CREATING A COMBINATORY GLOSSARY OF GEOGRAPHY ESP VERBS: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

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.