AN INTRODUCTION TO ESP

What is ESP?
 Acronym that stands for
English (for) Special Purposes
In what way
“special”?
Useful acronyms
EOP English for Occupational Purposes
EST English for Science and Technology
EAP English for Academic Purposes
ESP English for Special/ Specific Purposes
LSP Language for Special/ Specific Purposes

English for “occupational” purposes

 There are very few jobs today (worldwide) that don’t require at least basic active and
passive language skills in English
 For some professions, only a basic knowledge of English is required (B1 of the CEF, or
intermediate) --> also depends on which level of career the worker wants to attain
 For some other professions, it is legally required for the worker to have a certain level of
proficiency in English, which is formally tested
ICAO
 Minimum level required to work --> 4 ( =B2 of the CEF)
 They test you every 3 years --> unless you demonstrate native/ near-native competence in
the test (C2) – level 6. If you have an advanced command of English (ICAO 5 = C1), they
test you every 6 years.
 Cabin crew --> required “fluency in English + at least other 2 languages, including
mothertongue (no formal testing, but they don’t hire you if you’re below B2+!!!).
Language variability [important]
Axes of variation
Diatopic Geography
Diastratic Social class/ group
Diamesic Medium
Diatypic Contextual Configuration (CC)

Diatopic, Diastratic & Diatypic

Dialects Diatypic
Not only regional (diatopic variation), but Register [La variabilità diatipica riguarda il
also SOCIAL (diastratic variation) registro, dipende dal contesto culturale e
circostanziale]

M.A.K. Halliday (1978) à “Dialect = variety according to the user;

Register = variety according to the use”
 Dialects differ Registers differ
 Lexico-grammatically  Semantically
 Phonologically
Variation of dialects reflects diversity of Variation of registers reflects diversity of
 SOCIAL PROCESS
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Registers are typically associated with a
Dialects have their own LEXICO-GRAMMAR
particular TERMINOLOGY

Register
 In Sociolinguistics, it concerns the communicatives roles of the participants (this is why in
Sociolinguistics you can refer to “formal”, “colloquial”, “bureaucratic” etc. registers)
Register is tied to a sociocultural environment

REGISTER
 In SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics), it concerns the CONTEXT OF SITUATION
defined by:
 FIELD
 TENOR: relationship between the participants
 MODE: role of language
[in italiano si grammaticalizza il rapporto tra i partecipanti]
“All language functions in contexts of situation, and is relatable to those contexts ... The notion of
register is thus a form of prediction: given that we know the situation, the social context of
language use, we can predict a great deal about the language that will occur ... The important
theoretical question then is: what exactly do we need to know about the social context in order to
make such predictions?” (Halliday, 1978: 32)

THE SEMIOTIC STRUCTURE OF THE REGISTER à 3 COMPONENTS

 FIELD What is going on?
 TENOR Who is taking part?
 MODE What is the channel of communication? / role of language?

• FIELD
“The total event in which the text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of the speaker
or writer” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 22)
Field à the IDEATIONAL component (what is going on?)
Field determines the TRANSITIVITY patterns of a text (e.g. types of processes, choice of
vocabulary etc.)
What is “transitivity”?
(i) the process itself
(ii) the participants in the process
(iii) the circumstances associated with the process
 The process is realized by a verbal group,
  the participant(s) by (a) nominal group(s)
 the circumstance(s) by (an) adverbial group(s) or prepositional phrase(s)

Patterns of transitività Example

• TENOR
“[it] refers to the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations, permanent or
temporary, among the participants involved”
Tenor à the INTERPERSONAL component (who is taking part? What is the relationship
between them?)
Tenor determines the patterns of MOOD and MODALITY (modal verbs such as can, could, shall,
should) (in spoken language, it is also very much responsible for the choice of INTONATION)
Even grammar English.

• MODE
“[it] is the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the channel taken by the
language – spoken or written, extempore or prepared – and its genre, or rhetorical mode, as
narrative, didactic, persuasive, ‘phatic communion’ and so on”
Mode à the TEXTUAL component (What part does language play?)
Mode determines the patterns of COHESION (not only structural, but semantic, the entire range of
text-forming relations)
Activity sequence=what’s happen next?
Before you know you have to see.
Interpersonal meaning in promotional texts
Main factors:
a) Affection (love, feelings, intimacy...)
b) Status (money, prestige, quality of life...) “If you’ll buy it you’ll become rich”
c) Contact (formality/ informality; e.g. ads that are designed to be entertaining vs. ads that aim
at moving the public emotionally etc..).

Examples of strategies adopted by advertisements:

“The cheque for the new car arrived in a flash”

 it is not specific
 people with sport car
 they gave you reason
 you have a picture à a way (MODE) to communicate the
message

“In Paris, it’s the Ritz. In New York, it’s the Plaza. In Madison,
it’s… Campus Inn”.
 If you have money to go to Ritz, come here too
 They say, here’s very expensive
“Revived, Refined, Remarkable”
[New, extraordinary, amazing]
 Alliteration [rotacismo (r, r, r) in Ita]

“Eternity Moment”
 They chose to not describe the moment
 They use a testimonial
 Luxury product

“Two month’s salary”.

“If she really loved you, would she expect you to spend that
much on her?”
This advertisement wasn’t set on the Italian market, probably
because couldn’t work with the people and even for the
difference between the salary.

They don’t say how much it costs

 They expect you’ve already travel a lot
 It’s very important the adjective new. The
adjective are lexical boots
 They have a special project: mini-sweets on board
 They don’t use mail anymore because there are spam
filters.

 It has the text

 There are picture of people
 The colour of blue is often used in advertising
 This advertisement plays on affects, family
 It is oriented towards immigrants
 They suggest to use the product

Most advertisements play on:

o Making laugh or felling sad
o Affects
o Money, success

 They encourage you to eat fruit and vegetables

 It is a promotion they make a suggestion
 Infomercial [information + commercial]
[Crouch=the sound made when you eat an apple]
 Episcopal church advertising
 It’s an advertisement of a church
 IRS = international revenue service [agenzia delle
entrate]
 There’s a structure
 Faith
 It is on a manager magazine
 The ads is towards the employee and the managers, all
the upper-class people who work in those skyscrapers

 Presidential campaign
 This ad is for collecting money
 They use blue (peace, calm, tranquillity)
It plays on:
 Affections
 Family
 Strength
 The structure is easy to understand

TYPICAL DIFFICULTIES OF ESP

 interlocking definitions (tautology=circular definition)
 technical taxonomies: word’s that you don’t use
 special expressions: related to a discipline. They’re about terminology (a branch of linguistic)
 lexical density: a context difficult to follow expresses in details
 grammatical metaphor: a metaphor where the variation is the grammatical form
 syntactic ambiguity: what kind of relationship there is between the parts which form a
sentence
 semantic discontinuity: they take lots of things for granted, those who don’t have a
background can’t understand.
“a set of interrelated phenomena: features which tend to go together in modern scientific writing
forming a kind of syndrome by which we recognize that something is written in the language of
science” (Halliday, 1989) [very important!]
More you understand a language more you have power.