English for Specific Purposes: What does it mean? Why is it different?

Laurence Anthony
Dept. of Information and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
Okayama University of Science, 1-1 Ridai-cho, Okayama 700, Japan
anthony 'at' ice.ous.ac.jp
1. Growth of ESP
From the early 1960's, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one
of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today. Its development is reflected in the
increasing number of universities offering an MA in ESP (e.g. The University of
Birmingham, and Aston University in the UK) and in the number of ESP courses
offered to overseas students in English speaking countries. There is now a wellestablished international journal dedicated to ESP discussion, "English for Specific
Purposes: An international journal", and the ESP SIG groups of the IATEFL and
TESOL are always active at their national conferences.
In Japan too, the ESP movement has shown a slow but definite growth over the past
few years. In particular, increased interest has been spurred as a result of the
Mombusho's decision in 1994 to largely hand over control of university curriculums
to the universities themselves. This has led to a rapid growth in English courses aimed
at specific disciplines, e.g. English for Chemists, in place of the more traditional
'General English' courses. The ESP community in Japan has also become more
defined, with the JACET ESP SIG set up in 1996 (currently with 28 members) and the
JALT N-SIG to be formed shortly. Finally, on November 8th this year the ESP
community came together as a whole at the first Japan Conference on English for
Specific Purposes, held on the campus of Aizu University, Fukushima Prefecture.
2. What is ESP?
As described above, ESP has had a relatively long time to mature and so we would
expect the ESP community to have a clear idea about what ESP means. Strangely,
however, this does not seem to be the case. In October this year, for example, a very
heated debate took place on the TESP-L e-mail discussion list about whether or not
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) could be considered part of ESP in general. At
the Japan Conference on ESP also, clear differences in how people interpreted the
meaning of ESP could be seen. Some people described ESP as simply being the
teaching of English for any purpose that could be specified. Others, however, were
more precise, describing it as the teaching of English used in academic studies or the
teaching of English for vocational or professional purposes.
At the conference, guests were honored to have as the main speaker, Tony DudleyEvans, co-editor of the ESP Journal mentioned above. Very aware of the current
confusion amongst the ESP community in Japan, Dudley-Evans set out in his one

hour speech to clarify the meaning of ESP, giving an extended definition of ESP in
terms of 'absolute' and 'variable' characteristics (see below).
Definition of ESP (Dudley-Evans, 1997)
Absolute Characteristics
1. ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners
2. ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves
3. ESP is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar,
lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre.
Variable Characteristics
1. ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines
2. ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of
General English
3. ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or
in a professional work situation. It could, however, be for learners at secondary school
level
4. ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students.
5. Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems
The definition Dudley-Evans offers is clearly influenced by that of Strevens (1988),
although he has improved it substantially by removing the absolute characteristic that
ESP is "in contrast with 'General English'" (Johns et al., 1991: 298), and has included
more variable characteristics. The division of ESP into absolute and variable
characteristics, in particular, is very helpful in resolving arguments about what is and
is not ESP. From the definition, we can see that ESP can but is not necessarily
concerned with a specific discipline, nor does it have to be aimed at a certain age
group or ability range. ESP should be seen simple as an 'approach' to teaching, or
what Dudley-Evans describes as an 'attitude of mind'. This is a similar conclusion to
that made by Hutchinson et al. (1987:19) who state, "ESP is an approach to language
teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's
reason for learning".
3. Is ESP different to General English?
If we agree with this definition,, we begin to see how broad ESP really is. In fact, one
may ask 'What is the difference between the ESP and General English approach?'
Hutchinson et al. (1987:53) answer this quite simply, "in theory nothing, in practice a
great deal". When their book was written, of course, the last statement was quite true.
At the time, teachers of General English courses, while acknowledging that students
had a specific purpose for studying English, would rarely conduct a needs analysis to

find out what was necessary to actually achieve it. Teachers nowadays, however, are
much more aware of the importance of needs analysis, and certainly materials writers
think very carefully about the goals of learners at all stages of materials production.
Perhaps this demonstrates the influence that the ESP approach has had on English
teaching in general. Clearly the line between where General English courses stop and
ESP courses start has become very vague indeed.
Rather ironically, while many General English teachers can be described as using an
ESP approach, basing their syllabi on a learner needs analysis and their own specialist
knowledge of using English for real communication, it is the majority of so-called
ESP teachers that are using an approach furthest from that described above. Instead of
conducting interviews with specialists in the field, analyzing the language that is
required in the profession, or even conducting students' needs analysis, many ESP
teachers have become slaves of the published textbooks available, unable to evaluate
their suitability based on personal experience, and unwilling to do the necessary
analysis of difficult specialist texts to verify their contents.
4. The Future of ESP
If the ESP community hopes to grow and flourish in the future, it is vital that the
community as a whole understands what ESP actually represents. Only then, can new
members join with confidence, and existing members carry on the practices which
have brought ESP to the position it has in EFL teaching today. In Japan in particular,
ESP is still in its infancy and so now is the ideal time to form such a consensus.
Perhaps this can stem from the Dudley-Evans' definition given in this article but I
suspect a more rigorous version will be coming soon, in his book on ESP to be
published in 1998. Of course, interested parties are also strongly urged to attend the
next Japan Conference on ESP, which is certain to focus again on this topic.

A Brief Introduction to Stylistics By:Dr.K.T.KHADER What Is Stylistics? Stylistics is the

science which explores how readers interact with the language of (mainly literary)
texts in order to explain how we understand, and are affected by texts when we
read them. Stylistics is the scientific study of style, which can be viewed in several
ways. More technically, stylistics is the study of the linguistic features of a literary
text _ phonological, lexical, syntactical _which directly affects the meaning of an
utterance. The variety in stylistics is due to the main influences of linguistics &
literary Stylistics, then, is a sub-discipline which grew up in the second half of the
twentieth century: Its beginnings in Anglo-American criticism are usually traced
back to the publication of the books listed below: Fowler, Roger, Essays on Style in
Language. Freeman, Donald, Linguistics and Literary Style. Leech, Geoffrey, A
Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. Sebeok, Thomas , Style in Language. These books
are collections of articles, some of which were either: 1_ Conference papers OR
2_Articles published in journals. Perhaps the most influential article is: (Closing
statement: Linguistics and poetics) By Roman Jacobson who is an important figure
who contributed in the development of Stylistics. Therefore ,stylistics is concerned
with the examination of grammar, lexis, semantics, as well as phonological
properties and discursive devices .It might seem that the same issues are
investigated by sociolinguistics , and indeed that is the case, however
sociolinguistics analyses the above mentioned issues seen as dependant on the
social class, gender ,age ,etc , while stylistics is more interested in the significance
of function that the style fulfills Stylistics examines oral and written texts in order
to determine crucial characteristic linguistic properties, structures and patterns
influencing perception of the texts. Thus, it can be said that this branch of linguistics
is related to discourse analysis , in particular critical discourse analysis , and
pragmatics. Owing to the fact that at the beginning of the development of this study
the major part of the stylistic investigation was concerned with the analysis of
literary texts it is sometimes called literary linguistics, or literary stylistics.
Nowadays, however, linguists study various kinds of texts, such as manuals,
recipes, as well as novels and advertisements . It is vital to add here that none of
the text types is discriminated and thought to be more important than others .In
addition to that , in the recent year so called ' media-discourses' such as films, news
reports, song lyrics and political speeches have all been within the scope of interest
of stylistics. The Development of Stylistics The development of Stylistics, given that
it combines the use of linguistic analysis with the psychological processes involved
in reading. In the twentieth century Stylistics can be seen as a logical extension of
moves within literary criticism to concentrate on studying texts rather than authors.
While in Nineteenth century literary criticism concentrated on the author, and the
text-based criticism of the two British critics Richards and William Empson who
rejected that approach and replaced it with the other approach called Practical
criticism. In many respects , however , stylistics is close to literary criticism and
practical criticism . by far the most common kind of material studied is literary , and
attention is largely text centered . Practical criticism concentrates on the literary

texts themselves, and how readers were affected by those texts. In addition
Practical criticism is matched by a similar critical movement in the USA called New
criticism. What is New Criticism? New Criticism is based on the description of
literary works as independent aesthetic objects. Practical Criticism and New
Criticism share two important features: 1_An emphasis on the language of the text
rather than its author. 2_An assumption that what criticism needed was accounts of
important work of literature based on the intuitional reading outcomes of trained
and aesthetically sensitive critics. Although both practical and new criticism pay too
much attention to the effect of the text on the readers, yet from the stylisticians
point of view, it is not enough to criticize a text because intuition is not enough and
we must analyze the text in detail. Roman Jacobson who is a member of the Russian
Formalists is one of the most influential linguists on stylistics for two reasons: 1_For
his academic brilliance. 2_Because he linked various schools of linguistics together.
Roman Jacobson moved from Moscow to Prague and joined the Prague Structuralists
Circle who were interested and affected by his views. Later he moved to the USA
where he carried his approach with him, which is now called STYLISTICS. Types of
Stylistics: Stylistics is sometime called confusingly literary stylistics or linguistic
stylistics. Linguistic stylistics the purest form of stylistics in that its practitioners
attempt to derive from the study of style and language variation The most recent
studies in linguistic stylistics have tended to focus on applications of studies in
discourse analysis and narrative organization to literary text study. Burton
(1980,1982)employs models for spoken discourse analysis based on Sinclair and
Coulthard (1975)for the analysis of drama dialogue Short (1981) use analysis
based on Gricean and speech act theory. Carter and Simpson (1982) use narrative
models based on Labov (1972). Fowler (1981; 1982) exploits Hallidayan models
from within systematic linguistics Literary stylistics: established methods of close
reading or practical criticism of texts, the procedures of literary stylistics remain
traditional in character in spite of development in literary theory (e.g. post structuralism) which challenge assumptions about the role of language in depicting
literary realities .