ESP Historical Debates
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The field of EAP (English
for Academic Purposes)
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Jordan (1997)
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The surveys cover a wide
range of topics but do not deal with theory and ideas in detail.
The literature has tended
to focus primarily on practical issues, a point noted by Dudley-Evans &
St. John (1998): “It is interesting and significant that so much of the
writing has concentrated on the procedures of ESP and on relating course
design to learners, specific needs rather than on theoretical matters” (p.1)
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ESP (English for Specific
Purposes)
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Dudley-Evans & St.
John (1998)
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Where there has been
discussion of ideas in the literature, this discussión has mostly focused on
which descriptions of language can best inform ESP.
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Approaches to language
description in ESP
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One early approach was
based on counting the frequency of linguistic forms in a given register.
Barber (1962/1985) identified the frequency of a number of syntactic forms in
written scientific prose by analysis of a corpus of texts from a mixture of
scientific disciplines (electronics, biochemistry, and astronomy) and genres.
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The approach was later
critiqued for failing to identify the purposes for which the forms were used.
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Subsequent analyses (for
example Tarone, Dwyer, Gillette, and Icke’s 1981 study of passives in
astrophysics) aimed to identify both linguistic forms and the purposes for which they were
used (Flowerdew and Peackock, 2001).
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The history of ESP’s
adoption of such approaches has been a recurrent focus of interest in the
literature. It is reported in Robinson (1991). Dudley-Evans and St. John
(1998), and Flowerdew and Peackock (2001).
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Swales’ seminal work, Episodes in ESP (1985), reflects the
preoccupation of ESP with practical aspects of course and materials design
and with language descriptions.
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Generally, ESP has not been much concerned
with the debates and issues emerging in recent years in the field of second
language acquisition (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Bloor, 1998).
Published reports of research focusing on language acquisition in ESP have
been limited. One exception is the study of interlanguage use in relation to
discourse domains by Selinker and Douglas (1985). It has also been noted that
few studies have set out to investigate the effectiveness of ESP courses
(Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998).
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The objective of ESP
teaching
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In the early years of
ESP, the objective was seen in terms of imparting linguistic knowledge with
ESP functioning to reveal the facts about the linguistic features of
subject-specific language (Swales, 1985)
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Later it was seen in
terms of training students in communicative repertoires characteristic of
target situations (Munby, 1978)
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More recently, proposals
include the notion that ESP should teach students concepts from their
discipline, as well as language, in order to develop their “underlying
competence” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1985)
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The role of ESP in
society
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Ideological worries are
surfacing and calls are being made for critical ESP.
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Master (1998) argues that
inasmuch as English dominates today’s world and is the established lingua
franca of science, technology, and business, ESP “holds a pivotal position in
regard to the use or abuse of his power” (p. 716).
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Adapted from the book Ideas and Options in English for Specific Purposes, by Helen
Basturkmen, 2006.
