Yurdanova V.N.

Siberian Federal Universitry

DIFFICULTIES OF USING ARTICLES BY STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL SPECIALTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY

Difficulties with the use of articles in speech of technical specialties students are quite problematic. Being systematically faced with this problem, it was decided to carry out a small investigation in the form of a written survey in ten groups of students in order to identify the sources of the problem. Among other questions, students answered the following once:

Do you know the rules of using articles in English? Three variants of answers were provided:

a. I know the rules and I can freely use the articles in speech.

b. I know the rules, but I seriously think about it before using this or that article.

c. I know the rules, but I do not understand the importance of articles and I do not know how to use them in my speech.

As a result of the survey, the following figures were obtained:

a - 7%, b - 69% and c - 24%.

Students of all study groups equally repeated the grammatical rules of using articles and fixed them, performing a large number of exercises. There is a huge amount of educational literature with training exercises dedicated to articles, but the reason for the misunderstanding and misuse was obviously something else.

What is the essence and purpose of an article in English? It is known, that an article is a separate official word that stands in the preposition to a name (or a nominal group, a word combination in which the main word is a noun or its grammatical analogue, for the expression of a number of linguistic meanings, including categories of definiteness or uncertainty with respect to the field of knowledge Speaking or writing and the addressee of speech ("reference").

"Article (French article, from the Latin articulus) (member) is a grammatical element that acts in the language in the form of a service word or affix and serves to express certainty - the uncertainty of the category (nominal), i.e., the type of reference" [1].

Thus, Wikipedia, for example, presents the following information about the article: "Articles are used primarily with common nouns and can indicate for different types of reference to the designated noun subject to the uniqueness or, conversely, the prevalence of the subject in the communication environment. With the prevalence, frequent occurrence of an object in each given environment, it is ranked as a class of homogeneous objects (the classifying function of the article).

This is the Sun- "This is (that's the only thing over our planet), the Sun," but:

This is a doctor - "This is (some) doctor (that is, one of many doctors)" [2].

Articles are found in many languages - Germanic, Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian), Hungarian and others. In doing so, one distinguishes a definite article that points to a known object, isolated from a class of similar objects, and thus fulfills the function of reference and reality outside the text and an anaphoric function in the text, and an indefinite article indicating an unseparated object as a representative of a class of similar objects. Moreover, the absence of the article, in connection with which it is necessary to distinguish the without the article use of nouns and nouns with the zero article. Without the article are used names that are semantically defined, which do not require an article, or names that have pronominal (primarily indicative) determinants.

It should be noted that articles play a significant role in English, both semantic and emotional, and speak about the level of human education. Articles are indispensable for establishing the semantic dependence between the objects in question, context, and reference to the already known about this subject of the utterance. And also from the purpose of the utterance, in speech often there is a need to establish the identity of objects, to distinguish an object from a number of analogous ones, to oppose objects of a different kind, to characterize the private through general, to give this or that qualification to the subject, to isolate the feature of the object.

English article is associated not only with the case, but also with the genus, and the definite article with the number. Consequently, the English article is more independent from the name, which greatly expands and enriches both its own semantic structure and the possibility of its functional use in speech. Although the article is used only where there is a noun or a phrase with it, being the representative of one of the semantic spheres of the language, it thereby refers to these spheres the noun and whole segments of text and speech.

Articles or their absence reveals the nature of the internal, semantic correlation of the elements of the message text. Therefore, the text is destroyed or distorted when introducing, changing or omitting the articles, a different version of the content of the statement is created. Thus, when performing a communicative function, the article is an indicator of an individualized or typed context. The absence of an article is an indicator of the context of an abstract nature. . For example:

They were powerful enough not to need a tsar, especially the tsar.

As noted earlier, the article is a marker of a noun, this is a structural word characterizing a noun, it is an independent word. Therefore, an article is a formal indicator of a noun as part of speech and at the same time it provides additional information about whether an object designated by a noun is known to the speaker or the addressee of the speech (identified) or remains unfamiliar (unidentified). The article also has a communicative function, that is, the article contributes to translating the author's idea into text. At the same time, the indefinite article expresses new information, which is the center of the message (rheme), and the definite article indicates the information already available and is not the focus of the statement (topic).

There is an opinion of individual linguists that the article is a word of pronominal origin. It is considered that the definite article the goes back to the old English pronoun with the meaning "that", and the indefinite article a / an developed later from the word with the pronominal meaning "one, someone, some". The pronoun with this value in its turn goes back to the numeral "one". The semantic essence of the article is the analogy of the articles with the system of demonstrative pronouns (such, such a; that, the same). In modern English, the concept of three articles was established: the definite the, indefinite a / an and zero (meaning the absence of the article). A certain artifact is inherent in the value of individualization; it characterizes an object, as already known, specific, distinguished from the whole class of objects homogeneous with it.

In this case, a certain artifact is inherent in the value of individualization, it characterizes the object, as already known, specific, distinguished from the whole class of objects homogeneous with it. Depending on the situation, this or that subject can be mentioned in the speech earlier:

The inadequacy of a definition varies in a direct proportion to the number of words used in the definition. In addition, the subject, although not previously mentioned, can appear in the speech as already known due to the whole situation or context:

Where are the students? They are in the classroom.

Moreover, any object always acts as known if it is the only one of its kind and therefore cannot be included in any class. This includes the name of the planets, the moon, etc.: the Sun, tne Moon, the North etc.

The Sun is our greatest source of energy.

The Yenissei River is one of the most powerful rivers in Russia.

The Moon is the only satellite of the Earth.

In modern English, articles are often omitted, unless the meaning of the sentence is violated. Articles are not used with uncountable nouns and with plural nouns, mentioned in a general sense; with their own names. While in a number of cases the absence of the article carries certain information and indicates that the author does not have any particular object in mind, but expresses more abstract, more general ideas, in such cases the word "in general" can be used in translation.

Temperature is an important factor in a chemical reaction.

In the scientific and technical language, the zero article is used in various kinds of instructions:

Turn switch off.

Remove all fuses from switchboard.

Check every branch ... etc.

In the signatures under drawings and photographs there are no articles, this is also typical for all types of advertisements. All this information comes to the students in the classroom, but it does not bring a proper understanding. In the university curriculum, emphasis is made on the systematization of knowledge, and not on deepening understanding and development of intuition. What is characteristic, the English themselves use the articles without hesitation, and even the most grammatically say ones often cannot explain their choice of articles.

Practice shows that in general, the difficulties encountered by students with the use of articles fit into a typical scheme:

- First they learn a set of rules;

- Then they try to apply these rules to the Russian language, because they translate into English what they think, and they continue to think in Russian language.

In other words, in this case, students try to correlate English articles with Russian nouns, simply because "in English there should be an article." But, isn’t it better to force articles to serve us instead of voluntarily becoming their hostage? After all, if the British were not of any use from them, their language would simply not have preserved. As being already noted earlier, the articles in the English language have three functions:

- grammatical; contextual; indicative.

In addition, articles help to distinguish the structure of the sentence, since the format of the English sentence is "subject-action-object, in most cases the articles serve as distinctive markers that distinguish the subject and the object. Moreover, that if we have introduced an object into the context, then when we mention it the next time all the participants of the conversation will already know what kind of thing is being discussed. That is to say, the article participates in creating the context.

A new thermal power plant was built in this region.

The plant, in addition to electric power generation supplies heat and hot water.

The article, as noted earlier, performs an index function because the article "the" is etymologically closely related to the demonstrative pronoun "that", which is generally characteristic of certain articles in different languages. And the indefinite article "a / an" in its turn originated from the Old English word "an", which means "one", that is, one of many, some or any. Thus, when we indicate in a speech on a thing, the article delineates the circle of objects to which our object can belong. This function of it organically intersects with its pronouns: We have fun. "We are having fun". The general non-localizable (incalculable) concept, therefore, it is used without an article.

Thus, the role of the article in English is difficult to overestimate, it is necessary, taking into account all the above mentioned ideas, to teach students to understand the essence of the articles and the ability to use them correctly in speech, not only to systematize knowledge of grammar, but also to develop intuition.

Bibliography

1. Barmina L.A, Verkhovskaya I.P. Practical work in English: Artikli. - Moscow: Nauka, 2000

2. Veikhman. G New in English grammar. - M .: High School, 1990

3. Vinogradov V.A. Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. Article. - M .: Science 1990

4. Wikipedia, an electronic resource