Oksana Turkevych

Ivan Franko Lviv National University

Terms of Ukrainian language education at the stage of harmonization

© Turkevych O. V., 2014

In the article terms of Ukrainian language education are considered in the context of term harmonization. Ukrainian terms are described in the contrastive aspect against their English, Polish and Russian equivalents. Difficulties that accompany terminology harmonization are distinguished.

Keywords: harmonization, language education, term, Ukrainian, English, Polish, Russian.

Systematic arrangement of terms involves terminology unification, normalization (equivalence classing of terms), codification and harmonization. This sequence is the most acceptable in the research of language education terminology. Normalization (equivalence classing of terms) means the adjustment of terms with actual language norms and is directly related to terminology unification.  

Terminology unification will enable the ideal existence of terminology. However, as experience shows, complete elimination of synonymy, polisemy and homonymy is impossible due to the dynamics of semantic processes. Nevertheless, different branch terminological systems are still being considered in Ukrainian terminology studies in the aspect of unification and the results are positive.   

Terminology codification is systematization of terminological units in dictionaries. It is the final stage that allows scientists to use terms correctly and coherently.

Harmonization is the process of comparing terms in different languages with the aim to create a common system of concepts. All scientific notions are represented in national languages by corresponding language forms registered in dictionaries or used in professional discourse. Sometimes a certain area adopts terms that are formed already from another language. Often terms that are used in one field do not have equivalents in same field abroad, that is why the aim of harmonization is to analyse and coordinate all terminological processes at the interlingual level. A bilingual terminological dictionary is a direct result of this process.

When we consider the terms of Ukrainian language education from the viewpoint of the above mentioned stages, it becomes clear that the stage of harmonization is fundamental. Non-stop experience exchange in the field of teaching foreign languages, the creation of European recommendations for language education, which aim to unify separate aspects of teaching languages and the importance of language teaching in the context of migration, i.e. the growing importance of language education worldwide, make harmonization at the international level and consequently the creation of a bilingual dictionary absolutely necessary. This dictionary would help specialists use foreign materials and on the other hand provide an opportunity to see the gaps which might have appeared in the process of term evolution.

The object of this research is Ukrainian terms in comparison with their Polish, Russian and English equivalents.  Their examples are used to analyze difficulties that accompany harmonization.

The aim of the article is to consider terms at the stage of harmonization, in particular to reveal and investigate problem terms, i.e. those having no equivalents in one all of the languages under study, and to reveal inaccuracies in the establishment of equivalents.