Thematic classification of English abbreviations for approaches to language teaching and its organizational forms

Abstract

The article proposes a system of thematic subgroups (TSG) of English abbreviations within the thematic group (TG) "Labels of approaches to language teaching and learning and forms of their organization". Based on similar research into the Ukrainian terms thematic classification, the authors justified the relevance of their study by the lack of sufficient research on English abbreviations and the need to develop their thematic typology. The purpose of the investigation is to develop the said TSG system, and the tasks involve the selection of terminological corpus, its analysis, outlining conclusions and prospects. theoretical background. The English terminology system is characterized by certain conceptual parameters, which allow integrating its components into certain TGs, viewed as the terms clusters, having some common denotative features. The division of terms into TGs is considered important for the terminological system development. The research corpus includes 110 abbreviations selected from the original relevant-domain English-language sources. Findings. English abbreviations TSGs within the said TG have varying degrees of complexity. The most sophisticated ones are the TSGs related to "Models and methods in language teaching and learning" (23%), "Research in language teaching and learning" (22%) and some others. The proposed TSGs also vary in their quantitative composition, structural type, parts of speech their full forms belong to, as well as the term formation models. The acronyms include both their sound and alphabetic variants, as well as the synonymic and homonymic (homographic) instances, such as ELT meaning English Language Training and ELT standing for English Language Teaching. Conclusions and prospects for further research. Each TPG is characterized by their thematic integrity, logic and clarity, due to the common conceptual features of its components. However, other characteristics of abbreviations require additional study, which constitutes the prospect for further research.