University academic excellence and language policy: A case of Russia

The paper focuses on the university academic excellence projects worldwide and tries to explore the higher education institutions experience and trends regarding their language policies within the international landscape and increasing globalisation.The article agrees that English goes as a major medium of instruction at universities that strive for reaching higher positions in world university rankings and takes into account the UNESCO traditions related to language diversity and multilingual education development, as well. The research focuses on language policy issues as language has always been a tool to create, deliver and process knowledge within, across and beyond local and national communities toward the global scale. The study took into account the experience of national academic excellence projects across the world, tried to identify those language challenges that the Russian universities as members of the Russian national academic excellence project are currently facing. The research goal was to map those changes and shifts in the language policies of Russian higher education institutions that could help them boost their academic visibility internationally. The methodology rested on the qualitative analysis of national education programmes, universities’ action plans, data on Russian universities strategies and tactics regarding language issues. © 2016 Atabekova, Gorbatenko and Shoustikova

К вопросу о лингводидактическом аудите: история и перспективы для вузов РФ

The article provides an overview of publications and projects that reflect the process of development and formation of language auditing as a contemporary research trend that focuses on the foreign language learning and teaching technology efficiency, assessment and evaluation of education model quality and the level language for specific purposes proficiency to meet the student's needs, employer's requirements and corporate culture standards; the term "Lingvodidactic audit" is introduced for possible use within the framework of Russian higher education modernization challenges and tasks regarding graduate's foreign language competence.В статье представлен краткий обзор публикаций и проектов, отражающих процесс становления и формирования лингвистического аудита как направления современных исследований в области изучения иностранных языков, оценки качества системы обучения и уровня владения иностранным языком в сфере профессиональной деятельности с учетом запросов работодателя и стандартов корпоративной культуры; предпринимается попытка обосновать целесообразность использования термина «лингводидактический аудит» в контексте процессов модернизации современного высшего образования в РФ и с учетом задач языковой подготовки выпускников вузов

University academic excellence and language policy: A case of Russia

The paper focuses on the university academic excellence projects worldwide and tries to explore the higher education institutions experience and trends regarding their language policies within the international landscape and increasing globalisation.The article agrees that English goes as a major medium of instruction at universities that strive for reaching higher positions in world university rankings and takes into account the UNESCO traditions related to language diversity and multilingual education development, as well. The research focuses on language policy issues as language has always been a tool to create, deliver and process knowledge within, across and beyond local and national communities toward the global scale. The study took into account the experience of national academic excellence projects across the world, tried to identify those language challenges that the Russian universities as members of the Russian national academic excellence project are currently facing. The research goal was to map those changes and shifts in the language policies of Russian higher education institutions that could help them boost their academic visibility internationally. The methodology rested on the qualitative analysis of national education programmes, universities’ action plans, data on Russian universities strategies and tactics regarding language issues. © 2016 Atabekova, Gorbatenko and Shoustikova

Multimodal discourse on BRICS produced by diverse stakeholders: Identifying attitudes, cultures and perspectives

The paper explores the conceptual vision of BRICS in the contemporary world. The study focuses on language and images that are used within BRICS-related institutional communication. We argue that the research is important because of the increasing impact of BRICS on the development of the multilateral and multipolar world. The research aims to offer preliminary considerations with regard to key topics, features and tools of multimodal discourse that comes from the BRICS nations and representatives of other international/regional organisations. This area has not been subject to academic analysis so far. This confirms the novelty of the present study. The research material includes 600 image-text correlated items from BRICS official sources of information and from organisation and institutions, which are not affiliated with the BRICS and refer to national or international actors. The research combined theoretical analysis of literature, empirical investigation of materials within qualitative paradigm, through content-based analysis and manual coding on thematic and pragmatic criteria. The findings reveal different approaches to BRICS that are introduced by different actors through specific coordination of verbal and visual tools, in explicit and implicit ways. The findings show that BRICS sources contain proportioned use of texts and photos of high-ranking official events, socio-cultural features of BRICS countries, and pictures of youth with regard to BRICS mission, values, goals, and policies. This strengthens the concept of equality and human rights provision in the modern world in general and leads to the understanding of the need to include the issues of youth rights and their equality on the BRICS agenda in an explicit way. © 2020 Atabekova et al

Academia´s thoughts and graduates’ opinions of education at university degree for translators and interpreters: Is there a need for revisiting both concept and practice?

The reason for the present study topic is rooted in a thorny situation. On the one hand, there are centuries-long traditions and prolific research in the area of Translator and Interpreter education, both practice and research lay grounds for the stable training of the mentioned specialists. On the other hand, the third millennium has brought to smart life societies, intensive collaborations, harsh contradictions and ideological tensions into the multilingual and multicultural world. The changing and emerging contexts of interpreter and translator’s professional activities challenge the current vision of the mentioned specialists’ training background and skills, put on the agenda new requirements for those who are expected to act properly to respond to newly diversified societal needs. The research goal is to explore the aspects that might be subject matter for the anticipated revision of T/Is university-based education. The research methodology integrates qualitative and quantitate analysis and rests on theoretical and empirical activities. Materials for theoretical analysis involve publications on the issues under study. The research includes cluster and factor types of analysis to identify gaps between Academia, Industry, and Research regarding the quality of translating and interpreting in socially-focused settings. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to process data. The research findings allow for drafting preliminary recommendations regarding revisiting T&Is’ training in the era of globalization. © 2018, Slovenska Vzdelavacia Obstaravacia. All rights reserved

Language analysis of convention on the rights of the child to enhance societal awareness on the issue

The research aims to explore the cognitive-semantic structure of the above child rights phenomenon through the language analysis, and compare the perceptions of different stakeholders as target audiences with regard to diverse formats of the Convention contents and its essence representation. The research data combines academic literature on the topic, the text of the Convention on the rights of the child, its child friendly version as the background material for empirical study, and the data from the open-ended questionnaire. The research sample includes social workers, teachers, and lawyers who deal with children’s rights issues. The research methods integrate theoretical analysis of relevant literature, textual analysis of the Convention text (including content analysis, manual and automated coding, distributional analysis), and open-ended questionnaire of the experts in the field under study. SPSS was used for statistical data processing. The research findings show that the linear enumeration of rights through the Convention articles leads just to the same linear perception of the above. Meanwhile, schematic verbal-visual representation of the Convention as a cognitive-semantic macrostructure provides grounds for synergetic interpretation where not just the rights, but the stakeholders, the scope and specifics of their duties and obligations, societal contexts of their activities and measures to ensure child’s rights can be explicitly introduced. The findings lead to the conclusion that the interpretation of the Convention text through its cognitive-semantic structure can contribute to enhancing public awareness and education on the child’s rights within social care, legal, secondary and higher education settings. The research results cast new light on the potential of discourse analysis for the Convention interpretation within legal, educational and academic contexts. © 2019, Association for Social Studies Educa. All rights reserved

Academia´s thoughts and graduates’ opinions of education at university degree for translators and interpreters: Is there a need for revisiting both concept and practice?

The reason for the present study topic is rooted in a thorny situation. On the one hand, there are centuries-long traditions and prolific research in the area of Translator and Interpreter education, both practice and research lay grounds for the stable training of the mentioned specialists. On the other hand, the third millennium has brought to smart life societies, intensive collaborations, harsh contradictions and ideological tensions into the multilingual and multicultural world. The changing and emerging contexts of interpreter and translator’s professional activities challenge the current vision of the mentioned specialists’ training background and skills, put on the agenda new requirements for those who are expected to act properly to respond to newly diversified societal needs. The research goal is to explore the aspects that might be subject matter for the anticipated revision of T/Is university-based education. The research methodology integrates qualitative and quantitate analysis and rests on theoretical and empirical activities. Materials for theoretical analysis involve publications on the issues under study. The research includes cluster and factor types of analysis to identify gaps between Academia, Industry, and Research regarding the quality of translating and interpreting in socially-focused settings. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to process data. The research findings allow for drafting preliminary recommendations regarding revisiting T&Is’ training in the era of globalization. © 2018, Slovenska Vzdelavacia Obstaravacia. All rights reserved

Cross-cultural mediation with refugees in emergency settings: ICT use by language service providers

The paper explores the current state of affairs in the language service providers’ attitude and practice regarding the digital tools potential for language and culture mediation with refugees. The issue is considered from the angle of interpreters’ awareness of and competency in using up-to-date electronic tools to support refugees’ language rights in emergency settings in general and at the border crossing points and temporary settlements, in particular. The current importance of the research rests on the global migration tendencies that map a lot of challenges for cross cultural communication with forced migrants and refugees. The paper aims to explore the language service providers’ competence and their aptitude to use digital tools for interpreting in diverse settings, including those related to migration contexts, oral human interaction and language mediation at the border crossing points, in particular. The study integrates desk and field research, includes the analysis of relevant literature and professional sources and further moves to a pilot survey. It involves interpreters with working experience in emergency situations against global migration background. The empirical analysis aims to explore specific preferences and benefits that various tools provide for an interpreter. 111 interpreters from 7 countries were engaged in the survey. The survey strived to identify interpreters’ professional background regarding the skills interpreters’ awareness of digital tools for interpreting process support and interpreters’ attitude to the use of the relevant tools in their professional activities in the settings related to mediation activities for refugees at the stage of their crossing the host country border. The research findings reveal that neither Industry nor Academia fully responds to the society needs in terms of interpreters’ awareness of and competency in using up-to-date electronic tools to foster the quality of their professional activities in the socially significant areas, related to emergency contexts in general, and to communication with refugees at the border crossing areas, in particular. The research results lead to the list of recommendations to both Academia and Language Service Providers to enhance the timeliness, scope, adequacy and quality of their activities with a view to fostering the cross cultural communication efficiency in emergency settings. © 2018, Association for Social Studies Educa. All rights reserved