eLIBRARY ID: 8377
ISSN: 2074-1588
This article continues a series of publications devoted to the study of the scientific register of geography (Komarova, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). The scientific language of geography comprises texts of different functional and stylistic orientation: stylistically marked popular science prose, neutral educational literature and scientific articles characterizes by idiomatically restricted language; each of them having figures of speech fullfiling different functions. In terminology metaphors are used as a nominative technique in many branches of geography. As a result of the analysis of geographical terms in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish I have identified semantic types of metaphorical terms with the following areas-sources: “man”, “parts of the human body”, “physiological features of man”, “human behavior”, “occupations, professions”, “animals, plants”, “clothing, household items, furniture”, “architecture, buildings, home details”, “devices, tools”, “mythical images”[Komarova, 2020]. In real scientific speech which in every way strives for clarity and accuracy we usually stop noticing metaphorical terms because they function as neutral words. Therefore, along with metaphorical terms scientists tend to use foreign borrowings which lack additional figurative meanings due to their isolation from the system of a given language. Thus, some borrowed geography terms in Russian are non-motivated, i.e. devoid of symbolic value, while their equivalents in foreign languages still retain their metaphoric nature and connotations; the conclusion is true for different languages. The article discusses and describes geographical terms confirming this statement.
The paper presents the structure, content and organization of the glossary of English verbs and their word combinations functioning in the geographic register of scientific speech. The glossary is compiled at the Department of Foreign Languages for the Faculty of Geography. It is a kind of “active” lexicographic source which helps students and scientists to master ESP of geographic disciplines. Verbs are given as part of the most common lexical and grammatical collocations such as river flows, sea level rises, rain falls accompanied by brief contexts illustrating their real usage in scientific articles, textbooks and terminological dictionaries on geography. Verbs of different kinds: terminological verbs, verbs of general English, verbs of general scientific vocabulary are usually used in recurrent collocations and free word combinations. Their linguistic functioning is confined to a set of rather simple and logically based patterns. These verbal word combinations serve as the “building material” of scientific speech in the field of Earth sciences. Thus, our glossary contains the most essential information about the use of basic geographical verbs. It can also serve as the material for testing the knowledge of geographic ESP.