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AUTHOR Bleor, Meriel; floor, ThomasTITLE Languages for Specific Purposes: Practice and Theory.

CLCS Occasional Paper No. 19.INSTITUTION Trinity Coll., Dublin (Ireland). Centre for Language

and Communication Studies.PUB DATE 86NOTE 39p.PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Cultural Awareness; Educational Needs; *Educational

Theories; *English for Special Purposes; *Languagesfor Special Purposes; Language Usage; LanguageVariation; Learning Theories; Linguistic Theory;Relevance (Education); Second Language Instruction;Student Motivation; Teacher Role; *TeachingMethods

ABSTRACTA discussion of the practice and theory in the

teaching of language for specific purposes (LSP) focuses on the waysin which the LSP experience, and especially experience in English forspecific purposes (ESP), compels a new evaluation of certaintheoretical positions in applied linguistics and second languagelearning. It concludes that: (1) the major problem in identifying thetheoretical base of ESP stems from the confusion between a model of atheory of language and a model of a theory of language learning; (2)the success of LSP may be accounted for only when it is understoodthat linguistic competence comes from language in use in specificsituations; (3) LSP uses teaching strategies that are incompatiblewith certain theories of language learning; (4) language can belearned in a variety of ways, but the use of language is learned inappropriate contexts; and (5) in most cases, the teaching of languageinvolves much more than providing the optimum circumstances foracquisition, and the teacher is also responsible for teaching aspectsof language use that must be taught even to native speakers: culturalconventions and the system and uses of literacy. Six pages ofreferences are included. (MSE)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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i TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Centre for Language and Communication Studies

Languages for specific purposes:practice and theory

'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS 10 E DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Oliset el Edutseenel ReSeerdl Ana ItnOnSvetTlent

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER IERICI

/This locumenI Ass Wen rep/Muted esrece.ved from the Person or Orphoabonohiphohnt, 4

0 ram*, changes have been made tO rhiaaveroprodutIlon ouahty

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Powos or v..... o oprvehaalated,hirhadocu

INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" meet dO net neCesSer4 represent pdottalOERI pOSthoa or whey

meriel Bloor and Thomas Bloor

e

CLCS Occasional Paper No.19

ISSN 0332 3889

Autumn 1986

2

CLOS Occasional Papers

General editor: I). G. Little

OLCS Occasional Papers report on research carried out within or inassociation with the Centre for Language and Communication Studies,and on research cerried out elsewhere which is of special interest tothe Centre's own concerns and activities, in some instances they pre-sent the texts of public lectures Promoted by the Centre.

The following Mies have been Published and are available from The Sec-retary, Centre for Language and Communication Studies, Trinity College,Dublin 2.

Autumn 1981

I. D. M. Singleton, Languag3 transfer: a review of some recentresearch (3Ipp.)

2. Jeffrey L. Rattan, Linguistics and oral tradition: the structuralstudy of the riddle (33PP.)

3. D. M. Singleton, Age as a factor in second language acquisition(7OPP.)

Summer 1982

4. Francis Nolan, Voice Quality and speech synthesis (3OPP.)

S. Roger Bennett, Language elicitation Procedures (23pP.)

Winter 1982-3

6. S. Si. Devitt, D. G. Little: S. P. 6 Conchitir, D. M. Singleton,Learning Irish with Alo!s if Arta (MONO

Autumn 1983

7. William T. Littlewood, A communicative approach to language-teaching methodology (19PP.)

8. Rose Mac loran, On ths interaction of semantics and pragmatks(1813P-)

9. E. m. Harding, Compensation strategies (54pp.)

(continued on inside back cOver)

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CLCS Occasional Paper No.I9Autumn 1986

LANGUAGES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES:PRACTICE AND THEORY

by

Merle! floor and Thomas Bloor

0 INTRODUCTION

In this paper we look at practice and theory inthe teaching of Languages for Specific Purposes(LSP); in particular, we are concerned with theways in which the LSP experience compels a newevaluation of certain theoretical positions in Ap-plied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.

Most of our experience and exemplificationcomes from the field of English for Specific Pur-POMO (ESP), but at the theoretical level we areconcerned with the teaching and learning of lan-guage, and our conclunions can be generalized forany language, not only English. We begin by look-ing at the rapid recent development of ESP anddiscuasing reasons that have been offered for this.We propose, however, that, although ESP is "apragmatic approach to a developing situation", asMackay and Mountford (1978, p.1) put it, We needto investigate more than practice and practical in-fluences in order to account for its success.

Practice in LSP teaching, in England and over-seas, frequently differs considerably from thatproposed by language teaching theorists. In thispaper, we consider two areas where this difference

41

is clearly apparent. Broadly, these concern ques-tions of the grading and specificity of the lan-guage that laarners are exposed to on a course(the "linguistic input"). LSP practice tends to-wards ihe use of specific language and "difficult"(although relevant) linguistic input, whereas cur-rent acquisition theory tends towards the view thatinput should be immediately comprehensible but alittle beyond the learner's present competence (see,for example, Krashen 1985, p.2). In addition, ap-plied linguistic theory still clings to the CommonClore Hypothesis (or rather - as we explain - acorrupted version of the Common Core Hypothesis),holding that sometMng called "general English" willnecessaely take first place chronologically in thelearning of a language.

We claim that courses designed to fulfil specificneeds, drawing on specific language, can lead tothe acquisition of general linguistic competence,but also that the effective use of language in spe-cific situations often requires more than "acquired"linguistic competence, lt also requirss knowledgeof learned systems. We explain how certain estab-lished theories are challenged by this view.

In 1980, Robinson expressed the view that "inELT, mnd more particularly in ESP, linguistic andapplk,d linguistic theory lags behind teaching andlearning practice" (p.32). While her position isprobably no longer tenable with respect to linguis-tic theory (particularly in view of the developmentsin discourse analysis and pragmatics), we arguethat it is still the case that applied linguiatic the-ory in some respects lags behind ESP practice.

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1 THE SUCCESS OF ESP

There can be little dcubt that ESP is successfulaa an approach to Eng ltah Language Teaching.Leaving aside for a while the question of what wecan attribute that success to, let us briefly con-sider some of the recent developments.

Robinson (1980) described the rapid growththat had taken place in the previous ten to fifteenyears in the field of ESP, and this growth has notdiminished since then. it can be measured interms of the number of ESP courses, publications,and teacher training programmes around the world.Univers Wes everywhere now offer non-degreecourses in English for various academic purposes(and often in other languages as well), and theteaching of languages for business purposes is be-coming increasingly important as a part of manage-ment training.

In the case of publications, John Swales, whoset up the first archive of papers on ESP, first atthe University of Khartoum and later at Aston Uni-versity, illustrates the expansion with the followingchart of the approximate number of acquisitions(Swales 1985, p.x):

Date Number of items

1972 301975 601978 )501981 4001984 1300

In the past five yeart. ESP magazines and journalsaround the world have flourished, albeit with smallcirculations, end a major international Journal (theESP Journal, Waahington) has been established.

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There are now at least two master's degree coursesin Britain with major components in ESP, and ESPis available as an option on most Applied Lin-guistics MA courses. The growth in ESP textbookproduction, something many publishers said wouldnever happen, has, of course, been phenomenal.

2 THE DEVELOPMENT OP ESP

ESP, particularly English for Commercial Pur-poses, has ita origins doep in the history of lan-guage teaching (see Howatt 1984, p.218), but herewe consider factors which have contributed to itsrecent development.

In many countries where, in the mid twentiethcentury, English still had an imperialist role, a re-sentment towards the learning of the languagegrow rapidly, particularly among the politicizedstudents of newly independent countries in Africa,who were seeking to assert their own culturalidentities. Since they did not wish to identify withthe culture, language or literature of the previousruling power, English was welcome only as a meansto an end, - that is, if it cruld contributa to eco-nomic, political and technological independence.Thus, English as a means of access to science,technology, business, international law and worlddiplomacy was encoureged, whereas traditional uni-versity English (literature or language (or accessto European culture) was devalued and became pe-ripheral.

A related reason for the growth of ESP was aneconomic one. A rapid increase in numbers in theeducation system necessitated a reduction in Eng-lish as the medium of instruction at primary andsecondary level, but because English remains the

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lingua franca of academic and professional life, itIS a prerequisite for tertiary students. Because ofthe shortage of resources (particularly of tune andwell-qualified teachers), it became eauential to es-tablibh priorities in education. Thiu led to argu-ments for ESP courues on the basis of priority("We don't have time to teach everything") andconsequently on the basis of target need ("Weteach the Walla that are mout important for theircourse/job").

It is, of course, learner& needu that have moutoften been offered au the justification for ESPcourses and that have provided the moat populardefinition of the subject, that given by Munby(1978, p.2):

Esp. courses are thoue where the syllabus andmaterials are determined in all esuentials by theprior analysis of the communication needu ofthe learner.

It is claimed that couraeu based on NeeduAnalysis are more efficient because they get theirpriorities right, and aluo, as a corollary, that theyare educationally more effective because they aremotivating. Motivation is known to be a strongpsychological force influencing success in all typesof learning, not leaut in langubge learning. StevenMcDonough (1981, pp.142-56), in a chapter whichsummarizes the evidence from puychological studies,claims with justification that "moat teachers willagree that the motivation of students iu one of themost important factors influencing their uucceau orfailure in learning the language". Stevick (1971)identified five typc a of "reward" that are availableto courue designers and teachers. The firut oftheue is glossed by McDonough (1981, p.143) as"Relevance - of the content to the students' vinlanguage needs", and it is this type of rdevance

8 5

m....

that has most frequently been identified as thebasis for the success of LSP courses. (See Robin-soil 1980, pp.26-31 and Kennedy and Bo litho 1984,pp.14-I6 for further discussion of the literaturerelating to student motivation and the analysis ofneeds.) To conclude this section then, factors thathave been seen to have contributed to the devel-opment of ESP are primarily political and economic.As a direct result of these forces, courses haveproved to be motivating, and motivation is, in fact,the only directly educational factor that has beenoffered as an explanation for LSP's success. But(mn we leave it here, satisfied that the phenomenonhas been accounted for?

While we in no way discount the importance ofouch factora in explaining the growth and successof ESP courses, we suggest that any success thathas been achieved in language learning must beattributable to additional factors that have not yetbeen seriously investigated. These take ua intothe realms of linguistic and psycholinguistic the-ory.

3 APPROACHES TO THEORY

In spite of the rapid grov Lb of ESP/LSP inEurope and around the world, there have beenproblema (or poasibly a lack of will, in the contextof the ongoing day-to-day struggle of runninglanguage couraos) in establishing a theoretical ba-sis which can (a) account for its succesa and (b)be extended to other types of lan5uage teaching.Work in second language acquiaition has under-standably ignored LSP as a eeparate phenomenon,and within Applied Linguistica apologists for LSP,at least at the theoretical level, have been few.'

6

In il published conversatidn,3 Brumfit comments:

I think ESP is more a social phenomenon insome ways than a theoretic.al one. It's social inthe sense that ESP is only possible if you canconstruct classes out of similar sets of individ-uals.3

As we have already said, there is little doubtthat socio-economic press..ires are a driving forcein establishing ESP programmes, and Brumfit isright to emphasize the social aspect. But to dis-miss ESP as merely a "social ph000menon" is todisregard the fact that the "psychological" and"linguistic" aspects of language learning have tobe accounted for.

A serious attempt to address the theoreticalissue was made by Widdowson in his book LearningPurpone and Language Use (1983). One of Widdow-son's essential messages is, however, that an ESPprogramme has to be "located on a scale of speci-ficity" and that the more "specific" the course, themore restricted the competence of the learner willbe. A course where the "objectives" are equi-valent to the "aims" leads to "training' rather than"education", according to Widdowson, and"training" is seen as the development of merely a"restricted competence". "It shotild be recog-nized", he writes, "that such confinement, no mat-ter how justified it may be on other grounds, runscounter to educational principles" (p.I08). If Wid-dowson were discussing a "content" subject (suchas History), the notion of "restrictio:i" would beInol'e meaningful, but since it is the case that he isdiscussing language learning, we must questionwhat this type of restricted competen^e might be.It is difficult to conceive of a restr.zted compe-tence, in terms of actual language use, that couldbe a reasonable "goal" for a language course. This

1 0 7

is not to say, however, that a course should not beselective or "specific". All courses, by their na-ture, have to select the contexts of language use.What is at issue here is the relationship betweenlinguistic input and language acquisition. We takeup this issue in Section 6 as part of our discus-sion of the Common Core hypothesis.

Widdowson favours a type of ESP course designthat is "not determined by eventual aims but de-cided on by reference to pedagogic objectives"(p.107). "IL matters less," he claims, "that acourse should incorporate the language of a spe-cific purpose than that the language it. containsshould lead to purposeful acLiviLy" (ibid.). Ac-cording to Widdowson, the "purposeful activity"approach would be closer to "ed uca tion" than"training". We find it difficult to accept any di-chotomy between "purposeful activity" and the"language of a specific purpose", particularly sincemast of the better ESP courses incorporate both.In the next section, on ESP practice, we offer someexamples of such courses, discussed particularlyfrom the point of view of methodology.

ESP Leaching often combines the most tradi-tional with the most modern classroom practkes,presenting an apparently paradoxical situation fromthe point of view of iearning theory. This hasbeen described as an "eclectic" approach, but thislabel is, of course; unenlightening as to the rea-sons for the aticceaa or failure of a Leaching pro-gramme. IL is important to try to account for theparadox.

8 1 1

4 TASK-ORIENTED TEACHING AND LANGUAGEACQUISITION

Many ESP courses use what might be called atask-oriented approach to methodology. Others gofurther and base the whole course on a topic-and-task syllabus (see, for example, Reynolds 1982).The accounts of cuch courses are not very wellknown in the field of Applied Linguistics or En-glish Language Teaching. They are either unpub-lished or have appeared in journals that are notwidely read except by LSP specialists. Our evi-dence for this is that they are rarely referred toby applied linguists. Widdowson, for example, whileregretting that "methodology has generally beenneglected in ESP" (1983, p.87!, fails io refer tosome of the most significant reports of method-.ological experiments.

We would like to describe three examples oftask-oriented approaches commonly used on ESPcourses; they illustrate ESP practice that is rele-vant to our subsequent discussion of learning the-ory. The first was named by its originators (Edgeand Samuda 1981) the Methodists approach, since itwas seen to conflate course materials and methodol-ogy. It was not designed exclusively for ESP, al-though the original materials were for Medical Eng-lish. Briefly, for each unit of work, the studentsare set a task to perform or a problem to solve.Each unit then has three stages: InformationSearch, Information Exchange, and InformationSynthesis. During the Information Search stage,the students, working in groups, are engaged indiscovering facts or opinions (related to the solu-tion of the task) from a variety of appropriate re-lated sources. These may include written or spo-ken Innteria Is, and so some groups might be read-ing, oThers might be listening to recordings,watching .tideo, or talking to people who have the

12 9

information. During the information Ezchangeatage, the atudenta pool the information that hasbeen gathered, and the findings are sorted andclassified as is necessary for the particular tank inhand. This stage will always involve discussionand often some type of writing. Tho final stage,Information Synthesis, is the actual use of the in-formation to complete the task or solve the prob-lem.

During each of these three stages the studentsare engaged in "meaningful use" of the target lan-guage. To this extent, Methodials subscribes tothe view that learners acquire the language sub-consciously while the conscious mind is focussed onmeaning. However, Edge and Samuda also buildinto the model what they call "systems support".By "systems" they mean the grammatical, phono-logical, and other systems of the language, whichare "crucial to successful language learning", andthe learning of which, they believe, can be sup-ported by the teacher through direct teaching andthe introduction of practice activities, as neces-sary, to help the students complete the InformationSynthesis stage. This is an example of a paradoxi-cal situation: if the linguistically ungraded mean-ingful input is the prerequisite of acquisition, whatis the role of "systems support"? If it works (andthe evidence is that it does), what are the implica-tions for current theories of language acquisition?We take up this point below in Section 7.

The Methodials approach has a lot in commonwith much of the project work which is used inEAP and EOP teaching. A particularly interestingexample was Herbolich's (1979) work on "Box Kites".Working in the University of Kuwait, Herbolich setup a student project, designed to teach his stu-dents to understand and write technical manuals.In the course of this work] , each student was re-

3

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quired to design, manufacture and fly a box kite,and ultimately to compose and produce an instruc-tions manual for the kite. It was an importantunderlying principle that in order to write a man-ual you must understand the mechanism and con-struction of what you are writing about. A verycomplex piece of course design was involved in theproject, incorporating reading, discussion, organi-zation, production, reporting, and so on.

Other types of project work are also very com-mon in ESP, which, like Herbolich's project, ofteninvolve the use of original, authentically usedwritten and spoken English (see, for example,Robinson 1978 and Bloor and St John 1985). Thatis to say, they require the student to tackle thecomprehension of unsimpllfied texts, which were notoriginally produced as language teaching materials.

The use of such materials was advocated in aninfluential article by Phillips and Shettlesworth(1975), which stresaed the disparity that can arisebetween the demands of materials with a pedagogicobjective and the requirements of the subjectmatter of the students' special fields. The resultof simplification, they pointed out, can often becounter-productive in that students quickly becomeaware of the gap between the language presentedin the language class and the language which theyneed in order to read their subject text book ortalk about their company's products or whatever itmay be that they use the language for. For thisand other reasons that space prevents us fromsummarizing here, the tendency on most courseshas been to use original or only slightly adjustedtexts for listening and reading, even with studentswhose English is minimal and even, in some casesin our experience, with beginners.

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Of course, in such cases, the selection of textsis particularly important, and the uses to whichthe materials are put are crudal. Special tech-niques have been designed to help the learner getto grips with difficult original texts. Jo Mc-Donough's Listening to Lectures (1978), forexample, provides the learner with a specializedlecture on an appropriate topic and a detailedworksheet to assist in making this and furtherlectures comprehensible. A beginner in the lan-guage may do little more with a learned journalthan recognize that the title of a paper is relevantto Ms research interests (and depending on Msfirst language, he may need a dictionary to dothis). But if this is what is required of him as apreliminary exercise and it is relevant to hisneeds, it is likely to be a successful learning ex-perience.

This type of approach to course design hasbeen called by Johnson (1982, pp.192-200) the"Deep End Strategy, which is to say that the stu-dents are first placed in a situation where theyneed to use the language and are then taught thelanguage they need. Johnson points out that thestrategy "will offend traditionalists in a number ofways" and discusses this from the pedagogicstandpoint.

By "traditionalists" Johnson probably meantpractitioners of the audio-lingual school, and theDeep End Strategy clearly challenges behaviouristlanguage learning prindples (see, for example, Lado1964) and places itsulf squarely in the communica-tive camp. But it also challenges the more fashion-able Input Hypothesis discussed by Hrashen (seeHrashen 1985) and the Teachability Hypothesis ofPienemann (1985). The former requires "naturalinput ... roughly tuned to the learner's level ofacquisition", that is comprehensible or only a little

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mnre difficult than the present level of the learner(the "i + 1" formula); the latter allows for Leachingof structures graded to match natural acquisitionorder. The Deep End Strategy, contrary to boththese hypotheses, permits input that may be ini-tially incomprehensible, but which is comprehended- and even then sometimes only in part - by thedetailed study of whatever language items presentproblems in the context. This gradual movementtowards comprehension of the input might be as-sisted by the overt explanation of the text by aLeacher, by the use of dictionaries or other refer-ence materials, or even by translation.

Rut before returning to the important role ofLeaching and study in ESP and their relationshipto language acquisition, we would like to Lake upanother theoretical construct which has not under-gone much discussion in recent years, namely theCommon Core.

5 LSP AND THE COMMON CORE HYPOTHESIS

The Common Core hypothesis is central to ap-plied linguistics as we know it, Its relevance tocourse design has rarely been questioned even byadvocates of semantic syllabuses, who have incor-porated their perception of the Common Core intotheir syllabuses at the level of the linguistic expo-nents of functions and notions. This has usuallybeen done by advocating a "cyclic" syllabus likethat suggested by Wil Mils (1976, p.59), where "atthe lowest level" the functions are used "in thesimplest and least differentiated manner".

IL is not our purpose here to discuss exten-sions of the term "common core", such as havebeen introduced in recent years to cover some

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r

kind of basic or central semantics. The term hasbeen used to cover the common notional syllabus(such elements ae "measurement" and "shape") asused in the Nucleus &offish series. The term hasalso been used in ESP to refer to texts (or otherlinguistic input) which are suitable for use withheterogeneoue groups of learners such as those onStudy Skills courses (see, for example, Kennedyand Bo litho 1984, p.50). These are different usesof the term, which have no relation to the appliedlinguistic hypothesis except in so far as they usethe word "common" with its normal meaning of be-longing to all or many members of a set.

We are concerned in this paper with the classicpresentations of the hypothesis, as found in the

THE COMMON CORE OF ENGLISHiI- 1

VARIETY CLASSES VARIETIES WITHIN EACH CLASS

Region:

Educationand social standing:

Subject matter:

M Hum:

Attitude:

Interference:

RI, R2, R3, R4,

-4.,....

....

El, E2, E3, E4,....-----SI, 52,

...........S3, 54,

,-------..Ml, M2, .".....--_,------,

Al, A2, A3 , A4, ........-------

II, 12, 13, 14, ...

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work of Quirk et al. (1972), Corder (1973), andLeech and Svartvik (1975), and the effect that thehypotheaia has had on the conatruction of ayl-labusea and the aelection of teaching materiala.Quirk et al. (1972, pp.13f.) present the diagramreproduced opposite, in which the Common Coredominatea all varieties. They explain the diagramby Baying that "however esoteric or remote a var-iety may be, it has running through it a set ofgrammatical and other characteriatica that arepreaent in all othera."

A year later, Corder (1973, p.65) deaeribes theCommon Core, keeping what la essentially the sameconcept, but introducing the dimenaion of the lan-guage ayllabua in the final clauae (our italics):

A language can be regarded as a "constellationof dialects", Theae dialecta are r4lated to eachother linguiatically by poaaessing a major partof their grammatical systema in common. I ahallrefer to thia aa the common core, which formathe basia of any ay//abua.

It is necesaary to think about what Corder mayhave meant by "basie in this paaaage. Althoughit is not clear that thia ia preciaely what he in-tended, he has often been interpreted 88 meaningthe "first stage" of a courae, aa in such atatementsaa the following (from Robinaon 1980, p.17):

Most writing alv,ut ESP is concerned with stu-dents in tertiary education who have agrounding, albeit inadequate, in "common core"Engliah.

Quirk et al. also clearly held the view that thiatype of general grounding waa very important inlanguage courses, for they wrote (1972, p.29):

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Attempts to teach a "restricted" language("English for Engineers") too often ignore thedanger in so doing of trying to climb a ladderwhich iR sinking in the mud; it is no use try-ing to approach a point on the upper rungs ifthere is no foundation.

Since ESP practitioners are clearly ignoringtheir advice, we might ask what it is exactly thatthis "grounding", "foundation", or "core" actuallyconsiata of. The diagram presented by Pit Corderis usually used to facilitate explanation:

i i; 2 n 'Common core' of the lanp,uage

11[1011 Learner's required renertoire

Although this is presented in relation to "dialect",he does, by extension, use it to illustrate register.The oentral shaded section of the conjoined circles

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mt.

represents the part of the grammatical system(including lexis) that all varieties have in common.

Leech and Svartvik (1975, Chapter 1) clearlyhold the view that the Common Core consists ofcertain words and sentences that can be used"safely" in all situations. Although they say that"many of the features of English are found In all,or nearly all, varieties" and that "general featuresof this kind belong to the "common core" of thelanguage', they then go on to approach the matterfrom the reverse position and present, not featuresof the language, but actual instances of languag.:.as "common core". Hence.(1) below is given as anexample of the Common Core (and therefore pre-sumably as a suitable example for language learn-ers), while (2) fails to achieve that distinction.

(1) Peter's wife was very angry when hecame home with the girl from thediscotheque

(2) Pete's old woman hit the roof when hecame home with that doll from thedisco

This, to us, confused view abandons the "commonfeatures" approach in favour of a classification ofutterances as "common core" or not. The commonfeatures approach would have identified the subor-dinator "when" and the singular masculine pronoun"he", for example, as elements of the Common Coreof English. These features might be found in anyvariety of English, including the informal example(2).

Corder, at least in his 1973 description, doesnot equate the Common Core with some type of un-marked variety of English, as Leech and Svartvik

20

appear to do. On the contrary, he concedes(unlike Quirk et al.) that

the poasesaion of the common core alone doesnot enable a learner to hehnve appropriately inany particular situation; to do this he needs toknow those parts of the code appropriate tothat situation not included in the common core.

(p.65)

This might appear to present no theoretizal prob-lems and leave the way open for an ESP approachto teaching, but we would still like to qu.ultion itsvalidity.

It is clear from this quotation that Corderunderstood the Common Core to be nothing morethan an abstraction, a construct that would includethose linguistic items that are common to all vari-eties: such items as the plural morpheme, phono-logical rules, verb inflections (-ed, for example),word ordert and perhaps "the first thousand mostcommon word types", which account for "90 percent of all word tokens used", mentioned by himlater in the book (p.214). Now there clearly is aproblem here. We question firstly whether it ispossible to conceive of a learner who has agrounding in such elements unless they have beenlearned within the context of some varty orpseudo-variety (so-cnlled classroom English, forexample). Certainly when we come to the classroomwe find it necessary to present the basic elementsin some kind of linguistic context. Unless we sim-ply talk about the target language using thelearner's mother tongue, we need, at the veryknot, to select instances of language to exemplifythe forms. And yet two years after his expositionof the theoretical construct, Corder himself (1975,p.9) writes:

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Where the aims of the learner are not known ordiffuse (...) we must attempt to establish whatare the basic elements of a knowledge of thelanguage whilh anyone must possess in orderto tute it for any purpose. This central bodyof knowledge is sometimes known as "the com-mon core".

This once more seems to be a call for the creationof some type of pr3to-7ariety, some general "basic"English that is suitable for many (if not all) situ-ations, (limiter to the type of English that beechand Svartvik claim actually exists.

The problem for approachee of this type is thatthe Common Core does not exiet as a language var-iety. It is as much an idealization as Chomsky's"ideal speaker-lietener in a completely homogeneousspeech-community" (19S5, p.3). It is doubtfulwhether Corder, in view of most of hie writings onthe subject, seriously believee that such a varietycould be realized; his diagrammatic representation(reproduced above) offers the Common Core as nomore than an abstraction at the linguietic level.

The confusion seema to arise from the unhappytransfer of a model of language to a model of lan-guage learning. This unhappy shift of focus hascaused many problems for the course deeigner. Aspeaker of any variety does, by definition, havecommand of the Common Core; he cannot have com-mand of the Common Core independently of a var-iety. No epeaker can have command of the CommonCore in a vacuum. Hence there ie no reason what-soever why the Common Core cannot be acquiredfrom a so-called "special" variety just as well asfrom a more usual classroom variety. Whether oneit, studying English for Engineering, English forliusiness, or English for Economics, ono will in-evitably acquire the "core" of the language. This

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is demonstrated in the following diagram, which il-lustrates what could be called "The LSP Model":

7V1

11111111

V3

V2

Learner's required repertoire

The "core" of the language is, of course, an es-sential part of any one of the innumerable varietiesof the language.

6 THE QUESTION OF VARIETIES

Up to this point we have assumed the validityof the concept of "variety" in language. However,although it seemed necessary to concede this con-cept in order to present our case against the Com-mon Core, it is itself a theoretical construct thathas already been seriously challenged. Hudson(1980, Chapter 2) argues that the boundaries be-tween varieties (including, of course, registers,

2320

which are "varietiea according to uae, as definedby Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens 1960 are aodifficult to establish that the only satiafactory wayto aolve the problema that result ia "to avoid thenotion 'variety' altogether aa an analytic or the-oretical concept" (p.71). Hudson prefers an "item-based" model of language in which "each linguisticitem is associated with a aocial description whichaaya who uses it, and when". Thua, to une Ilud-son'a examples, We obtained some sodium chloride isdistinguiahed from We got some salt by describingthe former as "formal, technical" and the latter as"informal, non-technical". There are, of courae,many aocial dimensions in addition to "formal" and"technical'. that determine linguistic realizationa(aee Cryatal and Davy 1969 for a discussion ofsome of the dimensiona of situational conatraint),a;id e well-developed molel of this type wouldneceaaarily be complex.

In apite of ita complexity, this way of ap-proaching language analysis has a number of ob-vious advantages for applied linguiatics. First ofall, it frees us from the constraints of the model ofvarieties from which the Common Core hypotheaisderives. Secondly, it focusea on language in useand so would appear to be in line with theories ofproceaa-oriented methodology. Thirdly, it sub-scribea to an easentially context-dependent view oflanguage and is, therefore, in line with the LSP("needs") approach to ayllabua design.

7 HOW LANGUAGE WORKS

One thing that ESP, in conjunction with a greatdeal of recent re/march into the language of apecialfields and genrea, haa shown, is that the moat hn-portant factor for the effective use of the language

.41

2421

is that the learner has command of the ways inwhich the grammar of the language works to per-form specific functions in specific contexts. It isnow well understood that grammatical forms are re-alizations of meaning not only at the semantic levelbut also at the rhetorical leve1.4 It is understoodthat f e communicative function of a form may bevariety-specific or genre-specific, and, conversely,the variety or genre may govern the selection ofgrammatical form as well as of lexis. Thus, for ex-ample, we find the complex NPs of engineeringtexts ("precision height gauge", "machine tool loca-tion", etc.); the long comma-free sentences of in-surance contracts; the use of post-nominal parti-ciples in definite NPp with an anaphoric function,which are found in some kinds of scientific writing("The heat added increases the kinetic m.)tion ofthe particles", as described by Swales 1981); and(normally) transitive verbs used without an objectin recipes ("Place in the oven").

Such form-function relationships differ, ofcourse, from one language to another. In Englishrecipes, for example, we express instruction by useof the imperative verb, whereas in French the in-finitive form is preferred. When asking directionsin English, we typically use the interrogative, butthe French, once again, typically use the infinitive"pour eller" (see Littlewood 1983, p.3 for discussionof some approaches to the teaching of such points).

While it is no doubt the case, as has often beenobserved, that the same grammatical forms andmany lexical items can be used in very differentsituations (with some statistical variation), there isIncreasing evidence that there exist certainrhetorical dependencies in the sense that thechoice of word and form relates to the communica-tive intent of the speaker or writer (see also Bloorand Moor 1985).

22 25

411.

Another, but closely related factor, is the im-portance in the language of what Widdowson 1983refers to as "schemata", that is, "the cognitiveconstructs which allow for the organization of in-formation in long-term memory and which provide abasis for prediction" (p.34). This is to do with thereletionship of utterance to the organization of dis-course in terms of mental "frames of reference".Widdowson's view is that schematic units can pro-vide the basis of the syllabus, but that these arerelated to some kind of general capacity ratherthan to specific use and that we do not, therefore,have to worry about the specificity of the lanivage(pp.106f.). While we do not disagree with Widdow-son's powerful erguments for the importance of theschematic level (p.V) of tanguage knowledge, webelieve that the development of language capacityin learners is much more closely related to theirexperience of language in specific use than Wid-dowson's arguments allow. This is as true of na-tive speakers as it is of foreign language learners.As Sweles (forthcoming) says, "Knowledge of theconventione of a genre is likely to be much greaterin those who routinely or professionally operatewith that genre rather than in those who becomeinvolved in it only occasionally."

Such knowledge, of the conventions of a genreas well as of grammatical-rhetorical dependenciescommon in a specific field, must be part of whatthe student learns from the language course, andsince our understanding of them is, to say theleast, only partial, it is not possible for us to listmany of them in the form of a traditional teachingsyllebus, even if this would assist us in teachingthem. What we do know, however, is that unlessthe student is exposed La input of the appropriate"special" language, there is no way that such de-pendencies can be acquired. Informal conversation

26 23

about the weather will not help you very much towrite an essay on climatic conditions.

This view of acquisition is not confined to ESP:the native speaker child learns to control his orher own environment through language (requestingfood, protecting interests, denuin ding attention),and no given examples of language in use arecontext-free, except for "invented" or classroomexamples. This is why we can usually recognizethe sources of quotations from genres with whichwe are familiar. It is also dearly the case thatnative speakers do not have the language abilitynecessary for use in all situations even thoughthey may have the strategies they require to "getby" in less familiar contexts.

This brings us to the role of teaching andstudying (as opposed to "acquisition") in the LSPprogramme.

8 ACQUISITION, LEARNING AND TEACHING

There has been a great deal of work in recentyears on issues in second language acquisition andlearning.. Yet, in spite of lengthy research andeven lengthier discussion, certain issues remainunresolved. One of these is the value of teachingabout the language, and another is the value oflearners' conscious study of aspects of the lan-guage. Questions such as "Does language aware-ness assist in language acquisition?" and "Does de-gree of inetalinguistic knowledge correlate with ac-curate language production?" preserve the distinc-tion, as Sorace (1986, pp.239ff.) expresses it, be-tween "interlanguage knowledge" and "proceduralknowledge".

2724

Although some researchers (including Sorace1985) have found evidence that conscious knowl-edge may have a beneficial influence on production,the debate continues between the "interface posi-tion", which permits the influence, and the "non-interface" position of Krashen, which states thatthere can be no direct influence from learnedknowledge to acquired language, (For discussionsee Ellis 1984, pp.150-55.)

There are considerable limitations in suchatudiee, however, in so far as the LSP classroom isconcerned. The fact is that, ahhough the acquisi-tion of the target language is the major aim of alanguage course, it is not the only one. We havealready mentioncld that the LSP syllabus designergives considerable emphasis to Needs Analysis, andit is a fact that a Needs Analysis often reveals thatlearners require not only those aspects of the lan-guage that are "acquired" by native speaker chil-dren as part of the natural process, but also as-pects of the language that are taught to nativespeakers or learned by them in the course of theirformal education. Singleton and Little (1985, p.16)point out that

The history of literate societies suggests thatskills in producing well-formed long-turn dis-course have to be taught,

This is not often recognized. Mu nby 'a"Taxonomy of Language Skills" (Munby 1978) in-cludes, without distinction being drawn betweenthem, such skills as those involved in phoneme dis-crimination (essentially "acquired") and those suchas "forming the graphemes" or "use of diction-aries" (essentially "taught"),

The point that we are making (and this is dis-cussed further in Bloor 1984) is that the LSP (and

:.

2825

Page 26, first paragraph, final sentence shouldread as follows:

"Such aspects of language use have little to dowith the acquisition debate but are essentialfactors in syllabus design and languageteaching."

ence between the acquisition of phonological rulesand learning to read, or between the acquisition ofthe ability to express communicative functions (asdescribed in Halliday 1975, for example) and theability to write advertising copy. How to reportthe results or an experiment or how to lay out abusiness letter have to be taught. to nativespeakers and foreigners alike.* Such aspects oflanguage use have little to do with syllabus designand language teaching.

Some of the conflicts between the practitioners(for example Swan 1985) and the theorists (for ex-ample Widdowson 1985) almost certainly stem from afailure to make this distinction. Many teachersquarrel with theory on the grounds that it fails toprovide any explanation for why the consciousstudy of language (particularly the written text)and the correction of etudents' written errors, doactually seem to work - at least if done withincertain systematic pedagogical constraints.

Essentially, literacy la a "learned" (even a"taught"), rather than an "acquired" skill. Oncereading and writing have been learnt, of course, itis likely that the practice of these skills supportslanguage acquisition. The reading and writing ofspecific texts exposes the language user to ise-creased linguistic input of grammar and lexis usedwith proper rhetorical purposes, thus supportingnatural acquisition processes. Perera (1986), in anarticle on native speakers' language acquisltion andwriting, provides evidence that, in writing, chil-

26 29i

dren use constructions that they do not use inspeech. The evidence (mainly from children'swriting) demonstrates that "particularly literary"structures (some types of constituent order, formalrelative clauses and non-finite adverbial clauses,for example) are learned from reading rather thanfrom oral-aural communication since they rarely oc-cur in natural speech. The appearance of newwritten structures has been identified in the writ-ing of children of twelve, and there is every rea-son to suppose that investigation into the writtenlanguage Of second language learners would yieldthe same results.

The task of the LSP teacher is, therefore, notonly to provide the optimum conditions for lan-guage acquisition but also to teach the uses oflanguage and literacy that are appropriate to theneeds of the learners.

9 CONCLUSIONS

To summarize our position, we argue that

I. A major problem in identifying the theoreticalbase of li:SP stems from the unfortunateinfluence that the Common Core Hypothesishas had on syllabus design and on appliedlinguist& perceptions of language learning.This is the result of a confusion between amodel of a "theory of language" and a modelof a "theory of language learning".

2. Once it is understood that linguistic compe-tence (not just "limited competence") comesfrom language in use (and that this meanslanguage used in specifio situations) thesucceos of LSP may be accounted for.

.),.3,0 27

3. LSP employs teaching strategies (in particu-)ar the "Deep End Strategy") that are incom-patible with certain theories of languageacquisition. We explain the success of thesestrategies by claiming not only that learnersneed to be involved in the use of languageappropriate to their needs, but also that byita nature this language must be "specific".It is only by exposure to "specific" languagethat learners can learn the appropriategrammatical and lexical dependencies.

4. A language learner is as likely to acquire"the language" from one variety as from an-other, but the use of language, being gearedto situation and participants, is learned inappropriate contexts. This view supports atheory of language use as the basis of lan-guage acquisition theory.

5. In moat cases the teaching of a language in-volves much more than providing theoptimum circumstances for acquisition. Al-though these are essential, the teacher fEl

also responsible for teaching thoee aspects oflanguage use that have to be taught even tonative speakers: cultural conventions and thesystem and uses of literacy.

NOTES

I. The tendency has been for linguists who arenot themselves ESP practitioners to stressthe similarities between ESP and "general"English teaching, usually distorting thenature of ESP in the process. We must,

28 31

however, point to the work of Peter Strevensand John Sinclair, who are notable exceptionsto thie general trend. Strevens has beenlargely responsible for the development orESP as a separate branch of ELT, andSinclair has consistently encouraged BSPteaching and (or particular relevance to theconcerns of this paper) the use of originalsource materials as the basis for coursedesign. He continues to direct reeearch atthe University of Birmingham into the natureor text, which has serious implications forlanguage teaching.

2. "Talking Shop", SLT Journal 36.1, p.30.

3. Although it is not central to the argumentsin this paper, it is worth mentioning thatBSP classes do not, in fact, always containindividuals working in precisely the samefield. At Reading and Warwick Universities,among other places, courses have been heldwith heterogeneous groups or languagelearners, but which incorporate a strongelement or individualized activity in order toallow students to use materials relevant totheir own individual fields.

4. For work on rhetorical structure in Englishfor Science and Technology, see Trimble 1985.For further discussion or the relationship ofgrammar to rhetorical structure, see Bloorand Bloor 1985.

5. Excellent overviews or this work can beround in Ellis 1984, Singleton and Little 1984,and Hyltenstam and Pienemann 1985.

6. There are also areas where the distinction isnot BO clew.. Do we, for example, learn or

29

32

acquire spelling? Do We learn or acquire tkeability to comprehend figurative language?

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An earlier version of this paper was presented as /-one of a series of public lectures sponsored by

the Centre for Language and Communication Studiesin Trinity Term 1986

0 1986University of Dublin

Trinity College

38

Autumn 1984

10. Jeffrey L. gallon, Generative phonology in the clinic (38pp.)

11. Conrad 6 Clarain. The affective dimension in secor.d/foreignlanguage learniniv: an interaction& perspective (42pp.)

Spring 1985

12. 1). M. Singleton and D. G. Little, Foreign languages at second level:de fining a syllabus, with particular reference to the needsof the senior cycle (19PP.)

13. John Barris, The polyiectai grimmer stops here (12pp3

Spring 1986

14. D. G. Little end A. J. Grant, Learning German without e teachar.Report on it self-instructional programise for undergraduatestudents of Engineering Science sit Trinity Conege, Dublim1992-84 (60pp.)

15. ledre Owens. Eithne: a study of second language development(62pp.)

16. D. Wilson and D. Sperber, Pragmatics: an overview (36pp.)

Autumn 1986

17. Ailbhe NI Cheeelde and Eugene Davie, A dala-processing systemfor quantitative analysis in speech production (213pp3

lg. Sean M. Devitt. Learning a foreign language through the media$917P.)

19. Marie floor and Thema. floor. Languages for specific purposes:practice and theory (34pp.)

39