This paper investigates the role of English in voice assistant (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant) use from the perspective of language ideology. Major commercial companies in the voice assistant market use English as a training language for their speech technologies and offer the most optimised support for standardised varieties of English. This…

English has been for centuries seen as the native language of speakers in the English-speaking inner circle countries, as the second language of speakers in the former British-colony outer circle countries and as an international business lingua franca among speakers in the techno-economically powerful extended circle countries. Little is known…

Purpose: This study explored ESL learners' utilization of Online Discussion Forums (ODFs) in Interactive Reading for Academic Disciplines (iREAD) to assist reading of online scientific texts within an English for Specific Purposes course at a public university. Method: This qualitative research employed two data collection methods during lessons…

Syntactic complexity is a crucial aspect of linguistic proficiency and thus understanding and supporting such development in learners is a keen concern for language teachers. Research conducted has shown growing sophistication of noun phrase structures by writers of different abilities in academic writing (Biber & Gray, 2010; Liu & Li,…

Websites offer research groups a powerful tool for self-promotion and dissemination of their research to a diversified audience. The aim of this study is to explore how research groups affiliated to a research institution in a non-Anglophone country compose their websites to achieve visibility and impact and reach multiple audiences. Content…

In contemporary educational contexts, technology, globalization, and mobility have brought about a blurring of the boundary between language learning and activation in and beyond the classroom. (We prefer the term "activation" to "use" as it has a more dynamic connotation.) This contrasts with the pre-globalized, pre-Internet…

In computer engineering education, specific English language practices are needed to enable computer engineering students to succeed in professional settings. This study was conducted for two purposes. First, it aimed at investigating to what extent the English courses offered to computer engineering students at the National School of Applied…

Discusses problems that U.S. companies may experience in getting computer programs and other related products accepted in other countries because of difficulties in translating the English language used in the products. Topics discussed include slang, acronyms, and abbreviations; economic and financial differences; cultural differences; and…

Materials development in English for Science and Technology (EST), particularly for English-as-a-Foreign-Language university students, is discussed with reference to the current EST situation in Taiwan. Issues include content vs. skills approach, textbook selection or innovation, process- vs. product-oriented materials, and authentic vs.…

Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a leading postsecondary technical institution in Singapore, offers English for academic and occupational purposes to prepare students for writing their final year projects. This article discusses the approaches used in Mechanical Engineering and Biotechnology projects. A sample exercise is appended. (Contains two references.)…

Reporting verbs used in reporting statements, or citation, in medical journal articles are described, and their role in the discourse is examined. Choice among Discourse Verbs, Real-Word Verbs, and Cognition Verbs correlates with the rhetorical function of the report; e.g, Cognition Verbs correlate with reports of consensus views of the scientific…

This article describes an analysis of English-language needs of an oil company in the Middle East, exploring the role of ethnography in carrying out the holistic research necessary to obtain a clear picture of the company's needs. It includes a discussion of the project's findings and recommendations for language training. (11 references) (MDM)

In Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries, where native English speakers are rare and only limited quantities of English-language literature are available, the English for specific purposes teacher has to be more versatile and be able to accommodate the varying levels of English mastery of students. (CB)

A corpus of 15 articles from 5 leading medical journals was used to examine how the communicative purpose of the different rhetorical sections of research papers and case reports in medical English written discourse influences the frequency and category distribution of the modulation devices (hedges) used in each section. (57 references)…