"A Rare Vocabulary Dictionary based on school curriculum literature": theoretical issues of creation and methodological prospects for use

Abstract

The article describes the principles of compiling the Rare Vocabulary Dictionary based on school curriculum literature (hereinafter referred to as the Dictionary) and its methodological potential for being used as an electronic educational resource in teaching schoolchildren. Moreover, the study examines the specific features of the Dictionary in comparison with similar existing lexicographic publications. The Dictionary creation is relevant as there is a need to make Russian classical literature texts more understandable for the modern reader. As a result, the resource can promote the culture of reading literary texts and the formation of students’ linguistic personality, as well as enhance learning efficiency. The Dictionary materials were comprised of Russian authors’ works included in the school literature curriculum for years 5 to 11. The paper pays particular attention to the innovative solutions concerning the principles of glossary compilation and dictionary entry creation. The research relied on corpus linguistics methodology and its tools for working with text, which enabled us to select vocabulary based on objective criteria (low frequency in modern Russian) and describe the meaning of a particular word relying on the entire set of contexts of its use in the literature under study. The focus of lexicographic interpretation was an extensive layer of rare vocabulary of various semantic groups (including proper names and occasionalisms) and different parts of speech. Semantic description demonstrates the history of word meanings in the language in conjunction with contextual interpretation of a lexical unit. The entries contain encyclopedic information and a detailed cultural and/or philological commentary. Maximal attention is given to authorial neologisms. Some entries are accompanied by images of the item being described. The Dictionary is implemented as a module of the new Russian Classics cross platform mobile application. The article also describes the operating principles and capabilities of the application.