An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

7.3 The teaching of language for specific purposes (LSP)
Richards et al. (1985) define LSP thus:
second or foreign languages used for particular purposes and restricted types of
communication (e.g. for medical reports, scientific writing, air-traffic control)
and which contain lexical, grammatical and other linguistic features which are
different from ordinary language … In language teaching decisions must be made
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as to whether a learner or groups of learners require a language for general pur -
poses or for special purposes.
Such definitions are overbland. They take for granted the discreteness of LSPs and of
registers. But except in the most restricted spheres (e.g. knitting patterns) where the
LSP conforms to a kind of ritualised speech, there is no discreteness, there is always
overlap. Here is an excerpt from an encyclopedic article on a branch of cognitive
psychology:
Marr and Poggio (1979) implemented the same two constraints, of smoothness
and uniqueness, in a quite different non-cooperative stereo algorithm that used
multiple spatial frequency tuned channels and a coarse-to-fine matching strategy.
The key idea here was to exploit the fact that only a few edge points, and hence
only modest ambiguity problems, arise in very coarse channels. Matches obtained
in these can then be used to guide matching in more finely tuned channels.
Ambiguities in all channels are reduced almost to zero by suitable coupling of
spatial frequency tuning to the disparity range allowed for matching. This requires
that the high spatial frequency channels have very narrow disparity ranges, and
that they therefore need to be ‘put in the right place to look’ if they are to find the
correct matches. The algorithm does this by generating appropriate vergence eye
movements driven by the coarser channels.
(Frisby 1990: 251)
Now I am an educated native speaker of English. But, like most people, I tend
to read material that is already somewhat familiar. The content of this Cognitive
Psychology topic (the computational theory of perception) is quite new to me and I
find the excerpt above hard to process. Of course, it will be said, this excerpt of some
ten lines is part of a larger whole and if I were to read the whole article with care then
I would be in a stronger position to understand the quoted section. While this is no
doubt true, its very obviousness underlines the problem facing the second-language
learner who wishes to access this article. To propose that he/she read the whole article
is one version of the advice that in order to understand a text in a subject area you
need to understand the subject first, or in order to understand this excerpt you need
first to read not just the article it is taken from but also the whole of the encyclopedia
the article is taken from. This is the submersion version of advice! For of course if
you are not already familiar with cognitive psychology then reading the encyclopedia
will probably also require the understanding you don’t yet have – remember you are
a second-language learner of English. Catch 22 indeed!
In my case it is just possible that if I were to read the whole article and check the
cross-references to other articles I might then be able to understand the quoted
excerpt. And in practice when an excerpt of this kind is given to a second-language
learner it will almost always be the case that the student in question will have already
studied cognitive psychology, either in the L1 or in English and will therefore have
the background knowledge in the subject needed to make sense of the explanation
of the computational theory of perception, even if the actual information is entirely
new. If all or most previous study of cognitive psychology has been in the L1 then
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there may be some language problems with the English of this entry that will need
attention. But if the matching of the subject matter to the needs and interests of the
learner has been done well then there will be an advantage in providing a text of this
kind, either as part of the content of the psychology class or as an exercise in the
English support class or possibly in both.
A more theoretical approach to LSP is advocated by Douglas (2000), quoting
Chapelle: ‘What is required is a theory of how the context of a particular situation,
within a broader context of culture, constrains the linguistic choice a user can make’
(Chapelle 1998: 15).
The basic assumption then behind programmes dedicated to teaching languages
for specific purposes (LSP) is that language function, purpose, area and so on require
the use of a special variety of the language; this was the argument we referred to in
the discussion on language and gender in Chapter 3. Different domains of social life
can be equated to different language varieties. The growth of LSP (ESP for English)
over the last thirty years has been considerable but it is of course not new. German
for Scientists/Chemists/Engineers was in vogue long before for non-German-
speaking scientists who needed access to scientific materials written in German.
What has changed is that English has taken over the former role of German in
science and of just about every other language everywhere else. That is the first
reason, the continuing of a tradition in a new medium. The second reason targets
English: it represents a reaction against the literary materials widely used for the
teaching of English as a foreign/second language.
The applied linguistics contribution to this activity has been two edged (Douglas
2004). On the one hand it provided the necessary skills in textual analysis, the
writing or practice materials and of tests in LSP; it experimented with the evaluation
of courses using LSP as against those which used non-specific language materials (e.g.
general English). On the other hand it offered a sceptical commentary, criticising the
lack of a clear model of variety which showed the differences between one variety and
another. Furthermore it showed that the differences between one variety and another
are likely to be in terms of frequency of the use of different features rather than in
completely differential use. Of course there would always be certain vocabulary items
that would be specific. But those who had background knowledge in the area would
already be familiar with these terms or at least would acquire them very quickly.
A major contribution of applied linguistics to language learning and teaching
studies has been to develop materials purposely written for the language teacher. This
is the case of LSP, as we saw in Chapter 2, with pedagogical grammar. The role of
applied linguistics is to mould a relevant content area for the needs of its target
audience, in this case experienced language teachers (Howard and Brown 1997). It
is a form of simplification, as all language-teaching materials are.