Английский язык профессионального общения. LSP: English of professional communication

Г.Н. Гумовская

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК
ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБЩЕНИЯ

LSP: ENGLISH OF PROFESSIONAL 
COMMUNICATION

Учебное пособие

2-е издание, исправленное

Москва
Издательство «ФЛИНТА»
2018

УДК 811.111(075)
ББК 81.2Англ-923
Г93

Г93 

Гумовская Г.Н.
Английский язык профессионального общения. LSP: English of 
professional communication [Электронный ресурс] : учеб. пособие / 
Г.Н. Гумовская. — 2-е изд., испр. — М. : ФЛИНТА, 2018. — 320 с. 

ISBN 978-5-9765-2846-8

Пособие посвящено лингвистическим проблемам обмена профессиональной информацией специалистов разных областей знания. Анализ аутентичных материалов в различных сферах деятельности — экономике и менеджменте, юриспруденции, медицине, 
религии, средствах массовой информации — позволил выделить и 
описать основные признаки и особенности каждого специального / 
профессионального варианта английского языка, проявляющиеся в 
системе: лексика (включая международную терминологию), преферентные грамматические формы, синтаксические структуры, композиционные модели. Пособие разработано в рамках дисциплин и 
спецкурсов по выбору (Б.ДВ. для бакалавриата; М.2 — для магистерских программ). Рассмотрение затронутых в пособии проблем 
рекомендуется Стандартом в курсах: «Лексикология», «Стилистика» 
и «Терминология» и относится к традиционному разделу «Функциональные стили».
Для студентов факультетов и отделений иностранного языка.
УДК 811.111(075)
ББК 81.2Англ-923

ISBN 978-5-9765-2846-8 
© Гумовская Г.Н., 2018
© Издательство «ФЛИНТА», 2018

CONTENTS

Foreword  ...........................................................................................................5

Part 1. VERBAL ASPECTS OF PROFESSIONAL
COMMUNICATION

Chapter 1. A Survey of Approaches to Language and Linguistics  ................7

Chapter 2. Professional Communication Process: Verbal
and management aspects  ............................................................15

Chapter 3. Language for Specifi c Purposes  .................................................26

Chapter 4. Stylistic Differentiation of English Vocabulary  .........................40

Part 2. ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Chapter 5. English for Medical Studies  .......................................................51

Chapter 6. Typical Word-forming Patterns of Medical English  ..................64

Chapter 7. English for Science  ....................................................................79

Chapter 8. Steps in Scientifi c Research and Structural Patterns I  ...............91

Chapter 9. Steps in Scientifi c Research and Structural Patterns II  ............103

Chapter 10. Research in Linguistics  ............................................................115

Chapter 11. Starting and Finishing a BA / MA Thesis  ................................126

Part 3. ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

Chapter 12. The Style of Offi cial Documents  .............................................138

Chapter 13. Translation of Offi cial Documents: Grammatical Aspects  ....... 150

Chapter 14. English for Secretaries  .............................................................161

Part 4. ENGLISH FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES

Chapter 15. The Language of the Law  ........................................................186

Chapter 16. Religious English  .....................................................................200

Chapter 17. English for Language Pedagogy  ..............................................219

Chapter 18. Publicistics  ...............................................................................230

Chapter 19. Translation and Style  ...............................................................242

Chapter 20. News Media English  ................................................................253

Chapter 21. The Use of Language in Newspapers  ......................................266

Chapter 22. Journalese: Form and Content  .................................................278

Chapter 23. Language in Fiction  .................................................................289

Postscript. New Language Varieties ..............................................................303
Glossary  ........................................................................................................307
Bibliography  .................................................................................................312

FOREWORD

Language for Specifi c Purposes (in our case, English for Specifi c 
Purposes [ESP]) is intended for a particular profession or a range 
of similar occupations and is targeted on particular vocabulary and 
phrasing, grammar rules and stylistic patterns, prosodic contours 
and models of discourse conspicuous for certain professional speech 
varieties.
Professional Communication: ESP is assigned to both the 
students of linguistic and non-linguistic specialties and comprises 
a series of lectures on one of the most urgent problems of 
linguistics — communication within a certain area of knowledge. 
It also contains text materials pertaining to particular professions; 
included are translation exercises involving texts of special 
professional orientation, as translation is an effective tool that assists 
in matching language communication patterns of the speakers of 
different languages in a specifi c fi eld.
We hope that the book will help to improve the general linguistic 
awareness of the students as information about English structure 
and vocabulary patterns is a necessary prerequisite for the proper 
understanding of translation.
In its training part the book comprises tasks and exercises on 
English vocabulary and speech patterns which are in standard 
circulation in offi cial documents, in diplomatic practice, international 
law and business areas, religion, politics, mass media, medicine 
practice; in scientifi c research; in publicist style; in prosaic fi ction.
The theoretical approach to the linguistic phenomena we 
use in the book is based on the most generally accepted modern 
linguistic theories. In order to be consistent in exposition of the 
material and to avoid intense debate on the terms applied to verbal 
aspects of professional communication, we shall proceed from the 
widely accepted categories and classifi cation of functional styles 
put forward by I.R. Galperin (1981) and branches of English 
for Specifi c Purposes introduced by T. Hutchinson & A. Waters 
(2010) elaborating them to meet the goals of this book. The 

terms functional style and language for specifi c purposes are 
interchangeable in this research.
LSP: English of Professional Communication comprises 
twenty-three chapters with a wide range of functional styles, i.e. 
different uses of English. Students’ interests in this fi eld will vary 
considerably. For this reason, the chapters and the accompanying 
exercises have been written so that each chapter is self-contained. 
This means that the student and teacher are given fl exibility and 
choice. It is therefore not necessary to start at the beginning and 
proceed to the end. Depending on their relevance and students’ 
interests, particular chapters and exercises can be selected whenever 
it seems most appropriate.
Each chapter has a set of exercises, which incorporates a variety 
of tasks and activities. There are certain tasks that are common to 
each chapter. There is a list of questions to check students for the 
content of the chapter and to exploit their knowledge, background 
and imagination in relation to it. Another common element of each 
chapter is exercises aimed at describing a certain functional style 
of English and stating the hierarchy of system-forming features 
within it.

PART 1

VERBAL ASPECTS OF PROFESSIONAL 
COMMUNICATION

Chapter 1

A SURVEY OF APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE
AND LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is a branch of science, which studies aspects of 
language, languages and language use. But in the course of its 
development, there appeared new approaches to language, and new 
aspects attracted the attention of its researchers.
At the beginning of the 20th century language studies were 
concentrated mainly on historical problems. Ferdinand de 
Saussure (Switzerland) was the fi rst to introduce a new approach 
to language: it came to be understood as a system of synchronous 
symbols deriving their meaning and signifi cance from differences 
and oppositions within this system. A new trend received the 
name of Structural (Descriptive) Linguistics. Its methodological 
principle is: language must be analyzed by specifi cally linguistic 
methods according to linguistic criteria, not as a combination of 
psychological, physiological, physical and logical phenomena. 
Descriptive Linguistics deals not with the whole of speech, but with 
the regularities in certain features of speech. It has many schools 
and has developed modern methods of linguistic research. The 
main achievements are the analysis into immediate constituents 
(the IC models), Chomsky’s generative grammar, substitutional, 

distributional, 
transformational, 
operational, 
componential, 
contextual, statistical and valency analyses.
Descriptive Lexicology as a branch of Descriptive Linguistics 
deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of 
its development. It studies the functions of words and their specifi c 
structure in the system and provides a clear understanding of the laws 
of vocabulary development. The different aspects of the word-stock 
are detailed in the specifi c branches of Descriptive Lexicology — 
semasiology, etymology and lexicography.
Of pivotal importance in Descriptive Lexicology is the theory 
of semantic fi eld introduced in 1934 by J. Trier. Trier’s conception 
of linguistic fi elds is based on Saussure’s theory of language as 
a synchronous system of networks held together by differences, 
oppositions and distinctive value. J. Trier worked on intellectual 
terms in Old and Middle High German. J. Trier recognizes 
the existence of several ‘conceptual fi elds’ or ‘lexical fi elds’, 
intermediate between the individual lexical items and the totality 
of the vocabulary. It is this which constitutes the most original 
and fertile aspect of Trier’s theory of semantics: ‘Felder sind die 
zwischen den Einzelworten und dem Wortganzen lebendigen 
Wirklichkeiten, die als Teilganze mit dem Wort das Merkmal 
gemeinsam haben, dass sie sich ergliedern, mit dem Wortschatz 
hingegen, dass sie sich ausgliedern’ (Trier, 1934, p. 430). Trier’s 
defi nition of a semantic fi eld is as follows: ‘Fields are linguistic 
realities existing between single words and the total vocabulary; 
they are parts of a whole and resemble words in that they combine 
into some higher units; the vocabulary is subdivided into smaller 
units’. J. Trier’s contribution to linguistics was highly appreciated 
by J. Lyons who wrote: “The most well-known, and so far the most 
fertile, of current theories of structural semantics is that of Trier” 
(Lyons, 1972, p. 44).
J. Trier’s followers W. Porzig and G. Ipsen, also from Germany, 
reveal the fact that human experience is analyzed and elaborated 
in a unique way, differing from one language to another. They say 

that people have different concepts, as it is through language that 
we see the real world around us. The great merit of the fi eld theory 
lies in the attempt to fi nd linguistic criteria disclosing the systemic 
character of language.
A 
representative 
of 
the 
Russian 
school 
of 
thought 
A.Y. Shaikevich further developed the theory. His investigation is 
based on the assumption that semantically related words must occur 
near one another in the text and vice versa, if the words often occur 
in the text together, they must be semantically related.
Another prominent Russian scholar Y.D. Apresyan proposes 
that a semantic fi eld can be described on the basis of the valency 
potential of its members. The term valency in relation to linguistic 
phenomena is used to denote the combining power (typical cooccurrence) of a linguistic element, i.e. the types of other elements of 
the same level with which it can occur. Lexical valency denotes the 
potential capacity of words to occur with other words; grammatical 
valency shows syntactical patterns appropriate for certain parts of 
speech.
In the last decades of the 20th century, some additional 
areas streamed into linguistics: pragmatics — the study of the 
conditions of language use deriving from the social situations, and 
sociolinguistics — the study of how language is integrated with 
human society. Sociolinguistics deals with linguistic behaviour 
in society and is especially concerned with language situations 
in different types of social organizations and institutions. The 
distribution of language in a society is normally described in 
terms of age, class, education and occupations. The effi ciency 
of communication within a certain community group is closely 
connected with a sociolinguistic notion of ‘communicative 
competence’ — the ability to use language appropriately in varying 
social contexts, i.e. in communicative practices that are culturally 
and historically situated.
The defi nition of language has acquired a fresh wording and is 
identifi ed as a symbolic system with a certain purpose or purposes, 

mainly communication, although there are other possibilities too, 
such as an instrument of thought (Strazny, 2005, p. 364, v. 1). This 
defi nition has much in common with the one given by F. Grucza 
who defi nes language as an instrument serving not only human 
communication, but fi rst and above all it is a peculiar instrument of 
human labour (Grucza, 1991). In accord with new theories, language 
units are recognized as symbols, i.e. signs whose relation with their 
meanings is established through a conventional rule (Strazny, 2005, 
p. 947, v. 2).
Another approach to language and linguistics, and consequently, 
different terms, demonstrates the General Theory of Information. 
Language, being one of the means of communication or, to be 
exact, the most important means of communication, is regarded as 
an instrument by means of which the actual process of conveying 
ideas — information — from one person to another is carried out. In 
terms of the General Theory of Information, the branch of linguistics 
which deals with the study of the effects of the message on the 
reader or listener is called Stylistics. In other words, stylistics is the 
study of systemic variation of language use (style) characteristic of 
individuals or groups.
The English language has evolved a number of styles called 
functional which are easily distinguishable from one another. They 
are not homogeneous and fall into several variants all having some 
central point of resemblance — all integrated by the invariant, i.e. 
the abstract ideal system.
Functional styles express additional information about the 
conditions and peculiarities of communication: particular relations 
between the participants and a particular attitude of the speaker 
to what he/she says. In some situations these relations may be 
unstrained, friendly, easy-going or intimate, and in that case the 
speaker chooses the so-called informal style, viz. the colloquial 
style, which is a lowered style of speech, characteristic of oral 
communication. In other situations the relations between the 
interlocutors may be restrained, strictly offi cial, and then the 
interlocutors try to be deliberately polite, and they choose the 

so-called formal style which is generally characteristic of written 
language.
A functional style can be defi ned as a system of coordinated and 
interrelated language means intended to fulfi ll a specifi c function 
of communication and aiming at a defi nite effect. The peculiar 
choice of language means is primarily dependent on the aim of 
communication. Each style is recognized by the language community 
as an independent whole. One system of language means is set 
against other systems with other aims, and arising from this, another 
choice and arrangement of the language means. “Style is a set of 
characteristics by which we distinguish members of one subclass 
from members of other subclasses, all of which are members of the 
same general class” (Sebeok, 1960).
Each style is a relatively stable system at the given stage in 
the development of the literary language, but it changes, and 
sometimes considerably, from one period to another. Therefore 
style of language is a historical category. The development of each 
style is predetermined by the changes in the norms of Standard 
English. It is also greatly infl uenced by changing social conditions, 
the progress of science and the development of cultural life in the 
country.
The language people use in different situations is also referred 
to as register of speech. This term is often used as a full or partial 
synonym for functional style (regular in general linguistics), 
occupational variety, speech variety or variation, fi eld of discourse, 
and text type. There is much divergence of opinion as regards the 
proper term and it is related to the general consideration of this 
linguistic phenomenon — whether it is treated as a scientifi c 
discipline, or as a professional area. The term that connects theory 
and practice and backs the dictum that language is a system of 
communication which is used by the people of a particular country, 
seems to be functional style.
Identifying language as a semiotic system with certain purpose 
or purposes, we will have to defi ne it more carefully according to 

its purposes. The purpose of communication depends upon the 
circumstances attending the process of speech in each particular 
case. The possible situations can be roughly classifi ed into two 
types: formal and informal. Along with levels of formality, scholars 
also study changes in register based on the speaker’s awareness of 
a broader network of differences in situation, topic, addressee(s), 
or location. It relates to the appropriate choice of language with 
regard to domain, i.e. ‘a cluster of social situations constrained 
by a common set of behavioral rules’ (Strazny, 2005, p. 898, 
v. 2). The word domain has acquired another meaning: an area of 
activity, interest, or knowledge (Longman, 2001). The purposes of 
communication within those areas were recognized by T. Hutchinson 
and A. Waters as specifi c (Hutchinson, Waters, 2010). The language, 
which serves these purposes, is identifi ed as language for specifi c 
purposes (LSP). In European linguistic tradition the term LSP is 
applied to language means used by experts communicating within 
their areas of expertise.
The concept of Language for Specifi c Purposes arose in the 
early 1960s partly in response to the recognized need for improved 
communication between the developed and developing countries 
of the world. The developing countries were hungry for “the 
explosion of technical information in this century which caused 
English to become the lingua franca (a language people use to 
communicate when they have different fi rst languages) of the 
international community” (Hitchcock, 1978), and the developed 
nations were anxious to provide appropriate aid. With the status 
of lingua franca came the self-conscious realization on the part 
of the English teaching profession that the English language was 
desired “not for the purpose of spreading British or American 
link within multicultural, multilingual societies as a vehicle for 
international communication, entertainment and administration, and 
as the language in which has taken place the genesis of the second 
industrial and scientifi c revolution (Strevens, 1977). This global state 
of affairs in conjunction with the increasing recognition of the need