A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF THE LEXIS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH AND BUSINESS ENGLISH TEACHING MATERIALSsu：基于語料庫的研究商務英語和商務英

ACORPUS-BASEDSTUDYOFTHELEXISOFBUSINESSENGLISHANDBUSINESSENGLISHTEACHINGMATERIALS

AthesissubmittedtotheUniversityofManchesterforthedegreeofPhDintheFacultyofEducation.

2000

MichaelNelson

CentreforEnglishLanguageStudiesinEducation

TableofContents

Page

Acknowledgements

22

Chapter1

SummaryoftheResearch

25

Chapter2

StatementoftheProblemandOverview

29

2.1

Introduction

29

2.1

Thehypothesesandresearchquestions

30

2.3

Method

30

2.4

Methodologicaloverview

33

2.5

Aimsoftheresearch

33

2.6

Overviewofthethesis

34

2.7

Concreteproblems-concreteanswers

35

Chapter3

AReviewoftheLiteratureofBusinessEnglish

37

3.1

Introductionandoverview

37

3.2

ThedevelopmentofESP

38

3.2.1

TheoriginsofESPuntil1945

38

3.2.2

Post-warESP

39

3.2.3

Stage1:RegisterAnalysis

41

3.2.4

LaterdevelopmentsinRegisterAnalysis

43

3.2.5

Stage2:DiscourseorRhetoricalAnalysis

43

3.2.6

LaterdevelopmentsinDiscourseAnalysis:GenreAnalysis

44

3.2.7

Stage3:NeedsAnalysis

45

3.2.8

LaterdevelopmentsinNeedsAnalysis

47

3.2.9

Stage4:Skillsandstrategies

48

3.2.10

Stage5:TheLearning-Centredapproach

49

3.2.11

Stage6:ESPtoday

50

3.2.12

Summary:definitionsofESP

51

3.3

BusinessEnglishinanESPcontext

54

A:StudiesintoWhatBusinessLanguageis

58

58

3.4

Pickettandbeyond

58

3.4.1

Introduction:initialcommentsonthenatureofBusinessEnglish

58

3.4.2

Pickettandthe?poetics?ofthebusiness?ergolect?

61

3.4.3

Pickett:asummary

67

3.5

Pickett?sConcept1:Poeticsandthenatureof?technical?language

69

3.5.1

Thenotionsofsub-technicallanguageandlayeringoutsidethefieldofBusinessEnglish

70

3.5.2

ThenotionoflayeringinthefieldofBusinessEnglish

73

3.5.3

Discussion

76

3.6

Pickett?sConcept2:The?Gamut?-theergolectofbusiness

80

3.6.1

Discourse

81

Cohesion

82

Strategies

83

3.6.2

Culture

86

3.6.3

Corporateculture,powerandlanguage

91

Corporateculture

92

3.6.4

Power

94

3.6.5

Genre:abriefoverview

97

BusinessEnglishgenres

99

Moves,stepsandcycles

100

Extra-linguisticaspectsofgenrestudy

102

3.6.6

Discussion:approachestoresearchingthe?gamut’-discourseandgenre

103

Discourse

104

Genre

108

Discussion

113

3.7

Pickett?sConcept3:Businesscommunication-needsanalysisandBusinessEnglish

114

3.7.1

NeedsanalysisandBusinessEnglish:whocommunicateswithwho?

116

3.7.2

Problemswithneedsanalysisapproaches

117

3.7.3

Languageandneedsanalysis

118

3.7.4

Perceptionsandintuition

119

3.7.5

Anattempttoovercomethequestionoflanguageinneedsanalysis

121

3.7.6

Anattempttoovercomethequestionofintuitioninneedsanalysis

121

3.7.7.

Languageandneedssurveys

122

3.7.8

Discussion

123

B:WhatBusinessEnglishisthoughttobe

125

3.8.

BusinessEnglishmaterials

125

3.8.1

GeneralorspecialEnglish?

125

Discussion

129

3.8.2

CategorisingBusinessEnglishmaterials

130

3.8.3

AnalysisofthevalidityofBusinessEnglishmaterialsinrelationtointuition

134

3.8.4

StudiesofintuitionoutsideBusinessEnglish

136

3.8.5

StudiesofintuitioninBusinessEnglish

139

3.8.6

Discussion

142

3.9

Thereviewoftheliterature:summaryandconclusions

143

3.9.1

Macro-vsmicro-levelknowledge

144

3.9.2

Singlevsmulti-disciplinaryknowledge

145

3.9.3

Intuitivevsempiricalknowledge

146

3.9.4

Researchknowledgevsclassroompractice

146

3.10

Afterword:towardsamethodology

147

Chapter4

Lexis:FromCollocationtoColligation

149

4.1

Introduction

149

4.2

Vocabularyandpedagogy:abriefhistory

150

4.2.1

The1950stothepresentday

154

4.3

Collocation

155

4.3.1

Apreliminarydefinitionofcollocation

155

Syntagmatic/paradigmaticrelations

157

Reciprocal/non-reciprocalcollocation

157

4.3.2

Developmentoftheconceptofcollocation

158

4.3.3

Keyelementsofcollocation

163

Thenotionofupwardanddownwardcollocation

164

Thestrengthofcollocations

165

Thenotionofcollocationalspan-whatmakesacollocation?

167

Collocationasanembodimentofthe?idiomprinciple?

169

Collocation,theidiomprincipleandBusinessEnglish

170

Collocationandbeyond

174

4.4

Semanticprosody

174

4.5

Colligation

179

4.5.1

Technicalaspectsofcolligation

179

4.5.2

Pedagogyandcolligation

180

4.6

Afinalviewofcollocation,colligationandsemanticprosody

181

4.7

Multi-worditems,prefabricationandthelexicalapproach

183

4.7.1

Introduction

183

4.7.2

Whataremulti-worditems?

184

4.7.3

Gambits

185

4.7.4

OtherdefinitionsofMWIs

186

4.7.5

Discussion

195

4.7.6

CharacteristicsofMWIs:makingsenseofthedefinitions

197

Fixedandnon-fixed:pointsonacontinuum

198

Therelationshipofformandfunction

200

Competence,performance,theidiomprincipleandmulti-worditems

202

4.8

Thelexicalapproach

204

4.9

Multi-worditemsinthisthesis

209

4.10

Thenextchapter

211

Chapter5

TheMethodologicalBackground:

BritishTraditionsofTextAnalysis,CorrelativeRegisterAnalysisandCorpusLinguistics

212

5.1

Introduction

212

5.2

Britishtraditionsintextanalysis:Firth,HallidayandSinclair

213

5.2.1

Principle1:Linguisticsisessentiallyasocialscienceandanappliedscience

213

5.2.2

Principle2:Languageshouldbestudiedinactual,attested,authenticinstancesofuse,notasintuitive,invented,isolatedsentences

214

5.2.3

Principle3:Theunitofstudymustbewholetexts

215

5.2.4

Principle4:Textsandtexttypesmustbestudiedcomparativelyacrosstextcorpora

217

5.2.5

Principle5:Linguisticsisconcernedwiththestudyofmeaning:formandmeaningareinseparable

218

5.2.6

Principle6:Thereisnoboundarybetweenlexisandgrammar:lexisandgrammarareindependent

219

5.2.7

Principle7:Muchlanguageuseisroutine

220

5.2.8

Principle8:Languageinusetransmitstheculture

220

5.2.9

Principle9:Saussuriandualismsaremisconceived

221

5.3

Corpuslinguistics

222

5.3.1

Corpora:abriefhistory

222

5.3.2

Whyusecorpora?

225

5.3.3

Corpora:forandagainst

225

5.3.4

Reasonsfortheuseofcorporainlinguisticanalysis

226

5.3.5

Someproblemswiththeuseofcorporaforlinguisticanalysis

229

5.3.6

Corporauseinthisstudy

233

5.4

Thenextchapter

234

Chapter6

CreatingtheCorpora

235

6.1

Introduction

235

6.2

Corpussize

235

6.2.1

ThesizeoftheBusinessEnglishCorpus

238

6.2.2

ThesizeofthePublishedMaterialsCorpus

239

6.3

Sampling,representativenessandbalanceintheBEC

240

6.3.1

Introduction

240

6.3.2

Sampling

241

Thepopulation

242

Extralinguisticfactorsinrelationtothepopulation

243

Specificationofmacro-genresforthesamples

245

Samplesizeandmake-up

247

6.3.3

BalanceandrepresentativenesintheBEC

249

6.4

Sampling,balanceandrepresentativenessinthePMC

254

6.5

Datacollectionandentry

259

6.5.1

DatacollectionfortheBEC

259

Publiclyavailabledata

260

Privatedata

260

6.5.2

DatacollectionforthePMC

262

6.5.3

MethodsofdataentryintheBEC

262

Adaptionofmaterialalreadyinelectronicform

262

Conversionbyopticalscanning

263

Conversionbykeyboarding

263

6.5.4

DataentryinthePMC

265

6.5.5

Transcription

265

Spokenlanguagetranscription

266

6.6

Datastorageandretrieval

269

6.7

Confidentiality,copyrightandethics

270

6.8

Thereferencecorpus

272

6.9

Discussionandrationale

272

Chapter7

Hypotheses,ResearchQuestionsandMethod

274

7.1

Introduction

274

7.2

HypothesisOne

274

7.3

HypothesisTwo

284

7.4

Thenextchapter

288

Chapter8

Overviewofresults

289

8.1

Introduction

289

8.2

AnalysisoftheBEC

289

8.2.1

GeneralstatisticsoftheBEC

289

8.2.2

BECfrequencylistunlemmatised/unedited

290

8.2.3

BECfrequencylist(lemmatised)

290

8.2.4

BECKeywords

293

8.2.5

GrammaticalcategorisationofBECpositivekeywords

298

8.2.6

SemanticcategorisationofBECpositivekeywords

298

8.2.7

GrammaticalcategorisationofBECnegativekeywords

298

8.2.8

SemanticcategorisationofBECnegativekeywords

299

8.2.9

Analysisof50keywordsfromtheBEC

299

8.2.10

BEC3-6wordclusterfrequencylists

311

8.2.11

KeyBEC3-wordclusters

317

8.2.12

Analysisoffivekey2-wordclustersfromtheBEC

319

8.2.13

Analysisoffive3-wordclustersfromtheBEC

322

8.2.14

BECKeykey-worddatabase

325

8.2.15

AnalysisoffivekeywordsfromtheBNCcorpus

327

8.2.16

Collocatesofthe50keywordsshownbyMIstatistic

330

8.3

AnalysisofthePMC

334

8.3.1

PMCgeneralstatistics

334

8.3.2

PMCfrequencylistunlemmatised

334

8.3.3

PMCfrequencylistlemmatised

335

8.3.4

PMCpositivekeywords(BNCreferencecorpus)

335

8.3.5

PMCpositivekeywords(BECreferencecorpus)

337

8.3.6

GrammaticalcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BNCreference)

340

8.3.7

SemanticcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BNCreference)

340

8.3.8

GrammaticalcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BECreference)

340

8.3.9

SemanticcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BECreference)

340

8.3.10

AnalysisoffivekeywordsfromthePMC

341

8.3.11

PMC3-wordclusterfrequencylist

346

8.3.12

PMCkey3-wordclusters(BECreference)

347

8.3.13

PMCKeykey-worddatabase

348

8.4

Thenextchapter

350

Chapter9

ResultsandDiscussion

351

9.1

Introduction

351

9.2

Hypothesesandquestions

351

9.2.1

ResearchquestionsrelatingtoBusinessEnglishlexis

352

9.3

LinguisticfeaturesofBusinessEnglishlexis

354

9.3.1

IstheresuchasthingasBusinessEnglishlexis?

354

Keywords

355

PositivekeywordsintheBEC

357

9.3.2

IfthereissuchathingasBusinessEnglishlexiswhatisitmadeupof?

360

Positivekeywordanalysis

361

Negativekeywordanalysis

375

Keywordsandthe?worldofbusiness?

384

Thenextsection

387

9.3.3

CantheconceptofsemanticprosodybefoundinBusinessEnglish?

387

Analysisofbusinesslexisbysemanticprosody

388

Semanticprosody:conclusions

406

9.3.4

Whatcolligationalandgrammar/meaningpatternscanbefoundinBusinessEnglish?

411

Colligationandgrammaticalform/meaningrelationsinBusinessEnglish

415

Discussion:business-specificgrammaticalpatterning?

434

Sub-technicallanguageandPickett-afootnote

437

9.3.5

HowarewordsdistributedacrossBusinessEnglishmacro-genres?

440

OverallrangeofBusinessEnglishlexisacrossmacro-genres

442

DoingvsaboutandspokenvswrittenBusinessEnglishlexis

444

9.3.6

WhatkindofclusterscanbefoundinBusinessEnglish

447

LexicalclustersintheBECatthemacro-level

448

LexicalclustersintheBECatthemicro-level:analysisofindividual2-3wordclusters

452

9.3.7

HowdowordsassociatewitheachotherinBusinessEnglish?

460

9.3.8

BusinessEnglish:asummary

465

9.4

BusinessEnglishpublishedmaterials

471

9.4.1

HowdothePMCkeywordsdefinethelexicalworldofbusinessandhowdoesthisdefinitioncomparetothatshownintheBEC?

474

Analysis1:KeywordanalysisofthePMC(BNCreferencecorpus)

474

Discussion:resultsofAnalysis1

488

Analysis2:KeywordanalysisofthePMC(BECreferencecorpus)

490

Discussion:resultsofAnalysis1andAnalysis2

502

9.4.2

Furtheranalysis-PMCnegativekeywords

504

9.4.3

SemanticprosodyinthePMC

505

Discussion

511

9.4.4

Colligationandgrammar/meaningcombinationsinthePMC

512

9.4.5

WordclustersinthePMC

517

Clustersatamacro-levelinthePMC

518

Clustersatamicro-levelinthePMC

521

9.4.6

ThePMC:conclusions

522

Thenextsection

525

9.5

PedagogicalIssues

526

9.5.1

Materialscreationshouldbecorpus-based

527

9.5.2

BusinessEnglishmaterialsshouldcontainBusinessEnglish

529

9.5.3

Sub-businesslanguageneedstobestressed

533

9.5.4

Semanticprosodyneedstobemadewidelyknownandexplicitlytaught

535

9.5.5

Lexisshouldbeseeninitstypicalgrammaticalsetting

540

9.5.6

Studentsshouldknowthatwordsarenotevenlydistributed

543

9.5.7

Thereshouldbeagreaterfocusonwordclusters

545

9.5.8

Associatewordsshouldbemorerecognised

548

9.5.9

Pedagogicalissues:aconclusion

550

9.6

Incidentalfindings

552

9.7

Critiqueandfutureapplicationsofthecorpora

561

9.7.1

Critique

561

9.7.2

Furtherapplications

565

Chapter10

SummaryofConclusions

567

10.1

ThelexisofBusinessEnglish

567

10.2

ThelexisofpublishedBusinessEnglishmaterials

570

10.3

Afinalword

572

PMCBibliography

573

Bibliography

575

Appendices

Theappendicestothisthesisaresituatedintwoplaces.Firstly,inVolumeIIthataccompaniesthisvolume,andsecondlyontheCDROMthatistobefoundinsidethebackcoverofthisvolume.

AppendicesinVol.II

BEC

Appendix

Content

Page

Appendix1

BEClemmatisedfrequencylist-top1,000words

604

Appendix2

GrammaticalcategorisationofBECpositivekeywords

623

Appendix3

SemanticcategorisationofBECpositivekeywords

637

Appendix4

GrammaticalcategorisationofBECnegativekeywords

649

Appendix5

SemanticcategorisationofBECnegativekeywords

656

Appendix6

Analysisof50BECkeywords:

664

Keywords1

customer

665

manager

668

supplier

671

distributor

674

shareholder

677

employee

679

staff

681

partner

684

boss

687

management

690

Keywords2

business

694

investment

707

delivery

711

payment

714

development

717

production

721

communication

724

competition

727

takeover

730

distribution

732

Keywords3

sell

734

manage

738

receive

741

confirm

743

provide

746

send

749

develop

753

discuss

756

achieve

759

improve

761

Keywords4

high

764

big

769

low

773

global

777

international

780

local

784

competitive

787

corporate

790

strategic

793

financial

795

Keywords5

sale

802

merger

805

trade

808

package

812

export

815

service

818

market

823

earnings

832

performance

834

product

837

Appendix7

Five2-wordclusters

841

Keywords6

interestrates

842

cashflow

845

marketshare

847

stockmarket

849

WallStreet

851

Appendix8

Five3-wordclusters

853

Keywords7

alotof

854

oneofthe

859

theendof

863

inorderto

867

weneedto

870

Appendix9

FivewordsfromtheBNC

873

Keywords8

send

874

manage

877

big

880

global

884

package

886

Appendix10

Collocatesofthe50wordsbyMIstatistic

888

Appendix11

Exampleteachingmaterials

891

Appendix12

IdealvsActualContentoftheBEC

905

PMC

Appendix13

GrammaticalcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BNCreference)

908

Appendix14

SemanticcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BNCreference)

918

Appendix15

GrammaticalcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BECreference)

926

Appendix16

SemanticcategorisationofPMCpositivekeywords(BECreference)

931

Appendix17

Analysisof5PMCkeywords

936

Keywords9

manager

937

customer

943

product

946

market

951

business

958

Appendix18

PMCnegativekeywords(BECreference)

966

Appendix19

KeytoBECfilenames

971

Appendix20

KeytoPMCfilenames

972

ONTHECDROM

Filenamesmatchtheircontents

Readme.doc

BEC

BECCorpus:workingversion

BECCorpus:macro-genreversion

BECCorpus:splitversion(by1,102texts)

BECCorpus:taggedversion

BECDatabaseofContents

UnlemmatisedBECfrequencylist

LemmatisedBECfrequencylist

PositiveBECkeywords

NegativeBECkeywords

3-6BECfrequencyclusters

Key3-wordclusters

BECkeykey-worddatabase

PMC

PMCcorpus

UnlemmatisedPMCfrequencylist

LemmatisedPMCfrequencylist

PMC(BNC)positivekeywordlist

PMC(BEC)positivekeywordlist

PMC3-wordclusterfrequencylist

PMCkey3-wordclusterlist(BNCreference)

PMCkey3-wordclusterlist(BECreference)

PMCKeykey-worddatabase

PMCNegativekeywordlist(BECreference)

ListofTables

TableNumber

Table

Page

I

AdefinitionofESP:absoluteandvariablefactors

53

II

Thelayeringofbusinesslexis

66

III

Examplesofdiscourse/genrestudiesinrelationtothesizeofthedatagatheredandthetransferofresultstotheclassroom

106

IV

TypesoflexicalphrasesdefinedbyNattinger&DeCarrico

190

V

Summaryofcategoriesofmulti-worditems

195

VI

DifferentterminologyusedforsameMWIphenomena

197

VII

FormulaiclanguageasdefinedbyHowarth(1998)

199

VIII

Reasonsforusingcorporaforlinguisticanalysis

229

IX

BusinessEnglishCorpusidealcontentspecification

246

X

TheBusinessEnglishCorpus

252

XI

BusinessEnglishbooksincludedinthePMC

256

XII

Datagainedviapersonalcontacts

261

XIII

DatagainedviatheChamberofCommerce

262

XIV

ModeoftextentryintheBEC

264

XV

GeneralstatisticsoftheBEC

289

XVI

BEClemmatisedfrequencylist(top100lemmas)

291

XVII

BECpositivekeywords(top100)

293

XVIII

BECnegativekeywords(top100)

296

XIX

6-wordfrequencyclusters

312

XX

5-wordfrequencyclusters

313

XXI

4-wordfrequencyclusters

315

XXII

3-wordfrequencyclusters

316

XXIII

KeyBEC3-wordclusters

317

XXIV

BECkeykey-words(top100)

325

XXV

CollocatesofthekeywordsandMIscore

331

XXVI

GeneralstatisticsofthePMC

334

XXVII

PMCpositivekeywords(top100)-BNCreference

335

XXVIII

PMCpositivekeywords(top100)-BECreference

338

XXIX

PMC3-wordclusterfrequencylist

346

XXX

PMCkey3-wordclusters-BECreference

347

XXXI

PMCkeykey-words(top50)-BECreference

349

XXXII

Business-relatedwordsfoundinthetop100mostfrequentwordsinthelemmatisedBEC

355

XXXIII

Top100BECPositiveKeyWordList-business-relatedwordsonly

357

XXXIV

Differencesinthetop100frequency/keywordlistsoftheBEC

359

XXXV

Positivekeywordsgrammaticalcategorisation

362

XXXVI

SemanticcategorisationofpositivekeyverbsintheBEC

367

XXXVII

Negativekeywordsgrammaticalcategorisation

376

XXXVIII

SemanticcategorisationofnegativekeyverbsintheBEC

380

XXXIX

SemanticcategorisationofnegativekeyadjectivesintheBEC

382

XXXX

Businesslexisvsnon-businesslexis:positiveandnegativekeywords

386

XXXXI

Leftofnodewordsemanticprosodicanalysisofthewordcustomer

390

XXXXII

Peopleinbusiness:tableofsemanticprosodicrelations

394

XXXXIII

Businessactivities:tableofsemanticprosodicrelations

395

XXXXIV

Businessactions:tableofsemanticprosodicrelations

397

XXXXV

Businessdescriptions:tableofsemanticprosodicrelations

400

XXXXVI

Comparativeprosodiesofglobalandinternational

402

XXXXVII

Businesseventsandentities:tableofsemanticprosodicrelations

404

XXXXVIII

Percentageofcoveragebysemanticprosody

408

XXXXIX

ComparativeoccurrenceofsemanticprosodyBEC/BNC

409

L

Examplesofnoun/verbphrasesandcompoundadjectivesrelatedtopeopleinbusiness

415

LI

Business-specificusageofwordsrelatedtopeopleinbusiness

418

LII

Business-specificusageofwordsrelatedtobusinessactivities

421

LIII

Business-specificusageofwordsrelatedtobusinessactions

425

LIV

Business-specificusageofwordsrelatedtobusinessdescriptions

428

LV

Business-specificusageofwordsrelatedtobusinesseventsandentities

431

LVI

KeywordscomputedfromMeeting2intheBEC

437

LVII

Divisionofkeywordsintothreecategoriesoflexis

439

LVIII

Macro-genericdistributionofBusinessEnglishlexis

443

LIX

Placementofthe50wordsalongthespoken/writtenanddoing/aboutcontinua

445

LX

Colligationaldifferencesbetweenalotofandtheendof

458

LXI

Placementofthe2-and3wordclustersalongthespoken/writtenanddoing/aboutcontinua

459

LXII

Associatesofthetoptenkeykey-wordsintheBEC

462

LXIII

Associativepatterningbetweenthetoptenkeykey-wordsintheBEC

463

LXIV

The100most‘key’keywordsofthePMC(BNCreferencecorpus)

475

LXV

SemanticcategorisationofPMCkeywordverbs

483

LXVI

Noun/verbPMC-BECdifferences

488

LXVII

The100most‘key’keywordsofthePMC(BECreferencecorpus)

491

LXVIII

PMCpositivekeyverbs(BECreference)

498

LXIX

BECnegativekeyverbs

499

LXX

PMCpositivekeyadjectives(BECreference)

500

LXXI

PMCpositivekeynoun/verbs(BECreference)

501

LXXII

DifferencesbetweenkeywordsfoundinthePMCandBEC

503

LXXIII

SemanticprosodiesofmanagerintheBECandPMC

506

LXXIV

SemanticprosodiesofcustomerintheBECandPMC

507

LXXV

SemanticprosodiesofproductintheBECandPMC

508

LXXVI

SemanticprosodiesofmarketintheBECandPMC

509

LXXVII

SemanticprosodiesofbusinessintheBECandPMC

510

LXXVIII

DifferencesbetweensemanticprosodyinthePMCandBEC

511

LXXIX

ComparisonoffivewordsPMC/BEC

514

LXXX

Themostfrequent3-wordclustersBECandPMC

522

LXXXI

Summaryofthelexicalworldofbusiness

530

LXXXII

Examplesoftherelativefrequencyofmale-femalelexisintheBEC

552

LXXXIII

Theslidingscaleofuseofswearing:PMC->BEC->BNC

553

ListofFigures

FigureNumber

Figure

Page

Fig.1

ThedevelopmentofESPasfoundintheliterature

42

Fig.2

Atime-lineofapproachestoESP

51

Fig.3

ConflictofESPconceptions

53

Fig.4

ThedivisioninSP-LT-Strevens(1977)

55

Fig.5

ThedivisionofESP-Jordan(1989)

55

Fig.6

ThedivisionofEAP-Jordan(1989)

55

Fig.7

EBPdividedintoEGBPandESBP

56

Fig.8

BusinessEnglishinESPandBusinessEnglishlearners

57

Fig.9

BusinessEnglishasseenbyBrieger(1997)

59

Fig.10

Thespecialisedlanguageofparticularbusinesses

63

Fig.11

AsummaryofPickett’smainideas

68

Fig.12

SimilaritiesanddifferencesinBPAsandBNPs

74

Fig.13

ProblemsrelatedtoNNSdiscoursepatterns

85

Fig.14

Amodelofcross-andinter-culturaldiscourse

91

Fig.15

SpokengenresinBusinessEnglishasidentifiedbyTompos(1999)

99

Fig.16

Genericstructureofcorporatemeetings

102

Fig.17

FactorsinvolvedinthediscussionofBusinessEnglish

124

Fig.18

BusinessEnglishcategoriesofmaterials

132

Fig.19

Syntagmatic/paradigmaticrelationships

157

Fig.20

Kjellmer’s(1990)ideasoncollocationalfixedness

165

Fig.21

Aslidingscaleofcollocability

166

Fig.22

GenderdivisionintheBECbypercentageofwords

253

Fig.23

UK/USlanguageintheBECshownbypercentageofwords

254

Fig.24

TheSpoken/WrittenandDoing/AboutdivisionsintheBECshownbypercentage

254

Fig.25

ThePMCdividedinto70%resourcebooks(23books)and30%coursebooks(10books)

258

Fig.26

ResourcebooksinthePMC

258

Fig.27

GenderdistributionofauthorsofbooksinthePMC

258

Fig.28

Booksdevotedtospeaking,writingorgeneralskillsinthePMC

259

Fig.29

AnexamplefromtheBECdatabase

270

Fig.30

Keywordsanalysedinthethesisshownbysemanticcategory

280

Fig.31

TheprocessbywhichBusinessEnglishkeywordswerearrivedat

357

Fig.32

TherelationshipofBusinessEnglishkeywordsandgeneralEnglish

360

Fig.33

SemanticnouncategoriesofBECkeywords

362

Fig.34

Relationshipofbusinesstodelexicalisedverbsinthe100mostfrequentwordsoftheBEC

369

Fig.35

Semanticnoun/verbcategoriesofBECkeywords

371

Fig.36

Theslidingscaleofbusiness-relatedkeynoun/verbsintheBEC

372

Fig.37

ThemainsemanticgroupsthatgotoformkeyBusinessEnglishlexis

374

Fig.38

SemanticnouncategoriesofBECnegativekeywords

376

Fig.39

Peoplefeaturedinpositiveandnegativekeywords

377

Fig.40

Placesfeaturedinpositiveandnegativekeywords

379

Fig.41

Theslidingscaleofkeywordadjectives

383

Fig.42

Semanticnoun/verbcategoriesofBECnegativekeywords

383

Fig.43

TheaxesthatdelineateBusinessEnglishlexis

387

Fig.44

Semanticprosodyfordistribution

396

Fig.45

Themostfrequentsemanticsetscollocatingwithbusinesslexis

407

Fig.46

Dispersionplotforcustomer

441

Fig.47

Macro-genericdistributionofthe50wordstakenforanalysis

443

Fig.48

Semanticprosodicsetsfor2-wordclusters

453

Fig.49

Semanticprosodicsetsfor3-wordclusters

456

Fig.50

LevelsoflexicalconnectionintheBusinessEnglishenvironment

460

Fig.51

Associatesofcompanyandsales

464

Fig.52

Semanticgroupscommonlyassociatingwithbusinesslexis

467

Fig.53

BusinessEnglishlexis:ever-expandingsegmentsthatformpartofthewhole

471

Fig.54

Thetwo-wayprocessofkeywordanalysisofPMClexis

473

Fig.55

DistributionofkeywordsbywordclassinthePMC(BNCreference)

477

Fig.56

SemanticcategorisationofpositivekeynounsPMC->BNC

478

Fig.57

ThelexicalworldofBusinessEnglishasfoundinthePMC(BNCreferencecorpus)

488

Fig.58

DistributionofkeywordsbywordclassinthePMC(BECreference)

493

Fig.59

SemanticcategorisationofPMCkeywordnouns(BECreference)

494

Fig.60

ThebusinessworldfoundinthekeynounsofBusinessEnglishteachingmaterials

498

Fig.61

Mostfrequent3-wordclusters-PMCandBEC

518

Fig.62

PMCkey3-wordclusters-BNCandBECreference

518

Fig.63

AlexicalmapofBusinessEnglishforstudents

531

Fig.64

Example6-and7-wordclustersfromtheBEC

546

Abstract

ThisthesisaddressestwofundamentalissuesregardinglexisintheBusinessEnglishenvironment.ItfirstlyaskswhetherthelexisofBusinessEnglishissignificantlydifferentfromthatof‘everyday’generalEnglish,andsecondly,ifthelexisfoundinBusinessEnglishpublishedmaterialsissignificantlydifferentfromthatfoundinreal-lifebusiness.Inordertotestthesehypothesestwocorporawerecreatedtoformthebasisoftheanalysis:thePublishedMaterialsCorpus(PMC)consistingof33publishedBusinessEnglishcourseandresourcebooksat590,000runningwordsandtheBusinessEnglishCorpus(BEC)at,1,023,000runningwordsdividedbetweenspoken(44%)andwritten(56%)texts.TheBNCSamplercorpuswasusedasreferencecorpus.ThesethreecorporawerethenabletobelexicallycomparedbyusingWordSmith3(Scott1999)usingstatistically-basedkeywords.Theresultsoftheseanalysesshowedthatitwaspossibletodefinetheworldofbusinesslexis,andalsohowitwaslexicallyseparatedfromgeneralEnglishbyplacingthewordsintoalimitedgroupofsemanticcategories.Thesecategorieswerefoundtorecuracrosswordclassboundariesandshowedalexicalworldofbusinessboundedbyitspeople,institutions,activities,eventsandentities,Theboundarylimitsofbusinesslexiswereplacedbythenon-businesslexisofthenegativekeywordsandthesemanticgroupstheyformed.Representativewordsfromeachofthemainsemanticgroupswerechosenforfurtherstudytoseehowtheybehavedbothsemanticallyandgrammatically.Louw’s(1993)conceptofsemanticprosodywasusedtodeterminehowBusinessEnglishwordsassociatedwithcertainsema