Starting from a wider perspective of discourse as language in use,
context, structure and text as pillars of discourse understanding, attention is
turned towards a narrower functional perspective of variation in language use.
Three important concepts are reviewed and defined here:
Ø ESP/LSP
refers to domain related discourses and its study looks into aspects of
communication in specialized fields such as science, medicine, law,
environment, etc. A
discourse oriented approach is taken to analyze domain specific communication
based mainly on factors such as the degree of specialization of text, the
relationships between the communication participants, the degree of expertise
knowledge they have and the purposes pursued by them.
Ø EAP is seen
in the context of languages for specific purposes; attention is given to the
branch labeled English for specific academic purposes (Jordan 1997). Here a challenge to traditional views on
characteristic features of academic prose is presented. We conclude that modern
academic prose is better described as condensed and compressed, that its
grammatical complexity lies mostly in the structure of the nominal phrase and
that it is semantically less explicit as understanding of specialized meaning
depends heavily on specialized knowledge.
Ø English for
Science and Technology (EST) is designed to help international undergraduates
and graduate students and professionals become more comfortable using English
as a common language in the fields of science and technology.
In the following
section, EST is discussed as an object of study for various discourse
approaches. The review follows
analysis of the discourse of science from comprehensive discourse analysis
theories, through genre theory, register variation and cognitive approaches to
variation inside frameworks of analyzing specialized discourse. The aim is to
provide an overview of outcomes relevant to a profile of (domain specific)
specialized discourse and of outcomes as new directions/relevant frameworks for
more specific levels of investigation into specialized discourse.
The first approach is L.Trimble’s (1985) who states that
EST is a spectrum/continuum extending from the peer writing of scientists and
technically oriented professionals to the writing aimed at skilled technicians.
It includes several types of instructional discourse, with various
communicative purposes and targeted audiences. It is the first comprehensive view on the discourse of
science and technology as a distinct variant of language in use.
In the Systemic Functional framework the focus is ‘the
language of science’ seen as a functional variety or ‘register’. This
particular cognitive and communicative act was realized in the English language
by regular morphological patterns for representing a classificatory system in
words.
Recognizable resources of scientific discourse are nominalizations, high
lexical density, nominal style and grammatical metaphor.
The language of science is viewed in genre studies in the
context of professional communication. Studying professional communication and
its genres is motivated by:
a. the fact that written disciplinary communication is
meant to facilitate social interaction and the production of knowledge;
b. the fact that the production of knowledge is codified in
generic forms.
Two traditions are overviewed here: Swales’ Create a
Research Space model (1990, 2004) and Bhatia’s professional genres perspective
(2004). Genre studies relate professional communication as patterned responses
with professional practices and communities producing the respective genres.
They introduce the idea of variability within patterns and disciplinary
variation in language use. An extension of this genre theory is the
social/cognitive genre approach, where social and cognitive are complementary
categories and complete a detailed and comprehensive view of discourse and
textual features of genres (Bruce 2005).
Corpus based approaches provide another interesting view on
languages for specific purposes and on the language of science in the same
context. Corpus based studies draw statistical data from large population of
texts. They allow comparisons with many text-variables and contextual
variables. An important outcome for the study of disciplinary communication is
their stress on parameters of similitude and variation, not as individual
features but as patterns of co-occurrence. These approaches support
increasingly more specific levels of analysis. Comparative studies show that
the ‘register’ of science varies on several dimensions from, for example,
conversation (Biber et al 1998). Multi-dimensional
analysis proved useful in studying more specific registers and in identifying
what makes them different from one another (e.g. research articles in ecology
vs. research articles in history).
Lexical approaches to EST are related mostly to (foreign)
language teaching and learning. Computer aided research and language corpora
offer opportunities to look at specific ‘technical’ vocabulary beyond single
words in any field. Data driven research has indicated that specialized lexis
is better thought of as language prefabs or ‘formulaic multi-word
units/collocations’ (Mudraya 2006).Thus, technical
vocabulary comprises words and collocations specific to one or closely related
fields, with high frequency, specific meaning and typical collocation patterns.
References
Woodward-Kron,
R. (2008), ‘More than just jargon - the nature and role of specialist language
in learning disciplinary knowledge’, Journal of English for Academic
Purposes 7, pp. 234-249.
Ozturk,
I. (2007) ‘The textual organization of research article introductions in
applied linguistics: variability within a single discipline’, English for
Specific Purposes, vol. 26, pp. 25-38.
Orr,
Th. (1995), English for Science and Technology: profiles and perspectives,
Fukushima: Center for language research, University of Aizu.
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