1,723,073 research outputs found
ESP Across Cultures
No full textDiana Al-Aghbari
Pragmatics in the ESP context: an interdisciplinary study 9
Richard Chapman
Questioning assumptions in English language teaching and ESP 25
Stefania Consonni and Michele Sala
Taboo, tabloids and Trump: the rise and twilight of a US President
in digital mainstream news media 37
Ester Di Silvestro and Marco Venuti
Populist leaders and masculinity: a multimodal Critical Discourse
Analysis of hegemonic masculinity performances on social media 57
Daniele Franceschi
Fostering multimodal literacy in ESP teaching: the case of lawyer-client
interviews 81
Christopher Goddard
Legal terminology in English: the challenges of international contexts 105
Jennifer Lertola
Free commentary to enhance writing and speaking skills in EFL teacher
training 125
Ian Michael Robinson
Preparing for CLIL in southern Italy and beyond: CLIL teacher trainin
Tradition and Change in Legal English: Verbal Constructions in Prescriptive Texts
No full textIn this volume the author examines verbal constructions in prescriptive legal texts written in English. Modal auxiliaries such as shall, may and must are analysed, as well as indicative tenses such as the present simple, and also non-finite constructions such as the -ing form and -ed participles. Results are based on specially compiled corpora of prescriptive texts coming from a wide range of English-speaking countries and also international organizations such as the European Union and the UN. The author also analyses the nature, extent and impact of the calls for change in legal language coming from the Plain Language Movement. Although legal language tends to be depicted as being highly conservative and unchanging, the author shows that in certain parts of the English-speaking world a minor revolution would appear to be taking place, while in other parts there is greater resistance to change
The end of the 'masculine rule'? Gender-neutral legislative drafting in the United Kingdom and Ireland
No full textThis article highlights the question of gender neutrality in prescriptive legal texts and shows how the rise of feminism has led to the stigmatization of ‘sexist’ language by criticizing the use of the ‘masculine rule’ in legal texts. After a brief historical survey as to how and why the masculine rule was introduced in the early 19th century, the author explores the situation of gender-neutral drafting in a variety of English-speaking countries as well as in international organizations. This is followed by a detailed analysis of gender-neutral drafting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with specific reference to the situation in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly of Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Oireachtas in Dublin. It is noted that some of these legislative bodies have been quicker than others in introducing gender-neutral drafting
Williams (Christopher), Chuprov (Vladimir), Staroverov (Vladimir) — Russian society in transition
No full textAdamets Sergueï. Williams (Christopher), Chuprov (Vladimir), Staroverov (Vladimir) — Russian society in transition. In: Population, 52ᵉ année, n°3, 1997. pp. 759-761
Legal English and the 'modal revolution'
No full textIn this paper the author discusses the present status of shall in legal English. Although it has been by far the most common modal in legal English for at least 600 years, its use is currently in decline, especially in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The author identifies the structures that take up the place left by shall in shall-free texts, such as the present simple, may and be to. He focuses in particular on the South Africa Constitution where the definitive version currently in force is completely devoid of shall, unlike the Interim version which was drafted only two or three years earlier. The data relating to such shall-free texts as the South Africa Constitution are compared to ‘World data’ relating to the situation in English-speaking countries in general. He also speculates as to what will happen with shall in legal language in the US and the UK
ESP Across Cultures
No full textThis present volume constitutes the third online edition of ESP Across Cultures.
The decision to change from a paper-based to an online edition has undoubtedly
been beneficial in terms of enjoying greater visibility within the international academic
community. One thing that has not changed over the years, however, since
the inception of the journal in 2004, has been the policy of double-blind peer reviewing,
which means that only a selected number of the papers submitted end up as
being published.
There are seven papers in the current issue, each one analysing a particular aspect
of English for Specific Purposes from a cross-cultural perspective.
The first paper, by Hmoud S. Alotaibi, focuses on research article introductions
in Arabic, analysing the extent to which scholars writing in Arabic in the sphere of
education adhere to the CARS (Create A Research Space) model delineated by John
Swales which was elaborated in particular with regard to the academic conventions
widely adopted in the English-speaking world. Instead of restricting the investigation
to the introductory section as past studies in this field did, the author examines
all of the subheadings and he concludes that all introductions include Move 2 in a
subheading entitled the Problem of the Study, a result that contradicts previous
findings where the paucity of Move 2 was common in non-English RAs, and especially
in Arabic ones.
Patrizia Anesa analyses the websites of the main arbitration centres operating in
Asia from a textual perspective to define how they are discursively constructed and
can be used as promotional tools, thereby helping us to evaluate the importance assumed
by internationalization processes or by local cultural elements in promoting a
particular centre as a seat for international arbitration. She concludes that while
some scholars argue that we are witnessing the ‘Asianization’ of arbitration, with
the increasing bargaining power of Asian parties, on the other hand a phenomenon
of ‘Universal Arbitration’ is also emerging, i.e. a form of convergence of how disputes
are resolved so that parties of any nationality can operate in the same way
with ever fewer language barriers.
In their paper, Mahmood Reza Atai and Fatemeh Asadnia examine the communicative
and promotional function of university homepages by looking at the ‘university
overview’, ‘university mission statement’, and ‘university introduction at a
glance’ genres, using a corpus of 210 texts selected from homepages of the top 500
universities ranked by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The findings
demonstrated that the three genres shared communicative purposes, functional
units, certain moves and steps, socio-academic contexts, and discourse community
members that led to the formation of a genre set.
Gaetano Falco explores ways of using comics in an MA course on translation of
economic texts as a means of stimulating the interest of language students with no
economics skills in order to introduce economics-related lexis and improve thematic
competence in general. He observes that empirical research has shown that films
and comics can indeed be useful resources to teach economic translation to students
with no skills in economics. However, the author warns that the use of comics for
educational purposes may have its drawbacks, e.g. when students deal with complex
sign systems which embody complex economic concepts, where often the humorous
element is lost.
In her paper, Irina Khoutyz describes the differences in how scholars present
their findings in research articles (RA) in international journals in English and in
Beyza Björkman
Christian Burgers
Jan Chovanec
Anda-Elena Cretiu
Erika Dalan
John Douthwaite
Hanem El-Farahaty
Said Faiq
Silvia Ferreri
Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez
Pedro Fuertes-Olivera
Giuliana Garzone
Christoph Hafner
Ruba Khamam
Anna Loiacono
Geraldine Ludbrook
John McRae
Susan Petrilli
Silvia Pireddu
Tarja Salmi-Tolonen
Jeffrey Segrave
Charlotte Taylor
Margherita Ulrych
John Kenneth White
Jessica Williams
I hope you will enjoy the current issue of this journal and will make the most of
the free access to all past issues.
Christopher Williams
(Chief Editor)
6 FOREWORD
local journals in Russian. She then looks into the reasons for these differences, seeking
explanations from the sociocultural contexts in which these RAs were written,
as well as providing advice to local authors as to how to make their RAs more competitive
at the international level. The differences include the apparent lack of
structure of Russian RAs with respect to English RAs; the tendency in Russian authors
not to specify the purpose in writing a paper; and the tendency of Russian authors
to present the methodology used in less detail compared with English RAs.
Luisella Leonzini investigates the use of verbal and visual metaphors in economic-
media discourse within the context of the euro crisis by studying the correlation
between linguistic and pictorial metaphors and text-image intersemiotic relations.
The research is based on a cross-analysis of English and Italian editorial
articles published between 2009 and 2012. In both corpora, metaphorical realizations
frame the economic crisis which hit the single currency and the eurozone in
2009 as a partial collapse and hint at a possible return to stability in the form of a
recovery. The aim of this paper is to analyse the collapse/caduta and
recovery/ripresa metaphors across languages in the press.
Ian Robinson reports on using corpus linguistics to aid students in writing a creative
text. He looks at the available literature to help understand what is meant by
‘creativity’. A worksheet was prepared using a corpus linguistic analysis of modern,
English versions of the stories of the Brothers Grimm. This worksheet was constructed
with the use of a specialized corpus, and a stop-list was created which contained
single words as well as word clusters found in the tales. Students were then
asked to select some of these words and phrases to help them write stories which
were then analysed, and a follow-up questionnaire was used to elicit the students’
perceptions concerning creativity. The author concludes that creativity is essential
in EFL and that it is something to be fostered in students
Fuzziness in legal English: what shall we do with 'shall'?
No full textThis chapter examines whether the once revered modal auxiliary shall still has a role to play in legal English. The author also investigates the direction in which the Plain Language Movement is heading, its aims and the means it uses to reach its objectives, with particular reference to the question of whether or not to eliminate shall completely from prescriptive texts. The author highlights the uses and misuses of this modal auxiliary in legal English and examines the alternatives that have been adopted in shall-free texts. He then focuses on the presumed ‘fuzziness’ of shall and suggests that some of the criticism of the Plain Language Movement is not always justified. The author concludes the chapter with an evaluation as to whether there is still a place for shall in modern prescriptive texts
Legal English and Plain language: an update
No full textAbstract
Seven years have passed since ‘Legal English and Plain Language: an introduction’ (Williams 2004) was published. Since then several changes have occurred in the field of legal drafting in English-speaking countries and institutions which move in the direction
of the proposals endorsed by the Plain language movement. In this paper I attempt to outline and contextualize some of the major changes that have taken place since 2004.
Probably the most striking transformation over the last few years in the English-speaking world has come about in the United Kingdom, particularly in Edinburgh and Westminster. In 2004 the newly-established Scottish Parliament had not yet broached the question of modernizing the drafting style of its laws. But that was shortly to come. Likewise in Westminster in 2004, with the exception of the Tax Law Rewrite Project (Williams 2007),
there was little to indicate that the drafting of legislation was to undergo the major changes that have taken place recently. A number of areas of legal language have also been modernized in the United States in the past few years, though the impact of Plain
language on legislative drafting has been less incisive when compared to the UK.
My main conclusion is that, if we observe the question of legal drafting and Plain language in the English-speaking world as a whole, there has been a shift of focus since 2004. Not long ago I spoke of a “North-South divide” (Williams 2006: 239), with innovation coming largely from the southern hemisphere (especially Australia and New Zealand) whilst the northern hemisphere – particularly the US and the UK – appeared
to be more resistant to change. Today my perception is rather different: I would be more inclined to distinguish between national drafting bodies as ‘innovators’ and international drafting bodies as ‘conservatives’. The changes in drafting style that have occurred
recently in the UK and, to some extent, in the US would not appear to have been matched in those international bodies where English is one of the official languages, notably the United Nations and the European Union. I briefly analyse why international
bodies may be less inclined than national bodies to change their drafting styles
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