Abstract:

Teaching technical English may seem a hard-nut-to-crack due mainly to the vocabulary highly specialized for each technical domain. A further difficulty may arise from the polysemous meaning of technical words which may as well vary across or within domains to the point of getting learners confused about the meaning of the word. In translation exercises from English, the focus should be on the precise identification of the domain, of the cognitive context and of the object or concept to be translated. The familiarity with the technical words in a domain, repeated practice, exposure to written or oral sources of information might represent solutions to the identification of polysemous technical words which thus demonstrate a hyper-specialisation. To prove the above, the technical word ‘cog’ is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as: ‘one of the tooth-like parts around the edge of a wheel in a machine that fits between those of a similar wheel, causing both wheels to move’ and ‘a subordinate but integral person or part’ in whose identification the activation of different cognitive contexts plays a crucial role. To differentiate between cog as a device and cog as an element or as a person in a bigger mechanism presupposes an adjustment of the mental lexicon to a given situation that asks for the use of either one or the other of the meanings of the word cog. Consequently, an equally crucial role is played by the teaching process which needs to provide students with tools to identify and activate cognitive contexts and with activities meant to practice and improve the mastery of technical English. Thus, this piece of research is aimed at finding ways of dealing with the polysemous words by exploiting students’ mental lexicons that could greatly contribute to the reduction of errors caused by an inappropriate use of either words or contexts.

Keywords:

Polysemous words, teaching, technical English.