A HISTORY OF ESP THROUGH ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES 

Martin Hewings
The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

 

5 The future

On the basis of the various aspects of this description of papers ESPj, I would like to end by highlighting a number of trends which I feel will have a continuing influence on how ESP develops over the next decade or so.

aInternationalisation

It seems likely that ESP research and practice will continue to spread geographically, and the present trends of paper submission suggest that reports of work in eastern and Mediterranean Europe, and in China, will represent particular areas of growth.

bSpecialisation

More specific contexts are being analysed, reflecting the increasing specialisation of ESP courses.

cGrowth of Business English

The rapid growth of courses in Business English around the world is well documented and reflected in the increasing percentage of publications in this area in publishers catalogues, although the growth of research on Business English appears to have lagged behind. However, the growth of Business English courses in universities is likely to demand and feed intoresearch on business communication, and this has begun to be reflected in the pages of ESPj.

dContinued influence of genre analysis, corpus analysis and SFL

Three areas of theory and methodology have had a particular influence on the development of ESP, particularly in the last 10 year: genre analysis, corpus analysisand systemic functional linguistics. Their influence shows no sign of waning, and research using their general approaches and analytical techniques seems set to have a continuing impact on ESP.

eThe effect of English as an international language

The final point is a matter of speculation with little support provided by the evidence provided in this paper. The growing use of English as the means of communication in interaction between non-native English speakers seems likely to have a major impact on the kinds of ESP programmes we provide and the type of research needed to underpin those programmes. No doubt we will read of these developments in bothforthcoming issues of ESPj and English for Specific Purposes World.