PB

Lecture Notes Flashcards

Multimodal Text Definition

  • According to Baldry and Thibault (2006: 12), a multimodal text can be written, spoken, or a combination, but it may also include other meaning-making modalities beyond linguistic ones and may not necessarily include language.

Text Definition

  • In linguistics, TEXT refers to any passage, spoken or written, of any length, that forms a unified whole.
  • Halliday (1998: 10) defines text as language that is functional, doing a job in a context, unlike isolated words or sentences.
  • A text is a unit of language in use, not a grammatical unit, and its size is not a defining factor.
  • It can be spoken or written and exist in any medium of expression.

Language Functions

  • Informative Function: Represents objects and facts.
  • Expressive Function: Expresses inner states and emotions of the text’s addresser.
  • Appellative Function: Appeals to a text’s addressee or persuades them to act or raises awareness.

Language Functions and Text Types

  • Informative, Expressive, and Appellative language functions correspond to Informative, Expressive, and Operative text types.
  • Text types are categorized by their main function, with other functions being secondary.

Texture

  • Texture distinguishes text from non-text.
  • It holds the clauses of a text together, providing unity.
  • Texture involves:
    • Coherence: How clauses or sentences relate to the context (e.g., recognizing a genre).
    • Cohesion: How elements within a text bind it together (e.g., reference, lexical cohesion, conjunctive cohesion).

Genre Definition

  • Adapted from Swales (1990: 58), a genre is a class of communicative events sharing communicative purposes.
  • These purposes are recognized by members of a discourse community.
  • Genres exhibit similarities in schematic structure, style, content, and intended audience.

Discourse Community

  • A group of people with expertise in a field sharing public goals, lexis, genres, and intercommunication mechanisms.
  • Genres are composed of different parts, each with unique functions.
  • They are characterized by content, lexicogrammatical choices, and conventionalized structure.
  • Functional units (phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, images) perform communicative functions and contribute to the text's overall purpose.
  • Functional units can be obligatory (defining the genre) or optional.

Discourse Community and Genre Theory

  • The concept of discourse community explains why some genres are understandable while others are not.
  • Mastering genres requires being part of the discourse community, sharing its goals, lexis, and communication methods.

Analyzing Phrases

  • Analyzing phrases involves identifying greetings and forms used to establish roles and relationships.
  • Example: "Good afternoon students; I’m professor Coccetta."
  • The situation determines the choice of formulae used.

The PSA Genre (Public Service Announcement)

  • Communicative Function: Raising awareness and prompting action on a controversial topic.
  • Specific Style:
    • Short sentences
    • Everyday language
    • Value-neutral words
  • Conventionalized Structure:
    • Message: Main idea
    • Image: Capturing attention
    • Main information: Issue details
    • Contact information: Facilitating involvement
    • Sponsoring organization: Identifying the source
  • Deviations in communicative purpose, structure, or lexicogrammatical features are noted as atypical.
  • Imperative forms are often used to instruct readers.

Discourse Community and Genre Theory (Reiterated)

  • Understanding genres depends on being part of a discourse community with shared goals and communication methods.

Context of Culture

  • Social, cultural, political, historical, and legal factors influencing communication (extra-linguistic level).
  • Specific words can cause cultural distance if not understood across cultures (e.g., "Bacaro tour" in Venice).

Context of Situation

  • The situational environment in which people operate (extra-linguistic level).

Lexicogrammar

  • Choices of lexis, grammar, and syntax made by people (linguistic level).
  • These levels (Context of culture, context of situation, and lexicogrammar) are presented in direction of influence.

General Characteristics - Context of Situation

  • The context of situation influences language form.
  • It is the non-verbal environment of language use.

Three Components of Context of Situation

  • Field, Tenor, and Mode.

Field

  • Refers to what is going on; the nature of the ongoing social activity of the communicative event.
  • First, identify the social activity, then the subject matter, and typical lexical items.
    • Type of social activity taking place
    • Subject matter: What is spoken or written about
    • Ongoing social activity (e.g., buying coffee)
    • What social activity is performed by the interactive participants?
    • Who are the interactive participants involved?

Tenor

  • Who is taking part in the situation; the interactive participants.
    • Social rules (e.g., waiter and customers)
    • Speech rules (e.g., requester vs. giver)
    • Social distance (e.g., maximum social distance)
    • Attitude and stance (e.g., neutral)

Mode

  • How meanings are being exchanged; nature of communication.
    • Channel of communication (e.g., phonic)
    • Medium of communication (e.g., spoken)
    • Rule played by language (e.g., constitutive)
    • Level of spontaneity (e.g., spontaneous)
    • Level of interactivity (e.g., interactive)
  • Determine the text type (informative, expressive, or operative) based on the predominant language function.

Field Analysis

  • The FIELD is the nature of the ongoing social activity of the communicative event.
  • Identify the social activity and subject matter.

A. Social Activity

  • What is the nature of the social activity?
    • What social activity is being performed by the interactive participants?
    • Who are the interactive participants involved?
    • What can you say about the spatial setting?
    • What can you say about the temporal setting?
  • Interactive participants are those who speak and listen or write and read.
  • Be specific when identifying participants.

B. Subject-Matter

  • What is being spoken about?
  • Represented participants: people, places, and things represented in the communication.
    • What are the main notions that appear in the text? Which represent concrete entities, abstract entities, concepts, qualities/characteristics?
    • Organize text’s verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs into topics. Identify semantic domains.
    • Are general or specialized words used? (e.g., Sodium chloride vs. salt)

Tenor Analysis

  • The TENOR refers to the human participants in the communicative event and their relationships, status, discourse roles, and attitudes.
    • Who is taking part in the communicative event? (speaker/writer and addressee)
    • What is their social role? (e.g., professor, student, hotel guest).
  • Social role: the position one holds in a society or group.

Communicative Functions in Interactions

  • Language users enact two speech roles: giving and demanding.
  • They exchange some commodity: information or goods-and-services.
    • Statement (giving information)
    • Question (demanding information)
    • Offer (giving goods-and-services)
    • Command (demanding goods-and-services)
  • Analysis helps identity the text type.

Text Types

  • Speech role and commodity define the basic communicative functions.
    • The most predominant communicative function is identified by analyzing the text to see if it is predominantly indicative (declarative or interrogative), or imperative.
    • Are “goods & services” being given?
    • Are “goods & services” being demanded?
  • What kind of speech role do the interactive participants assume (assert, deny, explain, exhort, promise)?
  • What social distance is there between participants?
    • Lexical choices indicate social closeness: colloquial expressions, terms of endearment, vague expressions, contracted forms, ect.
    • Lexical choices indicate social distance: formal address forms, conventions of politeness, non-contracted forms, etc.
  • Social distance is concerned with the degree of connection between participants.

Perceptions

  • How does the speaker/writer present themselves to the addressee?
  • Do lexical choices indicate expertise, power, authority, or high status?
  • Do participants express opinions and attitudes towards the subject-matter?
  • Do lexical choices convey a positive, neutral, or negative attitude?
  • Do participants temper their messages with expressions of permission, necessity, obligation, or probability?

Mode Analysis

  • The MODE refers to how language is functioning in the communicative event, including the degree of interaction, channel, and medium.
    • What is the channel of communication?
    • phonic (face-to-face, radio, telephone)
    • graphic (book, pamphlet, newspaper, SMS)
    • combination (DVD, Instagram)
    • What is the medium of communication (oral, written, written-to-be-spoken, written-to-be-read)?
  • Is language constitutive (essential) or ancillary (less important)? Are there other semiotic resources (images, gestures)?
  • Is the text spontaneous or carefully elaborated?
  • Does the text display spontaneity?
    • pauses
    • mid-utterance corrections
    • abrupt topic changes
  • Spontaneity is concerned with whether the text was produced “on-the.spot” or not.
    • Spontaneous texts cannot be pre-edited or corrected e.g. casual conversations, etc.
    • Non-spontaneous texts can be pre-edited or corrected e.g. research articles, novels, newspaper articles, etc.
  • Is the text interactive (constructed through interaction) or non-interactive (by one participant)?
  • indicators of interactivity: turn-taking, questions/answers, interruptions, overlaps, hesitations.
  • Give textual evidence for your findings.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

  • English needed for academic tasks.

Student’s perspective

  • attending lectures
  • giving presentations
  • participating in seminars
  • writing essays

Researcher’s perspective

  • giving lectures
  • giving conference presentations
  • writing research papers
  • writing project proposals

Academic Writing Definition

  • The formal writing style used in universities and scholarly publications (research papers, abstracts, essays, dissertations, textbooks).
  • The ways of thinking and using language in academia.
  • Academic discourse is significant because complex social activities like educating students, demonstrating learning, disseminating ideas, and constructing knowledge rely on language.
  • Textbooks, essays, conference presentations, dissertations, lectures, and research articles are central to education and knowledge creation.

Academic discourse can be

  • Research discourse - constructing knowledge (research article, conference presentation, essay, Book reviews…)
  • instructional discourse - educazione students (textbooks, seminare, university letture,…)
  • student discourse - demonstrating learning (vivas, essays, theses, undergraduate dissertations, presentations,…)
  • popular discourse - disseminating knowledge (articles, books, documentaries,…)

Considerations in Academic Writing

  • Audience: Who is your audience (instructor, committee, reviewers, students)?
  • Purpose and audience are interconnected.
    • When the audience knows more than the writer: to display intelligence, familiarity with and expertise in the topic»› common situation for the graduate student writer
    • When the writer knows more than the audience: instructional
  • Organization: Each type of academic genre has writers need to follow.
    • IMRAD structure of research articles (Introduction Materials Results And Dend)
    • CARS model of introduction to research articles
  • If writers do not follow the structural organization of an academic genre, their work will not be accepted by the discourse community.
  • Flow: The movement of one statement in a text to the next; a clear connection of ideas.
    • Logical connectors (e.g. however, furthermore, etc.)
    • Progression from old/given information to new information
  • Style: Academic style differs from one area of study to another.
    • contractions may be used in Philosophy but are not widely used in many other fields
    • I is less commonly used in Computer Science papers but is frequent in Philosophy
  • However, common traits of academic writing exist

Impersonal structures

  • We use it to sound objective, that we are detached from what we write.

It-constructions

  • It is difficult to foresee a significant improvement in the levels of poverty in Liberia while the fighting continues. (cf. I cannot foresee…)
  • It is argued that internationalisation has a positive relationship with the performance of small businesses. (cf. I argue that…)
  • It is clear that the water-gas-shift reaction dominates over the gas composition. (cf. I conclude that…)

Existential there

  • There was no evidence of any weight loss as reported for other marking methods, and most of the tattooed animals did not show any behaviours indicating irritation after being marked. (cf. I found no evidence…)
  • There are a number of conclusions that can be drawn from this comparative study of hospital procedure. (cf. I can draw a number of conclusions…)

Passive voice

  • In passive constructions, the clause begins with the person or thing being acted on or affected by the action ➽ the person or thing being acted on or affected by the action is the topic/theme of the clause Function of the passive voice
    by placing concepts, objects and processes in initial position (i.e. the Theme of the clause), the passive voice allows writers to keep the focus on the something other than the agent Short passive vs. long passive
    “Academic discourse is concerned with generalizations, rather than the specific individuals who carry out an action. If expressed, the agent would be a generic pronoun or noun phrase”.
    E.g. The control group were asked by us/one/researchers to use no bath additives for 12 months. In academic writing the agent is not important ——> the short passive reduces the importance of the agent NP by not mentioning it at all
    The passive voice allows writers to keep the focus on the something other than the agent by placing concepts, objects and processes in initial position (i.e. theme of the clause). In academic discourse often scientists refer to their works.

Third person self-reference

  • This article analyses and critically reflects on how the concept of 'crisis' has tended to feature within prominent debates on 'Crisis of the Liberal International Order.
  • Within such scholarship, the article argues, the concept of crisis most often functions as a technology of crisis management in itself: rather than disrupting narratives and assumptions of liberal progress and order, invocations of crisis within Liberal International Order scholarship tend to recapitulate those same narratives and assumptions.
    To make this case, the article undertakes an immanent critique of how crisis has been understood within debates on the Liberal International Order, drawing on wider critical and social theoretic reflections on 'crisis talk' as the basis for a more critical engagement. Doing so, it seeks to highlight the ways in which Crisis of the Liberal International Order debates constitute a particular way of understanding the relationship between crisis, liberalism and modernity.

Grammatical units

  • Grammatical units are meaningful elements which combine with each other in a structural pattern to form discourse~
  • The types of grammatical units can be graded according to size of unit
  • In the simplest cases, a unit consists of one or more elements on the level below:
    • A sentence consists of one or more clauses
    • A clause consists of one or more phrases
    • A phrase consists of one or more words

Noun phrase

  • The noun phrase (NP) is a grammatical unit built from words, consisting of a noun or a pronoun as head

Noun phrase: Structure

  • There are two types of NPs:
    • the simple NP (determine) + head e.g. people, she, my friends
    • the complex NP determiner + premodification + head + post modification c.g. industrially advanced countries, a market system that has no imperfections
  • Noun + noun sequences are used to express a wide range of meaning relationships in a succinct form.
  • As a result, nouns as premodifiers are especially favoured as a space-saving device.

Examples of logical relations expressed by noun + noun sequences

  • composition (N2 is made from N1; N2 consists of N1) e.g. glass windows = windows made from glass
  • purpose (N2 is for the purpose of N1; N2 is used for N1) e.g. pencil case = case used for pencils
  • content (N2 is about N1; N2 deals with N1) eg. algebra text = a text about algebra

"In academic prose, prepositional phrases as postmodifiers allow a very dense packaging of referential information in a text, typically characterizing non-human entities in relation to other non-human entities. They are more compact than clausal postmodifiers and commonly occur in sequences. The hierarchical embedding relations found with such sequences are often complex. However, they are less compact, and more explicit about the relationships involved, than equivalent sequences of noun premodifiers." Biber et al. (2021: 602)
e.g- {Further evidence of the association of winter egg mortality with sub-zero temperatures and snow cover) was reported by {Riegert (1967a)}.
"[In academic prose], a majority of all noun phrases have some modification. In fact, much of the new information in academic texts occurs in the modifiers in the noun phrases, resulting in a very high density of information." Biber et al. (2002: 268)

  • Complex noun phrases Distribution of NPs with pre and post modifiers in ACAD(emic phrase) c.f. ACAD and CONV Overall, noun phrases with a modifier are relatively rare in conversation
    in the noun phrase you pack a lot of information

Vocabulary

  • English has two (or more) choices to express an action or occurrence
    • a prepositional verb (verb + preposition)
    • a single verb with Latinate origin
  • Written academic style tends to use a single verb where possible, while in lectures and other instances of everyday spoken English the prepositional verb is used
    cf. − Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely implement creative solutions to unexpected problems.
    − Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely put creative solutions to unexpected problems into practice.
  • Informal verbs, nouns and adjectives are usually avoided
    • formal verbs: examine/study (take a look), investigate (look into), omit (leave out)
    • formal nouns: pledge (promise), sibling (brother and sister), premises (building[s])
    • formal adjectives: characteristic (typical), problematic (difficult), correct (right)
  • Contractions are not used
  • ‘General-purpose’ words such as do, have and get are replaced by more specific terminology − Further research will be carried out. (better than …will be done) − The team experienced a number of problems. (better than …had a lot of problems) − Early investigators obtained ambiguous results. (better than …got ambiguous results)

Nominalizations

  • Refers to the preference of nouns over a verb or an adjective to express actions or properties For a more in-depth description of nominalization refer to the PPT entitled ‘English for Special Purposes’ Function of nominalization:
    Nominalization enables writers to…
    …create relationships between things (e.g. cause-and-effect relationships)
    …integrate a considerable amount of information into a NP
    …make their language more impersonal

Discourse Markers

  • Discourse markers (A.K.A. transition signals)…
    …are words and expressions which help structure spoken exchanges and written texts e.g. furthermore, therefore, in conclusion, etc.
    …make the structure of the text clear, thus contributing to a text’s flow(see above)
    DO NOT OVERUSE DISCOURSE MARKERS!
    Too many discourse markers can be distracting rather than helpful. There is no rule about how many to use in one paragraph. Use them only when they will help your reader follow your ideas. USE DISCOURSE MARKERS APPROPRIATE TO THE ACADEMIC WRITTEN REGISTER!
    There are many transition signals, but not all of them can be used in an academic essay. Use a monolingual dictionary to check their context of use.

Collocations

  • Collocations are words which frequently appear together
    e.g. RESEARCH
    verbs collocating with research as object: conduct research, carry out research, publish research, undertake research
    nouns collocating with research as modifier: research evidence, research findings, research methodology, etc.
    adjectives collocating with research: academic research, basic research, considerable research, experimental research, extensive research, qualitative research, quantitative research, etc.
  • Unlike with grammar, it is not possible to define rules for how collocation works (e.g. black and white vs. bianco e nero).
  • A knowledge of collocation is important because it allows you to speak and write more naturally
    Resources to learn collocations, see: Monolingual dictionaries: e.g. https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/research The Academic Collocation List (ACL): https://www.eapfoundation.com/vocab/academic/acl/ SkELL: https://skell.sketchengine.eu/#home?lang=en

Formulaic Expressions

  • Formulaic expressions are fixed or frequently occurring combinations of (three or more) words e.g. on the other hand, due to the fact that, on the basis of the One third of academic writing is formulaic in nature See The Academic Formulas List: https://www.eapfoundation.com/vocab/academic/afl/

ACTIVITY + In this article discussed a framework researches can use to develop tasks (1) - used (2) - It shows (3) - conducted (4) - the paper first presents (5) - these theories were translated (6) - the article look at how the design was implemented in practice (7)

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

  • Definition: developed back in 1990 by linguist John Swales (1990).
  • Swales defined a discourse community as a group of people who have goals and purposes and use communication to achieve their goals ⦿ Discourse communities are not to be associated with academic cliques ⦿ Hobby groups, fandoms, etc. are examples of discourse communities
  • Swales provides six defining characteristics for identifying a group of individual as a discourse community ➡ Has a broadly agreed set of public common goals: members wish to reach the same outcomes from their interactions
    • cancer researchers: finding a cure or a treatment for cancer
    • sports betters: watching a match and making money through gambling on the match
    • army personnel: securing the nation against any threats
  • Has a mechanism of inter-communication among its members: have ways to communicate with each other to share their experiences, ideas, thoughts, problems and solutions
    • Phone calls
    • Blogs
    • Text massages every form of communication facilitating the inter part of intercommunication
  • Uses its participatory mechanism primarily to provide information and feedback: the community exists mostly to exchange information and gain feedback on its efficacy cancer researchers: share their cure with doctors and receive feedback on its efficacy ➡ Utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims: members prefer to share information in a certain way
    • Researcher: research articles and conference presentations
    • Activists: graffiti and murals ➡ Has acquired some specific lexis: members use certain words in a group-specific way
    • Donor: in finance (a person who gives money to help an organization) or in medicine (a person who gives blood or a body organ that can be used in the medical treatment of someone else) > termite cambia a seconda del grippe ➡ Has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise: The community has to have some members, but cannot include everyone.
    • expert members
    • novices
    • aspiring members
      Examples of discourse communities: ❖ Athletes ❖ Students ❖ Professors teaching the same academic level ❖ Fraternities ❖ Musical performers ❖ Activists An analysis the cross-stitch (Punto Croce) discourse community A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY HAS A BROADLY AGREED SET OF PUBLIC COMMON GOALS Members of the cross-stitch community have many goals: Sharing their work-in-progress or completed projects Asking for advice Sharing the frustrations of the craft (even small projects can take hours to complete!)

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY HAS MECHANISMS OF INTERCOMMUNICATION AMONG ITS MEMBERS

  • Members of the cross-stitch community have many methods of communications: blogs social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) discussion board forums

A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY USES ITS PARTICIPATORY MECHANISMS PRIMARILY TO PROVIDE INFORMATION AND FEEDBACK Members of the cross-stitch discourse community…

…ask for and receive advice on projects
…ask for and receive feedback on projects
…ask for and share patterns

A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY UTILIZES AND HENCE POSSESSES ONE OR MORE GENRES IN THE COMMUNICATIVE FURTHERANCE OF ITS AIMS

  • Members of the cross-stitch discourse community utilize various genres to reach their goals: cross-stitch patterns video tutorials A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY HAS ACQUIRED SOME SPECIFIC LEXIS Members of the cross-stitch discourse community use specific lexis, e.g.: floss AIDA fabric cross stitch, half cross, French knot (i.e. types of stitch) A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY HAS A THRESHOLD LEVEL OF MEMBERS WITH A SUITABLE DEGREE OF RELEVANT CONTENT AND DISCOURSAL EXPERTISE
  • Members of the cross-stitch discourse community vary in their expertise: From novice stitchers to more advanced stitchers Are you a member of a discourse community? If so, what are the characteristics of the discourse community you belong to? Are you a member of more than one discourse community? ❖ Get a degree ❖ Understand the lessons ❖ Group chat > communicate thought chat ❖ Lessons and activity ❖ We Interact though lectures and massages ❖ We use a specific Terminology: specify lexis and languages

LANGUAGES FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES AND SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE/COMMUNICATION

  • DEFINITION of Specialized Discourse: Gotti (2003: 24) defines specialised discourse as… The specialist use of language in contexts which are typical of a specialized community stretching across the academic, the professional, the technical and the occupational areas of knowledge and practice
  • DEFINITION OF Languages for Special Purposes (LSPs) are defined as: Languages used to discuss specialized fields of knowledge (i.e. used in domain-specific contexts) Every language has its LSPs: English ➽ English for Special Purposes (ESP) Spanish ➽ Español para fines específicos
    Examples of LSPs ✦ Language of the law ✦ Language of medicine ✦ Language of business ✦ Language of aviation ✦ Ec… According to Garzone: LSPs are usually defined with reference to the professional disciplinary or technical field to which they pertain, e.g. the language of the law, of medicine, of economics, politics, of the car industry, of marketing, etc., with an even more specific area of reference if more delicate distinctions are made in describing the different disciplinary or professional sectors (e.g. the language of pediatrics, of cardiology, of psychiatrics, rather than simply “the language of medicine”, etc.)
    LSPs is the language used to discuss specialized fields of knowledge. LGP Vs LSP LGP: language for general purposes: The language used very day to talk about ordinary things in a variety of common situations asking for directions ordering a meal in a restaurant talking about the weather LSP: language for Special Purposes: The language used to discuss specialized fields of knowledge (i.e. used in domain- specific contexts) An important feature of an LSP is specialized vocabulary (domain-specific terms).
    orienteering competitors commenting on a course a gastronome describing the aesthetics of Italian cuisine two meteorologists discussing the weather But also collocations and formulaic expressions
    All […] subjects can be discussed in a very general way using LGP, and they can also be discussed at a different, more specialized level using LSP
    There is some degree of overlap between LGP and LSP: A lot of general language words show up in LSP conversations e.g. the, it, very, is (as an example, see the explanation of the equation using the LGP of arithmetic in the previous slide)
    There is some degree of overlap between LGP and LSP:
  • Some specialized words make their way into general language through the process of de-terminologization DE-TERMINOLOGIZATION: the process whereby terms that once belonged exclusively to a specialized domain are used in general language (Meyer and Mackintosh, 2000)
  • LSP An important feature of an LSP is specialized vocabulary (i.e. domain-specific terms) e.g. sodium chloride, nitroglycerine in the LSP of chemistry However, “LSP is not simply LGP with a few terms thrown in. An LSP may also have special ways of combining words or of arranging information that differ from LGP” (Bowker and Pearson, 2002: 26) Cf. Halliday and Martin (1993: 4): “[Scientific English] is English with special probabilities attached: a form of English in which certain words, and more significantly certain grammatical constructions, stand out as more highly favoured, while others correspondingly recede and become less highly favoured, than in other varieties of the language” .
  • …but also collocations and formulaic expressions e.g. CARY: This is a hate crime, Your Honor, and we ask that bail be set at $100,000. […] JUDGE: Bond is set at $5,000. And I do suggest that the State reconsider its charge. […] CARY: Your Honor, the People charge Jimal Mifsud with first-degree murder. LSP USERS: Experts > people who have training or experience in the specialized field in question Semi-experts > people who are in the process of learning about the field in question (e.g. students or experts from related fields) Non-experts > people who find themselves in a situation where they must use an unfamiliar LSP (e.g. LSP translators) Levels of LSP communication - 3 Within each single LSP there are different degrees of specialization or technicality depending on: the tenor of discourse of a given communicative event ➽ who is talking to whom? the aim of the communicative event ➽ for what purpose? When experts communicate (e.g. through publications in research journals), they tend to use a highly specialized language. Because these experts share a common background and specialized language, they understand what is meant by specific terms and phrases in the field and do not provide explanations for their readers. Another type of communication takes place between experts and semi-experts, such as students or experts from related fields. In such cases, the experts will probably use the same highly specialized terms that they would use when communicating with another expert from their own field, but they will accompany these terms with explanations where necessary (e.g. in text books). In this way, they help the semi- expert to learn the terms and concepts of the subject field. A third type of communication occurs between experts and non-experts. In this case, the expert will use fewer terms, and may even use general language words to give simplified descriptions of a specialized concept. This is the type of language that can be found in texts such as special interest columns in newspapers. The expert does not expect the non-expert to achieve the same level of understanding of the terms used as long as the general idea is understood. Bowker, Lynne and Pearson, Jennifer (2002). Working with Specialized Language. A Practical Guide to Using Corpora. London and New York: Routledge, p. 28. English for Special Purposes ESP l English for Special (or Specific) Purposes (ESP) is the English used in domain- specific contexts e.g. legal English medical English business English … Each ESP has its distinguishing lexicogrammatical features (in addition to specific vocabulary) ESPs have a common core of distinctive linguistic features Distinctive linguistic features of ESP The linguistic distinctive features of ESP can be found at… l …the lexical level l …the syntactic level l …the textual level l …the pragmatic level l …the generic level LEXICAL FEATURES OF ESP 1. Mono-referentiality semantic uniqueness of the terms used e.g. force EGP ➽ polysemic word 1. violent action: The rioters were taken away by force 2. physical strength: the force of the explosion 3. strong effect: They realized the force of her argument 4. a person/thing with a lot of power/influence: the forces of good/evil ESP ➽ monosemic word 1. (physics) an effect that causes things to move in a particular way: the force of gravity 2. Lack of emotions lack of emotive connotations e.g. lion EGP ➽ associated with qualities,e.g.fierceness,aggressiveness, pride, majesty, etc. ESP ➽ (zoology)a specific felines species 3. Transparency possibility to promptly access a term’s meaning through its surface form:
    • Precision immediate reference of every term to its own concept Every term must point immediately to its own concept Synonyms tend to be avoided because they might create ambiguity
      The use of definitions reinforce precision 5. Conciseness expression of concepts in the shortest possible form 6. Conservatism ONLY IN SOME DISCIPLINES permanence of traditional linguistic traits e.g. legal English archaic forms:whosoever (whoever), thereof (of the thing mentioned), hitherto (until now) lexemes disappeared from EGP:expiration, terminate, upon, etc. special formulae foroaths: I swearby Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth President Biden inaguration: I Joseph Robinette Biden Jr do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President porf ethceisUionnited States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
      SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ESP 1. Omission of phrasal elements Omission function words (e.g. articles, prepositions, auxiliaries) and content words recoverable from the context e.g. Valid for two journeys for one passenger by Stansted Express or WAGN Railway only in either direction between Stansted Airport and London Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale, up to 1 month from date of outward travel. Non-refundable, non-transferable. Conditions of carriage available on request. (Stansted Express – Express class return ticket) This ticket is valid for two journeys for one passenger by Stansted- Express or WAGN Railway only in either direction between Stlaiznastieodn Airport and London Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale, up to 1 month from the date of the outward travel. It is non-refundable, and non-transferable. Conditions of carriage are available on request
      :: 2. Elliptic forms of relative clauses avoidance of relative clauses to make the sentence structure lighter Tungsten is a metal retaining hardness at red-heat. ➽ Tungsten is a metal which retains hardness at red- heat. Pieces of iron left in the rain become rusty ➽ Pieces of iron which are left in the rain become rusty The results thus/so obtained were inaccurate ➽ The results which were obtained in this way were inaccurate. Workable metal ➽Metal which can be worked. Cracking is the process whereby kerosene is extracted. ➽ Cracking is the process by means of which kerosene is extracted. 3. Premodification use of