flowerdew_english for specific purposes -a selective review

7/28/2019 Flowerdew_English for Specific Purposes -A Selective Review

1/12

English for SpecificPurposes a selective reviewof the literatureJohn Flowerdew

Introduction The purpose of this review is to provide a set of references that will enablethe reader to gain a broad overview of key areas of interest within the fieldof ESP. At the same time, it is hoped that a basis will be provided for moredetailed further study.The review begins with a brief presentation of some of the key areas ofinterest in ESP. This is then followed by an annotated bibliography of keyreferences. The ESP literature is extensive and a comprehensive biblio-graphy would be out of the question here . References have been selectedon the basis of their being representative of importan t trends and issues inthe field, both past and present. The knowledgeable reade r may feel thatcertain important references have been left out and that othe rs should nothave been included. In a selection such as this, however, an element ofpersonal perspective cannot be avoided.The references in the annotated bibliography are divided into the fol-lowing sections: book-length studies, survey papers, collections ofpapers, individual papers concerned with language description, booksand papers relating to ESP curriculum developm ent, and key ESP coursebooks.

Some key areas In spite of occasional claims for its demise, ESP continues to be an im-of interest in ESP portant and dynamic area of specialization within the overall field ofEnglish language teaching. Its dynamism can be attributed to two factors:market forces and theoretical renewal.Concerning thefirstof these , it is clear that there is a continuing dem andfor courses described as 'ESP'. A significant proportion of work in thefield of ESP has always been carried out in developing countries and withoverseas students (usually from developing countries) studying in the UKand the United S tates. This trend continues. There are signs now also thatESP, and Business English in particular, is spreading to hitherto relativelyuntapped areas. Notable among these are European cou ntries where oneimportant motivation is the development of the single European market.Even the countries of the Eastern bloc, seeking to move closer to theWest, are showing an interest in ESP. At the recent European LSP

32 6 ELT Journal Volume 4414 October 1990 O xford University Press 1990

a

tSheffieldHallamUniversityonMa

rch10,2013

http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/

Downloaded

from
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/


2/12

Symposium held in Budapest, members of the organizing committeespoke of the importance Hungary attached to Special Purpose LanguageLearning (including English) as a means of enabling the country to par-ticipate more fully in the European community.From the theoretical point of view, ESP has shown and continues to showitself capable of self-renewal. Important stages in this theoreticaldevelopment include an interest in register, in discourse analysis, in thespecification of learners' needs (and wants), in study skills, in variousmethodological approaches to the development of communicative com-petence, and in genre analysis.ESP is often classified according to th efieldof the target activity, the twomajor sub-classes being English for Academic Purposes (EAP) andEnglish for Occupational Purposes (EOP). In terms of subject m atter, animportant branch of ESP is English for Science and Technology (EST),which is often contrasted with other subject areas, such as Economics,Business, Law, etc. The driving force of theoretical innovation withinESP has traditionally been within the area of EST in EAP, a bias whichwill inevitably be reflected in this survey (although see Bhatia (1987) andDudley-Evans (1989), for example, for recent interest in non-ESTareasLaw and Economics respectively).One of the problems for ESP in establishing itself as a clearly defined areawithin ELT in general is that many of the ideas closely associated withESP have been subsequently appropriated by the 'parent' discipline.Functional/notional syllabuses were very much associated with ESPinitially, but are now well established in the mainstream of languageteaching. Needs analysis, the feature many see as the distinguishing fea-ture of ESP courses, is now also well accepted as a tool for general Englishcourse design. Task-based approaches to language learning, also, arenow very much a part of general English, as well as of ESP.Notwithstanding this close relationship between ESP and generalEnglish, because of the dynamism of ESP within the theoretical sphere,new areas of interest do seem to occur periodically which make E SP standout from general English. One such area of theoretical interest which isbeing applied to ESP courses at present, and which as yet has had littleimpact on general English course design (although at some point it maywell do so), is that of genre analysis (Dudley-E vans, 1987). Another a reaof current interest and activity in ESP is the development of content-based programmes, where the language course is developed in conjunc-tion with the target academic subject (see Swales, 1989, for refe rences , inaddition to those in the annotated bibliography).As with any dynamic discipline, there are areas of controversy withinESP. One important unresolved theoretical question is that of the natureand role of the so-called 'common core' (a supposed basic set of languageitems that can be used in all situations), some arguing that E SP should be'wide angle' and focus on this limited range of purportedly generalizableitems, others favouring a more 'narrow angle' approach, seeking to dealSurvey: ESP a selective review 327

a


rch10,2013


Downloaded

from


3/12

with those items which are specific to the target language situation (seeBloor and Bloor, 1986, for a discussion of this question).Another area of debate concerns the role of methodology in ESP.Widdowson (1983: 87) has argued that 'methodology has generally beenneglected in E S P ', suggesting that the emphasis has been on n eeds an aly-sis and syllabus design. Th is may be tru e in term s of easily accessible pu b-lished writings, but much wo rk in practical ES P curriculum dev elopm enthas nevertheless focused on the development of innovative methodo-logytask-based and problem-solving approaches being significant here(see Bloor and Bloor, 1986, again, and Swales, 1988, on this). SinceWiddowson's s tatement , Hutchinson and Water 's book, English forSpecific Purposes: a learning-centred approach (listed below in the an-nota ted bibliography) ha s been particularly influential in directing atte n-tion to the role of methodology in ESP.Further areas of debate are the question of the use of authentic asoppo sed to simplified texts in ESP, and the relationship b etwe en th e E SPteacher and specialized subject-matter.The areas of interest i t has been possible to mention here are no morethan an indication of the broad range of issues which concern the ESPpractit ioner. The purpose of the annotated bibliography which follows isto allow the reader to delve further.

Annotated bibliographyBook-length With the exception of Robinson (1980), the book-length studies l istedstudies here w ere all published in the years 198 3-87, some thing of a wa tershed in

ESP, when the discipline can be seen to have reached a level at which itbecame possible to synthesize ESP thinking into a coherent model.Unfortunately, there is no post-1987 book-length study, althoughRob inson is working on a rew rite of her 1980 bo ok , provisionally entit ledA Practitioner's Guide to ESP (Prent ice-Hall) .Robinson, P. (1980) ESP: the current position. Oxford: Pergamon.This is a thorough review of theoretical positions and publications(including course books), up until 1980. The book contains a 500-itembibliography. Essential reading, but the intended revision is eagerlyawaited.Widdowson, H. G. (1983) Learning Purpose and Language Use.Oxford: Oxford University Press.A theo retical study, seek ing, in the word s of the autho r, ' to investigate theissues that are raised by the idea of ESP'. Key issues addressed are therelat ions, as regards ESP, between ' t raining ' and 'educat ion ' , betweenknowledge of language ( 'competence' ) and language performance('capacity'), and between specification of target language and methodo-logy designed to develop the capacity for creative use of language. Abook for the ESP pract i t ioner who wants to probe more deeply into thetheory underlying his field.

328 John Flowerdew

a

tSheffieldHallamUniversityonMarch10,2013


Downloaded

from


4/12

Kennedy, C. and R. Bolitho. (1984) English for Specific Purposes.London: Macmillan.This book is described as being for three categories of readers: teacher-trainees faced with an ESP component on their courses; teachers whowant to find out about ESP with a view to teaching an ESP group later;and teachers who have been thrown in at the deep end and are engaged inESP teaching, but have had little prepara tion. Part 1 provides theoreticalbackground, but in an extremely accessible and practically oriented way,whilst Part 2 is devoted to materials writing. This is an extremely usefullittle book for the intended audience:McDonough, J. (1984) ESP in Perspective: a practical guide. London:Collins.Although described as a practical guide, the tone of this book is some-what more theoretical than that of Kennedy and Bolitho. At the sametime, it provides plenty of practical advice and examples. Taken together,McDonough and Kennedy and B olitho complement each other very wellas an introduction for the classroom ESP teacher. Both books, incid-entally, provide extensive bibliographies.Trimble, L. (1985) EST: a discourse approach. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.This book synthesizes a long period of research into Scientific and Tech-nical English by Trimble and his colleagues. It contains descriptions of themajor rhetorical types of EST texts and shows how they can form the basisfor organizing a course.Hutchinson, T. and A. Waters. (1987) English fo r Specific Purposes: alearning-centred approach. London: Longman.Whilst this book is presented as both an introduction to those new to thefield of ESP and to those with more extensive experience, it is probablymore suitable to the latter group. This is not because it is inaccessible; onthe contrary, it is written in a very attractive and easily assimilable style.The problem with this book for the beginner is rather that Hutchinsonand W aters seek to offer a 'new perspective' which goes against much tra-ditional thinking in ESP. The book is therefore of more interest to thosewho already have some knowledge of ESP and are looking for a criticalevaluation of current practice. For these rea ders, however, the book is ofgreat interest. Basically, Hutchinson and Waters argue that too muchemphasis has been put on the specification of the language to be taught inESP courses and not enough on how this language is to be learned (hencethe subtitle, 'a learning-centred approach'). The position is a contro-versial one, but is very clearly presented.

Survey papers This section includes five survey papers which provide state-of-the-artdescriptions of the ESP field.Strevens, P. (1977) 'Special purpose language learning: a perspective'.Language Teaching and Linguistics: Ab stracts, 10: 145-63.Survey: ESP a selective review 329

a


rch10,2013


Downloaded

from


5/12

This is an invaluable early paper. It traces the historical background toESP, describes its theoretical bases, and provides a classification of ESPinto various branches, as well as discussing appropriate ESPmethodology.Coffey, B. (1985) 'ESPEnglish for Specific Purposes', in Kinsella, V.(ed . ) Cambridge Language Surveys 3. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversi ty Press .This pa pe r is an updating of Strev ens's earlie r survey. Th e writer sees ES Pas entering into a phase of maturity and becoming a part of, and majorexpression of, communicative language teaching in general. This maturepha se is m ark ed by diversity of app roa ch and variety of exec ution. W he reuntil this t ime em pha sis was almost exclusively on m aterials writing, thisis now linked in with teacher-training, evaluation, and research. In addi-tion , em phasis is now placed on m anag erial skills as well as purely profes-s ional expert ise in the set t ing-up and run ning of ESP ope rat ions.Robinson, P. C. (1988) 'The management of language t raining ' .Language Teaching, 21/3: 146-157.Following the conclusions of Coffey's paper', Rob inson is intereste d in themanagerial dimension (defined as 'everything other than the pedagogiccomponent ' ) in the running of ESP projects . Her paper surveys thismanagerial dimension with regard to three types of project: large-scaleprojects in tertiary-level education; in-company language training; andindustrial and vocational language training for immigrants. Robinson;like Coffey, concludes that greater emphasis is likely to be placed infuture on the role of the ESP practit ioner as manager.Strevens, P. (1988) 'ESP after twenty years: a reappraisal ' , in Tickoo,M. L. (ed.) (See below under Collect ions of Papers .)This is a recen t outline of key cu rren t issues in ESP. It is m ore dow n-to-earth than Streven s's earlier p ape r ab ov e. It is l ikely to be of use to some-one new to the field.Jordan, R. R. (1989) 'Engl ish for Academic Purposes (EAP)' .Language Teaching, 22/3: 150-164.In common with the introduction to this review, Jordan sees EAP as oneof the two main branches of ESP, the other being EOP. For Jordan, theobjective of EAP is essentially study skills, along with the de velop me nt ofproficiency in the use of the acad em ic register. Sections of Jord an 's articlereview the li terature on syllabus design, study skills courses, needs ana-lysis, lectu res, seminars and d iscussions, readin g, writing, gen re ana lysis,exam questions, tests, reference skills, team teaching, and links with LI.A very comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography is thus built up of animportant branch of ESP.

330 John Flowerdew

atSheffieldHallamUniversityonMarch10,2013


Downloadedfrom


6/12

Collections of This section is devoted to various collections of theoretical and descrip-papers tive papers. Some of them are quite old, but have been included as theyillustrate important stages in the development of ESP thinking. Some ofthe important individual papers contained in the collections are referredto in other sections.Holden, S. (ed.). (1977) English fo r Specific Purposes. London:Modern English Publications.A collection of some thirty short articles by people working in ESP.Rather dated now, but nevertheless containing a wealth of ideas on manystill-relevant issues. Topics covered include the limits of functional/notional syllabuses, the use of authentic texts, the teaching of writing,various aspects of study skills, testing, and needs analysis, amongstothers.Mackay, R. and A. Mountford (eds.). (1978) English for SpecificPurposes. London: Longman.A collection of papers divided into three parts. Part 1 outlines criteria tobe taken into account in ESP course design; Part 2 provides case studiesdescribing the background to the writing of some of the major ESP coursebooks; w hile Part 3 consists of case studies of syllabuses and materials. Asthe preface points out, the case studies provide both practical illustrationof underlying principles and useful models for application. H owever, thecollection is now rather dated.Trimble, L., M. Todd Trimble, and K. Drobnic. (1978) English forSpecific Purposes: Science and Technology. Oregon: Oregon StateUniversity Press.This collection is representative of research done at the University ofWashington into English for Science and Technology. The papers aremostly concerned with the structure and function of EST discourse,although teaching and curriculum development are also represented.ELT Documents 106. (1980) Team Teaching in ESP. London: TheBritish Council.This collection reports on various programmes based upon a collab-oration between subject-matter teacher and language teacheranapproach to ESP currently much in favour.Mackay, R. and J. D. Palmer (eds.). (1981) Languages for SpecificPurposes: program design and evaluation. Rowley, Mass.: NewburyHouse.Papers from North America addressing various aspects of curriculumdevelopment.Selinker, L., E. Tarone, and B. Hanzeli (eds.). (1981) English forAcademic and Technical Purposes. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.A representative selection of mostly linguistically oriented papers fromNorth American writers.Survey: ESP a selective review 331



Downloadedfrom


7/12

ELT Documents 112. (1981) The ESP Teacher: role, development andprospects. London: The British Council.A wide-ranging collection considering the particular demands placedupon ESP teachers, both in terms of the subject matter they deal with andthe practical constraints within which they often have to operate.Swales, J. and H. Mustafa. (1984) English for Specific Purposes in theArab World. Birmingham, UK: Language Studies Unit, University ofAs ton .A collection of papers presente d at a conferen ce o rganized by Aston Un i-versity. The relevance of the papers is not l imited to the Arab World. Ofparticular general interest are Crocker, and Scott and Scott (the latterannotated separately in the section on curriculum development below)on process-oriented ESP methodology; Holliday on 'classroom cultureresearch'; and Tadros on predictive structuring in Economics discourse.Swales, J. (1985; 1988) Episodes in ESP. Oxford: Pergamon.To quote from the publishe r's blurb on the back of this boo k, 'T he aim ofthis volume is to explain and illustrate the major lines of development ofES P over the last twenty yea rs by show ing the relation ship s betw een fif-teen key publicationseleven articles and four extracts from textbooks. 'The book achieves its stated aim admirably. Each of the selected 'Epi-sodes ' in the collection (many of which are included in this bibliography)is authoritatively introduced and put into perspective by the author. Thisis an excellent introduction to the key li terature and m ajor theoretical andpractical issues in ESP by a leading authority in the field. A further col-lection of 'Episodes' is planned.ELT Documents 123. Harper, D. (ed.). (1986) ESP for the University.London: Pergamon with The Bri t ish Counci l .A collection of papers describing how prac tit ioners cam e to grips with thepractical problems of an ESP programme at King AbdulAziz University,Saudi Arabia. Particularly interesting for the task-based approach to cur-riculum development adopted.Tickoo, M. (ed.) . (1988) ESP: The State of the Art. S E A M E ORegional Language Centre, Singapore.Papers from a recent conference held in Singapore. The collection con-tains overviews from well-known authorities such as Strevens, Swales,Dudley-Evans, and Johns, as well as case-studies from practit ionerswithin the South-East Asian region.Benesch, S. (ed.). (1989) Ending Remediation: Linking ESL andContent in Higher Education. Alexandria, Virginia: TESOLPublicat ions.A recent collection from the United States, highlighting current attemptsto bridge the gap between ESL and content courses through collab-oration across the curriculum. A useful companion to ELT Documents106, l isted above. (See also Crandall , 1987.)

332 John Flowerdew

a


rch10,2013


Downloaded

from


8/12

Language This section presents a selection of key papers concerned with languagedescription descriptionthe area of ESP research which provides the basic linguisticpapers data which feeds into syllabus design. The papers have been selected asrepresentative of important developments in approaches to languagedescription within ESP over the years.Barber, C. (1962) 'Some measurable characteristics of modernscientific prose', in Swales (1983).This paper is of interest as its thinking underlies a lot of the early work inESP based on register analysis. Barber produces statistics to illustrate therelative frequency of various syntactic forms in scientific text. Barber'sresults led to the idea that rather than teaching, for example, all of thetenses of English equally, because they were part of the system, som e ten-ses (e.g. the present simple) should be given greater priority because theyoccurred more frequently, and others (e.g. the progressive forms) mighteven be omitted because they occurred less frequently.Lackstrom, J. E., L. Selinker, and L. P. Trimble.(1972) 'Grammar andTechnical English'. English Teaching Forum 10/5. Reprinted in Swales(ed.)(1985)Representative of a number of papers by these three w riters, 'G ramm arand Technical Eng lish' stresses the dependence of grammatical choice onrhetorical force. At the same tim e, as Swales (1985; 1988) points ou t, thepaper is important in showing how the statistical techniques of frequencycoun ts, such as those of Barber, 'could have descriptive validity, but littleexplanatory force'.Ewer, J. R. (undated) 'The core language of Science'. University ofChile, Santiago.A frequency list derived from a corpus of more than three million wordsof EST; areas covered include vocabulary, prefixes and suffixes, andgrammatical structures.Ewer, J. R. (1981) 'Formal written and oral scientific English: mainmicroacts (functions/notions) and their indicators (principalexpo nents)'. University of Chile, Santiago.A companion document to the previous one, focusing on functions andnotions, as opposed to grammatical forms. The approach is similar to thatof The Council of Europe Threshold Level, but is based on empiricalresearch into scientific text, rather than introspection.Tarone, E., S. Dwyer, S. Gillette, and V. Icke. (1981) 'The use of thepassive in two Astrophysics Journal papers'. The ESP Journal, 1/2.An important paper, showing the shift away from a concern with fre-quency of occurrence in text analysis to a concern with rhetorical functionand meaning in context.Swales, J. (1981) 'Aspects of article introductions'. Aston ESPResearch Reports no. 1. Birmingham, UK: University of Aston.An analysis of the information structure of the introductions to journalSurvey: ESP a selective review 333

atSheffieldHallamUniversityonMa

rch10,2013


Downloadedfrom


9/12

articles. Altho ugh an analysis of a very specialized gen re, the a ppro ach isindicative of the shift of interest in ESP away from sentence-level con-siderations in favour of larger discourse u nits. A m ore readily accessiblesource for the ideas in this report, with implications for teaching, isSwales (1984).Zak, H. and A. Dudley-Evans. (1986) 'Features of word omission andabbreviation in telexes. English for Specific Purposes, 5/1.This paper has been included as a representative of the growing numberof language description papers focusing on types of text outside the tra-ditionally predominant area of EST. The authors present an analysiswhich shows just how specific the language of one particular languageevent (telexes) within one discipline (Business) can be.Baker, M. (1988) 'Sub-technical vocabulary and the ESP teacher: ananalysis of some rhetorical i tems in medical journal articles ' . Readingin a Foreign Language, 4/2.

o This is a recen t contribution within an imp ortan t are a of ESP resea rch,that of lexis. Using computer-based data, the author argues that animportant branch of sub-technical vocabulary is ' rhetorical/organiza-tional i tems' , lexical i tems which 'provide clues by which the reader caninterpret the writer 's intentions and evaluations' .Myers, G. (1989) 'The Pragmatics of Politeness in Scientific Articles'.Applied Linguistics, 10/1.An important recent paper showing how politeness and its l inguisticexpression apply not only to conversation, but also to written scientifictext. Stylistic features which are usually explained in terms of conven-tionssuch as the use of pronouns and passivesare seen as dependenton the relation between the writer and his intended audience.

Curriculum This section consists of references relating to various facets of the ESPdevelopment curriculum. Not all the books and articles are specifically concerned withESP, but they are considered to be of relevance to the ESP practit ioner.Most of the reference s a re of a practical nat ure , providing useful guidanceto the teacher/course designer who might want to apply their ideas.Munby, J. (1978) Communicative Syllabus Design. Cambridge:Cambridge Universi ty Press .A controversial approach to syllabus design, putting great weight on theinitial needs analysis, but one every E SP prac tit ioner should be aw are of.Th e taxonom y of languag e skills contained in chapte r 7 and the inventoryof micro-fun ctions of ch ap ter 8 are very useful tools for conv erting theinitial needs analysis into items for the syllabus.Candlin, C , C. Bruton, J. Leather, and E. Woods. (1981) Designingmodular materials for communication in language planning; an ex-ample: doctor-pat ient communicat ion ski l ls ' , in Sel inker et al. (1981).This early paper show s how n eeds analysis can provide a functional speci-fication for a particular type of communication situation. It is also

334 John Flowerdew

a


rch10,2013


Downloaded

from
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/


10/12

interesting for the emphasis it puts on establishing the sequencing pat-terns of language functions in interaction.Edge, J. and V. Samuda. (1981) 'Methodials: the role and design ofmaterials and method', in Richards, D. (ed.) (1981) CommunicativeCourse Design. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language CentreOccasional Papers 17.An early description of a task-based approach to methodology. Notstrictly limited to ESP, but typical of the sort of approach to methodologyadopted in many ESP programmes.Scott, H. and J. Scott. (1984) 'ESP and Rubik's Cube: threedimensions in course design and materials writing', in Swales, J. andH. Mustafa (eds.) English for Specific Purposes in the A rab World.Birmingham, UK: Language Studies Unit, University of Aston.This paper focuses on the question of how course-content is translatedinto classroom material and methodology. The authors propose thatgreater em phasis should be based on process-oriented material, where,traditionally, ESP has been based more on product.Dubin, F. and E. Olshtain. (1986) Course Design: developing programsand materials fo r language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.Not directed specifically at ESP course design, this book neverthelessadopts an ESP approach to curriculum deve lopm ent, with its emphasis onneeds analysis and a communicative approach to materials andmethodology.Mohan, B. A. (1986) Language and Content. Addison-Wesley.This book shows how an analysis of target language events can be devel-oped into language teaching materials.Yalden, J. (1987) Principles of Course Design for Langua ge Teaching.Cambridge: C ambridge U niversity Press.Like Dubin and Olshtain (see above), Yalden applies ESP principles inthis practical guide to curriculum development.Nunan, D. (1989) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.A practical guide to the development of task-based language learningactivities. Not strictly-speaking an ESP book, but of relevance to ESPpractitioners.

Key course books This section lists a selection of innovative ESP course books which havebeen influential in the field. They are not necessarily the best, but havebeen selected for the trends they represent.Herbert, A. J. (1965) The Structure of Technical English. London:Longman.Survey: ESP a selective review 335

atSheffieldHallamUniversityonMa

rch10,2013


Downloadedfrom


11/12

De scribe d by Swales as the first 'r ea l' ESP te xtbo ok a nd still in print aftertwenty-five years, this text is interesting for its systematic presentation ofthe basic structures associated with Technical English. The structures arenot presented solely from a formal point of view, however, but are associ-ated also with functional an d conceptua l (notion al) categories . The bookis also interesting for the e mp hasis i t puts on 'semi-technical ' vocabu lary,probably the first book to focus on this important area in ESP.Ewer, J. R. and G. Latorre. (1969) A Course in Basic ScientificEnglish. London: Longman.Like Herbert (see above), the authors of this book emphasize the impor-tance of grammatical structure and semi-technical vocabulary, bothselected on the basis of frequency.Swales, J. (1971) Writing Scientific English. London: Nelson.In the same tradition as Herbert, and Ewer and Latorre, in i ts emphasison grammatical structure selected on the basis of frequency, this book isalso partly organized on functional lines. The book is still very useful,especially for supplementary/remedial work on the basic grammaticalstructures of scientific English.Allen, J. P. B. and H. G. Widdowson. (eds.). (1974) English in Focusseries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.The fi rs t course books to adopt a ' rhetorical-communicat ive ' approach,the Focus series rejects the emphasis of earlier course books on gram-matical structure, in favour of an approach to scientific discourse as a setof rhetorical acts (functions) such as defining, giving instructions, exem-plifying, etc. The series thus stresses the importance of the acquisition oflanguage as a set of rules of use, as well as rules of grammatical usage.Bates, M. and A. Dudley-Evans. (1976) Nucleus English for Scienceand Technology. London: Longman.Th e series consists of a core b ook , General Science and related books fordifferent subjects. 'Communicative' in orientation, l ike the Focus series,Nucleus prefers a syllabus based on concepts (notions), such as proper-t ies, shapes, locat ion, s t ructure, process , where Focus had preferredfunctions. The approach has obviously been successful, as Nucleus is byfar the best-selling ESP course ever published.Widdowson, H. G. (Assoc. ed.). Writing directed by J. Moore. (1979)Reading and Thinking in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.The four books in this graded series each approach the language of thewritten text from a different p ersp ectiv e: Book 1 focuses on grammar andvocabulary; Book 2 on concepts; Book 3 on communicative functions;and Book 4 on discourse. The series is also particularly interesting for itsmethodology, as embodied in the innovative exercise types.Johnson, K. (1981) Comm unicate in Writing. London: Longman.Another 'communicat ive ' course book, this one organized around themajor rhetorical acts (functions) of academic discourse.

336 John Flowerdew

a

tSheffieldHallamUniversityonMarch10,2013


Downloaded

from


12/12

Williams, R. (1982) Panorama. London: Longman.Aimed at a higher level of proficiency (post-intermediate) than most ofthe books listed so far, Panorama is described as a 'complete study skillsco urs e' . Skills focused upon include the rea ding of textboo ks, the w ritingof examination answers, the writing of commentaries to accompanygraphs, understanding and writing lecture notes, essay writing, etc. Theapproach is 'wide-angle' , each unit being developed around a particularenvi ronmental theme.Hutchinson, T. and A. Waters. (1984) Interface: English for TechnicalCommunication. London: Longman.Interface is at pre-intermediate level. It embodies the approach to ESP asset out in the authors ' English for Specific Purposes: a learning-centredapproach. Where earlier course books such as Nucleus and English inFocus lay great emphasis on the language to be taught, Interface placesmuch more weight on methodology and the role of the learner. (See ELTJournal 36/3, for a (critical) review of this book by Leslie Sheldon.)Received December 1989

ReferencesBhatia, V. K. 1987. 'Language of the Law. State ofthe Art article' Language Teaching, 20/4: 227-234.Bloor, M. and T. Bloor. 1986. 'Languages for specificpurposes: practice and theory' CLCS OccasionalPaper No. 19. Dublin: Trinity College.Crandall, J. (ed.). 1987. ESL through Content-AreaInstruction: Mathematics, Science, Social StudiesEnglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.Dudley-Evans, A. (ed.). 1987. 'Genre analysis andE S P ' English Language Research Journal 1. Uni-versity of Birmingham, English LanguageResearch.Dudley-Evans, A. (ed.). 1989. The Language ofEconomics ELT Documents 134. Modern EnglishPublications in association with The BritishCouncil .Swales, J. 1984. 'Rese arch into the Structure of Intro-ductions to Journal Articles and its Application to

the Teaching of Academic Writing' in Williams,R., W. Swales, an d J. Kirkman. Common Ground:shared interests in ESP and commun ication studies.ELT Documents 117. Oxford: Pergamon and TheBritish Council.Swales, J. 1988. 'Commu nicat ive Language Teachingin ESP Contexts', in Brumfit, C. J. (ed.) AnnualReview of App lied Linguistics 8: 48-57.Widdowson, H. G. 1983. Learning Purpose and Lan-guage Use Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The authorJohn Flowerdew is lecturer/co -ordina tor at SultanQaboos University, Sultanate of Oman. He holds aPh.D from Southampton University. He has pub-lished in various areas, including pragmatics, ESP,and course design. He has been a regular tutor onBritish Council Sum me r Schools for teache rs of ESP.

Survey: ESP a selective review 337



Downloadedfrom