The following article provides the description of implementing ESP (English for Specific Purposes) courses in both foreign and Russian higher educational institutions and deals with the experience of ESP teaching at Ogarev Mordovia State University (Saransk, Russia). The purpose of the study is to consider some practical challenges and tasks of teaching ESP on both international and Russian level and provide the possible solutions for them. Due to high relevance of the stated problem, the authors pay much attention to the review of literature, pointing out some of the most prominent scholars, who have studied theoretical and practical aspects of ESP teaching process and greatly contributed to the increase of scientific awareness in the field. The authors analyze the typical issues arising in the University teaching practice and point out such aspects as: the importance of proper selection of educational materials for the ESP training courses, the issue of homogeneous or so-called 'multilevel' academic groups, the necessity for thorough and due ESP course design and development etc. Several important conclusions are made: the authors point out the importance of thorough students' needs analysis prior to starting a course; the possible scenarios for significant adaptation of course contents due to constant changes in national educational standards and curricula hours; the highly responsible role of an ESP teacher, a professional, performing multiple assignments.
The development of the oral and written skills in the practice of teaching foreign languages in the Russian linguistic higher institution pays the major attention to the construction of monologic and dialogical statements without focusing on the pragmatic factors of communication. When mastering language expressions, students do not always correlate them with the specific communicative tasks in a certain situation of foreign language communication, which is due to the ignorance of the pragmatic component. Meanwhile, the correct correlation and use of linguistic units in the process of foreign language communication (adequate to a given situation and intentions) is extremely important at the first or second (freshman and sophomore) years of higher education, when students primarily master the skills of the correct expression means. However, in teaching foreign languages (e.g., German and English), there is a disregard for such pragmatic factors as: setting and defining intentions, social roles and focusing on the interpersonal relations of communicants, targeted communication; isolation of the communicative competence from the pragmatic issues; insufficient study of the discourse content and structure as the means of teaching foreign languages in conjunction with pragmatic characteristics. The authors propose their own methodology for the development of the communicative-pragmatic competence under the conditions of training the prospective bachelors of linguistics. Research methods include systematic approach, provisions of the interdisciplinary approach, competence-based approach, comparative method, modeling method. The communicative-pragmatic model of teaching foreign languages presented in this article has confirmed its effectiveness for the development of oral and written speech practice among bachelor students of the linguistic university. The introduction of the developed methodology will increase the level of the language proficiency and the degree of formation of the students` communicative-pragmatic competence by motivating and expanding their speech capabilities.
The growth of international cooperation, trade, tourism and emigration arouses the interest of both linguists and legal experts in the theory and practice of legal translation. The existing difference in the laws of countries, basic features typical of Russian and English legal discourse should be taken into account when dealing with juridical texts. The issue of adequate transfer of the content of legal documents is of importance when translating from one language to another. To identify the basic features typical of the English juridical vocabulary and to offer a methodology for solving the problems occurring when translating juridical texts, the authors implement the methods of syntactic, vocabulary, comparative and comparative translation analysis. The studied material is certain lexemes (commonly used words, terminology, professionalisms, Latinisms, abbreviations and idioms), legal texts (court rulings, legal contracts, official business documents) taken from the authentic British and American legal sources as well as examples from the authors' translation and teaching practices. The authors believe that a retrospective analysis of conditions contributing to Legal English historic development will facilitate sufficient comprehension of subject areas constituting legal discourse. The findings indicate that the difference between the Russian and English juridical lexemes is conditioned by both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors.
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