This paper touches upon the issue of describing the semantic content of a term from the perspective of glottodidactics and comparison. Depending on the adopted semantic theory, the semantic content of a term is captured by means of various defining notions: a notion, a concept and, additionally, the signified.
It is postulated in this paper that a concept, which constitutes the cognitive meaning of a term and which is a carrier of specialised knowledge (comprised by a given field), be adopted for describing the semantic content of terms in terminology glottodidactics and in interlinguistic comparative studies for translation purposes. Contrastive analysis of semantics of terms belonging to two national languages, which is indispensable in teaching specialised translation, requires the application of tertium comparationis – a semantic comparison metalanguage, which is independent of the linguistic side of the confronted terms. It can be composed by concepts as they are not assigned to specific languages, which allows the avoidance of ethnocentrism. It is not notions then, but concepts as cognitive meanings of terms, which are external towards particular languages, that ought to constitute the basis for interlinguistic comparison in a contrastive analysis of terms in two languages.
Receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge is an important factor determining learners’ proficiency since natural and effective communication depends both on richness of lexical means of and their contextual adequacy. Research shows that learners’ educational performance can be much enhanced when vocabulary issue is properly addressed that is when they know which words they should learn first (the quantitative aspect) and how well they should master them (the qualitative aspect). The lack of vocabulary metrics on the other hand makes language teaching process less targeted and therefore less effective.
The proper vocabulary measures however, are particularly important in case of high stake exams therefore in this article the recommendations of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages [2003] and their implementation in the Requirement Standards for the State Examination in Polish [2003, 2009] are subject to a multifaceted analysis. Its purpose is to determine whether the requirements regarding lexis in the Polish document are specific enough and if they are not – to propose some feasible solutions.
