Academic Concept Formation in Bilingual Academic Discourse (the Case of Social Sciences and Humanities)

Abstract

Identifying the influence that the value system and cultural identity of a bilingual have on the use of the language system in academic communication is becoming increasingly important. This paper aims to study how academic and professional concepts are communicated by Russian-speaking bilinguals in academic discourse. The analysis focuses on the implementation of professional academic discourse with cultural marking by bilinguals in monolingual communication. Within the context of the study, bilinguals are defined in a broad sense as individuals using a non-native language in scientific, scholarly and professional activities. We analysed oral academic texts of bilingual speakers in English in social sciences and humanities (transcripts of public lectures and presentations at international conferences). The research employed the methods of continuous sampling, discourse analysis, semantic analysis, and linguistic description. The study identified non-standard linguistic forms in the target language of communication constructed by bilingual speakers under the influence of cross-cultural interference from the native language and the national academic tradition. We show that such non-standard forms as ethnocultural and occasional collocations created by means of semantic calques and morphological derivations are acceptable in academic discourse along with the normative language forms. The characteristic feature of academic and professional concept formation in bilingual academic discourse is subjectively relevant linguistic modification that does not interfere with communication. This allows us to assume that bilingualism is a dynamic factor in discourse development and has a positive influence on the expansion of the meaning of academic concepts. The results of the study are of practical significance for the applied aspect of philology within a multifaceted analysis of bilingual academic discourse and other communicative practices.