Development and types of ESP

In the 1960s, ESP underwent three main phases of development. The development of ESP is now

in a fourth phase with a fifth phase of development starting to emerge from its previous three

main phases of development started in the early beginning of 1960s. Stages are

1. The concept of special language:

register analysis

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used

for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting.

This phase was significant in the 1960s and early 1970s

to be specific because of the work Peter Strevens

managed on the basic principle that the English used by

Engineering will be different from that of, say

Biologist of General English. Register analysis is an analysis of grammatical and lexical features

of the language used for particular purpose or in particular social setting. This concept comes

from the principle of ESP that English of a specific science differs from each other in terms of its

grammatical and lexical features of the registers.

The main motive behind regular analysis such as Ewer and Latorre’s was the pedagogic one of

making ESP more relevant to learners' needs. This aim was to produce a syllabus which gave
high priority to the language forms students would meet in their course study. The main purpose

of an ESP course was to produce a syllabus which gave a high priority to the language forms

students would meet in their field and in turn would give low priority to forms they would not

meet. Register analysis revealed that there was very little that was distinctive in the sentence

grammar of scientific English beyond a tendency to favor particular forms such as the present

simple tense, the passive voice and nominal compound.

2. Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis

If in the first phase, ESP had focussed on language at the sentence level, in this phase, the

development shifted into the level above the sentence :understanding how sentences were

combined in discourse to produce meaning. So, ESP became closely involved with the emerging

field of discourse or rhetorical analysis. The basic hypothesis of this stage is expressed by Allen

and Widdowson (1974) :

« The difficulties which the students encounter arise not so much from a defective

knowledge of the system of English, but from an unfamiliarity with English use, and

that consequently their needs cannot be met by a course which simply provides

further practice in the composition of sentences, but only by one which develops a

knowledge of how sentences are used in the performance of different communicative

acts ».

The concern of research, therefore, was to identify the organizational patterns in texts and to

specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signaled. The structure is placed

according to the area of work or study. These patterns would then form the syllabus of the ESP

course. The typical teaching materials based on the discourse approach taught students to

recognize textual patterns and discourse markers mainly by means of text diagramming
exercises. The 1980s recorded a step ahead in the approach to ESP. The priorities for this decade

mean :

1. Understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning.

2. To identify the organizational patterns in texts.

3. To specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signals. All these patterns

represented the syllabus.

The purpose of an ESP course focused on target situation analysis are :

1. To enable learners to function adequately in a target situation, that is a situation in which

the learners will use the language they are learning.

2. To identify the target situation.

3. To carry out analysis of its linguistic features.

In ESP course, there will be a process of knowing students’ purpose to learn English known as

need analysis or target situation analysis. Target situation analysis will lead the teacher to form a

syllabus. John Munby in Communicative Syllabus Desig , produces a detailed profile of the

learners’ need in terms of communication purposes, communicative setting, the means of

communication, language skills, functions, structures, etc.

In this stage, we are concerned with two things, the thinking process underlie language use and

focus on underlying interpretative strategies. Some experts have made significant contributions

to work on reading skill to describe this process where the medium of instruction is the mother

tongue.

The principal idea behind the skill centered approach is that underlying all language use there are

common reasoning and interpreting processes, which, regardless of the surface forms, enable us

to extract meaning from discourse. The focus should rather be on the underlying interpretative

strategies, which enable the learners to cope with the surface forms, for example guessing the

meaning of words from context, using visual layout to determine the type of the text, exploiting

cognates, (i.e. words which are similar in the mother tongue and the target language), etc. A

focus on specific subject registers is unnecessary in this approach, because the underlying

processes are not specific to any subject register.

In terms of the materials, this approach generally puts the emphasis on reading or listening

strategies. So, the students should reflect on and analyze how meaning is produced in and

retrieved from written or spoken discourse.

1. This is anyhow not the main concern of ESP since describing and exemplifying what
people do with language will not automatically enable someone to learn it.
2. Therefore, a valid approach to ESP must be based on an understanding of the processes
of language learning.

Types of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Since the teachers and researchers of ESP are interested in the distinctive features of

the English language determined by the profession or branch of science where the students

will function as second language users, it is possible to separate many types of ESP (e.g.

Medical English, English for IT, English for Law, English for Tourism, Business English,

etc.). However, as in the case of differentiating ESP from ELT, the attempt to identify the

types of EST proves to be utterly problematic.

David Carter (1983) identifies three types of ESP:

1. English as a restricted language

2. English for Academic and Occupational Purposes

3. English with specific topics

On the other hand, Hutchinson & Waters (1987) provide the “tree of ELT” where ESP

is divided into three branches:

1. English for Science and Technology (EST)

2. English for Business and Economics (EBE)

3. English for Social Studies (ESS).

They further divide each of these branches into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and

English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), but they admit that these two branches are not

strictly separated: “people can work and study simultaneously”. It is safe to say that EAP

and EOP serve the same end purpose: employment, although the means to achieve this
purpose are different. With reference to "ELT” these two kinds of expectations are mainly two

types of ESP according to the motivation, position, and status of the learners which become

reasons for learning English such as English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and English for

Academic Purposes (EAP).

Kennedy and Bolitho (1984) add type of ESP according to the need of

scientists and technologists. This type is called English for Science and Technology (EST).

The description as follow:

1. English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)

EOP is taught in such a situation in which learners need to use English as part of their

work or profession (Kennedy and Bolitho, 1984: 4). There will be differences in such

courses depending on whether the learners are learning English before; during or after the

time they are being trained in their job or profession. The content of an English program

for someone actually engaged, for example, on a secretarial course - with its acquisition of

practical skills and theoretical knowledge - is going to be different from a program for

someone who is already a qualified secretary but now needs to operate in English.

2. English for Academic Purposes

EAP is taught generally within educational institutions to students requiring English in

their studies. The language taught may be based on particular disciplines at higher levels

of education when the student is specializing (in study) or intends to specialize (pre-study)

in a particular subject. In cases such as an overseas student studying in university level,

the learning of study skills (listening to lectures, taking notes, writing reports, reading

textbooks) will probably form a major part of the student’s English course.