Abstract:

Nowadays the life-long learning is becoming more and more popular. State educational programmes for life-long learners exist in the USA, Canada, Sweden, India, the UK, Bangladesh, China and some other countries. Unfortunately, in Russia there are not so many educational opportunities for life-long learners, more often life-long learning is a voluntary, self-motivated, and independent process. Hence, new means of life-long learning development are necessary. Dictionaries of cultural heritage are one of such means. The main principle of such dictionaries is genius loci (from Latin the protective spirit of place). Dictionaries of cultural heritage include information about life and works of world-famous people of some place. One of such dictionaries is interactive multimedia dictionary of associative type “St. Petersburg in the works of world-famous people”. The dictionary describes life and works of outstanding personalities of St. Petersburg, as well as St. Petersburg influence on their creative works. In order to determine the structure of the dictionary and its articles and present the information in an interesting and coherent way for people of different nationalities and age groups the sociolinguistic survey was conducted. The sociolinguistic study consisted of two phases. The phase one was conducted in the United States of America. During this phase, 86 people of different age groups were asked to complete the survey. The results analysis showed that 83.72% of the respondents are interested in dictionaries of cultural heritage and think that such dictionaries may be useful for life-long learners; 10.47% are indifferent, and 5,81% are not interested in and do not believe that dictionaries of cultural heritage may be used in life-long learning. The phase two was conducted in Russia. During the second phase 123 people were surveyed. According to the results of the second phase 73.17% of the respondents were positive about dictionaries of cultural heritage and their role in life-long learning; 16.26% showed indifference, and 10.57% were negative about the dictionaries and their role in life-long learning. Among English speaking respondents the biggest interest was shown in the following topics of the dictionary: literature, art, politics, cinema, architecture, music. The most popular topics with Russian speaking respondents were: literature, architecture, arts, music. Thus, the articles in the dictionary of cultural heritage “St. Petersburg in the works of world-famous people” are devoted to famous writers, musicians, architects, politicians, painters and actors, who lived and worked in St. Petersburg. The dictionary can be used as an interactive multimedia tourist guide-book that contains much educational information presented in an interesting and coherent way for people of different nationalities and age groups. Accordingly, the interactive multimedia dictionary of cultural heritage “St. Petersburg in the works of world famous people” can serve as a new educational opportunity for life-long learners who come to St. Petersburg.

Keywords:

Culture, cultural heritage, education, life-long learning, dictionary, multimedia, interactive dictionary.