DISCOURSE COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS AND E.S.P TEACHING/ LEARNING PREREQUISITES

Year 2016, Volume: 5 , 54 - 61, 01.09.2016

Khadoudja Belkhenchir

Abstract

The notion
of “discourse community” has been widely used in different literatures in the
20th and the beginning of the 21st Centuries. Different scholars (Hymes, Fish,
Swales, Lave and Wenger, etc.) have given their own definitions /
interpretations of what ‘a community’ or ‘a discourse community’ is. Therefore,
we shall try to investigate the various notions and definitions of ‘discourse
community’ and its different characteristics, focusing mainly on the field of
teaching English for Specific Purposes (henceforth E.S.P). Globalisation,
the market economy and the development of different technologies have entailed
new jobs for which the use of different foreign languages has become necessary.
Algeria has always been aware that the goals of economic development cannot be
achieved through the official and national language alone (Arabic), but
together with the teaching/learning of various foreign languages at different
levels of the educational system. At university level, through the teaching of
English as a subject in Science Departments, and the introduction of the L.M.D
(Licence/Master/Doctorate) reform, the Ministry of Higher Education aims at a
better training with adequate qualifications that allow the students to join
the workforce and satisfy the needs of the socio-economic sector.The aim from
teaching Languages for Special Purposes (L.S.P) in general and E.S.P in
particular, is to answer the learners’ needs to become competent users of the
target language to reach various purposes. L.S.P / E.S.P teaching addresses in
most cases a restricted audience, a category of very specialised students who –
after training and experience- will join a specific discourse community. In the
present paper, we shall specify the characteristics of a scientific discourse
community and suggest some prerequisite conditions for teaching / learning ESP
adequately at university level.

Keywords

Community, discourse community, E.S.P. teaching, earning at university level

References

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