CHAPTER 19

English for specific purposes

Tony Dudley-Evans

Introduction
English for specific purposes (ESP) has for about 30 years been a separate branch of English
Language Teaching. It has developed its own approaches, materials and methodology and is
generally seen as a very active, even 'feisty' movement that has had considerable influence over the
more general activities of TESOL and applied linguistics.
ESP has always seen itself as materials-driven and as a classroom-based activity concerned
with practical outcomes. Most w riting about ESP is concerned with aspects of teaching, materials
production and text analysis rather than with the development of a theory of ESP.

Background

DEFINITION OF ESP

The key defining feature of ESP is that its teaching and materials are founded on the results of
needs analysis. The first questions when starting preparation for teaching an ESP course is almost
always: What do students need to do with English? Which of the skills do they need to master and
how well? Which genres do they need to master, either for comprehension or production purposes?
Various commentators (notably Brumfit 1984a) have remarked that needs analysis is not exclusive
to ESP and that much general TESOL - especially when following the communicative approach -
is based on needs analysis. However, in ESP one can be more precise about learners' needs; their
needs are defined by a learning or occupational situation in which English plays a key role (see
Chapter 18). Specific needs can be identified by examining that situation and the texts (written or
spoken) in detail; in contrast, for students not immediately using English, or about to use it, needs
are much more general.
Apart from the primacy of needs analysis, defining features of ESP can be difficult to identify.
Robinson, in her first overview of ESP (1980), suggested that limited duration (i.e. an intensive course
of a fixed length) and adult learners are defining features of ESP courses. However, in her second
survey (1991) she accepts that, although many ESP courses are of limited duration, a significant
number are not (e.g. a three- or four-year programme as part of a university degree) and, while it is
true that the majority of ESP learners are adults, ESP can be taught at school (even at primary level
in English-medium schools where English is not the pupils' first language). Similarly, ESP is generally
taught to intermediate or advanced students of English, but can also be taught to beginners.
131

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
132

The above are optional or variable characteristics of ESP. I would add to this list the idea that
ESP may be designed for specific disciplines or professions. The ESP teacher needs to bear in mind
and exploit if possible this specific subject knowledge, which leads to classroom interaction and
teaching methodology that can be quite different from that of general English; however, in some
situations - e.g. pre-study or pre-work courses where learners have not started their academic or
professional activity and therefore have less subject knowledge - teaching methodology will be
similar to that of general English. The use of a distinctive methodology is therefore a variable
characteristic of ESP.
We therefore return to the question of the defining features of ESP. Looking closely at
'specific purpose', ESP materials will always draw on the topics and activities of that specific
purpose, in many cases exploiting the methodology of the subject area or the profession
(Widdowson 1983). For example, an English course for engineers will use engineering situations to
present relevant language and discourse; problem-solving activities (calculations, making recom-
mendations) will probably also be used, since they draw on skills and abilities possessed by the
students. Similarly, a business English course will use case studies as these are widely used in
business training. It must not, however, be forgotten that ESP is concerned with teaching
language, discourse and relevant communication skills: it exploits topics and the underlying
methodology of the target discipline or profession to present language, discourse and skills.
I thus see the absolute characteristics of ESP as follows:
• ESP is designed to meet the specific needs of the learner.
• ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves.
• ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres
appropriate to these activities (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998: 4-5).
The variable characteristics are:
• ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines.
• ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general
English.
• 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 used for learners at secondary school level.
• ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students. Most ESP courses assume
basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners (Dudley-Evans and
St John 1998: 5).

CLASSIFICATION

As with most branches of TESOL and applied linguistics, ESP is often divided up into various
categories with mysterious acronyms. It is usually classified into two main categories: English for
academic purposes (EAP; see Chapter 18) and English for occupational purposes (EOP). EAP
largely speaks for itself: it relates to the English needed in an educational context, usually at a
university or similar institution, and possibly also at school level. EOP is more complicated: it
relates to professional purposes, e.g. those of working doctors, engineers or business people. The
biggest branch of EOP is business English, the teaching of which can range from teaching general
business-related vocabulary to the teaching of specific skills important in business, e.g. negotiation
and meeting skills.
Another key distinction is between more general ESP and more specific ESP. Dudley-Evans
and St John (1998) - drawing on an idea from George Blue (Blue 1988) - make a distinction
between English for general academic purposes (EGAP) designed for pre-study groups, or groups
that are heterogeneous with regard to discipline, and English for specific academic purposes

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 English for specific purposes
133

(ESAP) designed to meet specific needs of a group from the same discipline. A similar distinction
can be made between the teaching of general business-related language and skills (English for
general business purposes; EGBP) and the teaching of specific business language for skills such as
negotiation, or the writing of letters or faxes (English for specific business purposes; ESBP).
It is often convenient to refer to types of ESAP or ESBP by profession, so one commonly hears
terms such as medical English, English for engineers or English for administration. These terms may
be useful as a quick classification, but may lead to confusion. Medical English may include EAP for
students following a degree course in medicine where English is the medium of instruction, or a
reading skills course where the subject is taught in a language other than English, but also a type of
EOP for practising doctors using English to talk to patients (e.g. Cuban doctors in South Africa) or
to write up research in English. Similarly, English for engineers may be for students of engineering,
or for practising engineers needing, say, to write reports in English. In the USA, ESAP is often
called content-based instruction (CBI), which is seen as separate from ESP (Brinton et al. 1989).
Finally, two other commonly used abbreviations are EST (English for science and tech-
nology), which was widely used when most EAP teaching was for students of engineering and
science. It is thus a branch of EAP. In the USA, EVP (English for vocational purposes) is
frequently used for teaching English for specific trades or vocations. This branch of EOP is often
sub-divided into vocational English (concerning language and skills needed in a job) and pre-
vocational English (concerning skills needed for applying for jobs and being interviewed).

Research

BEYOND NEEDS ANALYSIS

I have emphasised needs analysis as the key defining feature of ESP. The initial needs analysis
provides information about the target situation, what learners will have to do in English and the
skills and language needed. This is generally called target situation analysis (Chambers 1980).
While initial needs analysis will always be the first step for ESP, it is usually the next stage that
involves the most detailed analysis, and there has been increasing emphasis on investigating these
additional factors. Information about the learners - in particular their level in English, weaknesses
in language and skills needed (often called lacks), and also their own perceptions of what they
need - are increasingly investigated.
Taking an example, the need to understand lectures is an objective need that comes under
target situation analysis. Learners' confidence or lack of confidence in their listening abilities, and
their perception that they need more vocabulary to understand lectures, is subjective. This
investigation of subjectively felt needs, as opposed to the objective needs established by target
situation analysis, is called learning situation analysis. The investigation of learners' weaknesses or
lacks is called present situation analysis.
Analysis of the learning situation within the teaching institution or company is also important
and is called means analysis (Holliday and Cooke 1982). For ESP courses to be successful and to
have a lasting effect on learners' ability to study or work using English, the environment in which
English is taught versus that in which it is used must be assessed. For example, if learners are used
to rote-learning, it may be that a problem-solving approach to learning ESP will be alien to their
learning styles and contrary to their expectations. This does not mean that the problem-solving
approach cannot be used, but it would be more effective if the factors that militate against its use
are known and allowed for.

THE NEED FOR TEXT ANALYSIS

However much priority is given to needs analysis and the various approaches to it outlined above,
I believe that the key stage in ESP course design and materials development is the action needed

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
134

following this needs analysis stage. This next stage is when the ESP teacher considers the (written
or spoken) texts that the learner has to produce and/or understand, tries to identify the texts' key
features and devises teaching material that will enable learners to use the texts effectively.
ESP work has thus always been interested in the structure of discourse and, indeed, has often
been at the forefront of applied linguistic research. For example, early work by Lackstrom et al.
(1973), Allen and Widdowson (1974), Widdowson (1978) and Trimble (1985) showed ways of
analysing scientific and technical text that led to materials production. More recently, work in
genre analysis (see Chapter 27) has extended the analyses of the above researchers, relating it more
directly to the conventions and expectations of the target discourse communities that ESP learners
wish to become members of. The work of Swales (1981, 1990a) on the academic article and Bhatia
(1993) on types of business letter are extremely insightful about the ways in which writers
manipulate these texts and also very productive in terms of generating appropriate teaching
material.
Early work in ESP genre analysis placed the focus on 'moves', i.e. how the writer structures a
text or part of a text (such as an article introduction or discussion section) through a series of
stratagems. Masuku (1996) argues that moves and genres are elements of discourse and that the
difference between them is that moves combine to form genres. At a rank below the move 'we
enter the domain of grammar' (Masuku 1996: 117). A move may be defined as 'a meaningful unit
represented in linguistic (lexicogrammatical) forms and related to the communicative purpose of
the social activity in which members of the discourse community are engaged' (Hozayen 1994:
151). Skelton (1994: 456) takes the definition a stage further by stating:
Move structure analysis tentatively assigns a function to a stretch of written or spoken text,
identifies that function with one, or a set of, exponents which signal its presence, and seeks to
establish whether or not the pattern identified is a general one, by reference to ostensibly
similar texts. If the pattern can be generalised, its status is confirmed.
Swales (1990a: 141) argues that a writer 'creates a research space' in an article's introduction in
order to show the originality of and need for the presented research; the model is thus called the
'creating a research space' (CARS) model (see Figure 27.1, p. 188). Bhatia (1993: 46-47) follows a
similar pattern to Swales in establishing the moves for sales promotion letters (letters selling a
product to potential customers).
Recently, Swales and others (e.g. Berkenkotter and Huckin 1995; Swales 1998b) have turned
away from a reliance on moves to consider in more detail the workings of discourse communities
and the role genres play within those communities (see Chapter 27 on three approaches to genre
analysis: ESP school, New Rhetoric and systemic linguistics). This greater interest in the workings
of discourse communities and the decline in interest in moves have led to an increasing overlap
between the ESP and New Rhetoric schools.
While the ESP school is considering higher level issues, research using corpora and
concordancing techniques has linked genre analysis with phraseological studies. Gledhill (2000)
shows how introductions to medical articles about cancer research use a limited and predictable
phraseology. This phraseology can be established by examining the collocations of high-frequency
grammatical items (e.g. of, for, on, but, has, have, were, etc.). Gledhill can, e.g., show that has beenl
have been are used in cancer research articles to establish a relationship between a drug or
biochemical process and a disease (as in TNF alpha has been shown to deliver the toxicity ofricin A;
Gledhill 2000: 7). This research has great potential, especially the potential of relating the more
general findings of genre analysis to specific language use, and thus to materials production.
Concern with the discourse community's work is also characteristic of the teaching of business
English, the current growth area in ESP. Needs analysis in business English must establish exactly
how the discourse community uses language and text, and the effect of culture (both business or
corporate culture and national culture) on the way that discourse is structured. Charles (1994,
1996) shows very effectively how the nature of the business relationship (i.e. whether it is new or

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 English for specific purposes
135

old) has a significant effect on the structure of a sales negotiation, and also that there are
important differences between British and Finnish styles of negotiation. The same has been shown
for Japanese-American negotiations (Neu 1986) and Brazilian-American negotiations (Garcez
1993).

Practice
I have already argued that ESP is a materials-led field. Most materials, however, are prepared by
individual teachers for particular situations, and there is not a huge amount of published ESP
material. Hamp-Lyons (Chapter 18) discusses a number of coursebooks in EAP. In EOP,
especially business English, there is much more material: St John (1996) discusses various types of
material, giving brief description of key coursebooks. Research work in genre analysis (see
Chapter 27) is beginning to generate textbooks applying its findings to the teaching of academic
writing (for examples of textbooks making direct use of genre analysis findings, see Weissberg and
Buker 1990; Swales and Feak 1994).

Current and future trends and directions

In discussing needs analysis and genre analysis, I have shown how ESP research and teaching are
increasingly focusing on and sensitive to the learners' background and the effects of the
environment in which they use English. This leads to an increased awareness of the importance of
cross-cultural issues (Connor 1996) and a shift towards further research in this area. The growth
of business English will increase the need for such research, particularly as business English is very
often used by two or more non-native speakers (St John 1996) using both language and strategies
that may be very different from those used by native speakers.
I have also argued for the importance of genre analysis as applied research that leads the
course designer from the initial needs analysis to materials production and lesson planning. I
would expect future research in genre analysis to go in two directions: first, concern with the
broader picture of how discourse communities work and the role text plays within them will
continue; second, specific corpora will be used to investigate the phraseology of particular
specialist genres in specialist disciplines and professions.
The concern with cultural issues is likely to lead to an increased advocacy role for the ESP
teacher. In Johns and Dudley-Evans (1993) I suggested - on the basis of research into the discourse
of economics (Dudley-Evans and Henderson 1990a; Henderson et al. 1993) - that ESP teachers
and researchers can have an increased role as 'genre doctors', advising disciplines and professions
on the effectiveness of their communication. I also foresee ESP teachers participating centrally in
the debate on the dominance of the Anglo-American rhetorical style in international publication.
Many (notably Mauranen 1993; Swales 1998a) argue that journals should be tolerant of different
rhetorics when considering manuscripts for publication. This can only happen if journal editors
become aware of the issues; the ESP teacher/researcher is clearly well placed to do this. I have the
impression that this issue is being increasingly debated, and that attitudes are changing.
A similar type of role for the ESP teacher is envisaged by those who argue that ESP teaching
should be concerned with rights analysis as well as needs analysis. Benesch (1999) argues that in
collaborative situations where the ESP teacher is working closely with the subject teacher (either
together in the classroom or outside in planning classes), the ESP teacher should not act just as
interpreter of the way that the subject teacher communicates information in lectures or his/her
priorities in marking assignments/examination answers. She suggests that ESP should develop an
awareness in ESP students of how they can assert their rights, by, e.g., insisting on asking
questions about points the lecturer has not made clear.
It is interesting that the concern with rights analysis has been influenced by the critical
discourse analysis movement in applied linguistics (Fairclough 1989; Barton and Ivanic 1991).

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
136

However, ESP has its own movements, its own journal and, above all, its own procedures. It is
still, however, very much part of applied linguistics and continues to be influenced by develop-
ments there; it also plays its own role in the development of applied linguistics.

Key readings
Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes
English for Specific Purposes (in particular the special issue 'Business English' 15(1), 1996)
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) English for Specific Purposes
Johns and Dudley-Evans (1993) English for specific purposes
Jordan (1997) English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers
Robinson (1991) ESP Today: A Practitioner's Guide
Swales (1990a) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press