Abstract
Language for special or specific purposes (LSP) was earlier the main term used for research on communication in professional settings. The history of this field reveals an early theoretical interest in the description of various sublanguages, which are assumed to exist within the general language system in response to specific professional needs. Early studies were concerned with the written products, e.g., with specific terminology, text types, and registers. Over time, however, there has been a growing interest in the communicative processes involved, and in their psychological and sociological dimensions, with a theoretical shift towards sociolinguistics, social constructivism, ethnography, conversation analysis, and critical linguistics. Studies have dealt with spoken as well as written discourse and with the complex and diversified interplay between these media. The term professional discourse or professional communication is preferred to delineate this wider field.
The early LSP traditions developed mainly within foreign language departments, with their orientation towards analysis of the language system. Practical problems relating to translation, standardization of terminology, and design of technical and commercial documents were dealt with. This connection between the study of foreign languages and professional communication still exists, though the problems focused on have shifted somewhat. The earlier interest in language differences has made way for an interest in problems relating to language-in-context, and a sociological approach has been used as well for macroanalysis of organization structure as for microanalysis of workplace interaction. This has meant a gradual acknowledgement of the complexity and multimodality of interaction at work and a broadened methodological frame. In a gradually more globalized professional world, we also find that the cross-cultural dimension, in all its social complexity, is becoming more and more central.
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Gunnarsson, BL. (2017). Professional Communication. In: Van Deusen-Scholl, N., May, S. (eds) Second and Foreign Language Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02246-8_9
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