University graduates across Europe face increasing professional language and intercultural demands. In France, foreign language competence is to be assessed for incoming undergraduates and Master's graduates are required to demonstrate "mastery" of at least one foreign language. Institutions are responsible for defining "appropriate" curricula and…

Some researchers have argued that voice is irrelevant to academic writing and that the importance of voice has been overstated in the professional literature [Helms-Park, R., & Stapleton, P. (2003). Questioning the importance of individualized voice in undergraduate L2 argumentative writing: an empirical study with pedagogical implications.…

This paper will examine Bakhtin's theory that a genre's unity is defined by its chronotope [Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), "The dialogic imagination: Four essays" (pp. 84-258). Austin: University of Texas Press] and assume that, if this is true, the rhetorical unity within a specific…

This research note presents a preliminary study of the structure of consensus statements (CSs). The consensus statement is released by a medical association after calling a consensus development conference on a pertinent medical issue. Using a very small corpus, this note attempts to characterize consensus statements by identifying the sequence of…

Contact with the English language, especially from the 20th century onwards, has had as a consequence an increase in the number of words that are borrowed from English into Spanish. This process is particularly noticeable in Spanish for Specific Purposes, and, more specifically, in the case of Spanish computer language. Although sociocultural and…

In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in vocabulary learning strategies given that they are found to facilitate second/foreign language vocabulary learning and recall. As many learners do not develop sufficient mastery of the strategy repertoire, explicit instruction on vocabulary learning strategies may help them to become…

This note introduces readers to the development of English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching and research in China and, more specifically, aviation English curriculum development in the Chinese context, so that ESP professionals can be acquainted with the recent development of ESP theory and practice in a non-English speaking country like…

This paper explores the degree of variability in the structure of research article introductions within a single discipline. It is an exploratory study based on the analysis of 20 research articles. The study investigates the differences between two subdisciplines of applied linguistics, namely second language acquisition and second language…

With the continuing globalisation of markets and internationalisation of trade, professionals from a wide range of organisations, from large multinational corporations to small to medium size enterprises, are increasingly coming together to do business in the international workplace, particularly in meetings. Such international events usually…

To prevent a paper from being discarded and ensure that it addresses the right audience, it must have a proper title that satisfies certain requirements. Writing the titles to scientific articles is therefore a challenging exercise that demands the use of various skills. Still, although the research paper is one of the most thoroughly studied…

This paper gives a detailed description of the needs analysis (NA) stage in the development of a set of English language intensive courses at a large Japanese industrial firm. The case study highlights the NA practices of using multiple sources and multiple methods in the data gathering stage and uses triangulation in order to validate results.…

International doctors ("international medical graduates" or "IMGs") constitute 23% of the physician workforce in the United States. Despite entry screening for educational credentials and spoken English proficiency, research shows that language and cultural issues can still persist for IMGs during and after their residency training. This paper…

Despite the important role the personal statement plays in the graduate school application processes, little research has been done on its functional features and little instruction has been given about it in academic writing courses. The author conducted a multi-level discourse analysis on a corpus of 30 medical/dental school application letters,…

This paper reviews the practices in the teaching of Business English in China over the past 50 years and two perspectives on Business English that have been influential in conceptualizing a new approach to curriculum design. The review demonstrates that there has been an evolution from intuition-led practices to content-based teaching, and to more…

In 1997, the Medical Faculty at Hong Kong University adopted a predominantly problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. At the same time, a sizeable PBL component was added to an already established English as a Second Language (ESL) Course for Medicine to help first-year students develop PBL discussion skills. However, it was felt that not enough…