1

Semi-Technical Vocabulary Issues in ESP: An OCHA Approach and Study Tools

1 Introduction
1.1 Background and rationale
1.1.1 Rationale
The point of departure for this project is was the belief that in order to improve post-
secondary English language teaching in Japan, university language programs must
should adopt English for Specific Purposes (ESP) methods in lieu of the widespread
general English curricula emphasizing literature and skills-based approaches. For a
successful transition to ESP methods from the English for general purposes approaches
familiar to both students and instructors, we decided to start by focusing on the teaching
of semi-technical vocabulary. in the field of ESP related to law studies. For ESP
curricula to be successful at the university level, however, it is important for there to be
a smooth transition from the English for General Purposes (EGP) curricula that exists at
the secondary level in Japan. In this paper we present an example of the further research
into ESP that is needed to develop effective teaching methods and materials for
university English language teaching.

With the increasing interest in Our example of ESP methods that we present focuses on
English language teaching for law majors and other students studying legal English, we
decided to . In this research we focus on developing and implementing the development
and implementation based on ESP methodology of to create an online Wiki-stylea legal
English dictionary for law-related terminology. The need for such a dictionary is great
as, while Almost almost all university students use general English-Japanese
dictionaries. However, although, law dictionaries in Japan offer only definitions of legal
technical words and their historical background. They , they lack examples of how these
words are used in context. In addition, and do not offer there are no explanations as to
how general words are used in a legal sense in a legal documents.

1.1.2 US Constitutional Cases

In the development of a legal dictionary for Japanese students and practitioners of law,
we used a corpus of legal English based on actual US Constitutional Cases (USCC).
The corpus was constructed from the entire set of 14,531 U.S. Constitutional Cases
issued by the Federal Supreme Court through August 2000. This set of court cases is
perhaps the largest of such corpus of legal English in the world and includes144, 588
word types and 83,442,416 word tokens. Lexical analysis of USCC is essential to the
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compilation of an ESP law dictionary. This analysis demonstrates that words used in US
Constitutional Cases differ from ordinary English in terms of both frequency and
meanings.

1.1.3 2 Project purposegoals

The main goal of this project was to The purpose of the develop methods for teaching
students how to utilize development of these ESP reference materials to create useful
resources which could be of benefit for not only their immediate studies but also aid
their future professional development. is to aid in the teaching and learning of legal
English at the university level and more generally for all learners.As a model case, we
decided to use a corpus of legal English based on actual US Constitutional Cases
(USCC). The corpus was constructed from the entire set of 14,531 U.S. Constitutional
Cases issued by the Federal Supreme Court through August 2000. This set of court
cases is perhaps the largest such corpus of legal English in the world and includes144,
588 word types and 83,442,416 word tokens. Lexical analysis of USCC is essential to
the compilation of an ESP law dictionary. The analyses presented below demonstrate
how words used in US Constitutional Cases differ from general English usage in terms
of both frequency and meanings.

ESP methodology is partly founded on the belief that language educators should
understand the context of both the L1 and the specialized subject matter. In this light,
we begin with a brief description of the history of law in Japan. We then present our
approach to addressing vocabulary issues in this field and describe a tool that can be
used to help students grasp how to create useful self-help resources.
In order to accomplish this goal we set out to first create a database of previous
research and select general words which are used in a legal sense in a legal context, then
to search for such general words among USCC while identifying typical semantic,
syntactic and collocational features in USCC, and finally using this information derived
from the corpus, to draft an “ESP Law Dictionary” for Japanese students and make it
available on-line.

1.2 Brief Description of Japanese law

1.2.1 Edo period
ESP methodology is partly founded on the belief that language educators must
understand fully the context of both the L1 and the specialized subject matter. In this
light, we begin with an explanation of very brief history of law in Japan. During the Edo
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period, for over two hundred years external trade in with Japan was confined to the
island of Deshima in Nagasaki harborharbour, where only the Netherlands and China
were permitted by the Shogunate to exchange goods and knowledge information with
Japan. As Reischauer and Craig state, “The the Japanese by 1639 had so successfully
closed their doors to the outside world that subsequently Japan all but dropped out of
the consciousness of Europeans” (Reischauer and Craig, 1978, p. 116). However, with
the general expansion of Western influences in Asia in the 19th century, including the
1842 defeat of China by the British, the Tokugawa Shogunate decided to consider a
change in their isolationist policy with the arrival on Japanese shores in 1853 of
Commodore Perry of the United States Navy signalled the end of this isolationism. In
1858, Japan signed commercial treaties with Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
Russia and the United States of America.

1.2.2 Meiji law

In the next few decades, the Meiji Government (1868-1912) introduced imperial rule to
replace the Shogunate, or government by a warrior class. In order to both centralise and
consolidate the political power of Emperor Meiji as well as to signal to other countries
that Japan had become a modernised state with an up-to-date legal system, the new
fledging government realized the urgent need for that the formulation of a systematised
legal system was urgently needed to replace the existing feudal laws. To accomplish
this, Japanese leaders were willing to adopt Western political and legal concepts. T, with
he French and Prussian codes of law became becoming models. The first Minister of
Justice in Japan, Shimpei Eto, issued orders to: “Translate those (the French Civil Code)
codes as quickly as you can and do not worry too much about any errors you may
make” (Noda, 1976, p. 43). The reason for the adoption of the French Code was that
“Japan chose the legislation of France as its guide because the Common Law system
appeared too complicated, whereas France had the five Napoleonic codes. Moreover the
French codes had already been the inspiration for many countries that were modernizing
their societies” Noda (1976, p. 43). The Prussian Code was also relied on heavily in
drafting the Japanese legal system because it seemed more suitable in the Japanese
context since it allowed the Emperor, like the Kaiser, to be free from parliamentary
control.

1.2.3 Post-WWII law

The end of World War II saw considerable reforms of the Japanese legal system. The
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) recommended five major reforms
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in 1945:
1) Introduction of equality of the sexes (under law)
2) Encouragement of trade unions
3) Liberalisation and democratisation of education
4) Liberation from autocratic rule
5) Democratisation of the economy

Importantly, “The Law on the Maintenance of Public Security” was abolished and
political prisoners were released. It was proclaimed that Shintoism was to be separated
from the State” Oda (1992, p. 32). There were six basic characteristics of the new
Japanese Constitution:
1) The system of pre-war elites was abolished;
2) the Cabinet was constructed on the British model;
3) both houses of the Diet became fully elective;
4) the judiciary was made independent;
5) governors of prefectures became elected positions;
6) human rights were guaranteed to all.

The American influence of this new Constitution was multi-faceted and affected the
Japanese legal code in many areas: administrative law, three major labour laws, anti-
monopoly law, and economic law. Even so, “Major codes such as the Criminal Code,
Code of Civil Procedure and the Commercial Code were retained without any
significant amendment. In other words, a significant portion of Japanese law is still
influenced by the Prussian Code” Oda (1992, p. 33). In this way Japanese law code
became a unique blend of elements of both civil law as well as common law. “Japan
freely adopted ideas and habits from foreign civilizations. The ideas took root in
Japanese soil and once removed (from) their native cultural surroundings, they have
developed and been transformed into something quite different from the original” Noda
(1976, p. 5).

The Today, the main sources of law in Japan include the Constitution (kempo), acts of
the Diet (horitsu), orders, mandates, fiats, statutory instruments (meirei), local
ordinances (jorei), treaties (joyaku), rules of court (saibanho kisoku), customs (kanshu),
judicial precedents (hanrei), and scholarly opinions (gakusetsu).

1.3 ESP, genre analysis and corpus linguistic approachesFocus on genre

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Against this Having outlined the background of law in Japan, we this next section will
considered how to use a Swalesian genre approach to the teaching of law-related
vocabulary. the theoretical bases for the project: English for specific purposes (ESP),
classroom research on second language teaching and learning, and corpus linguistics.
ESP has been an actively developing area in applied linguistics and language teaching
over the past 40 or so years. Much of the initial work dealt with superficial structural
elements but from the late 1980’s, the field was extended into the social perspectives of
the discourse communities using this special type of language. The seminal work in
genre analysis by John Swales was a significant turning point that led to a wealth of
research on the pragmatic elements of frequently used texts. The definition
synthesized

1.3.1 A definition of ESP

ESP has been defined in many ways, but the definition of Dudley-Evans and St. John
(1998) has subsumed most of the ideas of prior ones. They state that there are absolute
and variable characteristics. The absolute characteristics are that ESP (1) “is designed
to meet specific needs of the learner,” (2) “makes use of underlying methodology and
activities of disciplines it serves,” and (3) “is centred on the language (grammar, lexis,
register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities.” The variable
characteristics are that ESP (1) “may be related to or designed for specific disciplines,”
(2) “may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of
general English,” (3) “is likely to be designed for adult learners,” and (4) “is generally
designed for intermediate or advanced students.”

1.3.2 Genres
ESP focuses on teaching particular types of texts referred to as “genres.” “Genre” is
another term that has been used in many ways by those working in applied linguistics.
For this work, we have adopted the definition of Swales (1985, 1990) which has been
well synthesized by Bhatia in Analysing Genres (1993, p. 13) has been most useful:

“‘Genre’ is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set

of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the
members of the professional or academic community in which it
regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized
with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent,
positioning, form and functional value. These constraints, however, are
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often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to

achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized
purpose(s).”

Swales further developed this concept in Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textography of
a Small University Building (1998), stating that “the discourse community owns the
genre.” This viewpoint indicates the importance of considering not only the texts
themselves but also of considering the discourse community using these texts.

1.3.13 Classroom research on language education

As this project is aimed at improving language education in specialized fields, current
classroom research in language learning and teaching is considered in conjunction with
an overall ESP approach. Work in second language acquisition has revealed that “some
linguistic features do not ultimately develop to target like levels” if left to only
experiential and meaning-based experiences” Doughty and Williams (1998).

Long and Robinson (1998, p. 23) state that “focus on form often consists of an
occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features—by the teacher and/or one or
more students—triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production.”
In 2002, Long presented a lecture on “Focus on form in classroom SLA” at the Kansai
University Institute of Foreign Language Education and Research and proposed a task-
based syllabus for this:

Identify target tasks via task-based needs analysis.

Classify the target task types.
Derive pedagogic tasks.
Sequence to form a task-based syllabus.
Implement syllabus with appropriate methodology/pedagogy.
Assess with task-based criterion-referenced performance.

Interestingly, he did not refer at all to ESP. When asked about this after the lecture, he
stated that ESP was about “texts” alone. Unfortunately, this is a frequent
misunderstanding about ESP but the procedure he proposed for building a syllabus
shows that research in classroom learning supports the validity of the ESP approach of
needs analyses to identify target tasks.
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1.3.24 ESP tasks

Swales (1990, p. 76) describes “task” as “one of a set of differentiated, sequenceable
goal-directed activities drawing upon a range of cognitive and communicative
procedures relatable to the acquisition of pre-genre and genre skills appropriate to a
foreseen or emerging sociorhetorical situation.” For teaching, Author (2001a, p.39) has
expressed “genre” as “a type of recurring communicative event of specific substance,
form and purpose in a focused global discourse community which is recognized by the
communicator (writer, in the case of the texts used), who is a member of the
community, and others in the community but may or may not be aimed at a receiver
(audience, or the reader) in the same community.” This separation of the elements of a
genre text is particularly useful for teaching ESP in a foreign language environment.

1.3.5 3 An OCHA approach

To encourage learner autonomy, an OCHA approach is suggested to have the learners
observe the form features, classify what they observe, hypothesize about their usage and
apply what they have considered (Author 2003). What students are asked to observe
are the rhetorical, grammatical, lexical, technical and phonological features of a text.
For the rhetorical observation, genre analysis is particularly useful. Hunston (2002, p.
2) states that “linguists have always used the word corpus to describe a collection of
naturally occurring examples of language, consisting of anything from a few sentences
to a set of written texts or tape recordings, which have been collected for linguistic
study.” Thus, a corpus for ESP can be a minicorpus of texts for a particular genre to
examine the grammatical and lexical features using concordance software and other
corpus tools. For the technical elements, style manuals and instructions to authors are
helpful. For the phonological, dictionaries and online dictionaries with sound can be
referred to.

1.3.46 Corpus linguistics for ESP

Here let us examine an example of how corpus linguistics can be used for learning
about the language of law. As mentioned above, help with the lexicogrammar is
necessary for ESP and, in Japanese tertiary institutions, features that are particularly
problematic are the following:
Subtechnical vocabulary nuances
Usage of prepositions
Usage of articles
Singular/plural (In the case of Japanese, which does not clearly distinguish
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between singular and plural, this can be a particularly obstinate problem.)

In ESP, the technical terms usually do not pose too serious a problem because there is
usually a one-to-one equivalence of terms in both the learner’s native language and
English. However, the subtechnical vocabulary can be problematic because it includes
terms which have many possible meanings (Herbert 1965; Katsuragi 1998; Author
1999, 2001a). This has long been known in ESP:

“it is not single words which are always difficult, but phrases, so that common
combinations of words should be taught, not just the individual vocabulary
items of discipline.” (Fanning 1977, mentioned in Robinson 1980)

1.3.7 Disambiguation using corpus linguistics

Let us examine a specific example in which there are many synonyms that need to be
disambiguated:
alien: koukoku ni ijuu shinagara otsukoku ni seijiteki chuusei wo chigau hito.
foreigner: takoku kara no raihousha mata wa kyojuusha
stranger: takoku (chihou) kara kite mada tochi no hito ya shuukan nado ni
najindenai hito.
immigrant: teijuu suru tame ni takoku ni kita hito (opp. emigrant)
émigré: (furansu, rosha no) boumeisha [Not in corpus] →extrinsic. Ant. citizen,
subject, national

The dictionary meanings are not very helpful for a second-language learner and can, in
fact, be confusing.
alien
ADJECTIVE: 1. Owing political allegiance to another country or
government; foreign: alien residents. 2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or
constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See
synonyms at foreign. 3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature:
emotions alien to her temperament.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

alien
NOUN:1. An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called
noncitizen. 2. A person from another and very different family, people, or place.
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3. A person who is not included in a group; an outsider. 4. A creature from outer

space: science fiction about an invasion of aliens. 5. Ecology An organism,
especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which
it is not native.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

foreign/foreigner
ADJECTIVE:1. Owing political allegiance to another country or
government; foreign: alien residents. 2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or
constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See
synonyms at foreign. 3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature:
emotions alien to her temperament.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

foreign/foreigner
NOUN:1. An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called
noncitizen. 2. A person from another and very different family, people, or place.
3. A person who is not included in a group; an outsider. 4. A creature from outer
space: science fiction about an invasion of aliens. 5. Ecology An organism,
especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which
it is not native.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

immigrant
NOUN:1. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in
another. 2. A plant or animal that establishes itself in an area where it previously
did not exist. ADJECTIVE:Of or relating to immigrants or the act of
immigrating.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

stranger
NOUN:1. One who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance. 2. A
foreigner, newcomer, or outsider. 3. One who is unaccustomed to or
unacquainted with something specified; a novice: a stranger to our language;
no stranger to hardship. 4. A visitor or guest. 5. Law One that is neither privy
nor party to a title, act, or contract.
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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)

Examination of the 900 US constitutional cases being considered in this study reveals
that all of these terms are used. In order to help disambiguate their nuances and uses,
we suggest that referring to the corpus for authentic examples can be very useful and
revealing. The learners can be guided toward noticing frequent collocates and
encouraged to classify the observations that they make from the data such as presented
below.

foreign 712 examples

alien(s) 303 “
immigrant(s) 85 “
stranger(s) 21 “

foreign commerce 55 samples, 18 texts

oreign affairs power, violates the Foreign Commerce Clause, and is preempted by the
representing companies engaged in foreign commerce; 34 of its members were on the
M
oreign affairs power, violated the Foreign Commerce Clause, and was preempted by the
d similar concerns in our cases on foreign commerce and foreign relations. See, e.g.,
pped, or received in interstate or foreign commerce from the person or presence of
aks with one voice when regulating foreign commerce; (ii) preserving import revenues
ate, basins, pond, habitat, salt, foreign commerce, substantially affect, occasiona
usceptible to use in interstate or foreign commerce. The "other waters" provision of
pite connections to interstate or foreign commerce that are less significant than t
of wheat moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses and
e precise line between interstate/foreign commerce and purely intrastate commerce w

of foreign 76 examples, 23 texts

e acquiescence of foreign nations. See A
om the actions of foreign distributors
ial activities of foreign sovereigns und
administration of foreign policy. - -
tive advantage of foreign insurers. View
the annexation of foreign territory; or
er in the area of foreign relations is
 11

the assistance of foreign governments in

n and citizens of foreign lands will no
'; the conduct of foreign affairs--a rea
y consequences of foreign prosecution th
elated context of foreign state sovereig
contingencies of foreign law or foreig
"real danger" of foreign prosecution).
the disclosure of foreign-policy objecti
enforceability of foreign arbitration cl
for exemption of foreign government emp
the exercise" of foreign jurisdiction i
n expenditures of foreign currency. Base
gnizing a fear of foreign prosecution, t
d to the field of foreign affairs, an a
reign immunity of foreign governments ha
the importer of foreign publications.
for the income of foreign insurers, whic
hat the influx of foreign infectious di
e legislatures of foreign democracies:
ial likelihood of foreign prosecution ca
female parents of foreign-born, out-of-w
under policies of foreign insurers issue
the positions of foreign governments an
he possibility of foreign prosecution as
cate questions of foreign relations." IN
the reactions of foreign powers and th
protests, risk of foreign retaliation, a
exempt shares of foreign corporations t
ce, statements of foreign powers necess
tax the stock of foreign corporations t
g the strength of foreign insurers [*
s are a subset of foreign forum selectio
ere suggestion of foreign government's o
but the threat of foreign prosecution is

foreign nations 20 examples, 10 texts

 12

n by allowing private parties and foreign nations to challenge state procu

es and citizens of other States or foreign nations. As we have explained:
ed fear of criminal prosecution by foreign nations including Lithuania and
e conduct by the United States and foreign nations could develop to a point
duct between the United States and foreign nations could not develop to a p
usly and with the acquiescence of foreign nations. <=44> WATERS ﾁ˜23
n and convenience of commerce with foreign nations and among the several s
lly asserted, in its dealings with foreign nations, that the waters of Ste
s done so with the acquiescence of foreign nations. See Alabama and Missis
on is at least as plausible: These foreign nations believed nonenforcement
e power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several
ubstantially affect commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several S

foreign prosecution 33 examples, 1 text

er of law, that every threat of a foreign prosecution is a reasonable threat.
ons where the danger of an actual foreign prosecution was substantial.
matter what, not [*698] every foreign prosecution may measure up so harshl
likely gain to the witness fearing foreign prosecution is thus uncertain, the
when a witness legitimately fears foreign prosecution, then what reason could States
has assumed an interest in foreign prosecution, as demonstrated by
for looking to the possibility of foreign prosecution as a premise for claiming
where a substantial likelihood of foreign prosecution can be shown, [**2245]
velop to a point at which fear of foreign prosecution could be recognized under
ns on which a reasonable fear of foreign prosecution could be shown, as by
domestically but the threat of foreign prosecution is substantial Cf.
a "real and substantial" risk of foreign prosecution, it was unnecessary to
on to the likely consequences of foreign prosecution that a witness would
d, none of which involve fear of foreign prosecution), there is no reason to
ld be made for recognizing fear of foreign prosecution under the Self-Incriminati
r serious consequences if fear of foreign prosecution were recognized as sufficie
has a significant stake in the foreign prosecution at issue here. Congress
ion. We hold that concern with foreign prosecution is beyond the scope of

This observation of examples can also be helpful for learning about grammatical
features such as the use of prepositions and articles as well as the selection and usage of
singular and plural nouns. Here are examples to illustrate these features.
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alien to 16 examples, 7 texts

withholding only bars deporting an alien to a particular country or countries,
or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the
ed out that federal courts are not alien to a bistate entity Congress partici
Government. Federal courts are not alien to such an entity, for they are ordai
ide, democratic vote -- so utterly alien to our constitutional system, the Cou
sing from any action to remove an alien to judicial review of a final order--
ies, a grant of asylum permits an alien to remain in the United States and to
pen an investigation or subject an alien to surveillance [***57] belong to t
ral shall not deport or return any alien to a country if the Attorney General
a) makes it a crime for a deported alien to return to the United States withou
that the Government believes the alien to be a member of an organization tha
stigation, which could subject the alien to eventual deportation, into the al

alien who 16 examples, 5 texts

s." Pangilinan, supra, at 885. "An alien who seeks political rights as a me
n 2 years to be imposed against an alien who admits to having unlawfully re
on term of up to 2 years--where an alien who, after being deported pursuan
because "it is not uncommon for an alien who has committed [**1243] a c
ess simply meant to "describe" an alien who, in the words of the 1988 stat
s an exception], in the case of an alien who is in exclusion or deportation
of ﾁ˜ 1252 is inapplicable to "an alien who is in exclusion or deportation
326 defines a crime. It forbids an alien who once [***6] was deported to
ubsection (b) of this section, any alien who [has been deported and thereaf
on to withholding for a dangerous alien who has been convicted of a "parti
ndictment concerning a particular alien who receives an increased sentence
case at hand involved a resident alien who obtained admission to the Unit

Article usage: evidence

900 texts 5150 instances
324 instances, the * evidence

(no “the”) adjective + evidence at sentence start

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Circumstantial evidence of the prudent

tivity. Cogent evidence regarding thei
District Court evidence that the appli
obtained DNA evidence established th
DECISION: Drug evidence seized after a
n4 Empirical evidence on the privile
arby. Forensic evidence indicated that
arby. Forensic evidence indicated that
Further evidence of the rule th
etition. Given evidence in the record
murder. Having evidence that petitione
Hearsay evidence is inadmissibl
on. Mitigating evidence unrelated to
"Mitigation evidence is not evidenc
t 226-227 ("No evidence has ever shown
. Ct. 2462. No evidence has ever shown
˜ 9010. n6 No evidence whatsoever sug
der. Objective evidence -- the dischar
88). Relevant evidence may, for examp
Respondents' evidence does not demon

the + (adjective) + evidence

the historical evidence
the evidence
the new evidence
of_the new evidence
light_of_the new evidence
the suppressed evidence
the additional evidence
the mitigating evidence
the undisclosed evidence
in_light_of_the new evidence
of_the historical evidence
the only evidence
the physical evidence
of_the evidence
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the record evidence

of_the suppressed evidence
the available evidence
the mitigation evidence
in_the_light_of_the new evidence

Preposition + evidence
585 evidence_of 49 evidence_against
519 of_evidence 47 evidence_as
286 of_the_evidence 46 evidence_on
245 evidence_in 44 evidence_for
191 evidence_to 41 evidence_to_support
100 evidence_of_the 41 the_evidence_of
89 evidence_in_the 40 into_evidence
89 rules_of_evidence 35 no_evidence_of
70 preponderance_of_the_evidence 34 of_evidence_of
69 as_evidence 33 evidence_in_the_record
69 sufficiency_of_the_evidence 32 evidence_from
59 evidence_at 31 evidence_before
59 evidence_or 30 evidence_tending_to
58 evidence_of_a 30 of_evidence_and
55 by_clear_and_convincing_evidence 28 by_evidence

1.3.8 Summary
In sum, ESP is based on consideration of how communication is done among members
of a discourse community. ESP learners are potential or even novice community
participants who should be empowered with knowledge of the principles of professional
communication and useful self-access tools. The genre analysis and corpus linguistics
examples described above should be conducive to autonomous and continual learning
by adult, mature learners with professional or occupational needs. An OCHA discovery
learning approach should be particularly useful for continuing education that can
address evolving needs with adaptive strategies.

2 Teaching and reference tools

2.1 Development of teaching strategies
2.1.1 Rationale
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As discussed above in section 1.3, in the classroom practice of SLA theory there is now
a concern with form, as the recent focus on designing a task-based syllabus indicates
(Swales 1990, Long & Robinson 1998, Author 2001a, 2003). As one step in the process
of developing such an ESP syllabus, we present first an example of pedagogical strategy
that focuses students’ awareness on the lexical and syntactical features of selected
authentic texts culled from the U.S. legal corpus. Next, utilizing this strategy, we present
two possible examples of “pedagogic tasks” (Long 2002) that might be used in the
classroom. Since our view is that pedagogic method should follow ESP theory, the
strategy and tasks we introduce here utilize Author’s (2003) “OCHA” approach to
observing, classifying, hypothesizing, and then applying language knowledge to these
texts and genres. Also, since this project is theoretically grounded in corpus linguistics
and uses a written corpus to better understand language use in legal contexts, the
teaching tasks we have chosen emphasize the grammatical and lexical elements of the
texts in question.

2.1.2 Language Choice

As Author (2004, p.24) has demonstrated elsewhere, learners of languages for specific
academic purposes can be restricted by reference tools that may overemphasize the
specialized meanings of the language of texts specific to their subject area. At the
expense of this focus on technical language, non-technical and semi-technical usage
may be overlooked. This oversight is apparent in dictionaries and learning aids designed
for the specialists. We feel this gap exists because authors do not have a full
understanding of the genre analysis essential to ESP theory. There are few reference or
pedagogical projects that are truly collaborative in nature where subject area
professionals join forces with LSP expert (see, eg., Author, et al. 2004). Of course this is
not a limitation of reference materials alone. Also, in both the second language and
specialized subject classrooms, teaching methodologies may be excellent at guiding
students in approaching the analysis of technical language in specialized texts but often
with the result that students ignore the frequent general meanings glossed in these same
texts. The result can be errors of language choice, as Author (2001, p. 181-3) found
with, for example, “trial” and “try” in his examination of lexis in legal texts.

To overcome this limitation in both LSP reference materials and classroom pedagogy,
here we introduce a strategy that integrates an innovative, corpus-based legal dictionary
with a teaching strategy that helps in making correct language choices. First, using the
sentence-level syntax of the genre text as a key to interpreting “the recurring
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communicative event” (Author 2001a), the following steps are introduced to learners as
an aid to help them narrow down semantic choices and arrive at meanings. After
teaching students these steps they are encouraged to apply this same OCHA approach
autonomously in self-study.

Strategic Steps:
1) Observe the form features, in this case lexical. Identify key words in the sentence
that aid in clarification.
2) Classify these features. Is a particular key word a noun or verb?
3) Hypothesize about the usage. For example, if it is a verb, a) what preposition
follows the verb, and what is the object of the preposition? (e.g., ‘charged with
power’, ‘charged with murder’), or b) what is the subject and object of the verb?
And c) What is the direct object (auxiliaries, complements, modifiers, etc) that is
acted on by the verb? If it is a noun, a) What is the verb that acts on the noun? B)
What is the pronoun referent?
4) Applying what they have considered, students are then encouraged to explain how
they arrived at their hypotheses and solutions. This practice is a valuable tool to
reinforce learning strategies, as well as a way for students to document the
development and invention of their own new strategies.

2.1.3 Examples of Lexical Usage

Next, we have chosen the word token “charge” for the basis of developing two
pedagogical tasks for use in practicing the above strategy. First, we present below five
examples of usage found in the corpus of USCC we compiled. The word token itself as
well as the usage has been highlighted.

Usage One:
That even if Easton is to be regarded as master, at the time when the repairs and
supplies were furnished, the fact that they were so furnished, with his knowledge and
consent and under his superintendence, is sufficient to charge the barque with the usual
maritime lien, notwithstanding that Leach may have ordered or directed them.1

1
14003
WILLIAM THOMAS, SOUTHWORTH BARNES, NATHANIEL RUSSELL, AND OTHERS, OWNERS OF THE
BARQUE LAURA, APPELLANTS, v. JAMES W. OSBORN.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
60 U.S. 22; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 416; 15 L. Ed. 534; 19 HOW 22
DECEMBER, 1856, Term
PRIOR HISTORY: [**1]
THIS was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Maryland.
 18

Usage Two:
And the charge of taking the vessel to the Pacific, and illegally detaining her there for
his own benefit and advantage, was never heard of until payment for the repairs and
supplies furnished to their barque was made by the libellants.2

Usage Three:
The items ought to have been inserted in the other account, signed by him at the same
time, which contains the charges for which he was personally liable; and his admission
of that account would have been quite sufficient to verify these items.3

Usage Four:
The court refused so to instruct the jury, but charged them: "That the court of admiralty
could not proceed against the vessel while she remained in the custody of an
independent and competent jurisdiction; that the presence of the marshal on the ship did
not prove his custody, for the sheriff's officer was there before him; that the marshal did
not dispossess the sheriff, but prudently retired himself, and informed the court in his
return that the vessel was in the custody of the sheriff; that if the sheriff first took
possession of the vessel, and maintained it until[**22] she was sold to the plaintiffs,
they had the better title; and that the fact of the continuing possession of the sheriff was
for the jury."4

2
14003
WILLIAM THOMAS, SOUTHWORTH BARNES, NATHANIEL RUSSELL, AND OTHERS, OWNERS OF THE
BARQUE LAURA, APPELLANTS, v. JAMES W. OSBORN.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
60 U.S. 22; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 416; 15 L. Ed. 534; 19 HOW 22
DECEMBER, 1856, Term
PRIOR HISTORY: [**1]
This was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Maryland.
3
14003
WILLIAM THOMAS, SOUTHWORTH BARNES, NATHANIEL RUSSELL, AND OTHERS, OWNERS OF THE
BARQUE LAURA, APPELLANTS, v. JAMES W. OSBORN.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
60 U.S. 22; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 416; 15 L. Ed. 534; 19 HOW 22
DECEMBER, 1856, Term
PRIOR HISTORY: [**1]
THIS was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Maryland.
4
JAMES L. AND SAMUEL L. TAYLOR, ADMINISTRATORS OF ROBERTTAYLOR, DECEASED, PLAINTIFFS IN
ERROR, v. NATHAN T. CARRYL, WHO SURVIVED WILLIAM J. WARD.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
61 U.S. 583; 1857 U.S. LEXIS 490; 15 L. Ed. 1028; 20 HOW 583
DECEMBER, 1857, Term
PRIOR HISTORY: [**1]This case was brought up from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, by a writ of error
issued under the twenty-fifth section of the judiciary act.
 19

Usage Five:
The laws of the State charge the master with the custody of the slave, and provide for
the[**232] maintenance and security of their relation.5

2.1.4 Pedagogic Tasks

Next, using the OCHA strategy described in Section 1.3 as a guideline for the series of
four syntagmatic steps described above, we have derived the following two examples of
tasks for classroom use:

Task One (usage matching 1)

Directions: For each of the five examples above decide whether the usage of “charge” in
the sentence is a general (‘G’) or legal (‘L’) definition.

Task Two (usage matching 2)

Directions: Match each of the uses of “charge” in Task One with the gloss below which
is closest in meaning.
A) An obligation or indebtedness to be paid; a cost; an expense occurred.
B) A formal accusation of the commission of a crime.
C) To instruct a jury about the law.
D) To issue a lien or encumbrance upon property or land.
E) To impose a duty or responsibility on.

2.1.5 Discussion
In actual classroom application the strategy and tasks presented above worked well,
with university students quickly grasping the OCHA approach and strategic steps for
completing the tasks. The legal and common glosses of the word token were noticed
and there was a certain confidence among students in applying this approach on their
own when tackling texts outside the classroom. That being said, there were definite
limitations that need to be considered for more effective implication of this strategy.
One challenge was the fact that there was no Japanese translation built into either the
strategy or the tasks themselves. This proved to be a stumbling block. We intend to
5
14009
DRED SCOTT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
60 U.S. 393; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 472; 15 L. Ed. 691; 19 HOW 393
DECEMBER, 1856, Term
PRIOR HISTORY: [**1]
This case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of
Missouri.
 20

include Japanese glosses in future applications. Also, although clarification of the word
token was accomplished with little fanfare, we focused students’ attention almost
entirely on the specific instances of language use ignoring the larger contextual clues in
the USCC themselves. There is much to be said for providing students with the
individual cases in their entirety, as well as time to read and discuss them, in order to
flesh out the “sociorhetorical situation” (Swales, 1990, p. 76) and genre—that is,
understanding the communicative event along with its community of “communicators”
and “receivers” (Author, 2001a, p. 39).

2.2 Development of reference tool

In conclusion, we would like to outline briefly a system for electronically searching and
translating U.S. Constitutional Cases that helps to address these aforementioned
pedagogical challenges of Japanese glosses and contextual clues. This tool has the
following main features:
1) Choice of searching for either individual words or entire phrases within the text of
the USCC.
2) Access to terms is supported in a variety of ways including:
a) Identification of common Japanese and English translations as well as usage (ALC-
English-Japanese dictionary),
b) Display of specialized usage of legal terms (Dictionary of British and American
Legal English),
c) Identification of actual usage in text of U.S. Constitutional Cases through a display of
example sentences) (complete set of USCC),
d) Identification of frequency of usage of terms within text of the USCC through a
display of example sentences (corpus of example phrases)
3) Results of a search in one set of data can be linked to the next search in a different
data set (search refinement).

Figure 1 below outlines diagrammatically this reference tool, an electronic “ESP Law
Dictionary for Japanese Students.” Eventually this will be available in a handy online
format as well, and expanded to include additional specialized subjects other than the
language of law.

<insert FIGURE 1 here>

3 Conclusion
 21

This paper discussed issues related to the teaching of semi-technical vocabulary,

presented tools and techniques for analyzing such terms, and offered examples of how
the analyses can aid applications in ESP. We used legal vocabulary from a corpus of US
Constitutional Cases from the United States which we analyzed for word meanings,
grammatical features, collocational patterns and frequently occurring specific discoursal
features. After discussing in some detail the theoretical foundations of this research, we
explained how law dictionaries often lack examples of how legal words should be used
in context and how words with general senses are used with legal senses in legal
documents. We proposed the development of a pedagogic approach and accompanying
reference tool to better identify for students the differences in the usage of words in
general and specific contexts as well as to help them find collocations common to field-
specific corpora. To this end we are currently preparing an electronic reference tool for
law students that will help to address the issues we have raised. This work lays the basis
for developing effective teaching and reference materials that are founded upon
principles from the fields of corpus linguistics and language for specific purposes.
Because of the theoretical underpinnings of our model, we fully expect a similar one
can be applied fruitfully to other fields of language for specific/special purposes.

4 Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge that this research would not have been possible
if not for a generous Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, from March 2004 to April 2006.
We also would like to thank Mr. Shigeru Sasajima and Mr. Yasuhiro Ohzeki for their
feedback and support.

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