Visualization as a mechanism of creolization in the adaptation of texts of educational and pedagogical discourse

Lysova Ol'ga Romanovna ORCID: 0000-0002-1565-8038 Lecturer; Department of World Languages and Cultures; Don State Technical University 344010, Russia, Rostov region, Rostov-on-Don, Gagarin Square, 1, office of Rostov lysova.or@yandex.ru

Introduction

In recent years, the rapid development of information transmission methods has led to the widespread use of various visual media in the communication process, in particular, within the framework of educational and pedagogical discourse. It is important for linguists to study ways of visualizing texts involved in communication within the framework of this discourse. Texts that combine verbal and visual components, forming a single communicative unit, are of particular interest to teachers and authors of textbooks. In E.E. Anisimova's linguistic research, texts with verbal and visual components form a single whole and are called creolized ^[1]. In the works of M.B. Voroshilova, the interaction of the verbal and the component and the peculiarities of their perception by the reader are clarified ^[2]. According to the theory of "double coding" by Allan Palvio, information presented verbally and visually speeds up learning and is better remembered ^[3]. This theory is continued in the works of Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer, who formed the basic principles of multimedia learning, the effectiveness of which depends, among other things, on the combination of verbal and non-verbal ways of transmitting information ^[4]. The purpose of our research is to study the ways of interaction of verbal and visual components during the adaptation of texts of educational and pedagogical discourse from the point of view of linguistics. The object of the research is creolized texts of educational and pedagogical discourse, and the subject is visualization as a mechanism for adapting such texts. The results obtained can be useful for understanding the nature of polycode texts and their functioning within the framework of educational and pedagogical discourse.

Research methods and principles

More than 100 texts from various fields of knowledge (biology, geography, English, mathematics, etc.) of educational and pedagogical discourse presented in school textbooks and the Internet were selected for the study. Then, using content analysis, we studied texts of a heterogeneous nature, consisting of a non-verbal and verbal component, which are commonly referred to as creolized. Using classification and systematization methods, the mechanisms of creating creolized texts were investigated and the functions of visual components in the process of adapting such texts were identified.

Main results

In modern linguistics, there are several terms that denote texts of a heterogeneous nature: syncretic, semiotically complicated, polycode, polymodal, heterogeneous, creolized, etc. One of the most commonly used in Russian research is the term "creolized". It was introduced into science by linguists Yu. A. Sorokin and E.F. Tarasov ^[5], drawing an analogy with the creolized (Creole) language, which was formed by the interaction of two languages – indigenous local and colonial foreign, later becoming the main means of communication in this collective. According to E.E. Anisimova ^[1], creolization is a combination of various means of semiotic systems that form a text as a communicative unit and determine its pragmatics. According to M. B. Voroshilova, a creolized text is a text consisting of a verbal and non–verbal component that implement a single communicative task of complex influence on the addressee ^[6]. In particular, in pedagogical discourse, the communicative task is determined by the purpose of the communication process – "explaining the structure of the world, norms and rules of behavior, organizing the activities of a new member of society in terms of introducing him to the values and behaviors expected of a student, verifying the understanding and assimilation of information, evaluating the results" ^[7]. To solve this communicative task, it is necessary to take into account such features of the addressee as language proficiency, the presence of a conceptual base characteristic of this subject area of knowledge, linguistic and cultural competence, and psychophysical characteristics. All this should be taken into account, since, from the point of view of didactics, "the more firmly the content of education is assimilated by a person, the more the connections of the new with the old are developed, the more the new life experience is coordinated with the existing one, introduced into the worldview system" ^[8]. A new life experience should be accessible to the addressee, and for this it is necessary to rely on an existing conceptual system and introduce new information in a moderate and accessible manner. Accessing the first alarm system using a visual component meets the accessibility requirement.

In scientific and pedagogical discourse, the addressee is a person who a priori has insufficient knowledge in a particular field, and the teacher (addressee) is the author of a secondary adapted text created in order to fill this gap ^[9]. It should be noted that the text may be difficult for the addressee based on a number of subjective and objective parameters. The subjective ones include age, education, background knowledge, certain diseases, etc., in other words, everything that depends on the student, and the objective ones include the actual text (terms, the size of sentences and text, etc. ^[10]). The addressee teacher, the author-compiler of the educational text, who is capable of perceiving the scientific picture of the world presented by the source text, needs to adapt it so as to make it understandable ^[11]. The scientific picture of the world has some features, in particular, the abstraction of the nominative base, because it models the world through a language specific to each science, for example, the language of mathematical formulas, chemical signs, etc. ^[12]. The difficulties of perceiving such a language are leveled during the adaptation of the text in accordance with the characteristics of the addressee. Here are some examples.

Let's analyze the original scientific text and its adapted version for schoolchildren. To do this, let's turn to a textbook for future medical professionals with specific scientific knowledge, and to a school textbook written for teenagers with the most general understanding of anatomy. Let's compare the concepts in these two texts, as well as the ways of presenting information: what does the addressee rely on when presenting new knowledge. The handbook for future doctors, published at Bashkir State Medical University in 2016, defines the concept of an eye organ as follows: "The eye (ophthalmos oculus) is an organ of vision, which is the peripheral part of the visual analyzer, in which retinal neurons perform the receptor function." This concept is represented by a verbal text, with a large number of specific terms (peripheral part, visual analyzer, neurons, etc.) and nominations in Latin. These lexical units form a scientific picture of the world for a specialist, which explains their presence in the text. In the Biology textbook for 8th grade (authors D. V. Kolesov, R. D. Mash, I. N. Belyaev, 2019), the same concept is described differently: "The eyes, or rather the eyeballs (Fig.133), are located in the eye sockets – paired depressions of the skull. There is a gap in the depth of the eye socket through which blood vessels and nerves enter the eye...". If we compare the lexical units representing these concepts for students and schoolchildren, we can see a reduction in the number of terms and the absence of nominations in Latin. In addition, the text of the school textbook immediately provides a link to the drawing of the eye. On it, you can see the detailed structure of the eye and the visual image of the terms mentioned in the definition (Fig.1).

Fig.1 Image of the eye structure from a biology textbook for 8th grade.

The drawing and its verbal description are an adapted creolized text created to present a scientific picture of the world to an addressee who has a naive picture of the world, largely based on visual perception and descriptive in nature. Referring to the theory of Charles Pierce ^[13] and his semiotic triangle, in a creolized text one can immediately see an explicit denotation (description of the structure of the eye) and a referent (image of the eye). In addition, the figure shows a part of the face, the skin and the zygomatic bone, which add new visual information that is not presented verbally, in order to form a more holistic perception of the concept being studied, creating a single image that will be firmly preserved in memory, which is an important advantage of including creolized components in the educational process ^[14].

After analyzing the texts of the educational and pedagogical discourse, we came to the conclusion that the visual component can replace the verbal one, complement it, or represent only a part of the concept described verbally. We called such models of constructing a creolized text with a visual component duplication, addition, and intersection. When duplicating, the same knowledge is explicated in 2 ways: the verbal method explicates a concept or process, then a diagram is given that shows the outcome of this process. The addition model implies that one of the components represents more complete information about the process or concept, and the visual component carries additional information that is not presented verbally, as in Figure 1 above. The intersection model assumes that the visual component contains some common part with the verbal one, and also includes additional information. In other words, there is something in the visual image that is not present in the verbal image, and in the verbal image there is something that is not represented in the drawing. Let's look at some more examples.

In the online textbook for schoolchildren, a class in chemistry (https://www.yaklass.ru/p/himija/8-klass/rastvory-58606/-reaktcii-ionnogo-obmena-reaktciia-neitralizatcii-141555/re-f6c5ee94-d198-4feb-846b-6a64363907d4 , date of reference: 04/23/2024) provides a verbal description of the ion exchange reaction with the release of gas: "If a solution of hydrochloric acid is poured into a test tube with a solution of sodium carbonate, a characteristic "boiling" will be observed due to the release of carbon dioxide"; and a schematic representation of this process is given on the drawing. Thus, the verbal text duplicates the creolized text (Figure 2), which, by appealing to the addressee's first signaling system, facilitates the understanding of a complex chemical reaction. We call this model of constructing a creolized text duplication.

Fig. 2 Shows the reaction of acid with the release of gas.

The course of the experiment is verbally described, and the drawing confirms the text, simplifying its perception by the addressee using real-world concepts that students have probably already encountered in the classroom, making new information more understandable.

Also, when adapting texts, the visual component can be indirectly linked to the verbal one, while introducing additional information or drawing attention to the text. For example, in the 8th grade history textbook (authors A.A. Danilov and L.G. Kosulina, 2015), the text about the end of the war of 1812 and the liberation of European countries from Napoleon is supplemented with a photo depicting a medal in honor of victory in this war (Figure 3). At the same time, the photo is a creolized text with a caption, which is indirectly related to the text of the textbook paragraph and introduces additional new visual information that is not verbally presented. It can be assumed that the authors of the textbook wanted to interest readers by giving an example of a real artifact of events far from the present, and the non-verbal component performs an attractive function here. On the other hand, the medal's photograph highlights that winning the war was an important milestone for the country, and this correlates with the verbal characteristics of the events described in the textbook: for example, the expulsion of the enemy, the liberation of Europe, and the Russian troops – the main force in the fight against Napoleon. Note that there is no mention of the award itself or its description in the text, but the image presented by the creolized text is indirectly related to the content of the paragraph and has conceptual features of the concept of "victory" ^[15], which could be verbally expressed by the words "reward", "victory sign", which correlates with substantive and factual information. the text ^[16].

Fig.3 Photo of the medal and its caption from the history textbook.

We call this model of constructing a creolized text an intersection. In this example, the visual component contains part or indirect features of a concept presented verbally.

Conclusion

The results obtained during the study allowed us to draw the following conclusions: visualization, along with schematization and polycoding, as a mechanism of creolization, is present in most modern texts of educational and pedagogical discourse, which are creolized texts. Visual and verbal information in creolized texts are interconnected and have certain forms of interaction.: 1) the visual component can replace the verbal one; 2) the visual component can add new information; 3) verbal and visual information can overlap to a certain extent. We call such forms of interaction of the visual and verbal components substitution, addition and intersection. By substitution, we mean an interaction in which the visual component represents a concept, phenomenon, or process, while the verbal component provides only its nominative characteristic. The visual component can complement the verbal one by introducing new information, for example, an image of a phenomenon in the surrounding world and verbal signatures that give it a scientific nomination. When the verbal and non-verbal components intersect, the visual component reveals only part of the general meaning of a concept.

Thus, modern technologies have created a different linguistic mechanism for transmitting information by combining the first and second signaling systems: the visual component is the first signaling system with great influencing and explanatory power. The verbal component of the creolized text is a second signaling system that discretely explains the visual image.