"The English language in programming"

CONFERENCE OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS

"THE ABILITY TO LIVE IN A WORLD OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE"

Foreign Languages Section

Project work on the topic:

"The English language in programming"

completed

by a 10th grade student

MBEI Astrakhan

"Secondary school No. 29"

V. Trusov

Supervisor:

English teacher

Starchenko

2024

Content

Chapter 1. The theoretical

Natural and artificial .........5

Programming languages: main features, similarities and differences from natural

Examples of English words from program

Chapter 2. The practical

The sociological ;…………………….…………….………………15

List of literature……............................................................................................18

Appendices….……………………………………………………………………19

Introduction

Modern people cannot imagine their life without computers and information technology. English is the Latin of a modern person involved in computer science, it is impossible to deal with professional technical sciences without learning it.

The relevance of this work is due to the need to study English to work in the field of information technologies.

In the meantime, it is clear that knowledge of English is a must-have for a successful programmer: researchers note that English-speaking programmers have a better developed reaction to communicating with the operating system and programs in the process of interactive dialogue, they solve problems of debugging and editing software products faster, find errors faster and master the documentation about innovations in the IT field that has not been translated yet. However, there is another question, which novice programmers often face: how close the English programming language is to ordinary English, used for communication between people.

The object of our study is: IT field.

The subject of our study is: English and JavaScript programming language in the IT-field.

The purpose of our work is to study these languages, their main features and peculiarities.

Tasks of our work:

- to investigate the main similarities and differences between the "human" and the "computer" English language;

- describe the main features of the English programming language JavaScript;

- find out the relationship between using English to work with a computer compared to using English to communicate with people.

The hypothesis of our research: the English language of ordinary people and the English programming language are different languages and you cannot put an equal sign between them.

Research methods:

1. study of literature and Internet sources;

2. comparison;

3. survey;

4. data processing.

This problem has been quite important since the creation of the first programming languages and remains relevant to this day, judging by the number of scientific articles and books on programming languages that we have found in abundance in the Internet. The earliest ones we found date back to the 60s and even the 50s of the last century.

In connection with the further computerization of human life, new problems arose in the functioning of programming languages, to which both foreign authors devoted their works, for example, J. Sammet in 1969, and domestic ones, among them Tseitin in 1974. In the 1980s, domestic authors wrote about linguistics in programming, among them V. M. Andryushenko, whose research we studied during the work on the project. The features of natural languages and the parallels between them and programming languages are described in the works by Giventhal in 2008 and M. V. Ovcharova in 2016.

During the work on the project, we conducted research on the following issues:

-how interesting and prestigious the profession of a programmer for students of our school is;

-whether young people are interested in IT news;

- how many young people of our school plan to connect their lives with this profession;

-how well they are aware of the professional requirements for a highly qualified programmer, including the need to know English;

- if they realize the difference between the English programming language and the English language for communicating with people.

This study was conducted during the working week of January 22-26, 2024 among 9th, 10th and 11th grade students.

The product of this project is a dictionary of computer terms in English.

The material of the project work can be used in extracurricular classes for students who want to devote themselves to the profession of a programmer and who want to learn English both for writing programs and for learning novelties in the field of IT, for sharing experiences with English-speaking colleagues.

Chapter I .The theoretical part

1. Natural and artificial languages

During the work on the project, we studied a number of sources on this topic and found out that the main difference between ordinary human English and the English programming language is that the first is a natural language, and the second is an artificial language. Natural languages are called “ordinary”, “spoken” languages that develop spontaneously and over time. Artificial languages are created by people for special purposes or for certain groups of people: the language of mathematics, a marine semaphore, a programming language.

According to some reports, there are about 7,000 natural living languages in the world and about 8,500 programming languages at the same time. Of course, these figures are quite approximate.[6; c. 17]

Let's consider the main features of natural languages:

1) Natural language is a sign system used for communication and cognition purposes.

2) The basis of most languages is an alphabet, a set of characters from which words and phrases of a given language can be composed. The language is characterized by:

‒ a set of characters used;

‒ rules for the formation of such linguistic constructions as “words”, “phrases” and “texts” from these characters (in a broad interpretation of these concepts);

‒ a set of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules for the use of these language constructs.

3) Natural language, intended primarily for everyday communication, has a number of peculiar features:

‒ almost all words have not one, but several meanings;

‒ words with inaccurate and unclear content are often found;

‒ the meanings of individual words and expressions depend not only on themselves, but also on their environment (context);

‒ synonyms are common (different sounds — the same meaning) and homonyms (the same sound — different meaning);

‒ the same items can have multiple names;

‒ there are words that do not denote any objects;

‒ many conventions regarding the use of words are not explicitly formulated, but only assumed, and there are exceptions for each rule, etc. The main functions of natural language are:

• communicative;

•cognitive;

• emotional (the function of personality formation);

•directive (impact function).

4) The history of each such language is inseparable from the history of the people who speak it.

It can be said that natural languages are a part of the evolving human consciousness. And his consciousness developed to such a level that a person began to create languages himself, used in various fields: scientific, professional, even criminal.

Artificial languages are sign systems created for use in areas where the use of natural language is less effective or impossible. Artificial languages differ in specialization and purpose, as well as in the degree of similarity with natural languages.

In the field of professional languages, the programming language is of the greatest interest for our research. Besides, we need to study how it differs from natural language. Let's consider the most common features of artificial languages and a programming language as one of them.

1) A common feature of specialized artificial languages is the presence of an alphabet (dictionary), rules for the formation and transformation of expressions (formulas) and semantics, a method of meaningful interpretation of expressions.

2) A characteristic feature of artificial languages is the unambiguous certainty of their vocabulary, the rules for the formation of expressions and the rules for giving them meanings.

3) Any language, both natural and artificial, has a set of certain rules.

4) Unlike natural languages, artificial languages have clearly formulated rules for the semantic interpretation and syntactic transformation of the signs used, as well as the fact that the meaning of the signs does not change depending on any pragmatic circumstances (for example, the context).

Artificial languages are widely used in science and technology. In the process of scientific research and practical activity, artificial languages are usually used in close relationship with natural language, since the latter has much greater expressive capabilities.

5) Another feature of artificial language is that it is a means of representing knowledge more accurately than natural language, and therefore a means of more accurate and objective information exchange between people.

Despite the great differences, natural languages have some common features. They are called universals. Phonological, grammatical, and some other universals are distinguished. Just as it is impossible to learn a foreign language without learning phraseological units, so it is impossible to learn a programming language without learning frequently used idioms. And what is more, just as there are many idioms with similar meanings in different natural languages, the same constructions are found in different programming languages (perhaps with different syntax, but with similar content). [3; 3]

So, having studied the main features and peculiarities of natural and artificial languages, we can conclude that the means of artificial languages are accurate and unambiguous, unlike the means of natural languages. This is explained by the fact that artificial languages have narrower and more specific goals, limited by the scope of their use.

2. Programming languages: main features, similarities and differences from natural languages

During the work on the project, we studied fragments of programs written in the JavaScript programming language. We have seen that programming languages, being artificial languages, have all the features of the language listed above. These languages have an alphabet – a list of symbols with which you can write the texts of programs for computers.

There is also a grammar of the language – a set of rules by which language constructions are built.

So, a fragment of the Java Script program:

= function () {

var check; switch () {

case 1:

if ([56, 59, 64].indexOf([1]) > -1) {

if ((121)) {

delay(500);

} else {

([1], 0, 15093, 5024);

}

}

return true;

case 3: // Paladin

if ([3] !== 112) { return false;

}

if (getDistance(me, 15093, 5029) > 3) {

(15093, 5029);

}

if ([4] > 0) {

([4], 0);

}

([3], 1);

return true;

case 5: // Druid

if ([3] === 245) {

([3], 0, 15093, 5029);

return true; } break;

case 6: // Assassin

if () {

check = ({x: 15093, y: 5029});

if (check) {

({x: 15093, y: 5029}, 5);

return true;

}

}

break;

}

return false;

};

Usually the text in a programming language consists of:

1) the title of the program,

2) the descriptive (declarative) part,

3) and the procedural part.

The declarative part describes the objects (quantities) that actions will be performed on. In the procedural part, calculations are set in imperative or narrative form. Calculations in programming languages are defined in the form of operators (sentences), which include operands (variables and constants) and symbols denoting arithmetic, logical, symbolic, set-theoretic and other operations and computational functions. Special grammatical constructions (analogs of complex sentences) are used to specify logical conditions, cycles, and compound operators. There are constructions for specifying and using procedures and functions, data input and output operators, operators for accessing the translator and the operating system, , programs that interpret text in the programming language and monitor its correct execution (understanding).

Using the example of a JavaScript code fragment, the main features of a programming language, we can conclude: of artificial languages, programming languages are closest to natural languages in terms of the composition of the linguistic functions they perform (there are communicative, representative, conative, factual and meta-linguistic functions). For programming languages, as for natural language, the asymmetry of the expression plan and the content plan is common (there is synonymy, ambiguity, homonymy). They serve not only for programming itself, but also for professional communication between programmers; there are special versions of languages for publishing algorithms. And, since the developers of the program are Anglo-Saxons, the alphabet, the words used, the rules of language constructions are English.

However, during the work on the project, we found out that there were programming languages with Russian teams. ВЫПОЛНИТЬ, ВЫЧИСИТЬ, ПУСТЬ, ГДЕ, etc. But these languages have not stood the test of time. Programming languages are mostly built using English words, phrases, and sentences.

We also found out that for computers it doesn't matter which words are used in programming languages. Let's take the example of the Russian word СЛУЧАЙНЫЙ or the English word RANDOM. We will need the term "translator" – this is such a computer translator from any human language into the language of a computer.

The programming language translator will translate either the "СЛУЧАЙНЫЙ" command or the "RANDOM" command into a sequence of zeros and ones. Let's say it will be translated into the sequence 1100100111001001. In fact, the sequence will be much longer, the page may not be enough to print it. For a computer, there is no fundamental difference where this sequence of zeros and ones came from.

Language commands are translated in several stages, and zeros with ones are obtained at the very last step of translation. But even at the intermediate stages of any computer translation, whether from English or Russian, we will not see anything "human" in the translation. Because the computer does not understand our language. Any human language is not yet available to a computer, although work in this direction is underway, and quite successfully.

Therefore, the computer does not care at all what language the programmer speaks to it. But, since translators (that is, translators from human to machine language) were created mainly by English-speaking engineers and scientists, this is the result: English words and sentences are everywhere in programming. Or there could be Russians, because the computer does not care at all.

Programmers write certain English words and even phrases according to certain rules, of course, diluted with various other symbols and signs, numbers, special designations of the programming language. Programming language translators translate into zeros and ones a program written by programmers, understandable only to machines without emotions, without understanding the human context.

Examples of English words from program texts

So, let's look at some examples of English words that may be familiar to a programmer, of course, if he (she) speaks any programming languages.

Let's start with the word Program, which looks intuitive in English:

Program – the program. In English, there are no genera for inanimate beings, which is the program, so there is no letter "a" or any other at the end as a possible feminine ending.

Programmer – programmer

Programming – programming

And then we will continue, showing new words:

Patch – patch, patch up. In Russian, it is used in the sense of "patch (edit, small change, addition, correction) to the main program", pronounce "patch". In programming, "patches" are used everywhere.

True is the truth in English and in programming. It is used if in a logical expression it is necessary to denote the truth (as opposed to a lie). In fact, the truth is a logical unit "1", and a lie is a logical zero "0".

False – false. The logical "zero".

Random – random. In Russian they say "random", which means randomness, random choice.

Random selection – random selection. We often use a stable combination of "random selection". The word "random" is already quite firmly included in the Russian language.

No, and, or – Not, and, or

Not – no. In programming, it means the logical negation of "no". In programs, at the expense of not, the logical "zero" turns into a logical "one" or vice versa, "1" turns into "0". And all you need to do is specify not.

And is a logical "and". In English, "and" just means "and". The logical "and" is arranged as follows. This is a kind of multiplication operation in the world of logical zeros and ones. If you multiply "0" by "0" or "1" by "0" or "0" by "1", then the result of such a logical "and" (and) will be "0". And only multiplying "1" by "1" will give us a "1" in the answer. Therefore, the result in the form of a "unit" will be only when both operands are equal to the logical "unit". That is, when 1 "and" 1. Hence "and" ("and").

Or is translated from English as "or". In programming, the logical "or". This is an addition operation in the world of logical zeros and ones. If you add "0" and "0", the result will be zero. Any other additions (1+0, 0+1, 1+1) gives a logical unit as a result. According to the common rules 1+1 is 2, not 1. A deuce is obtained in the world of people, and in the world of single-byte logic, the answer will be "1", since there is nothing in one byte that would be greater than "1". Hence "or", as a kind of formal logic: if at least one of the operands is "1", then the result will be "1". That is, "or" the first, "or" the second operand is "one", then the result will also be "one". Here is the "or" operator, that is, "or".

Why does a computer need to know the date and time

The "and", "or", "not" and others discussed above require an understanding of the formal logic of machine "thinking".

Date – the date. Computers are good at date and time information. It would seem, why do they need it? To be with a person here and now, in one place and at one time. Otherwise, what kind of assistant is this if he does not understand what day, date, month, year it is now…

Time is the time.

Clock – the clock. To understand time, computers have their own clocks. They are pretty accurate themselves. Also, a computer clock can synchronize with world time using the Internet.

Dates and times can be considered in programming in even more detail:

Week – week. As a rule, this is the number of the week in the current year.

Year is the year.

Month – month. This is either the number of the month in the year, or directly the name of the month (in English)

And so on, with dates and times, you can go on for quite a long time and dive deeper and deeper.

The most important thing is that the computer, in principle, does not matter what date it is today, and what time it is. He doesn't care if it's 3050! However, with the help of the listed (and not only listed) words, you can substitute date and time data in programs. To then use this data in calculations and in managing some processes using computers.

Multiple repetitions in programming languages

Computers wouldn't be computers if they couldn't process millions and billions of data. But you need to somehow tell computer programs that you need to work with a lot of data. For example, the following English words can be used for this (not necessarily only those listed below):

For – for. With the help of "for", you can set so-called cycles - multiple repetitions. For example, FOR X=1, STEP 1 TO 1,000,000,000 TO EXECUTE IS an intuitive "code". Its essence is: let X=1 first. At the next step of the program, its value will become X = 2 (after all, the STEP is equal to one). Then X=3. And so on, until X equals a billion. One "phrase" is enough to make a computer program do something a billion times in a row.

However, English words will be needed here, not Russian ones. For we have considered, now some other words on the topic covered:

Step – step

To – to

While – until

Until (yet), Before (before) –can mean the same thing "until then", but in other programming languages.

Repetitions and scenarios in programming

Replays may not follow the same scenario, but according to different schemes. Each time, the scenarios can split, that is, they can be directed either in one direction or in the other. For this purpose, for example, words such as:

If – if

Then – then, then

Else – otherwise

Do – do, execute.

Let's say the phrase is being constructed IF X = 50 THEN DO aaa OTHERWISE DO bbb. In other words: if x has become equal to 50, then the program needs to do something conventionally designated as aaa. If x is not equal to 50, then you will have to do what is designated as bbb. In the English abbreviation, the same program text would look something like this:

If X=50 (that is, a certain condition is met) then do aaa else do bbb.

Programming languages allow you to work not only with numbers. For example, you can manage texts, bytes, and whole arrays of numbers and texts. And the numbers themselves can be very different: integers, fractional (real), complex and the like. Here are some examples:

Dimension – size, dimensions – dimension (array). This way you can set the maximum size of any, even the most huge array of data.

Real is a real, "real", that is, a decimal number with decimal places. Example: ";. In programming languages, it often makes a significant difference which sign separates the integer part of a number from the fractional part. In some cases, they put a comma, and sometimes a period. Placing a dot instead of a comma or vice versa may indicate a programming error. Then the number can "turn" into a string of characters, and the program will process this string as text that has nothing to do with the written number.

The above examples clearly show that programming languages consist of English words, but they function according to different rules than the rules of natural English, which make it possible for a person to communicate with a machine, ensure that the computer effectively performs the tasks that a person has set for it.

Chapter 2. The practical part

The sociological survey

Having studied the theory on this problem, we wondered how relevant it is in the realities of modern life, in particular for students of our school who are in the final stages of their schooling and are facing a choice of a future profession and educational institution to obtain the skills and abilities they need.

Our study has the following results (Appendix 1). 80% of high school students know what the IT field includes, but only 38% are interested in its news. A fairly high percentage of our school's students, namely 89%, consider the profession of a programmer prestigious and interesting.

30% of the young people of our school plan to choose the profession of a programmer in the future.

87% are sure that it is necessary to know English in the profession of a programmer.

77% realize that there is a difference between the English programming language and the English language for communicating with people.

Thus, the sociological survey showed the interest and awareness of the prestige of the programmer profession in the modern world among the high school students of our school. Students of our school have an idea of the qualification requirements for this profession (Appendix 2), such as perseverance, intelligence, attentiveness, responsibility, literacy, determination, curiosity, hard work and honesty. And knowledge of English is considered one of the most important for this profession. Most students have a clear understanding that the English programming language is different from the English of the "human" language.

Conclusion

Having studied all the main features and peculiarities of the English programming language and the English "human" language, we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to put an equal sign between them. This conclusion confirmed the hypothesis of our study. The English programming language, which is an artificial language, is not human English, which is a natural language.

Programming languages created by English-speaking programmers have a set of English words. But the principles of communication of these languages are based on structures and rules created for the most effective communication between a person and a computer.

The English programming language is close to the human English language in terms of the linguistic functions it performs (there are communicative, representative, connative, factual and metalinguistic functions). For a programming language, as for a natural language, the asymmetry of the expression plan and the content plan is common (there is synonymy, ambiguity, homonymy). They serve not only for programming itself, but also for professional communication between programmers; there are special versions of languages for publishing algorithms.

We see further work on this project in studying the types of programming languages, their properties, advantages and disadvantages, as well as exploring possible ways to solve problems typical of modern programming languages.

List of literature:

1. Giventhal I. A. How to be surprised and outraged in English. — M.: Flint: Nauka, 2008. — 247 p.

2. Andryushchenko V. M., Linguistic approach to the study of programming languages and computer interaction, Problems of computational linguistics and automatic text processing in natural language. [M.], 1980;

3. Ovcharova, M. V. Parallels between natural languages and programming languages / M. V. Ovcharova, S. A. Khaustova. — Text : direct // Philological sciences in Russia and abroad. — St. Petersburg : Svoje publishing House, 2016. — pp. 43-45. — URL: / (accessed: 09/29/2023).

4. Tseitin G. S., Features of natural languages in programming languages, Machine translation and applied linguistics, v. 17, M., 1974.

5. Sammet J., Programming languages: history and fundamentals, Englewood Cliffs(N. J.), [1969].

Appendix 1

The results of the study

Appendix 2

Qualities necessary for the profession of a programmer