Role of hypertext in teaching foreign languages

Abstract

The future of teaching foreign languages is associated with a screen culture, which will contribute to diversification and multiplication of educational sources. Therefore, along with a teacher, hypertext technology and information network claim the role of an authoritative source of knowledge about the world. The image of modern language is the image of hypertext space. The use of hypertext interactive technologies leads to a change in the patterns of knowledge understanding and assimilation, which are related to the visual interpretation of image, form, and color. Thus, the problem of cognition on the basis of hypertext technology lies in learning new forms of dialogue and communication, when instead of a text, a hypertext and a context are being read. The didactic principles and methods traditionally used in teaching foreign languages should be enhanced with new approaches. Thus, students will be able to link the information from the hypertext network with the information they already know and to acquire new knowledge in completely new situations. The hypertext is a complex dynamic and multidimensional textual network, where language usage can be observed, making it possible to effectively form students’ linguistic and communicative competence.

Introduction

In the conditions of new communication forms, based on electronic hypertexts, it is necessary to teach students a foreign language as a fully-fledged means of communication. The hypertext is both an information and communication environment, where language usage can be observed, making it possible to effectively form students’ linguistic and communicative competence.

In the context of teaching a foreign language with the help of electronic means, communication becomes both a goal and a means to achieve the learning goal (Dunaeva, 2017: 107). The foreign language segment of hypertext network is a special interactive environment for cognitive activity. As a result, students participate in real communication. At the same time, students can establish a multi-level link between pieces of textual information; think of original ways to make use of a variety of linguistic, sociocultural, methodological materials taken from the network. Such work contributes to students’ preparation for communication with representatives of other cultures and adequate speech behavior in the given conditions.

In electronic hypertexts, there are other sources of information, which are different from traditional ones. Facing authentic pragmatic and sociocultural communication situations, a student enters the world of micro- and macro-models of multimedia projects, developed by scientific and methodological centers of European universities. Using a multimedia learning environment, scientists deliver lectures and conduct seminars and workshops, while students connect to them through the network, which gives them an opportunity to improve their communicative competence.

Peculiarities of hypertext in the network

The hypertext environment is a learning space of “environment”-oriented learning, where the student seeks and finds necessary information, processes it methodically and uses this information in learning activities and in everyday communication within the hypertext communication network. The hypertext environment is considered in the cultural, psychological, and linguistic aspects, in other words, it acts as an information picture of the world, which highlights national and specific cultural features of the given environment.

Highlighting the multicultural aspect of hypertext, we proceed from the fact that language is the most important factor and that media texts exist in a certain context, defined as a structured collection of all relevant cultural information contained in the text.

The multicultural aspect of hypertext is very important, since the text does not just convey information, but rather “creates” a new reality. Along with the way of modeling, changes the reality exposed in the text. Since screen culture contributes to the diversification and multiplication of educational sources, the role of an authoritative source of knowledge about the world, along with the teacher, is claimed by hypertext technology. As a result, hypertext information blocks become for an individual a means of information exchange with the surrounding world. This exchange makes possible not only assimilation and transmission of information, but also helps to understand and “accept” a foreign culture.

The problem of cognition on the basis of hypertext technology lies in learning new forms of dialogue and communication, when new semantic spaces of communication are created, and instead of a text, a hypertext and a context are being read. This generates new schemes of knowledge understanding and assimilation, which is associated with the visual interpretation of image, form, and color. Introducing students to natural communication situations on the basis of interactive technologies allows them to form specific new background mechanisms for each language and the ability to operate with these new foreign language resources. When students arrange information into their own hypertext, it is important to search for and select the material, which is based on evidence and opinions of “public experts” in the hypertext network. At the same time, they need to have “multiliteracy” skills represented as a combination of both multimedia skills and knowledge of the hypertext multimedia network in terms of social, cultural, and methodological aspects.

The European system of training defines “multiliteracy” skills as the main goal of education at the present time. This leads to the need to incorporate into modern educational programs such instructional topics as “word processing,” “work with hypertext in the network,” etc.

The concept of multimedia implies a whole combination of knowledge and skills, which includes the ability to work with multimedia hypertext and computer literacy, which is defined in this context as an ability to work with hypertext. The term “multi” refers to the aspect of multilingualism, the competence of multilingualism, which has its own name of “European competence” and includes knowledge, skills, and the notion of “European identity.” Learning in a hypertextual environment is understood as a process of combining information, when a student has an ability to understand the connections between different texts and contexts and can overcome the problem of multilingualism. It is important for students to acquire the skill of “nonlinear thinking” in order to understand hypertexts as a network of sociocultural and language connections, and to acquire flexible learning skills in practical activities. This means that future scientists have access to a huge space, where they can apply their knowledge, read, understand, and add information in many languages of the world, participate in the joint work in the global educational network, in other words, communicate on a global scale.

In this case, we are talking about “new thinking” (Deik, 1989: 84), as an ability to speak, write and read in the network in a different way. In the network, students face a choice whether they need the given information or not. Is there any difference between “exploratory” and “operational” searches? In the first case, a student moves from one page to another, from one task to another, in the second case even if a student questions the information obtained; they are already online and are performing a certain task.

The Internet is a special kind of space, which reflects the thoughts of people, who create there; everything is represented by words or whatever we associate with them. Evaluating and analyzing the associations, which control us in the network, Issing qualifies them as gravitational processes of development (Issing, 1995). He believes that this allows us to determine the psychological profile of the student. We are talking about the co-evolution of man and machine, about the changes in our cognitive abilities. Students should associate information with the facts they already know, arrange new knowledge creating new mental models of completely new communication situations and learn how to apply it. Hypertext technologies change not only the way we acquire knowledge, but also the way we establish relationships between people, when it is important to be able to feel comfortable and not to get lost in a joint activity, where hypertext acts as a means of learning. At the same time, the ways of understanding, storing, and using information are changing. The hypertext network influences our motivation and interest in the subject, in addition, its introduction into our life affects relationships and communication between people and as a result, the structure of the entire community.

Speaking about the hypertext network, we are speaking about modern language. The image of modern language is the image of hypertext space, where hypertext allows us to “see” the patterns of foreign language acquisition, which requires students’ communicative ability and also concerns their secondary linguistic and cognitive consciousness. This leads us to the concept of a secondary linguistic personality, according to which the formed secondary linguistic personality, as an indicator of human ability to participate in intercultural communication (Khaleeva, 1989, Nechaev, 2012), is also fully represented in the hypertext network.

Hypertexts are an information and trainig environment for the formation of a secondary linguistic personality, as this process is facilitated by immersion in situations that reflect subcultural values in different communication situations. The students’ presence in the hypertext network is aimed at introducing them to a different national type of consciousness, and at the formation, at a certain level, of such a view of the world. According to Bogomolov, the use of electronic communication in the learning process involves specific activities for students and teachers, since such interaction takes place in an informational, technological, and educational space (Bogomolov, 2009: 43). A variety of operations is supposed to take place between a student and a teacher: ability to recognize personal motives and attitudes of people belonging to a different community, understanding of the carrier of another linguistic picture of the world, ability to perform cognitive actions peculiar for representatives of another national culture.

Culture is understood only through interaction, when it is possible to interact within the socio-cultural context of a foreign culture. Thus, by searching, researching, and analyzing the foreign environment, students discover new cultural concepts and communicative stereotypes of native speakers. As a consequence, there is a need to prepare students for the contact with another culture and teach them appropriate behavior to perform more fully in new learning conditions.

As for productive activities (speaking and writing), the results of such work on the basis of hypertext messages will be associated with mastering the system of lexico-grammatical relations in the target language. It will allow students to carry out communicative activity in the network on websites and forums, social network sites, through electronic correspondence with other students and professors from foreign universities. In other words, at the pragmatic level, they will develop not only speech skills, but also skills in intercultural communication. Within this communication model, learners acquire not only lexical, grammatical and stylistic knowledge, but also gain skills in written communication etiquette (Dunaeva, 2017: 147).

The new opportunities for interaction in the network have appeared: “interaction with native speakers and peculiarities of their consciousness, possible meanings of linguistic signs” (Gal'skova, 2004: 32). We are trying to read what we do not see on the web, developing over time what is called paratextual attention, attention to the boundaries of the text. In other words, paratexual analysis is the art of paraphrase, where undefined speech is paraphrased, and not the one that was said or missed. Hypertext depends on other network texts, where there are texts which cannot be edited or changed, but also texts, which can be continuously developed and complemented. In scientific literature, there is a term “nonreading,” which characterizes junk information, that is, unsolicited and redundant information that is discarded, but is nevertheless previewed. This means that a person needs some time to identify a particular text.

The modern point of view on the problem of the psychological aspect when organizing work in the hypertext network relies on various paradigms, including the humanitarian paradigm (Abramov, 2001: 150). According to it, the acquisition of information is extraction of knowledge that is transformed into information when passing from one native speaker to another. The knowledge extraction process can imply that its primary representations may be significantly transformed by the carrier and recipient.

An open interactive learning hypertext environment is the “catalyst” of communication, where hypertext also performs the role of a written listener, and the introduction of key words helps to understand this role (often at the beginning of the hypertext there is an abstract and several key words).

Work in the hypertext network is based on the principles of learning content complexity, with the reference to authentic teaching and learning materials. In the hypertext network, students have an opportunity to build their own structures, taken from a foreign culture, and define their educational goals and the learning content.

Any social interaction is the most important prerequisite for effective learning. The work organization with hypertext presupposes that one of the main requirements is communication in groups in the network. The effective use of multimedia and hypertext depends on the way students process the transmitted information and how they perceive it. The one, who looks at the pictures (“information frames”), organizes their knowledge at the stage of superficial information processing. By storing and processing information, students create their own ideas about hypertext information. This will be verbal information in a symbolically abstract form and nonverbal information in an analytical form. Nonverbal information is also acquired by memorizing mental pictures (long-term and short-term memory).

The potential for using multimedia information for teaching a foreign language is that this information has to be constantly processed by various systems of human memory. This means that if a text also includes some visual information at the short-term memory stage, memorization will occur.

In the generative theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2003), the work with hypertext is viewed as an active process when a student selects visual and verbal information, processes it, and as a result, constructs new knowledge. All information is stored simultaneously in the working memory, and then it is connected to other pieces of information in various ways. Visual and verbal information can be simultaneously or sequentially called up on the screen. This makes it possible to preserve different styles of studying the subject and improve one’s own cognitive style of work. Thus, the visual learner type tends to prefer pictures and video clips, while the verbal learner uses verbal information. Hypertexts also provide new forms of involving students in speaking activities (receiving, requesting, searching for information, communicating in a foreign language), which provide completely new opportunities for receiving authentic information about the target country, its culture, history and political system. The teacher chooses the most effective way of teaching: interactively or noninteractively, types of hypertext: educational texts in a foreign language or authentic texts from the Internet.

Multimedia specifics of hypertext, its linguistic aspect is the essence of understanding the language reality. The specificity of hipertext, from the pont of view of the linguistic aspect, is the comprehension of linguistic reality. The language works within a content scale, where there are individual semantic features, and the global ones, represented only symbolically. Thus, the context of hypertext is closely related to linguistic, communicative, text-theoretical fields, and stands out in methodology of teaching foreign languages thanks to its interactivity and creativity.

Hypertext interaction in the network between teachers and students, even virtually, is achieved without difficulty. This makes it possible to completely re-structure the learning process by complementing it with virtual forms. The foreign language teacher acts as a partner interested in the implementation of a common project. He or she performs the assigned task with the students, suggests optimal speech behavior, and discusses their successes and failures (Dunaeva, 2017: 107). Hypertext network resources help to organize a virtual learning space that intelligently complements the classical forms of learning.

We consider hypertext from the point of view of its application in teaching a foreign language, therefore, the existing functions of hypertext as a mechanism, which links fragments of text and allows us to move from one to another, are important to us. Hypertext technologies are a special form of organization and structuring of a written text, which makes use of footnotes and references. Bredel (2008) considers hypertext from several points of view: “On the one hand, this is a special way of presenting, organizing a text, on the other hand, it is a new kind of text, which is opposed to a usual text. Finally, it is a tool and a new technology for studying the text.” Hypertext is, first of all, a system of associative links between text elements. Hypertext technology is based on such organization of textual material, in which lexical units are represented not only by linear sequence, but also by associative connections between them, collecting certain knowledge about the topic area. With a lot of material and a large number of connections, a very complex semantic network arises in the form of hypertext. It reflects the topic area in a multidimensional way. The highlighted words are linked to certain text fragments in the hypertext network. Thus, a student is not obliged to go through the text in a linear order and may deviate from the linear description using a reference to other material.

Students themselves manage the process of searching and obtaining the necessary information. Such a way of presenting information promotes, on the one hand, an increase in the volume of information being learned, and on the other, an increase in motivation.

Such hypertext flexibility allows the teacher to personalize the learning process, making it visual and interesting, which allows the student to approach the lesson creatively. Students themselves form their own electronic hypertext, they arrange information they way they comprehend it, using hyperlinks to different resources as a way to integrate text with audio and video. Hypertext includes images and animation, which are linked to the main text via hyperlinks. Hypermedia is a complex dynamic combination of hypertext and multimedia. The concepts of multimedia and hypermedia are not synonymous; in the multimedia system the so-called nodes differ in size and content. The size of individual nodes is designated as “granulation.” These nodes communicate with each other via links. The concept of navigation describes students’ behavior in hypertext when they look through information materials creating various types of hypertext, and then use them in interactive communication.

Dunaeva notes that the Internet as a communicative space can be interesting in three directions: as an unlimited source of information, as an opportunity for virtual learning, as a source of new words, new terminology, new stylistic variants of colloquial speech. Global networks are an important source of scientific and educational information. Students’ emersion in the foreign environment of global networks with support and guidance from the teacher increases significantly the duration and effectiveness of their contact with the target language (Dunaeva, 2017: 146).

Thus, we systematize the most essential arguments that determine the expediency and objective necessity of using hypertexts in teaching, intercultural communication and in everyday communication.

The study of hypertext specifics in three interrelated aspects—linguistic, multicultural, and psychological—allows you to focus on specific aspects of learning a foreign language in the network.

The hypertext allows you to individualize the learning process, makes it clear and interesting.

The participation of students in interactive communication on the basis of hypertext brings them closer to natural situations of communication.

The hypertext makes it possible to form in students new, language-specific, meaning-creating, and phonatory mechanisms.

The textual and communicative network ensures students’ preparation for the contact with another culture and adequate behavior in a new learning environment, which shows the importance of choosing hypertext network as a key element in teaching foreign languages at the present time.

For the active use of hypertext network in practical activities, it is important to disclose the essence of basic concepts regarding hypertext. Hypertext is a special type of text, a source of information for intercultural communication in the virtual reality, which enables students to hold a discussion as a means of accessing foreign language resources, where the language is being implemented, and where, thanks to the text, it is possible to effectively solve the issue of forming students’ linguistic and communicative competence.

Hypertext as a source of information for intercultural communication

Hypertext technology is considered to be a platform for global interactive communication, where

hypertext is a textual information environment with special conditions for working with texts in the network, where as a result of information processing a new text arises;

hypertext is the basis of modern communication with “individualized identity” (Zasurskii, 2009: 42);

hypertext is an opportunity to create a connection between texts, contexts and communicants;

hypertext is “a cultural phenomenon, a new format of cultural virtual reality” (Kastell's, 2004: 64).

The recognized definition of hypertext as a fundamental intertextual system is the term by Landow (2006: 16), where “the link between the last two pages in the hypertext is represented by a sequence in continuity; when you can start to read one book, continue with another, and end up in the third.”

At the present time, the theories of classical text linguistics, classical text pragmatics, the speech act theory are not able to provide a comprehensive representation of the multimedia nature of information hypertext technology. Researchers believe that through comparisons between traditional linguistic theory and the concept of hypertext, something completely new in the theory of communicative technologies can be achieved in the near future. Thus, referring to the theory of text, where syntagmatic and paradigmatic elements originate from De Saussure’s theory, it is said that hypertext is a new communicative product. Links have a division into links between the elements existing in the text and the elements that are absent in it and into links between the elements existing in the text that form different constructions. At the same time, the context is highlighted—the text inside the text with respect to the syntagmatic text relations within the fields. This is a text of the beginning, the middle, the end, of close and remote parts. The context is emphasized, where externally textual relations are discussed, where “pretexts” are colloquial and discussion fields have different properties. The coherence of the text denotes a text-semantic unity of deep structures. The cohesion of the text is denoted by grammatical-linguistic, rhetorical, and narrative unities of surficial structures. Thus, hypertext in the network is a text-collage, where there are no boundaries of the semantic and paradigmatic context; there are no boundaries between the internal and external text.

The complexity of methodical work with hypertext is explained by: interactivity (the possibility of feedback and direct participation in the communication process); nonlinearity; digital form of using text formats; modularity as a combination of dissimilar components in a single information space; compactness of space when accenting the possibilities of instant communication and reducing the value of barriers due to physical distance; convergence as a difficult access to hypertext search engines in real time, leading to the creation of hybrid text forms and the use of various multimedia technologies; granularity as the use of hypertext, as the arrangement of information from texts into one knowledge system. The more the information is fractionized in hypertext, the more connections (links) there are, thereby making navigation in the hypertext network more complicated.

The main properties of hypertext which contribute to communication are:

integration as a combination of artistic forms and technologies with the formation of a hybrid form of expressiveness;

interactivity as the user’s ability to respond and independently manipulate their own perception of hypertext, and communicate through it with other people;

connectivity of individual elements of hypertext with each other;

nonlinear form of narration and representation in the hypertext network;

hypertextuality justifies the structure of the text, which is stored in the electronic form and is in a network connection with other texts.

Thus, hypertext is a network, multi-line product consisting of text blocks, which allows to interact through text and to make electronic connections to other texts. The hypertext network as a component of intercultural communication and modern culture is becoming an important auxiliary tool for training a future specialist. A student will be learning a language by searching and processing various types of hypertext, overcoming difficulties in written virtual communication based on hypertext. The formation of communicative competence is inseparably associated with the formation of sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence, which prevents the student from losing track of the values and critical points, actualizes principles of social behavior, and hypertext in its turn provides for these purposes an actual diverse and authentic material related to the regional geography, literature, and art. The student should master the methodological material for the use of foreign network literature in order to be able to analyze events, discover new things, look for and create educational material. Intercultural communicative competence allows the secondary linguistic personality to go beyond its own culture, without losing its own identity. This includes: everyday life, interpersonal relationships, a system of values, beliefs and relationships, sign language, ethical rules, knowledge of national stereotypes, knowledge of similarities and differences between native culture and the foreign one. Knowledge and skills presuppose the ability to correlate our own culture with the foreign one, the ability to flexibly use a variety of strategies to establish contact with different cultures, overcome intercultural differences and stereotypes. It is all about the existential competence, which is culturally conditioned and at the same time is influenced by students’ personal factors; implies openness to new cultures and interest in them, willingness to move away from stereotypes, change the perception of a particular culture, etc.

Therefore, there are so many concepts: intercultural personality, mediator of cultures, network identity and intercultural communicative “profile” of the student. In communication on the basis of hypertext, a student can act as an author, director, producer of hypertext material, an actor in messages and chat rooms. When authentic texts contain national stereotypes that have an important effect on communication, as students’ willingness to conflict with something “alien” will later give way to acceptance and tolerance, which will help to weaken the possible “cultural shock” among students during their participation in virtual communication.

Within the teaching process of a student, it is important to know the degree of their readiness for life, their ability to cope with complex problems of modern culture, the degree of their ability to realize their place in the global world. Learning should become largely universal, not confined to national boundaries. For this purpose, students should be able to use plans and programs that provide unity, do not change the diversity of learning forms. This entails the need to incorporate into the modern curriculum the models of learning in a computer environment, where learning is understood as a process of connecting information, an ability to understand network connections, changes in individual contexts that are not unified by the same website. Students in the network are in a complex learning environment, where they should be able to communicate in various communicative fields. Hypertext technology changes not only the way we acquire knowledge, but also the way we establish relationships between people, because a hypertext serves as a means of learning, where knowledge is modeled in a discursive form. The student perceives the text not as a literal instruction, but as a definite creative plan, allowing to recreate the architecture of knowledge being modeled. In the most vivid form, the notion of “knowledge” was demonstrated in the work of Drucker (1994: 53): knowledge is “text-human.” In this case, the text can be understood by students as a material body (as “material bodies” of signs, which are its components).

Human is understood here as a participant in a number of normative systems necessary for understanding and using the text, as in fact a universe of culture at a certain stage of its development.

The main parameters of coherence and integrity are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations established between information components of hypertext. Paradigmatic links are a development perspective of the hypertext topic.

The reader develops the area of knowledge of their interest, relying on key words and concepts. Syntagmatic connections are a way of developing the topic. An important role is played by a hyperlink. Hypertext has flexibility due to these links, which constitute hypertext, expressed in the form of hyperlinks. By absorbing the text, the student masters the form of communication produced by a particular work of fiction.

Thus, hypertext is a special communicative environment in which the implementation of a natural language adopts specific qualities that influence the final product of communication—virtual texts considered as textolinguistic models, and as a form of electronically connected multimedia, a network product formed from text blocks. Therefore, in the network the reader can interact with the text, following electronic connections, and also independently create online blocks of texts. Hypertext provides a connection between virtual dialogue and text; a connection between dialogue, discourse, and other texts, when you can activate separate parts of the text following other network connections. Moreover, you can create a connection of links with another text or a certain part of it or insert a new information block complementing the old information.

In modern linguistic studies, the cognitive approach stands out. The cognitive approach allows us to consider hypertext not only as individual pieces of speech, but also as a result people’s joint activity.

At the forefront of cognitive linguistics, there are such important issues for understanding information processes as interpretative properties of the media, their role in building the information picture of the world, and cultural and specific factors that influence the production and perception of the mass information texts.

Thus, the problem of cognition of sign-semantic spaces of communication and new forms of dialogue and communication consists in new schemes for understanding and assimilating knowledge of the hypertext network, its multimedia character, interactivity, and hypertextuality.

The multimedia character is key definition of an open information space, represented in the form of search engines, catalogs, websites, electronic dictionaries, virtual universities. “It links the past, present and future manifestations of communicative thought in a giant historical hypertext” (Kerres, 1998: 53).

Interactivity is combination of information and communication. At the same time, computer-oriented communication forms a virtual handwriting, which implies rules of network etiquette. E-mail services, chat, videoconferencing, and blogging services are a means of direct, authentic communication in different languages between users in the network. Interactivity means the ability to interact; be in a conversation mode, hold a dialogue with someone based on hypertext.

Hypertextuality is linked network of interconnected parts of information that can be accessed through links, which allows to move from one information center to another, with the possibility to view materials in the network.

Conclusion

Therefore, hypertext is an environment, in which the text is developing in the process of communication and information exchange; this is a cultural phenomenon, a kind of tool that creates, transmits, and stores information, where the language used can be represented not only by natural languages, but also by various linguistic systems and the language of symbols.

Hypertext is a complex dynamic and multidimensional textual space, where multilingualism and cultural polyphony may occur, where the language is being implemented, and where, thanks to the text, it is possible to effectively solve the issue of forming students’ linguistic and communicative competence.

Thus, recent developments in the theory of classical text linguistics, classical text pragmatics, speech act theory, communication technology theory, and hypertext theory helped to uncover specific aspects of hypertexts, which makes it possible to communicate over the network and to hold a discussion on the basis of written language.a