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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.72.12.8
How to Cite:
Koval, N., Grodska, E., Kokkina, L., Mardarenko, O., & Lebedieva, O. (2023). Comparative evaluation of grammatical phenomena
among the different specialty students. Amazonia Investiga, 12(72), 91-100. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.72.12.8
Comparative evaluation of grammatical phenomena among the
different specialty students
Порівняльна оцінка граматичних явищ серед студентів різних спеціальностей
Received: November 1, 2023 Accepted: December 27, 2023
Written by:
Natalia Koval1
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3976-8503
Elina Grodska2
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1122-2878
Lilita Kokkina3
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1410-9061
` Olena Mardarenko4
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0330-124X
Olena Lebedieva5
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2419-0804
Abstract
The article considers the results of a survey of
technical and humanitarian specialty students in
one of the non-linguistic universities in Ukraine
with the following goal: to determine how the
systems for assessing grammatical phenomena
differ/coincide among students whose specialties
are different in nature – technical and
humanitarian: engineering specialties (electrical
engineering and radio-electronic) 60 students;
humanitarian specialties (psychology and
sociology) 26 students. Such a selection will
further indicate the differences in
methodological approaches when presenting
grammatical material to students of both
technical and humanitarian specialties. The
chosen grammatical topic is “Degrees of
comparison of English adjectives.” The
examples, used in the survey, occur in a text
corpus of one of the areas of scientific and
technical discourse – “Electrical Engineering”.
The text corpus was compiled on the basis of
articles taken from UK and US scientific journals
on this field of technology. The presence of a text
1
Candidate of Philological Sciences, PhD, Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages Department, Odessa National
Polytechnic University, Odesa, UA.
2
PhD in Cultural Studies, Docent, Associate Professor at the Foreign Languages Department, Odessa National Polytechnic University,
Odesa, UA.
3
Candidate of Philological Sciences, PhD, Associate Professor at the Foreign Languages Department of French philology of Odesa
I.I. Mechnikov National University, Odesa, UA.
4
Candidate of Historical Sciences, PhD, Professor at the Foreign Languages Department, Odesa Military Academy, Odesa, UA.
5
Senior Lecturer at the Foreign Languages Department, Odessa National Polytechnic University, Odesa, UA.
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corpus made it possible to compile a frequency
list of adjectives that were used in the texts not
only in accordance with grammatical rules, but
also in violation of the rules explained in
classical English grammar books. The methods
applied in the article were as follows: statistical,
quantitative, contextual, expert assessment
methods. The performed survey showed which
elements in training methodology should be used
for students both engineering and humanitarian
to understand and accumulate the grammatical
information.
Keywords: adjective form, grammar rule,
frequency, text corpus, token.
Introduction
One of the most important and necessary
procedures for educational process is testing or
questioning the students. Based on them,
appropriate recommendations are then presented
for the further creation of methodological base in
order to train the necessary material.
This article offers the description and results of
such a procedure carried out in a higher technical
Institution “Odessa Polytechnic” which was
named an engineering centre of the City of
Odessa (Ukraine). Nowadays “Odessa
Polytechnic” is characterized by the presence of
not only technical Institutes but also
humanitarian ones. This made it possible to
involve students of various specialties in the
experiment to get original results.
The goal of the article is as follows: to determine
to what extent the systems for assessing the
grammatical phenomena differ/coincide among
students whose specialties are completely
different in nature – technical and humanitarian,
in order to identify the differences in
methodological approaches when presenting
them the grammatical material.
The grammatical topic chosen was “Degrees of
comparison of English adjectives”. We should
note that we are not the only ones who consider
it necessary to study this part of speech for
further use in discursive practice (Rodríguez-
Gonzalo, & Zayas, 2017). The topic itself is not
something new or unknown for the students, and
the theoretical description of the English
adjectives can be found in any book on
theoretical English Grammar. In addition this
grammatical topic is widely covered in the school
curriculum. The only facts which students need
to remember is the division of adjectives into
those capable of forming the degrees of
comparison (qualitative) and the ones which
cannot do it (relative) as well as the semantic
dependence of these features on the nouns they
(adjectives) are combined with.
The goal set provided the following tasks:
1) to conduct a procedure in the form ‘a survey’
during which the students could
simultaneously express their own opinions
and independently come to certain
conclusions in doing the tasks, and
participate in the discussion;
2) to select the students of both technical and
humanitarian specialties as the participants
in the survey and to place them in separate
rooms in order to determine the possible
fundamental differences in the type of
logical thinking and ability to perceive;
3) to perform the survey in four stages: the first
two stages – with a gradual increase in the
complexity of the examples for indicating
the level of English knowledge; the third and
fourth stages – for identifying the difference
in logical level and type of thinking of the
students.
In the process of presenting the mentioned
grammatical topic, as well as the subsequent
questioning, the students should find out:
1) clearly distinguish between the adjectives
that are capable of forming and adjectives
Koval, N., Grodska, E., Kokkina, L., Mardarenko, O., Lebedieva, O. / Volume 12 - Issue 72: 91-100 / December, 2023
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that do not form degrees of comparison, so
that in their professional and scientific
activities they can do it unmistakably;
2) in cases of using relative adjectives in the
forms of degrees of comparison, the students
should be able to explain this phenomenon
so that in the future they themselves, if
necessary, can apply such a technique;
3) in cases of using forms of degrees of
comparison of the adjectives in violation of
the rules specified in classical English
grammar, also be able to explain such facts
so that in their further activities connected
with the English language they can use them
reasonably and with full understanding.
Literature Review
A review of the literature considering student
(teacher) testing and surveys has demonstrated a
wide variety of topics related to this issue.
S. Canto & K. Jauregi Ondarra (2017) analyzed
to what extent the computer mediated
communication (CMC) tools impact on the
development of the intercultural and
communicative competence in some students’
groups.
M. L. Liaw (2019) conducted the survey among
the English learners and obtained the data from
multiple sources: surveys, video-recordings, and
oral reports; the participants positively accepted
the open social virtual reality spaces as a help in
intercultural communication learning.
N. Araújo-Vila, L. Cardoso, D. Toubes, &
J. Fraiz-Brea (2020) tried to understand with the
help of survey how often digital skills were used
by Spanish higher education (bachelor’s and
master’s degree) students.
M. Bond, K. Buntins, S. Bedenlier,
O. Zawacki-Richter, & M. Kerres (2020) strived
to determine the interaction of technology and
the level of undergraduate student engagement in
digital technology use.
Sallnäs (2005) presented the results of
conference participant testing which
demonstrated that both the collaborative virtual
environment and Web video condition are
preferred by people but in different situations.
Shandra et al., (2022) preferred to work without
Digital tools applying the method of analysis,
synthesis, research and comparative generalizing
method for forming the English-language lexical
competence under the conditions of
globalization.
Lu et al., (2021) presented the results of the pre-
and post-introduction survey of smart classroom
environment, which provides improving the
peer interaction and learning motivation among
the students.
R. Pekrun, A. Elliot, & M. Maier (2009) offered
the data of psychological testing of the
achievement goals and achievement emotions to
academic performance in a prospective study
with undergraduates using exam-specific
assessments of both goals and emotions as
predictors of exam performance in an
introductory-level psychology course.
E. Smith (2017) analysed the data of semi-
structured interviews and an online survey to find
why and to what extend the social media
technologies influence the undergraduates during
their university learning.
T. Dunn, & M. Kennedy (2019) in their study
assessed the emotional, cognitive, behavioural
engagement impact of Technology Enhanced
Learning on students’ grades.
E. Grodska, A. Machulianska, & L. Shapa
(2020) described the results of the undergraduate
student testing and their progress not only in the
Spanish language learning but also in Spanish
culture on the basis of Spanish idioms.
L. Czerwionka, T. Artamonova, & M. Barbosa,
(2015); considered the results of the students’
reviews carried out abroad; it was for the first
time that the reviews were conducted at the
beginning and end of the program.
L. Chieffo, & L. Griffiths (2004) compared the
data of survey which investigated the difference
in intercultural level between the students
studying abroad and at home.
D. Deardorff (2006) carried out a study intended
for higher education administrators identifying
the students’ intercultural competence level.
M. Levrints (Lőrincz), & I. Greba, (2022) studied
a set of problems encountered by EFL teachers
with varying lengths of teaching experience
because such kind of experience was considered
to be one of the most important values affecting
the student’ gains.
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S. Aydin, & O. Ustuk (2020) researched the level
of emotional state of anxiety experienced by the
teachers instructing EFL.
R. Metruk (2020) determined with the help of
interviews performed at the Slovak University
the differences in the ideal EFL teacher
perceptions by the pre-service teachers (students)
and in-service teachers (instructors).
M. Uji, M. Kawaguchi (2021) offered the data
based on examination of the relationship in
different fields of student activities, in this case –
between motivation styles and academic
achievement level, using data obtained 162
college students in Japan.
G. Alamdarloo, S. Moradi & G. Dehshiri (2013)
considered the results of survey conducted
between pre-university students’ conceptions of
learning with their academic achievement. The
sample consisted of 309 students (165 males and
144 females) in Tehran city.
Although the given Literature Review covers a
huge range of problems, however, we did not
find in the available literature the topic of
contrasting the abilities and level of logical
thinking among students of technical and
humanitarian specialties, which, in our opinion,
is the novelty of the proposed research.
Methodology
The number of students present at the survey was
86. The students studying at the three Institutes
were selected:
1) the Institutes of engineering specialties 60
students – a) electrical engineering, power
engineering and electrical mechanics (30
students); b) radio-electronic and
telecommunication systems (30 students);
2) the Institute of humanitarian specialties 26 –
psychology (15 students) and sociology (11
students).
All of them were trained under bachelor’s
programs but at different courses.
As we can see from the list of the Institutes, two
of them are closely related by their technical
subjects since many concepts and terms of
electrical engineering are used in radio
electronics. And the third group belongs to the
Institute that has absolutely no areas of
knowledge in common with any of the selected
technical Institutes – the humanities.
First of all a scientific literary object had to be
chosen, in which the mentioned grammatical
phenomenon examples function in real texts. The
terminology and concepts of such an object had
to be quite clear to many future specialists of a
non-linguistic university.
The presence of text corpus facilitates the task of
choosing a linguistic object. Already many
teachers, translators and other specialists
involved in applied linguistics the results of
examining text corpora to solve their
professional problems (Justeson et al., 2019).
For those reasons the text corpus of the specialty
“Electrical Engineering” was taken. It (corpus)
was compiled by a continuous sampling method
and based on scientific articles taken from the
journals of the corresponding field published in
USA and UK: Electrical Engineering; IEEE
Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems
and other foreign English-language publications
on the specialty “Electrical Engineering”. Its
total size is 200 thousand tokens.
The list of the most frequent adjectives obtained
as a result of the statistical analysis of the text
corpus “Electrical Engineering” consists of 366
units, of which 140 words (almost 38% of all
adjectives in the list) are able to form degrees of
comparison and 226 words incapable of forming
(62%). In many cases the computer was used in
data counting.
In the article the examples functioning in the real
texts were introduced into the structure of the
survey at all stages. They included the usual pairs
of phrases “adjective + noun”, but in more
complex situations the whole sentences were
presented.
In the process of work except for continuous
sampling and statistical quantitative methods a
number of other analysis methods were used in
order to obtain the reliable and correct results at
any particular stage of the survey. This concerns
first of all the expert (specialist) review method,
which was the most required at almost all stages
of the experiment.
The studies have demonstrated that the adjectives
met in such texts acquire the certain original and
unusual characteristics, and sometimes “behave”
in an unexpected and even contradictory way,
which occur because of the fact that the
boundaries between the relative and qualitative
adjective are very unstable and dependent on the
situation and the nouns they are connected to.
That is why a thorough contextual analysis was
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applied and all the contradictory examples were
fixed.
In the list of adjectives the special signs mark the
complex cases when one and same word can
contain a category of quality and form degrees of
comparison, and at the same time, when
combined with another type of nouns, it can be
deprived such a possibility. Further these lexical-
semantic variants were compared to the
definitions fixed in Webster’s normative
explanatory Dictionary in order to highlight the
cases of using adjectives in specific or incorrect
meanings.
The authors of the survey can argue that in the
case when examples taken exclusively from
technical literature are considered, the
involvement of students of humanities for this
kind of experiment cannot be correct and a more
rigorous selection of texts that correspond to the
specialty of each of the participating groups is
necessary. However, from the very beginning,
the authors considered it possible and even
necessary to introduce such students into the
structure of the survey, since their opinion could
turn out to be useful, original and unexpected,
especially taking into account the above reasons
for their participation.
Results and discussion
The discussion of task difficulties and mistakes
was held immediately after each of the stages and
not only the instructors (experts) were present but
also all the participating students.
Stage 1. At the first stage the students of all
specialties were given only those adjectives,
which categories (qualitative or relative) were
quite obvious, e.g. large, electrical, etc. There
were 305 such adjectives.
The students following the theoretical rules
coped with the tasks quite easily and the results
of the first stage of the survey showed 100%
correct answers of all student groups in a fairly
short period of time – maximum 35 minutes.
However, the period of time spent on
determining the categories of adjectives and their
forms was much shorter for the students of
technical specialties (20 minutes) than for
students of humanitarian ones (35 minutes). In
the process of discussion a completely
reasonable explanation was found for such a long
duration for the students of the humanities: the
students of technical Institutes orient more freely
in the vocabulary of scientific and technical
discourse.
Stage 2. Much more difficult cases occur in the
text corpus “Electrical Engineering” when the
adjectives can function simultaneously (in the
same text corpus) in relative and qualitative
meanings. Their volume is 8% of all tokens.
As the examples the students were given the
paired word combinations to identify qualitative
adjectives and relative ones in them: different
from one another – different polarities, different
subgroups; common size – common surge
chamber; short circuit – short metal bar;
transient measurements – transient recovery
voltage; critical sparkover voltage, critical
flashover – critical criterion; extreme conditions
– extreme impulses; circular enclosure – circular
cross section; solid relations – solid dielectric
cable; direct current – direct effect; optimal
decision – optimal controller; primary coil –
primary analysis; practical consideration –
practical circuit; positive charge – positive
viewpoint; natural growth – natural frequency;
symmetrical transistor – symmetrical system;
secondary position – secondary coil; open
window – open circuit; characteristic impedance
– characteristic data; total understanding – total
current; economic development – economic
balance between lost cost and investment.
In the paired word combinations the qualitative
and relative adjectives are presented quite
randomly, so that the students did not consider
that the order of their use matters.
The answers of the students of technical
specialties were 100% correct and took only 10
minutes. The answers of the students of the
humanities were also 100% correct, but the
process of identifying the different types of
adjectives took much longer – 35 minutes.
Moreover, the first 2-3 pairs were determined for
more than 20 minutes, and the rest – for 10-15
minutes.
The reason for the undoubted success of students
of technical specialties was again their
knowledge of the subject itself and the fact that
they were more fluent in the terminology of
scientific and technical discourse.
The humanities students admitted that this stage
was much more difficult than the previous one,
requiring the mobilization of not only all
knowledge of the English language but also a
certain amount of observation and logics.
Moreover, they had to consult Webster’s
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normative dictionary several times. However, the
well-learned theoretical information which
focused the students’ attention on the nouns, with
which the adjectives are combined, allowed them
to draw the correct conclusions and focus mainly
on the meanings of the nouns in the proposed
word combinations.
So after the first 2-3 word combinations they
understood that if a noun was a term, then the
adjective was, of course, relative, and if it was an
ordinary word that is used in ordinary or
scientific speech then of course it was qualitative.
Therefore after such conclusions the process of
indicating the types of adjectives went much
faster and more productively and Webster’s
normative dictionary was no longer used by
them.
Thus the humanitarians had to use their logics
already at Stage 2.
Stage 3. The next two stages of the survey –
Stage 3 and Stage 4 included the most difficult
tasks for participating students since they can use
neither knowledge of theoretical grammar nor
Webster’s Dictionary in them as an aid.
Stage 3 continues the theme of identifying
characteristics of qualitative and relative
adjectives. At this stage the cases of the use of
relative adjectives in the forms of degrees of
comparison, which is absolutely impossible from
the viewpoint of logics, were examined. For
these cases not the separate paired word
combinations, as usual, but the whole sentences
were given.
The task is as follows: to give a rationale of using
relative adjectives in the forms of degrees of
comparison for this kind of cases so that in the
future the students could apply this technique to
their own work.
1. Most previous measurements and also those
reported in Tables 3 and 4 were primarily
concerned with measurement or line surge
impedance.
2. It is apparent that the remaining short-
circuit strength are more subtle and involve
design oversights, expressive production
tolerances and in some cases the need for
more technical design.
3. Now if the inverter voltage is suddenly
reduced from 370 kV to 225 kV the transient
current flow resulting from the line
discharge with further charge the capacitor
to more negative voltage and take the
neutral potential to a high negative value.
4. The most linear region of the variation of L1
with θ is evidently around the point θ ….
It took almost 30 minutes to perform this task
both by the students of technical specialties and
humanitarians.
At this stage the students had to solve two tasks
at once: to show both their knowledge of the
English language and the level of logical
thinking, i.e. ability to make the logical
conclusions. The base difficulty in the proposed
sentences was that even the understanding of the
meanings of all words could not help understand
the content of sentence. In this case the only
means that could be used was logics.
Of course, it was much easier for the technical
students having the specialized knowledge to
perform such a task. But later in the course of
discussion even they confessed that they were
shocked by such violation of the grammar rules
they knew completely. Being absolutely
confident in their logical and knowledge
advantage over the humanitarians, who
demonstrated much less strong knowledge in
technical discourse, they were confused for the
first time.
So, in examples № 2, 3 they quickly realized that
the authors, most likely, simply omitted the
words: in the word combination “more negative
voltage” – it was the word ‘value’ (it turned out
‘the negative voltage of higher value’); in the
combination “more technical design” – the words
'strong' and 'perfect', which characterize the
design, were missing (it turned out to be ‘more
strong and perfect design’). Such cases happen
quite often in specialized texts, when the authors
and readers are “on the same wavelength” of
knowledge and understand each other perfectly.
So there is no need to use all the elements of the
phrase.
Humanities students, in turn, having no such
knowledge of electrical engineering, simply
logically assumed that some elements in
examples № 2, 3 were most likely missing in
these sentences although they did not know
exactly which ones.
Example №1 shows how a relative adjective is
used in superlatives. Engineering students could
not explain such use of the relative adjective
‘previous’, and assumed “that the authors simply
do not know Grammar”.
But the psychology students accustomed to
logical conclusions during the survey almost
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immediately noted the special emotional
emphasis that the authors made when using the
word ‘previous’ in the superlative degree in this
phrase, and suggested that the adjective
‘previous’ was of particular importance in this
context.
Example № 4 contains the word combination
‘most linear region’ which in itself may seem
quite unbelievable because the word ‘linear’ can
be attributed to a group of words that reflect exact
and therefore the only given properties in
technology, therefore they cannot have any
approximate characteristics especially degrees of
comparison.
So no group of the students could explain this
example: neither knowledge of the language, nor
knowledge of electrical engineering, nor a logical
approach helped here.
That’s why all groups had a 25% reduction in the
score for performing the tasks at this stage.
Stage 4. Stage 4 was the longest and took 40
minutes to carry out.
The fourth stage of the survey was associated
with the presentation of data on the types of
forms of the degrees of comparison of adjectives
obtained as a result of analysis of the text corpus,
which made it possible to determine with which
degree of probability the theoretical rules of
classical English grammar are implemented in
the texts (using the suffixes -er/-est and
appending ‘more/most’).
All adjectives collected in the frequency list were
previously divided into groups of one-, two-,
three-, four- and five-syllable units. The
correctness of such a division was checked
according to Webster’s normative dictionary.
Three-, four-, and five-syllable adjectives
practically did not raise any doubts about the
correctness of the use of form types in the texts.
Therefore Stage 4 presents monosyllabic
adjectives that are used in the real texts with
unusual forms of degrees of comparison, as well
as two-syllable qualitative adjectives the forms
of which usually have an unpredictable type.
The students were asked to familiarize
themselves with these data, draw conclusions
and, after a short discussion, present a reasonable
summary that could logically explain the use of:
1) monosyllabic adjectives in analytical forms of
degrees of comparison; 2) two-syllable
adjectives in precisely those types of forms of
degrees of comparison that are presented in the
list and, accordingly, were found in real texts.
1) One of the most surprising phenomena that
are observed in the text corpus “Electrical
Engineering” is the use of some
monosyllabic adjectives in analytical forms
of degrees of comparison which is contrary
to the fundamental rules set forth in
theoretical grammars in the English
language. And nevertheless in the studied
texts they were found.
What is the reason for such a violation of the
rules of English grammar? This question had to
be answered by the students, demonstrating the
logics of their thinking.
Here is a list of such adjectives (as always in our
work they are presented with the value of their
occurrence in the texts): full (F=46), slight
(F=44), real (F=40), last (F=25), clear (F=23),
true (F=15), firm (F=12), fair (F=10), poor
(F=8), quick (F=7) and examples of some word
combinations in which they are used in analytical
degrees of comparison: the most full information,
more slight value, the most real way out, the most
last construction problem solution, more clear
view, the most true engineer opinion, the most
firm integrated circuit package, the most fair
decision, the most poor control demonstration,
more quick computer calculation.
After performing this task the positions of the
student was as follows: the students of technical
specialties were in the lowest position, since their
logics in this task turned out to be very weak, and
the grade was, accordingly, unsatisfactory; the
students of the humanities occupied the highest
position, with the highest score.
How did it happen? The students confessed that
the phenomenon of using monosyllabic
adjectives in analytical forms of degrees of
comparison was almost shocking for them, since
this completely contradicted the rules of classical
grammar that they knew from the school
curriculum.
The students were asked to determine the cause
of the phenomenon of incorrect (from the
viewpoint of theoretical grammar) use of the
forms of degrees of comparison in the texts of
scientific and technical discourse.
The students of technical specialties suggested
that the authors of the scientific articles, most
likely, were not familiar enough with English
grammar (it was for the second time they made
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such kind of assumption instead of thinking over
the situations in the texts).
Psychology students drew attention to the
semantics of words that were used incorrectly
and presumed that the authors-scientists thus
focused on certain phenomena or facts that could
not be noticed by readers of the articles if these
words were used according to the classical rules.
In addition they suggested that in these cases an
emotional emphasis on these words is also
possible which gave more expressiveness to the
complex and “dry” texts on electrical
engineering.
2) In accordance with the information on
“Degrees of comparison of English
adjectives” taken in the textbooks on
theoretical Grammar of the English
language as well as based on the experience
of working with real text corpora, the
authors came to the conclusions that the
most unpredictable forms of degrees of
comparison are observed in two-syllable
qualitative adjectives which can demonstrate
an increase in quality both with the help of
suffixes -er /-est, and separate words
‘more/most’. At Stage 4 they were presented
in those types of forms and in conjunction
with those nouns with which they are
realized in the texts. And, of course, with the
frequency of their occurrence in the texts.
Here they are: more basic circuit (F=85), earlier
solution (F=50), the most complete voltage
calculation (F=43), more real electricity
consumption (F=40), more complex
management problem (F=35), the most recent
year contracts (F= 27), the most proper
conditions (F=25), more valid limitations
(F=24), the most correct cable size (F= 23),
heavier structure (F=23), the modernest
invention (F=19), the most useful power
consumption information (F=19), the most exact
estimation (F=18)KA, more severe weather
conditions (F=18), more usual agreement
(F=18), the easiest equipment control (F=17),
the most extreme reliable terminal (F=16), more
active constituent (F=15), more compact form of
casing (F=14), more rapid process interruption
(F=14), steadier operation of the device (F=14),
the most adverse junction (F=12), more careful
operation observation (F=11), more random
transmission line breaking (F=9), the narrowest
passage (F=7), the most nearby transmission
line tower (F=7), more normal power
arrangement (F= 7).
The answer of the students of technical
specialties turned out to be much more successful
and deserved the highest score for the logics they
demonstrated in performing this task. The
answers of the students of humanitarian
specialties were standard, uninteresting and
simply weak, devoid of any originality, with very
weak logics. Humanities students received one of
the lowest score.
The discussion of this Stage 4 item was also the
longest in terms of time.
Humanities students suggested that the use of
certain types of forms in the presented two-
syllable adjectives has developed historically,
and most likely, not all English speakers
understand why they (types of forms) are used in
this way and perceive such a situation as a given.
The students of technical specialties first went
the same way, but saw that it was unproductive
and came to the conclusion that perhaps in this
matter there was some principle of using certain
forms for adjectives with two syllables and tried
to find it.
During the discussion after this stage they
(technicians) confirmed that they were looking
for and seem to have found an almost universal
principle for determining the types of forms of
degrees of comparison for adjectives with two
syllables (of course, according to them, it would
operate with some error, i.e. it is not always
ideal). They drew attention to the values of the
frequency of use of two-syllable qualitative
adjectives in the forms of degrees of comparison
in the texts, and decided to check whether these
values could influence the type of formation.
And indeed, those words that were used with a
greater frequency had a greater (though not
absolute) probability of forming degrees of
comparison analytically, and with a smaller value
of frequency – synthetically.
They presented the calculations with the help of
which they confirmed their idea: the total
frequency of occurrence in the texts of two-
syllable qualitative adjectives in degrees of
comparison with the help of suffixes -er/-est was
134 tokens, and the frequency of use of two-
syllable adjectives that form degrees of
comparison with ‘more/most’ – 493 tokens. So
the guess of the students of technical groups
turned out to be logically correct and may even
be used in explaining the grammatical material
“Degrees of Comparison of the English
Adjectives”.
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Thus, the proposed problem of differentiation of
logical and thinking characteristics of technical
and humanitarian students determines the type of
survey. This (survey) is quite noticeably different
in nature from those considered in the above
literature sources, in which respondents
passively carry out the tasks, and the conclusions
are drawn by survey organizers. The tasks facing
the participants of this exact survey allow them
to take an active position, i.e. offer their own,
rather original solutions to the assigned tasks,
and, what is important, draw their own
conclusions based not only on knowledge of the
subject, but also on logics.
Conclusions
1. The described procedure of survey has
demonstrated that in order to determine the
level of assimilation of grammatical material
it can be successfully used instead of the
usual exercises and testing, which, firstly,
have long been familiar to students and do
not arouse any interest in them, secondly, it
makes it possible along with expressing
one’s opinion to listen to opinions of others.
2. The simultaneous entering the students of
technical and humanitarian specialties into
the groups of the participants showed that
such an association is quite successful,
because made it possible to bring together
individuals with different types of logical
thinking and psychology, and they did not
contradict but complemented each other
when performing tasks, and showed possible
and even unexpected variants of solutions.
We can say that in this case not only
objective but also psychologically verified
data were obtained.
3. The conducted survey showed which
elements in the future training methodology
should be used for students to understand
and accumulate the grammatical material of
various subjects. This allows us to make the
following recommendations: a) for students
of technical specialties who will use English
for their scientific and practical activities,
English teachers should do emphasis on the
lexical and semantic characteristics of
language units as well as to draw their
(students’) attention to elements of the
language that could enhance the impression
of the information presented; b) for students
of humanitarian specialties the attention
should be focused not only on the stylistic
features of texts and the semantics of words
but also on formal logics, counting facts and
observing their interaction, which make it
possible to take into account features that
may not be related to their specialties but
will no less make their future research richer
and more original.
Some words about the limitations of the proposed
study. Of course, it would be ideal to present a
complete list of adjectives functioning in the text
corpus “Electrical Engineering”, with all the
necessary marks recording cases that were used
in violation of traditional grammatical rules, but
the scope of the article does not allow it.
The presented study also allows us to conclude
that the use of scientific research results in
explaining topics of theoretical grammar is long
overdue. And first of all this concerns the results
obtained on the basis of analysis of text corpus.
That is why the article describes the procedure
applying in practice the synthesis of theoretical
issues of grammar and the results of the analysis
of text corpora.
The authors agree that to solve the problem of
adequate translation of written scientific texts in
English, such an approach to teaching methods is
quite possible. In addition, the authors, as part of
a group of researchers, plan to create and analyse
some text corpora (with the further compilation
of probable-statistical models) in various areas of
scientific and technical discourse to determine
the comparative characteristics of text units
functioning in real texts. The presence of
frequency dictionaries also helps to clearly
determine the sequence of introduction of speech
units into the educational process, starting from
the most frequent to the least frequent.
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