PAPER

English for Specific Purposes

Intended to fulfill one of the course assignments

THE ORIGIN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESP

Lecturer :

Anindita Badianti, M. Pd.

By :

1. Carina Fasca Yuliastiningrum ( 12203173003 )

2. Nanda Ni’matuz Zulin ( 12203173201 )
3. Muhammad Maliki Rozak ( 12203173214 )

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHING EDUCATION
ISLAMIC STATE INSTITUTE OF TULUNGAGUNG
AUGUST 2019
 PREFACE

With all the praise and thanks to God the Almighty, who has given His love and
mercy so that a paper entitled “THE ORIGIN AND THE DEVEOPMENT OF ESP” can
we finish well. The paper is structured to meet one of the tasks of the courses English
for Spesific Purposes.

On this occasion, we would like to thank profusely to all those who have helped
us in completing the writing of this paper, to Anindita Badianti, M. Pd as lecturer in
English for Specific Purposes for the support and motivation and also to friends who
have contributed their ideas and motivation for writing this paper.

We are fully aware that the many flaws in the writing of this paper, in terms of
material, technical and presentation material. therefore, we expect criticism and
constructive suggestions to further refine the writing of this paper. Finally, we hope that
the writing of this paper can be useful for readers.

Tulungagung, 26th August 2019

The writer

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 TABLE LIST OF CONTENT

PREFACE .......................................................................................................i

TABLE LIST OF CONTENT ...................................................................... ii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................................................... 1

A. Background ........................................................................................ 1
B. Formulate of the problem .................................................................. 1
C. Aims of paper .................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER II THEORITICAL AND DISCUSSION .................................... 2

A. Origin of ESP .................................................................................... 2

B. History of ESP ................................................................................... 3
C. The Development of ESP .................................................................. 4

CHAPTER III CLOSING .............................................................................. 5

A. Conclusion ......................................................................................... 5

REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 6

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background
English for specific purposes (ESP) is a subset of English as a second or
foreign language. It usually refers to teaching the English language to university
students or people already in employment, with reference to the particular
vocabulary and skills they need. As with any language taught for specific
purposes, a given course of ESP will focus on one occupation or profession,
such as Technical English, Scientific English, English for medical professionals,
English for waiters, English for tourism, etc. Throughout this paper discuss
about the origin and the development of ESP. The title of this paper is
deliberately chosen because the authors want to show up the history of the
formation of ESP.
B. Formulate of the problem
Based on the background, the problems discussed can be formulated as
follows:
1. How does the origin ESP formed to the world?
2. When does ESP formed to the world?
3. How does the development of ESP?
C. Aims of the paper
1. The formation of the origin of ESP;
2. The history of ESP formed to the world;
3. The development of ESP.

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 CHAPTER II

THEORITICAL AND DISCUSSION

A. Origin of ESP
1. Demand of Brave New World
Post World War II in the 40-50s gave birth to industrial development
from various sectors including science, commerce, health, education, etc.
The development was intensively carried out because it was to restore a
civilization damaged by war. At that time, America was one of the ruling
nations because it affected almost the entire world economy. With the
country's dependence on world economic authorities, it indirectly makes
English as an international language.
With the development in various sectors in order to restore
civilization, the population is required to take education in accordance with
the skills they have, for example doctors teach medical students, engineers
teach students enginer, etc1. With the English being accepted as an
international language, the standard language used in learning uses English,
indirectly the students are required to understand English so that learning can
run optimally.
The development of industry and technology is increasingly marked
by the industrial revolution 1.0. The world's need for development cannot be
denied, by that time English had developed into a scientific and commerce
language. English which was originally only for daily communication needs
has developed into a language that is used for business, technology, medical,
and other sciences. This gave birth to a new branch in English education
called ESP.

1
Hutchinson and Waters, English for Specific Purposes,(New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991), p. 6

2
 2. Revolution in Linguistic
Linguistics is the study of language. Traditionally the main purpose of
linguistics is to learn the rules of using English, namely grammar2. However
at ESP, English education is intended so that students can use language
according to their needs. In the 70s English in education focused on
conversation and communication, aimed at making students able to
understand and hone scientific vocab.
In the late 70s there were many scientific books, namely engineering
books, medical books, economics and commerce books, etc. At that time the
jobs that were within the scope of English Scientific Technology (EST)
caused English education to focus on learning English vocabulary related to
science, technology, health, commerce, etc3. This is a change in language
learning that focuses on the application of language in life.

3. Focus on The Learner

Students who study certainly have the goals they want. These goals vary
depending on the individual and his needs. The difference is called genre, for
example: engineering sector, health sector, trade sector, etc. The presence of
ESP which focuses on student desires motivates students to be more
enthusiastic about learning. The motivation arises because psychologically
students can learn quickly and better4.

2
Hutchinson and Waters, English for Specific Purposes,(New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991), p. 7-8
3
Ibid, p. 7
4
Ibid, p. 8

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 B. History of ESP
The first origin of ESP was after World War II, at that time America,
which became a superpower, made English as an international language.
Teodorescu published in a journal written by Gonzales stated that English as an
international language was welcomed by non-native speakers, marked by their
desire to learn English, multi-cultural communication, business doing, and
information sharing5.
During the 1960's the development of the world market (economic
sector) resulted in an increase and development of ESP in education. Hutchinson
and Waters published in a journal written by Gonzales stated that ESP emerged
due to the development of the world's economy, which entailed the progress of
technology, the economic power of oil-rich countries, and the increasing number
of overseas students in English-speaking countries6. This means that the
development of various sectors at that time gave birth to ESP which is a gateway
for students to understand English in addition to the transmission of knowledge
and communication but also as a neutral language for use in international
communication.
In the 60's, the development of ESP was marked by a change in English
learning methods (ELT), namely by focusing on learning semi-technical or
technical vocabulary that was useful in the profession that students wanted.
Smoak published in a journal written by Gonzales states that the instructors'
believed jobs as "to teach the technical vocabulary of a given field or
profession”7. Thus, ESP in the 60's changed the English learning system, which
initially in medical schools used basic English vocabulary such as: "I go to
school", "I don't go to school", "Do I go to school?", Become scientific
vocabulary such as: organism, cell, DNA for biology students, etc.
Furthermore, during the 1970s ESP developed, initially in the 60s ESP
only focused on scientific vocabulary learning but this decade became more

5
Carolina Gonzalez Remirez, “English for Specific Purposes: Brief History and Definitions”,
Revista de Lenguas Modernas, No 23, ISSN: 1659-1933, 2015, p. 380
6
Ibid, p. 380
7
Ibid, p. 380

4
 focused on learners. This focus focuses on the needs of students about what they
are learning English for, so in this case the teacher provides effective learning
and increases student motivation so that they can learn faster and better. Maleki
published in a journal written by Gonzales by gambling revealed that discourse
analysis "focused on the communicative values of discourse rather than the
lexical and grammatical properties of registers". The theory provides an
explanation that the art of speech or rhetoric becomes the main focus of ESP.
In the 80s there was a debate about ESP. The analysis of ESP resulted in
two main views: that of "the wideangle approach," which advocated for the
teaching of English through topics beyond students' specialist areas, and the
"narrow-approach," which claimed that the focus of the language studies should
be on the students' specific area of development8. Another difference is about
"monoskill emphasis is useful" and "concentration in one skill is limitation". In
brief, this difference will give birth to branches of ESP, namely EAP and EOP.
In the decade of the 90s to 2000s, ESP has returned entirely based on
linguistics with a marked correlation between grammatical and rhetoric. ESP has
existed as a separate branch of language teaching for around 40 years. At the
beginning, it is focused upon the specific lexicon of technical and scientific
texts, but it will soon change its emphasis towards the rhetorical uses of
language in precise discourses. Next, the four skills (reading, writing, speaking,
listening), which were neglected by all previous methods, were assessed and
addressed through the introduction of needs analysis studies9.
Finally, in the journal "English for Specific Purposes: Brief History and
Definitions" written by Gonzales states that Hutchinson and Waters (1987)
polished the concept of ESP and established the importance of teaching students
the skills and language that they need to achieve their desired language
performance10.

8
Carolina Gonzalez Remirez, “English for Specific Purposes: Brief History and Definitions”,
Revista de Lenguas Modernas, No 23, ISSN: 1659-1933, 2015, p. 381
9
Ibid, p. 382
10
Ibid, p. 383

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 C. The Development of ESP
The development of ESP is now in the fourth phase, with the fifth
development phase beginning to emerge from it. The three main phases of
development began in the early 1960s. First of all it must be shown that 11ESP is
not a universal monolithic phenomenon. ESP has evolved in various countries,
and examples of all the approaches to be explained can be found operating
somewhere in the world today. Will be seen in the field of activities as the main
task in the development and ESP, this is a statue that is commonly known as
EST (English for Science and Technology) Swales (1985) in fact uses the
development of EST to illustrate the development of ESP in general:

‘With one or two exceptions…English for Science Technology has always

set and continues to set the trend in theoretical discussion, in ways of
analysing language, and in the variety of actual teaching materials.’

We have not restricted our own illustration to EST in this book, but we still
need to acknowledge, as Swales does, the pre-eminent position of EST in
ESP story.

1.1 The concept of special language: register analysis

This stage took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s and was
associated in particular with the work of Peter Stevens (Halliday
Melcintosh and Stevens, 1964), Jack Ewer ( Ewer and Lattore, 1969) and
John Swales (1971).
Operating on the basic principle that the English of, say, electrical
engineering constituted as specific register different from that of, say,
biology or of general English, the aim of the analysis was to identify the
grammatical and lexical future of these registers. Teaching materials then
took these linguistic features as their syllabus. A good example of such a

11
Hutchinson and Waters, English for Specific Purposes,(New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991), p. 9

6
 syllabus is that of A Course in Basic Scientific English by Ewer and
Latorre (1969).
The aim was to produce a syllabus which gave high priority to the
language forms students would need in there. Sciences studies and in turn
would give low priority to forms they would not meet. Ewer and Hughes-
Davies (1971).
1.2 Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis
ESP had focused on language at the sentence level, the second phase
of development shifted attention to the level about the sentence, as ESP
become closely involved with the emerging field of discourse or rhetorical
analysis.
1.3 Target Situation Analysis.
The stage that we come to consider now did not really add anything
new to the range of knowledge about ESP. What it aimed to do was to
take the existing knowledge and set it on a more scientific basis, by
establishing procedures for relating language analyzing more closely to
learners’ reasons for learning. Given that the purpose of an ESP course is
to enable learners to function adequately in a target situation, that is, the
situation in which learners will use the language they are learning, then the
ESP course design process should proceed by first identifying the target
situation and then carrying out a rigorous analysis of the linguistic features
of that situation. The identified features will form the syllabus of the ESP
course. This process is usually known as need analysis. However, we
prefer to take Chambers’ (1980) term of target situation analysis, since it is
a more accurate description of the process concerned.
The most thought explanation of target situation analysis is the
system set out by John Munby in communicative Syllabus Design (1978).
The Munby model produces a detailed profile of the learners needs in
terms of communication purposes, communicative setting, the means of
communication, language skills, functions, structures etc.

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1.4 Skills and Strategies
The fourth stage of ESP has seen an attempt to look below the
surface and to consider not the language itself but the thinking processes
that underlie language use. There is no dominant figure in this movement,
although we might mention the work of Francoise Grellent (1981).
The principal idea behind the skills centered approach is that
underlying all language use there are common reasoning interpreting
processes, which, regardless of surface forms, enable us to extract meaning
form discourse. There is, therefore, no need to focus closely to the surface
forms of the language. The focus should rather be on the underlying
interpretive strategies, which enable the learner to cope with the surface
forms, for example guessing the meaning of words from context, using
visual lay out to determine the type of text, exploiting cognates (i.e. words
which are similar in the mother tongue and the target language) etc. A
focus on specific subject registers in unnecessary in this approach, because
the underlying processes are not specific to any subject registers.
1.5 A learning-centered approach
Our concern is with language learning. We cannot simply assume
that describing and exemplifying what people do with language will
enable someone to learn it. A truly valid approach to ESP must be based
on an understanding of the processes of language learning. The important
and the implications of the distinction that we have made between
language use and language learning.

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 CHAPTER III

A. Conclusion
Based on the description of the discussion “The Origin and The Development of
ESP” can be concluded that:
1. The formation of the origin of ESP after World War II in the 40-50s for daily
communication needs has developed into a language that is used for
business, technology, medical, and other sciences. ESP appears for the
learners need.
2. ESP appears after World War II, at that time America, which became a
superpower, made English as an international language. During the 1960's
the development of the world market (economic sector) resulted in an
increase and development of ESP in education. During the 1970s ESP
developed, initially in the 60s ESP only focused on scientific vocabulary
learning but this decade became more focused on learners. In the 80s there
was a debate about ESP. In the decade of the 90s to 2000s, ESP has returned
entirely based on linguistics with a marked correlation between grammatical
and rhetoric.
3. The development of ESP is now in the fourth phase, with the fifth
development phase beginning to emerge from it. The three main phases of
development began in the early 1960s.

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 References

Gonzalez, Carolina Remirez. 2015. “English for Specific Purposes: Brief History and
Definitions”. Revista de Lenguas Modernas. No 23, ISSN: 1659-1933

Hutchinson and Waters. 1991 English for Specific Purposes. New York: Cambridge
University Press

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