ESP Chapter II by Mehdi Karimi Soofloo

Developments in English for Specific Purposes (A historical perspective on ESP)

Aims:

Here in this chapter the origin of ESP is traced from 1960s to the present time. This involves looking closely at the
interaction between Applied Linguistics, ELT and ESP, the relationship between theory and practice in ESP and the
teaching materials that have been developed. We will also show how ESP has been influenced by developments in
education, business and computer technology.

The balance between research and practice

 ESP is essentially a materials and teaching led movement.

 ESP has been influenced by developments and changes in Applied Linguistics and ELT, but as a lively ambitious,
young movement within ELT it has also had considerable influence on ELT
 ESP started from 1950s and 1960s with the growth of science and technology, and use of English as an
international language scale.
 In 16th c, there was a need for Business English for incoming Huguenot and Protestant refugees.
 Actual commercial textbooks in ELT was written in the mid- to late 1960s,
 Swale’s Episodes in ESP (1988)
 Register Analysis looks at the grammar and vocabularies of a scientific and technical text by indicating to the
prior areas which are appropriate for teaching and materials production.
 Materials have been produced through the following sequences : The practitioner gets engaged with a teaching
environment , fulfilling analysis on a text , and writing a handout . The produced materials have been published as an
article or they have been the basis of the more extended researches.
 ESP needs analysis and the material productions were fixed into the theoretical works.

Trends in EAP (English for Academic Purposes)

 Register analysis
 Rhetorical and discourse analysis
 Analysis of study skills
 Analysis of learning needs

 Register analysis
 Register analysis can be used to determine authenticity of language in relation to lexical and grammatical features.
=‘lexicostatistic’. Certain grammatical and lexical forms are used much more frequently.

 The significant ESP textbook A.J. Herbert`s The structure of technical English, was published in 1965. The
structure of the technical English was driven by the linguistic analyses that underpinned it.
 This concept departed from the principle that English of a specific science differs from each other in terms of its
grammatical and lexical features of the registers.

 Register analyses in ESP was tailored for the pedagogic purpose, i.e. making the ESP course more relevant to
learners’ needs, not intended for the purpose to discuss the nature of registers of English per se.

 The main purpose of an ESP course was to produce a syllabus which gave a high priority to the language forms
students would meet in their field and in turn would give low priority to forms they would not meet.
 Some weaknesses of the ESP were using the same sources for EAP used in GE materials caused the second
movement Rhetorical and discourse analysis.

 Rhetorical and discourse analysis

While the work of Barber and other lexicostatistics examined the language of specific registers, it offered very little
explanation of why certain grammatical patterns are favored by the English neither of science and Technology, nor of
how sentences are combined to form paragraphs and whole texts or discourses. The pioneering work in this area was
done by Lackstrom, Selinker and Trimble (1973) later book English for Science and Technology: Trimble
defines rhetoric as the process a writer uses to produce a desired piece of text and an EST text as concerned only with
the presentation of facts. He suggests that, a writer needs to organize a text at four rhetorical levels:

-Level A: the objectives of the total discourse

-Level B: the general rhetorical functions that develop the general ones
-Level C: the specific rhetorical functions that develop the general ones
-Level D: the rhetorical techniques that provide relationship between the level C functions.

 Based on Widowsonand Allen’s idea of relating language form to language use, The Focus Series was developed, the
emphasis of which was on key functions in scientific and academic writing: definition, classification, description and
hypothesizing.

 Analysis of study skills

 The growth of need analysis identified priorities amongst the four skills in some situations.

 The reason: insufficiency of teaching language for the development of the ability to perform the required task at
tertiary level.

 Analysis of learning needs

 Research on the effectiveness of ESP or General English cookbooks
 Few empirical studies on the effectiveness of ESP courses
 Munby’s(1978) model for Need Analysis: the model has little influence on the ESP profession, yet it was an
indication of the coming-of-age of ESP

Hutchinson and Water’s (1987) paper on what ESP is not

ESP is not a matter of teaching specialized varieties of English

 ESP is not just a matter of Science words and grammar for Scientists
 ESP is not different in kind from any other form of language teaching in the it should be based in the first instance
on principles of effective and efficient learning

Analysis of learning needs

 Learning-centered approach:
 To consider the process of learning and student motivation
 To help learners develop certain learning skills from their academic study, or experience at work, and these skills
can be exploited in ESP classrooms
 To take into account the fact that different students learn in different ways

Authenticity of text and Authenticity of purpose

Whether a text for skills should be authentic or not?
What does authenticity mean?
 unsimplified or genuine texts used in ESP materials but originally written for purposes other than language
teaching?
The genuineness of the text does not guarantee relevance and that a text is only truly authentic if it exploited in
ways that reflect world use
A key aspect of authenticity is the level of the text exploited I the ESP class.
Authenticity lies in the nature of the interaction between the reader (hearer) and the text.

Trends in English for occupational purpose

Late 1960s and early 1970s : commercial correspondence courses

Mid 1970s-1980s: the focus switched more to spoken interaction based on grammatical and functional constructs
 Mid 1980s: development of materials with based on business communication situations

ESP now:

 There is now acceptance of many different approaches and a willingness to mix different types of materials and
methodologies
 Materials production and text analysis –written or spoken-are still predominant in ESP.
 ESP needs to be sensitive to movement in ELT and applied linguistics, such as World Englishes
 The emergence of business English as a major strand of ESP.

Summary of Hutchinson : chapter 1

ESP had developed because of three reasons:

 The Demands of a Brave New World :

By the end of the 2nd world war , science , economy , and technology have been
expanded which were dominated by two main forces – commerce and technology.
These forces led to the generation of an international language like : English. The
reason based upon which English has been chosen , was the economical power of the
U.S at that time. Hence , a large majority of people desired learning English neither for
its prestige , nor for its pleasure. They only were eager in learning English for
commercial and technological aims. A vital point was that , every learners knew their
reasons of learning . For example : businessmen and women wanted to sell their
products,doctors needed to keep up with developments in their fields ,etc… .

 English development got faster by the Oil crises in the 1970s.

 Time and money caused the establishment of cost-effective courses .

 A revolution in Linguistics :

The emphasis in on language use than usage.

 language in real communication is stressed.

 language can be changed from situation to situation

 Then language for specific situations come to use

 in 1970s most researches circled around language of science and technology

Focus on the Learner :

Learners interests and needs plays a pivotal role in ESP and motivating them.