V. Kasyanova
Kostanay State University named after A.Baitursynov, Kazakhstan
Organization of reading
professionally-oriented texts with students of non- language specialties
One of the aims of foreign language teaching at
non-language faculties is teaching reading texts on the specialty for receiving
information and its further processing (annotation, reference, essay). After completing the course of a foreign
language a student should possess skills and abilities of reading
professionally-oriented texts and be able to process the information of all
kinds of professionally-oriented texts for independent work. Depending on the problem to be solved in a
particular situation of reading we consider such types of reading as familiarization,
studying, search, in-depth, interpretive reading taking into account
professional orientation of the texts. Studying texts should assist in the
formation of students' skills of so-called "flexible" reading, in
which the reading strategy changes in accordance with changes in the tasks of
reading. One text may be an object of information, the other is necessary for
the study and the subsequent translation.
At the first
stage the main task of teaching reading is to show the way in which students
will be able to understand the content of any text, learn the basic elements of
the familiarization, studying, search, in-depth and interpretive reading.
Students should know that the problem of reading can change. At the second
stage the tasks that are directly connected with the information to be studied
become increasingly important. Studying texts in the specialty must teach
students to control types of reading, develop the ability to change the way of
reading, using certain types of reading or their combinations independently.
In
the process of teaching familiarization reading a special attention is paid to
the rapid coverage of the main content of the text and to the development of
speed reading skills. Speech tasks are fully used while working with the text
for the first time but in the further study of the texts students should
independently extract textual information (not less than 70%).
The
success of the initial familiarization with the text depends largely on the
vocabulary, as well as on the students' ability to analyze thoughtfully and
quickly the vocabulary and to guess the meaning of words in the context. Here attention is paid to the methods of determining the contextual
meaning of words and phrases. The assignments aimed at analyzing the
grammatical structure of the text: groups of words, sentences, paragraphs play
a leading role. The most important
grammatical categories needed for understanding the relationship of different
structural units in the text are considered. The volume of grammatical
phenomena may be increased or decreased, but it should be remembered that this
is only one of the means of understanding the content of the text. In the study of grammatical phenomena used in technical literature, it
is necessary to focus on the practical use of these models, their synonymy and
on practicing the use of these models and terms, rather than on the theoretical
part of this grammatical phenomenon. Students must
acquire the ability to understand quickly enough the total content of the read
material and analyze linguistic phenomena in order to extract fully the textual
information.
At the second stage, one of the main
directions in teaching familiarization reading is to develop in students skills
quickly enough "to grasp" the general meaning of the text. This comprises a certain speed reading, relying on the known elements,
understanding the relationship between the parts of the text that allows seeing
the text as a whole. To improve the
comprehension of the language material it is necessary to compile the
information, offering to make an overall plan or to present the content in the
form of retelling. A student must himself
determine what prevents him from understanding the content of the text, be able
to cope with these difficulties and seek for help only in some cases.
When teaching
in-depth reading first of all the assignments on familiarization with the
general content of the text are fulfilled and then the parts of the text which
are difficult for understanding are analyzed. Text information should serve as
the material for further discussion. Presentation of the received information
requires possession of special techniques. When teaching annotating, writing
summary or essay in a foreign language an additional task arises: to teach
reading directly giving the meaning in the foreign language, without using the
native one. To do this, the content
of the text is studied: the tasks on writing an annotation, a resume or an
essay are performed: make a plan, allocate the necessary lexical material in
the text, etc.
At the last stage
it is advisable to devote time to discussion of the prepared summaries, essays,
translations. One of the forms of the conversation about the received
information is the description of plans and designs. It is advisable to give
each student individual texts for translation and summarization.
The next stage of
the work with the text is the presentation of the text information in the form
convenient for practical use: summaries, translations, annotations or essay. The essence of annotation and summarization is reducing the size of the
information and thus keeping the most significant parts of the content. The
annotation gives only a general idea about the source of information, lists the
questions of the source, without revealing the actual content of these
questions. An abstract in many
cases can replace the original source itself, as it gives all the details of
the content of the material, all the main conclusions, and sometimes even
proofs and conclusions. The first phase of the work with the summary, annotation and the abstract is
common to these kinds of text processing. The task of this kind of work is to
identify key words in the text and suggestions, most exhaustively reflect the
theme, the purpose of the text and its semantic parts. The steps of this work
are as following: 1) looking through the material, 2) a detailed study of the
text, and 3) pointing out parts of the
text with the most valuable information. Subsequent processing of the material depends on its purpose and tasks.
The purpose of descriptive annotations is to write briefly
the content of one text in accordance with its author’s ideas. The annotation
should be written in short sentences and rely on the wording and terminology of
the author. Annotation is a good
base for preparation and compilation of an abstract. An abstract can also be
the result of information processing, or a source focused on processing of a
predetermined number of sources. When writing the annotation or abstract it is
necessary to use language clichés by the choice of the author of the
abstract. The purpose of an abstract is to organize getting information so that
it could be used to refer to this material or as a support for students’ memory
when studying or reviewing the material.
More common form of the text processing is translation.
Translating a text means to convey the content and stylistic features of the
source by means of another language. Accuracy of the translation is the basic
requirement for translation of scientific and technical texts. Under accuracy one should understand brevity, expressiveness, logical
sequence, full correspondence to the original content and compliance with the
norms of the Russian language. You shouldn't confuse the concept of
"accurate" and "literal" translation. The literal translation is reduced to a mechanical substitution of
Russian words instead of English ones, as well as preservation of the English
sentence structure, which leads to absurdity. Initial translation may be
"literal" to facilitate understanding of the main text. Then the words, phrases that most clearly convey the content of the
source are selected and grammatical relations are set in the sentences. If the
meaning of the translated sentences is understood, sentences are formulated and
read together with the preceding ones. Having made sure of semantic connection
you can go on to the next sentence. In those cases
where the notions of the two languages do not match, a translation ceases to be verbatim or literal. The
translation becomes either simplified or accurate or adequate.
Reading
texts on specialty in a foreign language is a source of information.
Acquired skills of processing texts (translation, abstract, annotation,
and essay) make it possible to use a foreign language in mastering a specialty
as well as contribute to professional improvement.
References:
1.
Áðàíäåñ Ì. Ï. Ñòèëèñòèêà òåêñòà / Ì. Ï. Áðàíäåñ. – Ì.: Ïðîãðåññ-òðàäèöèÿ,
ÈÍÔÐÀ-Ì,
2004.
2.
Êîìèññàðîâ Â. Í. Ñëîâî î ïåðåâîäå / Â. Í. Êîìèññàðîâ. – Ì., 1973.
3.
Ëàòûøåâ Ë. Ê. Òåõíîëîãèÿ ïåðåâîäà / Ë. Ê. Ëàòûøåâ. – Ì.: ÍÂÈ-Òåçàóðóñ, 2001