This article examines the language-related challenges that first-year students face when adjusting to the demands of English-medium higher education in Hong Kong. The article is based on the findings of a longitudinal study which tracked the university careers of 28 students from a range of backgrounds via in-depth, semi-structured interviews…

This paper quantifies differences in speaking rates in a first and second language, and examines the effects of slower rates on the speakers' abilities to convey information. The participants were 14 fluent (CEF B2/C1) English L2 speakers who held the same oral presentation twice, once in English and once in their native Swedish. The temporal…

A number of researchers are currently attempting to create listings of important collocations for students of EAP. However, so far these attempts have (1) failed to include positionally-variable collocations, and (2) not taken sufficient account of variation across disciplines. The present paper describes the creation of one listing of…

The study reported in this paper aims to provide a description of professional communication pertaining to land surveying project management in Hong Kong, achieved through a comprehensive analysis of both workplace discourse processes and products. The study, situated in Hong Kong, represents a collaborative effort between English and Land…

This paper investigates the influence of the English language on the work of management academics. They are seen as knowledge workers in the context of business and management, who have to be able to use the English language in such ways to pursue successfully and competently the main purpose of their work--the generation, dissemination and…

Lexical bundles--recurrent sequences of words--are important building blocks of discourse in spoken and written registers. Previous research has shown that lexical bundles are especially prevalent in university classroom teaching, where they serve three major discourse functions: stance expressions, discourse organizers, and referential…

Notwithstanding the voluminous literature devoted to research genres, more investigation needs to be conducted to demonstrate the pedagogical significance of studying linguistic features in relation to communicative functions. Motivated by a concern for the pedagogical applicability of genre analysis, this paper investigates the extent to which…

Discipline-specific approaches to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) tend to overlook the purposes of the disciplines themselves and the issue of transferability from academic to professional contexts. This becomes problematic in the context of the "new knowledge economy" and emergent pedagogies in higher education, which are increasingly focused…

This article analyses factors affecting L2 learning, using Regression and Correlation Analysis. Some of the the results are in line with those reported in the literature: for example, the positive role of "Reading" and the negative role of "L1" transfer. Other results, however, are surprising, such as the current use of "Grammar Translation…

The objective of this paper is to show how some drawbacks inherent in the use of the Case Method in teaching Business English can be surmounted, especially when students are non-native speakers of English and the teacher of ESP is not experienced in this method. The first part of the paper presents a brief account of the general features,…

Addresses the socio-pragmatic phenomenon of academic conflict from a cross-cultural and diachronic perspective. It is examined by combining a quantitative approach and a qualitative discoursal analysis of its salient rhetorical features in corpus of Spanish, French, and English medical articles published between 1930 and 1995. (VWL)

Discusses the use of law reports in English for academic legal purposes (EALP) instruction. Examines problems with using reports in the EALP classroom and focuses on the more widely available newspaper law reports. Offers a description that draws on Martin's (1992) context of culture in order to identify important social and cultural factors and…

Demonstrates the need to bridge the gap between theoretical descriptions of discourse and type of language description that should be used in the English for academic purposes classroom in accordance with recent approaches to teaching a second language. Compares accounts of causal metatext from a sample of textbooks on academic writing to results…

Investigates two issues that are important to English for academic purposes: (1) the issue of collaboration between subject teachers and English for academic purposes teachers and the problem of reconciling what appear to be incommensurable discourses, and (2) the difference between task-based learning and problem-based learning. (VWL)

Compares how three culturally distinct groups of undergraduates--mainstream American, Catalan, Latino immigrants to the United States--interact with course content to achieve academically. Analysis of interviews and documents reveals four informational operations--exposure, extraction, manipulation, and display--used to move content from sources…