Improving the terminology of modern pedagogy as one of the directions of pedagogical semiology

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Introduction

Trends in the development of modern education are directly reflected in its complex conceptual system. Any science for the transfer of knowledge and comprehension of reality uses the means of a scientific language, a certain conceptual and terminological apparatus. It also serves as a tool of cognition, since the concepts, denoted by terms, reflect the essence of processes and phenomena and underlie the ways of representing the studied reality.

Pedagogy by now has a largely established conceptual and terminological apparatus, in which the accumulated pedagogical experience is presented in verbal form. However, the conceptual-terminological system is dynamic: new terms and new meanings emerge, the content and scope of categories change, some categories and concepts are lost. Many scientists note the problem of methodological ambivalence of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of modern pedagogy [1; 2]. The first reason for it is the widespread use of concepts that have not received a clear and strict meaning in pedagogy. The other reason is the continuous transformation of the meanings of key concepts in accordance with fashionable trends and the emergence of new categories with conventional names, without definitions and explanations, that also generates ambiguity of terminology and constant correction of pedagogical discourse. Subjectivism and arbitrariness in the interpretation of the main pedagogical categories is related to the complexity of pedagogical categories themselves, the lack of analytical, methodological and interdisciplinary studies that would reveal the essence of pedagogical concepts [2].

Literature Review

The problem of analysis and systematization of terminology in Russian pedagogy is not new, but with all the importance of its study, it is not sufficiently developed in science. In pedagogy there is a clear lack of holistic studies of pedagogical terminology. The review of modern works in the field of pedagogical methodology, pedagogical terminology, history of pedagogy allowed us to distinguish several directions in the study of the development of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of Russian pedagogical science:

• historical and social aspects of the genesis of the conceptual and terminological system of pedagogy (I.M. Kantor [3], I.K. Karapetyan [4], I.V. Kicheva [5], V.V. Kraevsky[1], B.B. Komarovsky[6], B.T. Likhachev [2], etc.);
• studying the process of development of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of branches of pedagogical knowledge (V.S. Bezrukova [7], E.A. Koshkina, L.A. Melkaya [8], etc.);
• characterization of the content and scope of individual pedagogical categories that existed in different historical periods (L.I. Atlantova[9], A.P. Bulkin [10], etc.);
• problems of specific scientific systematization of pedagogical terminology, methods of ordering and standardization of pedagogical terminosystem (M.A. Galaguzova, G.N. Shtinova [11], B.B. Komarovsky [6], V.M. Polonsky [12], etc.);
• research of pedagogical concepts and terms within the framework of analyzing the pedagogical heritage of individual scientists who contributed to the development of pedagogical theory and practice (T.S. Butorina, E.A. Koshkina [13], etc.).

Theoretical provisions of terminology in their application to the study of pedagogical terminology require generalization and rethinking.

Materials and Methods

The choice of research methods is justified by the peculiarities and difficulties of describing pedagogical terminology by using pedagogical semiology. The following methods are used in the research: the componental analysis, the content analysis, the method of pedagogical literature logical analysis, the systematic and structural analysis, the method of dictionary definitions analysis, the method of interpretation and contextual analysis.

Research results

Terminological accuracy, elimination of uncertainty and confusion in terms and concepts is one of the most important conditions for productive search and mutual understanding of researchers and practitioners [14]. Therefore, clarification and definition of the conceptual apparatus of pedagogy, improvement of its language are extremely relevant at present. At the same time, it is a question of clarifying both the basic, most general categories, the totality of which constitutes the categorical apparatus of pedagogy, and the leading concepts and notions, which specifies the content of the basic categories and are often borrowed from related sciences. The development of models for the formation of pedagogical concepts, questions concerning the contiguity of concepts in scientific and pedagogical statements, their unification, fragmentation, derivation from terms, is a long-awaited result of research activity in the field of pedagogical terminology [15].

The task of clarifying the terminological apparatus of pedagogy is now being addressed by pedagogical semiology, the founder of the school is M.A. Lukatsky. This is a relatively new field of knowledge, which began to be developed at the «Institute of Education Development Strategy of the Russian Academy of Education» in 2014. It was preceded by a long preparation, directly related to the study of the specifics of pedagogical language. Pedagogical semiology is an interdisciplinary field of research, which includes the developments of semiotics and cognitive linguistics.

The trivial but undeniable thesis that our whole life is a language that constructs and describes our activity, be it thinking, communication or any other activity is the basic motto of pedagogical semiology. Without a language, cognition, transfer and storage of knowledge, education, culture, and a full life of a man are impossible. This special role of language in people’s lives explains the close research attention that is currently being paid in various sciences to unraveling its mysteries. Pedagogical semiology is no exception.

The thesis that the development of pedagogical science is directly related to the improvement of its language is now shared by almost all scientists who deal with education. Pedagogical semiology specifically studies the regularities of constructing the language of pedagogical science, as well as investigates the processes of searching, clarification and linguistic fixation of previously unknown meanings and values of educational reality [15].

Pedagogical semiology can be characterized by the following distinct features that differs it from the other areas related to the study of the symbolic nature of language. These are:

1. transdisciplinarity, which allows pedagogical semiology to go beyond one sign system and study pedagogical cognition and pedagogical interaction on the intersemiotic basis;
2. possibility of creative use of rich research experience and conceptual apparatus of general semiology, gnoseology, cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, culturology, sociology and other sciences;
3. integration of the methodological tools of modern structural linguistics into the cognitive tools of pedagogical semiology, which allows us to analyze in detail the syntactic bases on which educational and methodological literature is built today, how educational texts combine, correlate and complement each other [15].

The main directions of scientific research within the framework of pedagogical semiology should be outlined as follows:

1. The linguistic picture of the world in pedagogical discourse, i.e. the acquisition by the pupil of the possibility of entering that symbolic universe, that actually human world, in which language is the basic condition of existence. As an example, we can mention the studies devoted to what pictures of the world are formed in students by modern educational literature.
2. The linguistic influence exerted by the teacher on the student. Pedagogical discourse is always a set of means of linguistic influence [16]. Within the framework of pedagogical communication, the teacher puts into linguistic forms scientific and acquired in life knowledge, which are contained in his consciousness, and then by means of linguistic means of persuasion and suggestion transmits them to the student. The effectiveness and balance of linguistic influence largely depends on how linguistically and rhetorically the pedagogical communication is designed, what kinds of linguistic influence are used by the teacher within the educational process.
3. Improvement and clarification of the terminological apparatus of modern pedagogy.

Scientific analysis of pedagogical reality processes the material in the form of scientific and pedagogical facts, pedagogical terms, concepts and notions. Therefore, the actual task is to improve, develop and systematize the conceptual and terminological apparatus. Each pedagogical phenomenon has its reflection in terms and concepts. Thus, a pedagogical term is a designation, title, name of any pedagogical phenomenon accepted in pedagogical science. A pedagogical term is characterized by systematicity, i.e. its inclusion in a certain terminological system and correlation with the concept, which is expressed by the presence of a definition. The system of scientific terminology of pedagogy consists of a set of interrelated terms that form systems of terms. Pedagogical term is a result of the process of cognition of pedagogical reality, expressed in a word through the fixation of a selected class of pedagogical phenomena or processes by common, specific for them features [17].

However, the unit of semantic representation of this or that form of scientific reasoning and the basic unit of pedagogical semiology is the concept. If a term is a thought structure reflecting in a generalized and abstracted form objects, phenomena and relations between them with the help of fixing common and distinctive features, then the concept is a phenomenon of the same order as a term, but wider. The meaning of a concept, as a rule, only partially coincides with the meaning of the word representing it in the language. Concepts, being elements of the mental lexicon, fulfill the function of a linguistic substitute in human consciousness for a set of different, related objects [15].

The problems of concept are most widely developed and studied in linguistics. Concept is a basic term of cognitive linguistics and is defined as a mental structure, a unit of consciousness [18], an ideal abstract unit [19], a multidimensional mental unit with a dominant value element [20], a unit of linguistic vision of the world [21]. The authors of the cognitive dictionary (E. S. Kubryakova, V.Z. Demyankov, etc.) understand the concept as a term that serves to explain the units of mental or psychic resources of consciousness, information structure that reflects human knowledge and experience [18]. N.F. Alefirenko defines a concept as a cognitive (thinking) category, an operational unit of «cultural memory», a quantum of knowledge, a complex, rigidly unstructured semantic formation of descriptive, figurative and value-oriented character [22]. Z.D. Popova and I.A. Sternin consider the concept as a complex mental unit, which in the process of thinking activity of a particular individual is able to turn different sides, actualizing different signs and layers of its content [23].

Such a multitude of definitions of the concept often does not give a correct idea of its essence, and complicates the research process. For further work with pedagogical definitions we find the understanding of the concept proposed by Y.S. Stepanov the most suitable: «a concept is a kind of a lump of culture in human consciousness; something in the form of which culture enters the mental world of a person. And, on the other hand, the concept is something through which a person – an ordinary person, not the «creator of cultural values» – himself enters the culture, and in some cases affects it» [24, p. 42]. In our opinion, the understanding of the concept as the basic cell of culture in the mental world of a person, as a basic semantic unit of culture is the broadest and most capacious.

The use of the term «concept» in humanitarian studies allows us to get an idea of those meanings that a person operates with in the process of thinking and that reflect the content of the results of all human activity and processes of cognition of the world in the form of certain ‘quanta’ of knowledge [18]. The concept is a logical structuring of scientific ideas about the pedagogical object, some collective property of pedagogical activity, the semantic core of culture, and therefore pedagogical semiology operates with the term «concept».

Discussion and conclusions

If education is aimed at preparing a truly knowledgeable and understanding person, capable of distinguishing truth from fiction, of critical thinking and having a semantically correct point of view, then such a result can be achieved only with pedagogical semiology. It helps education to realize that semantically it is a process of rooting the student in the sign-symbolic world of culture.

The world of education is a special world as it’s constituted by a special language, a mixture of natural language and the language of physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc. Its mastering becomes for the learner a pass to independent life, the quality of which directly depends on the extent to which he has mastered it. Thus pedagogical semiology not only studies the peculiarities of the language used in education but also contributes to the improvement of the language of pedagogical science itself.

About the authors

Victoria V. Dobrova

Author for correspondence.
Email: victoria_dob@mail.ru

Cand. Psych. Sci., Associate Professor, Head of Foreign Languages Department

References

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