Lenguas con Propósitos Específicos: Perspectivas cambiantes y nuevos desafíos

Abstract

Teaching of languages for specific academic and professional purposes, popularly known as LPE, has long been using linguistic analyses of standardized genres as basis for the design and development of programs and materials. Recent developments in the field of discourse and genre analysis have raised a number of issues which are of fundamental importance to LPE raising a number of fundamentally crucial pedagogical issues which have significant consequences for the pragmatic success or failure of communication in institutionalized contexts. One of these issues is the newly acquired understanding and awareness of the increasing dynamic complexity of professional genres in cross-disciplinary and culturally diverse contexts. The other is the lack of understanding of the nature and function expertise in specific professional contexts and the role of language in the acquisition of such expertise. Furthermore, we still have no clear understanding of whether, and to what extent, such disciplinary expertise is teachable or learnable. The paper reviews some of the recent research in relevant areas to identify and discuss some of these important issues which have strong implications for the teaching and learning of languages for specific purposes.