Linguo-cognitive model analysis of low-format texts in educational discourse (in the course book “English Unlimited” Elementary)

Abstract

The article deals with cognitive modeling of low-format texts from the course book “English Unlimited. Elementary”. The aim of the article is to reveal the dominant constituents of the linguo-cognitive model and to highlight their relevance to this very level of language learning (Elementary). The study shows that Participants, Setting and Scene and Act Sequence are the dominant components of the linguo-cognitive model in the texts. The constituent Participants is expressed by personal pronouns and proper nouns. The component Setting and Scene is represented by toponyms and nouns with locative semantics. Action verbs and stative verbs in present tenses are used to express the constituent Act Sequence. The importance of these constituents can be explained by the anthropocentric approach to educational material selection and to the learning process where the main purpose is to develop communicative competence of a student. These components of the linguo-cognitive model and their language representations show that the authors of the course book consider them the leading ones for developing language competence acquired at A2 level of language learning. It has been also found that linguistic representations of the objective-referential situations refer to the concept of National Identity in the educational discourse under analysis.