Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

LA UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA

UNIT 2
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE ENGLISH
FOR PROFESSIONAL
AND ACADEMIC
PURPOSES
PROFA. NELISA TALES

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

01/09/2009

Objetivo general:
Identificar las caractersticas principales del Ingls Profesional
Acadmico.
UNIT 2

CARACTERSTICAS DEL INGLS PROFESIONAL Y

ACADMICO

Lead in.
A. Discuss with your partners about the following words in
the table. Take notes in Spanish about the ideas
discussed.
Asset Assessment
Budget Bytes
Consumption Cup
Deal Deposit
Economy Expectation
Financial Flow
Game Gains
High Hold
Investment Inventory
Journal Jam
Kilobyte Key
Legal Loans
Management Money
National Net
Organization Output
Product Purchase
Quality Quest
Return Rates
Savings Software

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

Taxes terms
Unit Unequally
Values Vehicle
Watt Warranty
X-rays Xylophone
Yield Yellow
Zone Zinc
B. Now, separate the words according to the area you think they belong to.

Technology Economics Electricity Mechanics General

vocabulary

C. Brainstorming. From the previous exercise, try to think why the words

from the above chart belong to different areas. Take notes in Spanish.

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Task 1. Read the following text and specify the following information about it.

Do it in Spanish.

A. Title:

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

B. Subtitles:

C. ESP area:

D. Presentation:

E. General idea:

Investment
1 Investment or investing is a term with several closely-related meanings in business
management, finance and economics, related to saving or deferring consumption.
Investing is the active redirection of resources: from being consumed today, to
5 creating benefits in the future; the use of assets to earn income or profit. An
investment is a choice by an individual or an organization such as a pension fund,
after at least some careful analysis or thought, to place or lend money in a vehicle
(e.g. property, stock securities, bonds) that has sufficiently low risk and provides the
possibility of generating returns over a period of time. Placing or lending money in a
10 vehicle that risks the loss of the principal sum or that has not been thoroughly
analyzed is, by definition speculation, not investment.

In the case of investment, rather than store the good produced or its money
equivalent, the investor chooses to use that good either to create a durable
consumer or producer good, or to lend the original saved good to another in
15 exchange for either interest or a share of the profits. In the first case, the individual
creates durable consumer goods, hoping the services from the good will make his
life better. In the second, the individual becomes an entrepreneur using the resource
to produce goods and services for others in the hope of a profitable sale. The third
case describes a lender, and the fourth describes an investor in a share of the
20 business. In each case, the consumer obtains a durable asset or investment, and
accounts for that asset by recording an equivalent liability. As time passes, and both
prices and interest rates change, the value of the asset and liability also change.

An asset is usually purchased, or equivalently a deposit is made in a bank, in hopes

of getting a future return or interest from it. The word originates in the Latin "vestis",
25 meaning garment, and refers to the act of putting things (money or other claims to
resources) into others' pockets. The basic meaning of the term being an asset held

30

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

to have some recurring or capital gains. It is an asset that is expected to give returns
without any work on the asset per se. The term "investment" is used differently in
economics and in finance. Economists refer to a real investment (such as a machine
or a house), while financial economists refer to a financial asset, such as money that
is put into a bank or the market, which may then be used to buy a real asset.

1. SINTAX IN ESP

TRANSITIVITY: It refers to the way a

sentence analyzes the situations and
events from reality following specific
and pre-established types and rules. It
is one of the most important tools o
represent reality through language. TPASSIVIZATION: The use of the
Every sentence is formed by a passive verbal mode, as a
predicate to describe the process or grammatical resource in scientific and
state of the situations and each technical texts, is used in order to
predicate goes with one or more hide the agent of the actions; that is,
arguments (nominal syntagms) the identity of the person who
representing the entities in the real performs the action and to make
emphasis on he effect or result of
such action. This process is part of
the universality of science. Example:
Plans to privatize water dropped.
NOMINALIZATION: This linguistic
resource reduces to substantive a
whole sentence. It is done through
the conversion resource of a verb
into a name or the derivation
resource using suffixes such as al,
-ing, -ism, -ment sion, -ion, -ure,
etc., specially with words with Latin
origin: They established new rules =
The establishment of the new rules. PERSONIFICATION: It consists
in assigning human or agent
qualities of an action to the
results of that action; that is,
LONG NOMINAL SYNTAGMS: The
assigning animate features to
linguistic units that offer spaces
inanimate things. Examples:
inserting attributes to the subjects
show, suggest, etc. This resource
of the sentences with the purpose of
is used to show the action
agglutinating in one linguistic unit
performed by the object hiding
most of the conceptual notes of
the agent of the action as in the
those subjects. Example: Two
example: The present results
identical, internally synchronous 5-
demonstrate that
stage Johnson decade counters.
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Adapted from: Alcarz, E. (2002)
 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

Task 2. Read the previous information and then find examples of those
resources (Transitivity, passivization, nominalization, personification and long
nominal syntagms) in the given text.

A. Transitivity:
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B. Passivization:
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C. Nominalization:
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D. Personification:
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E. Long nominal syntagms:
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Task 3. Read the text again and give a general idea of the theme discussed.
Do it in Spanish.

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2. VOCABULARY IN ESP

Task 4. Answer the following questions in Spanish and then, read the
information in the next page.
1. What is a vocabulary?

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

2. What is lexis?

TECHNICAL
VOCABULARY: Words like
software, meningitis, that
are monosemic; that is,
SEMI TECHNICAL
they do not have synonyms,
VOCABULARY: Lexical units
ambiguities. They have a
from the common language
defined meaning.
that have acquired one or Adapted from: Alcarz, E.
other various meanings in a (2002)
specific area or field, that is,
polysemic, as an example, the
word defence in laws can have
several meanings.
Adapted from: Alcarz, E. (2002)

Task 5. Write down the words from the text considered as technical and sub
technical vocabulary.
TECHNICAL VOCABULARY: SEMI TECHNICAL VOCABULARY

When looking for

the meaning of a
word or sentence
there are some
aspects to take
into
consideration.

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

3. LEXIS AND MEANING IN ESP

MEANING

meaning /mi:nI/ n 1 [U,C] what is referred to or indicated by eg sounds,

words or signals: Sounds and patterns that convey meaning a word with
several meanings. 2 [U] a serious important or useful quality; purpose: My
life seems to have lost all meaning. IDM not know the meaning of the
word= know.
meaning adj [usu attrib] intended to communicate sth that is not directly
express: a meaning look/glance.
meaningful /fl/ adj 1 having some serious, important or useful quality: a
meaningful relationship/discussion. 2 (a) intended to communicate sth
that is not directly express: a meaningful look/pause. (b) having
meaning(1): meaningful sounds/utterances. meaningfully /-fli/ adv.
meaningfulness n [U].
meaningless adj 1 without sense, purpose or reason: meaningless
word/statement. meaninglessly adv. meaninglessness n [U].
Adapted from: Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 1998.

DEFINITION: a resource that allows knowing the meaning

of a lexical unit. In the technical and scientific discourse
there are words that define specific characteristics or
introduce differences. Adverbs such as usually,
normally, etc., function as definition words.
DENOTATION: an affirmation referring to reality, physic
world and to the human experiences, for example,
human values.
CONNOTATION: an additional meaning given to a lexical
unit. It is formed by suggestions, affective values related
to the human feelings. It is influence by the context and
the communities. There are negative connotations:
cheap (business) could be interpreted as not having a

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

REFERENCE: the relation of a word with extra linguistic

elements, things, properties and situations. Example:
income it is related to money.
LEXICAL RELATIONS: words like stormy, rainy, damp, dry,
hot, are frequently used in texts related to weather as
income, profit, expenses belong to the lexis of business.
POLYSEMIC WORDS: words that have several meaning. This
is a characteristic of semi technical vocabulary. Polysemic
words help to create different senses and connotations.
Example: study.
MONOSEMIC WORDS: words that have only one meaning.
Example: H2O.
HOMONYM WORDS: words that have the same graphs but
have different meanings: mint (plant), mint (an

Task 6. In the following box there are some words taken from the text. Use
your dictionary. (Write down the ideas in Spanish).

A. Identify some of the previous characteristics (definition, denotation,

connotation, reference, lexical relation, polysemy, monosemy, and
homonymy) in each one.

1. investment (l.1) 7. good (l.11)

2. business (l.1) 8. investor (l.12)
3. resources (l.3) 9. durable (l.12)
4. fund (l.5) 10. interest (l.14)
5. money (l.6) 11. sale (l.17)
6. risk (l.7) 12. accounts for (l.20)

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

B. Identify the function each one of them has in the text and find their
equivalents in Spanish. Example: saving (l.1) is a noun (n) and means
ahorro.
Word Function/ Word Function/
Meaning Meaning
1. investment (l.1) 7. good (l.11)
2. business (l.1) 8. investor (l.12)
3. resources (l.3) 9. durable (l.12)
4. fund (l.5) 10. interest (l.14)
5. money (l.6) 11. sale (l.17)
6. risk (l.7) 12. accounts for (l.20)

Task 7. Find possible synonyms for each of the following words in the text
and identify their grammatical category.

Word Synonym(s)
a. investment
b. capital
c. benefits
d. dangerous
e. fiscal

Task 8. Now, read the whole text and write the equivalent in Spanish for the
following phrases.

a. active redirection (l.2) c. prices and interest rates (l.21)

b. the original saved good (l.13) d. some recurring or capital gains (l.26)
c. durable consumer goods (l.15) e. real investment (l.21)
Task 9. Now, paraphrase the content of the reading in your own words. Do it
in Spanish.

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 Unidad II: Caractersticas del Ingls Profesional y Acadmico

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