Semantic Peculiarities of the English Education Terms in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article reports on a study of the semantic peculiarities of the English education terminology in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. It is illustrated that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed national education systems worldwide and has caused the emergence of new education terms and reconsidering the meaning and / or usage specifics of the existing terminological units. The author gives and analyzes definitions of new education terminological units and reveals semantic specifics of such units in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. The article draws on medical determinologized terminological units that have been widely distributed in the media discourse. Moreover, it is shown that due to the pandemic the system of modern education was characterized by developing and improving new teaching methods and tools. In addition, corresponding terminology, in particular Anglo-American education terminology, was changed, specified and updated. The semantic changes that occurred in the meaning structure of education terms analysed in the paper were considered within the classification developed by Oxford English Dictionary lexicographers. According to this classification, all the words having undergone semantic changes during the pandemic of COVID-19 can be divided into four groups: new words, new sub-entries, updated sub-entries, and additions to unrevised entries. In the framework of this classification the author brings examples of education terms for each group. The study of the features of the COVID-19 pandemic influence on the English education terms contributes to a fuller understanding of the impact of the coronavirus on both education systems worldwide and corresponding terminology. The observations made in the paper may be useful for the further study of education terms in the post-COVID conditions.