Languages for Special Purposes

An International Handbook

John Humbley, Gerhard Budin, Christer Laurén

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783110394658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This handbook gives an overview of language for special purposes (LSP) in scientific, professional and other contexts, with particular focus on teaching and training. It provides insights into research paradigms, theories and methods while also highlighting the practical use of LSPs in concrete discourse situations. The volume is transdisciplinary oriented with a firm basis in the language sciences, including terminology, knowledge transfer, multilingual and cross-cultural exchange.

Part I:Fundamental aspects

Maurizio Gotti

1LSP as specialised genres

Maurizio Gotti, Bergamo (Italy)

Abstract: This chapter investigates the evolution of the concept of genre as applied to the field of LSP. After outlining its defining properties, the analysis discusses a few main generic conventions to illustrate the strict codification processes commonly adopted by specialised communities. The principal features of generic organisation are then analysed, together with a few cases of generic differentiation. The chapter also discusses the occurrence of intertextuality and interdiscursivity in specialised genres as well as the main changes brought about by recent technological innovations.

1Introduction

One of the phenomena that most distinguishes specialised discourse is compliance with the textual norms governing the construction of its different genres. There is a close link between each type of specialised text and its organisation, which in turn implies correlations between the conceptual, rhetorical and linguistic features that characterise the text itself. Indeed, genres are the internal communicative mechanisms operating within a group of members of a specific professional community, as well as between these members and society as a whole. Genres do not only provide a conventional framework but also affect textual features and their conceptual and rhetorical development. Specialised communities have a high level of rhetorical sophistication, the keys to which are offered solely to their members. With time, several text types have arisen – some derived from genres used in the general language, others crafted specifically to meet the needs of specialists (e.g., Gotti 2010). The specialised community, as a social entity, has established its own genres and textual rules of interaction for an effective transmission of information among its members and as an effective way of characterising this community as a whole (Martin and Rose 2008).

The notion of genre is complex. Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995) outline some of the theoretical criteria that may be adopted to frame this concept:

–Genres are dynamic entities, as they continuously evolve and change as a consequence of the socio-cultural needs of the various communities.

–Genre competence implies knowledge of the appropriateness of a text in relation to a specific situation in terms of both form and content.

–Genres are not only constitutive of social structures, but at the same time they are a reproduction of such structures.

–Genres are the manifestation of the conventions of specific communities as they share their typical interests, purposes and common knowledge. It is the actions of the community that shape specialised genres and it is those genres what community members need for constructing and disseminating new specialised knowledge. According to the social constructionist hypothesis (Brodkey 1987), disciplinary communities are at the same time both originators and outcomes of their discourse.

–Genres are situated manifestations of discourse as they presuppose that full utterances should be interpreted within the rhetorical framework that the texts display. Devitt (2004: 31) explains that a “genre is a reciprocal dynamic within which individuals’ actions construct and are constructed by recurring context of situation, context of culture, and context of genres”.

Genre analysis has focused on language as action (Miller 1984), showing how rhetorical conventions relate to the communicative purpose of both the overall text and its different sections. Indeed, the communicative rationale “shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style” (Swales 1990: 58). In the last few years the constructionist approach has gained momentum in the area of specialised discourse studies, with the rising interest in the role played by personal interactions in the elaboration and application of specialised texts, particularly in the contexts of law, banking, education and international organizations (Gotti 2013; Breeze, Gotti, Sancho-Guinda 2014; Sarangi and Slembrouck 2014).

Generic knowledge is acquired within specialised communities through “a set of differentiated, sequenceable goal-directed activities drawing upon a range of cognitive and communicative procedures relatable to the acquisition of pre-genre and genre skills appropriate to a foreseen or emerging sociorhetorical situation” (Swales 1990: 76). Such skills constitute a ‘genre literacy’ (Cope and Kalantzis 1993; Neeley 2005) which distinguishes the more expert, senior members of a community from junior members and newcomers, in their role of recipients as well as producers of specialised discourse. Through training and engagement, specialists learn to implement the conventions associated with different types of text (Dressen-Hammouda 2008), and the conventional use of genres produces a ‘horizon of expectation’ (Todorov 1990) among their audience.

Genre analysis has become firmly established as one of the most popular approaches to the study of academic and professional discourse. In its initial phase, it was used especially for the description of variations in texts geared to language learning and teaching programmes (Swales 1990; Bhatia 1991, 1993). As such, the main emphasis was on the analysis of linguistic form, although the basis of genre theory has always been the relationship between text and context, viewed both as what surrounds a text and as what makes a particular genre possible in specific contexts.

In recent years, however, genre theory has taken a closer interest in context understood in its broader sense, paying particular attention to interactions depending not only on generic form and content, but more importantly on how genres are constructed, interpreted and exploited for the achievement of specific goals in specialised contexts. These relatively new concerns have driven genre theory in the direction of a more comprehensive, powerful, multidimensional framework capable of handling not only texts but also contexts in a more meaningful manner (Smart 1998; Swales 1998, 2004; Bhatia 2004). In this sense, the emphasis has almost been reversed, with the context generally attracting more attention in the description of specialised genres. Moreover, recent years have seen a growth in linguistic research of a sociological or anthropological nature, seeking to reconstruct the interactional dimension of the main genres employed by disciplinary communities, institutional bodies and the professions. Bhatia (2008a) has argued for the integration of the analysis of typical characteristics of professional genres with the investigation of the nature of professional practice. Moreover, he has suggested the adoption of a “complex and dynamic multiperspective and multidimensional analytical framework” which would enable ESP researchers and practitioners to “bridge the gap between the ideal world of classroom and the real world of professional practice” (Bhatia 2008a:171).

More recently, a newer perspective has emerged in genre studies, a product of Bhatia’s own evolution in the way to contemplate genre theory: Critical Genre Analysis, resulting from the fusion of two fields, Genre Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis (Bhatia 2012, 2016). Within this new line, Bhatia advocates an approach to the study of genre language as critical discourse, language as social control, and language in and as social interaction, focusing in particular on a multidimensional methodological framework where interdiscursivity and asymmetrical power relations are seen as ways of ‘demystifying’ professional practice through the medium of genres.

2Generic codification

Generic conventions are followed very closely in specialised texts, even when the reasons underpinning certain features no longer exist. An example of this phenomenon is the textual construction of English legal documents. In recent contracts it is increasingly common to divide a text into numbered sections, with more punctuation and spaces between sections, but in many instances these devices are either omitted or occur only occasionally. This is due to a custom established before the invention of printing: writing across each line from margin to margin, without any punctuation, to avoid additions or alterations of the original meaning. Such conventions have in part survived to this day, although printing makes text alteration far more difficult.

Textual standardisation occurs in all disciplinary fields and is strongest when a text is not free-standing but is the redrafting of an earlier text, incorporating all data reflecting the new conditions. This is the method followed for drafting legal contracts which, as they serve a range of recurring codified situations governed by specific norms, are often based on pre-printed forms with spaces for the parties’ names and special clauses to meet individual requirements. Even when printed forms are avoided, the alternative is a checklist of textual provisions, from which the user can draw those required in a given situation. This custom is confirmed by Kurzon’s following statement:

The texts of contracts, wills and deeds are never written afresh every time a lawyer has to draw one up. The lawyer uses what are called in the profession ‘formbooks’, in which documents or paragraphs of documents are set out, and it is up to the lawyer to choose the appropriate paragraph or paragraphs for the particular document s/he is drawing up. All the lawyer has to add to these documents are the personal particulars of the person or persons. (Kurzon 1989: 284–285)

A similar case is found in business correspondence, with the main types of letter generally grouped into categories according to their pragmatic function: enquiries, offers, orders, complaints, reminders, etc. Each category follows a standard pattern, with certain sections arranged in a set sequence. Besides the structure shared by all business letters – with an opening (sender’s and receiver’s addresses, date, reference numbers, salutation), a body (containing the letter’s main content) and a closing section (greetings, signature and reference to attachments) – there is a conventional pattern for each type of letter. For example, an order for goods is generally organised as follows:

1. reference to a previous offer;
2. order for the goods required;
3. instructions concerning packing, delivery, insurance, etc;
4. specification of the method of payment preferred.

Business letters do not normally require much creative effort on the writer’s part, because the sender tends to use standardised letter formulae stored in his computer files; these are customised by adding details about the transaction concerned. The standardisation of business communication also makes texts shorter, more concise and comprehensible to the reader – a key factor in specialised transactions and global communication. Commenting on this important link between pragmatic transparency and textualisation in business correspondence, Ghadessy and Webster make the following remark:

The purpose of almost every business letter is to evoke some material and immediate response or action. A letter of enquiry or adjustment, an application for a position, a collection letter, a sales letter – all are designed to get something done. For this reason business writing is often spoken of as PERSUASIVE WRITING. In business writing the use of language must be governed by the results aimed at; it must be designed to create the proper impression upon the recipient, and thus to evoke the proper action, response and result. Another important point is that business letters are likely to get a more rapid reading than the works of literature. Consequently the business writer tries to compress his message so that it will be immediately and unmistakably clear. There must be no chance of its being misunderstood. He must prepare his letter for the eye as well as the brain. (Ghadessy and Webster 1988: 112, original emphasis)

Also within the broad academic community, the various communities of practice – the so-called ‘academic tribes’ (Becher 1989) – have defined specific rules of social interaction and interactional procedures strictly linked with their own particular research practices (Berkenkotter, Bhatia and Gotti 2012; Gotti and Guinda 2013). Moreover, they have codified the varying discourse processes and dialogic conventions relating to the different written/spoken generic formulations typical of the various contexts of their practice (e.g. abstracts, academic lectures, conference presentations, PhD dissertation defences, research articles, seminars, etc). Research articles are viewed as persuasive artefacts, generally following a logico-argumentative model and employing suitable linguistic devices to perform the different rhetorical functions that constitute the various parts (or ‘moves’) of the text.

Tourism is one of the fields which have undergone some of the greatest developments over recent years, involving the use of the latest technologies and means of communication as well as the employment of thousands of people, from travel agency clerks to tour operators, from tour guides to accommodation and transport personnel. Even in the world of tourism, however, textual genres are highly codified (Gotti, Maci and Sala 2017). The most typical are the following:

–Tourist guides – Aimed at the traveller or visitor, they usually contain descriptions of places (history,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• Part I: Fundamental aspects
• Part II: LSPs in different domains and language communities
• Part III: Corporate and controlled communication
• Part IV: Science communication
• Part V: Terminology and multilingual domain communication
• Index