses is a mini- mum vocabvilary in the specific discipline, as well as an emphasis on lexical and syntactic constructions favored by that discipline. These are compiled by frequency analyses of basic textbooks in each discipline. Studies in Language Leavning Volume II, Number I, Fall 1977 . RASIO DUNATOV is an Associate Professor of Russian and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . This article is a brief survey of several types of Russian lan- guage special courses offered by college and university Russian depart- ments in this country, and of similar courses described in Soviet ped- agogical literature. For the purpose of this survey, a special course will be defined as a language course whose principal objective is not the acquisition or perfection of a four-skills mastery of the lan- guage. Excluded from this survey, therefore, are the traditional first- and second-year courses, as well as the third- and fourth-year "structure", "usage", "composition", "conversation", "stylistics", etc. courses whose objectives are to strengthen and perfect the skills acquired in the first and second year. The oldest and still the most common Russian language special course is the "reading only" course. There are actually two types of such courses, one aimed at a rapid acquisition of a usable reading knowledge of technical or scientific prose, frequently in a specific discipline, and the other aimed at a passive reading ability in the belles-lettres literature. The former usually lasts two semesters (2-4 hours per week), and the latter four semesters (3-4 hours per week) The belles lettres reading course, to my knowledge still quite rare, grew out of the frustrations experienced by some instructors in trying to achieve a usable four-skills fluency in Russian within the two years that most schools (and students) allocate for the study of a foreign language. Such a course was first proposed in 1966 by Nathan Rosen . His argviment was that, because of the relatively com- k plex grammar, and (even more importantly) because of an almost com- plete lack of recognizable cognates, no usable four-skills fluency in Russian can be developed in four semesters. As a result, students be- come frustrated and drop out. As a remedy for this, Rosen proposed a two-year course whose objective would be a realistic one, namely the acc[uisition of a reading skill sufficient to regd Russian rapidly and without the frequent use of a dictionary. Three -or four semesters 6f this type of training. wpuld not only be a worthwhile end in itself^ but would also provide a soiind base with which to then acquire ther .. other skills for those students interested in doing so. Rosen's proposed four-semester course consists of the following:; .. First Semester: Russian alphabet and basic rules of pronuncia- tion; passive knowledge of grammar using a limited (300-400 words) . r • vocabulary. Second Semester: Vocabulary building