(Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics) Vijay Bhatia, Stephen Bremner - The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication-Routledge (2014)

The Routledge Handbook of
Language and Professional
Communication
The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication provides a broad coverage of
the key areas where language and professional communication intersect and gives a comprehensive
account of the field.
The four main sections of the Handbook cover:





Approaches to Professional Communication
Practice
Acquisition of Professional Competence
Views from the Professions

This invaluable reference book incorporates not only an historical view of the field, but also
looks to possible future developments. Contributions from international scholars and practitioners, focusing on specific issues, explore the major approaches to professional communication
and bring into focus recent research.
This is the first handbook of language and professional communication to account for both
pedagogic and practitioner perspectives and as such is an essential reference for postgraduate students
and those researching and working in the areas of applied linguistics and professional communication.
Contributors: Natasha Artemeva, Vijay Bhatia, Stephen Bremner, Patrice M. Buzzanell, Saul
Carliner, Winnie Cheng, Marta Chromá, Isabel Corona, Stephani Currie, George Anthony
David Dass, Bertha Du-Babcock, Matt Falconer, Gail Forey, Janna Fox, Finn Frandsen, Jeremy
P. Fyke, Michael B. Goodman, David Grant, Elizabeth de Groot, Christoph A. Hafner,
Michael Handford, Peter B. Hirsch, Janet Holmes, Winni Johansen, Alan Jones, Sujata Kathpalia,
Koo Swit Ling, Becky S. C. Kwan, William Littlewood, Jane Lockwood, Jane Lung, Carmen
Daniela Maier, Meredith Marra, Lindsay Miller, Catherine Nickerson, Daniel Nyberg, Anne

Peirson-Smith, Robyn V. Remke, Priscilla S. Rogers, Graham Smart, Alina Wan, Yunxia Zhu.
Vijay Bhatia is an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University and University of Malaya. He is
the author of Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings (1993) and Worlds of Written
Discourse: A Genre-based View (2004).
Stephen Bremner is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at City University of
Hong Kong. His main research interests are workplace writing and the ways in which students
make the transition from the academy to the workplace.


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The Routledge Handbook of
Language and Professional
Communication

Edited by
Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremner


First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 selection and editorial matter, Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremner; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78

of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Routledge handbook of language and professional communication / edited by
Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremner.
pages cm. – (Routledge handbooks in applied linguistics)
1. Communication–Study and teaching. 2. Language and language–Study and teaching.
I. Bhatia, V. K. (Vijay Kumar), 1942–
P91.3.R685 2014
302.2’071–dc23
2013025674
ISBN: 978-0-415-67619-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-85168-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books


Contents

List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Introduction

Section 1: Approaches to professional communication
A. General theoretical frameworks
1 Analysing discourse variation in professional contexts
Vijay Bhatia
2 Corpus analyses of professional discourse
Winnie Cheng

ix
x
xi
xvi

1

3

13

3 A situated genre approach for business communication
education in cross-cultural contexts
Yunxia Zhu

26

4 Stretching the multimodal boundaries of professional
communication in multi-resources kits
Carmen Daniela Maier

40

B. Broad disciplinary frameworks
5 Business communication
Catherine Nickerson
6 Business communication: A revisiting of theory,
research and teaching
Bertha Du-Babcock

50

68

v


Contents

7 Research on knowledge-making in professional discourses:
The use of theoretical resources
Graham Smart, Stephani Currie and Matt Falconer
8 Technical communication
Saul Carliner
9 The complexities of communication in professional workplaces
Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra

85

99

112

10 Electronic media in professional communication
Michael B. Goodman and Peter B. Hirsch

129

11 The role of translation in professional communication
Marta Chromá

147

C. Specific disciplinary frameworks
12 Management communication: Getting work done
through people
Priscilla S. Rogers

165

13 Business and the communication of climate change:
An organisational discourse perspective
David Grant and Daniel Nyberg

193

14 Professionalising organisational communication discourses,
materialities and trends
Patrice M. Buzzanell, Jeremy P. Fyke and Robyn V. Remke

207

15 Corporate communication

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen
16 Corporate communication and the role of annual reporting:
Identifying areas for further research
Elizabeth de Groot
Section 2: Practice
A. Pedagogic perspectives
17 A blended needs analysis: Critical genre analysis and needs analysis of
language and communication for professional purposes
Jane Lung

vi

220

237

255

257


Contents

18 The changing landscape of business communication
Sujata S. Kathpalia and Koo Swit Ling

274

19 Methodology for teaching ESP
William Littlewood

287

B. Disciplinary perspectives
20 English for Science and Technology
Lindsay Miller

304

21 Communicative dimensions of professional accounting work
Alan Jones

321

22 Professional communication in the legal domain
Christoph A. Hafner

349

23 Communication in the construction industry
Michael Handford

363

24 Offshore outsourcing: The need for appliable linguistics
Gail Forey

382

25 Media communication: Current trends and future challenges

Isabel Corona

400

26 The public relations industry and its place in professional
communication theory and practice: Past, present
and future perspectives
Anne Peirson-Smith

419

Section 3: Acquisition of professional competence

441

27 Communities in studies of discursive practices
and discursive practices in communities
Becky S. C. Kwan

443

28 The formation of a professional communicator:
A socio-rhetorical approach
Natasha Artemeva and Janna Fox

461

29 Collaborative writing: Challenges for research and teaching
Stephen Bremner

486

vii


Contents

30 Training the call centre communications trainers in the Asian BPO industry
Jane Lockwood

501

31 Credentialing of communication professionals
Saul Carliner

521

Section 4: View from the professions

533

32 Banking

535

33 Law

547

34 Accounting

555

35 PR

562

Appendix: View from the professions – questions
Index

viii

570
571


List of figures

0.1
1.1
1.2
2.1
4.1
10.1
11.1
11.2
12.1
12.2

12.3

15.1
17.1
17.2
17.3
19.1
20.1
20.2
21.1
21.2
23.1
23.2
23.3
23.4
27.1
27.2
30.1
30.2

ESP and professional communication
Discourse and genre analysis in professional communication
Interdiscursivity in genre-based analysis of professional communication
A sample concordance for ‘thank you’ in HKCSE
The multi-resources kits
Tweets with Kony or #StopKony
Verbal communication chart
The process of bilingual translation
Competing values communication framework illustrates the relationships between
four basic types of communication and valued characteristics
Profile of a relatively newly hired employee with a liberal arts background whose
communication is ‘now’ too transformational whereas it ‘should be’ more

informational for his responsibilities as an analyst
Profile of a memo that needs to be a bit more persuasive
Degree of strategic coordination
The micro and macro aspects of social reality in workplace communication
BNA (Blended Needs Analysis) framework of language and professional
communication at the workplace
Key aspects of needs analysis
Two dimensions of learning
A classification of English courses
Architecture of the technological learning environment
Professional capability framework
Professional practice as the recruitment of disciplinary knowledge and communicative
competence for the realisation and promotion of interests, values and agendas
Relationships among speakers
Organisational chart
Language and practice relationship
Engineer drawing
A hierarchical relationship of texts at JRC
Discourse flow of land surveying project management
Workplace ESP syllabus development
Call centre ESP syllabus development

xviii
4
8
14
47
131
152
153

179

180
181
227
267
268
270
295
305
317
328
332
369
370
371
374
451
452
512
513
ix


List of tables

3.1
3.2
3.3
12.1

12.2
12.3

19.1
19.2
20.1
21.1
24.1
27.1
27.2
31.1
31.2

x

Breakdown of the learning activities
A breakdown of the communicative purposes students identified
The NZ and Chinese managers’ views on the English invitation
Financial Times top 51 global MBA programs shows growth in programs outside
the United States
English language perspective compared to Business English Lingua Franca
perspective
Association of Business Communication Outstanding Researcher Award
recipients who are known for their management communication research
recommend readings from their work
Analytic and experiential approaches to language learning and teaching
The ‘communicative continuum’ as a framework for teaching methodology
EST teaching contexts
Two sets of four skills, as identified by researchers (A) and auditors (B)
Summary of discourse marker functions

Discourse processes and products among parties in external communication
Discourse processes and products among parties in internal communication
Certificates available from professional associations
Certifications available to professional communicators

31
33
35
167
174

185
295
298
306
334
388
450
450
525
526


Notes on contributors

Natasha Artemeva is Associate Professor at Carleton University, Canada. Her research focuses
on applications of activity-based rhetorical genre theory to the study of school-to-work
transitions in engineering, mathematics, and other fields. Her work has received awards from
the National Council of Teachers of English, USA.
Vijay Bhatia is an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University and University of Malaya. His

research interests include genre analysis, ESP and professional communication. Two of his
books, Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings and Worlds of Written Discourse: A
Genre-based View, are widely used by researchers in genre theory.
Stephen Bremner is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at City University of
Hong Kong. His main research interests are workplace writing and the ways in which students
make the transition from the academy to the workplace.
Patrice M. Buzzanell is Professor of Communication in the Brian Lamb School of Communication (and Professor of Engineering Education by Courtesy) at Purdue University, USA.
Her research centres on the intersections of communication, career and gender.
Saul Carliner is an Associate Professor, eLearning Fellow, and Director of the Education Doctoral
Program at Concordia University, Canada. He is editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on
Professional Communication, a Fellow and past international president of the Society for Technical
Communication, and a past board member of the STC Certification Commission.
Winnie Cheng is an Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities, and Professor of English and
Director of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE),
Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Marta Chromá is a teacher and researcher in legal English, legal linguistics and translation at
Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She focuses on the issues of linguistic and
legal interpretation of legal concepts and texts for the purposes of translation and translational
lexicography.
Isabel Corona (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the Universidad de Zaragoza
(Spain). Her main research interests are genre analysis and multimodality in academic and
legal texts and in professional media discourse. She is a member of the research group
InterLAE (www.interlae.com).
xi


Notes on contributors

Stephani Currie recently completed an MA degree in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies
at Carleton University, Canada. Her research focused on the role of ideology in discursive

constructions of climate change established by various environmental organisations.
George Anthony David Dass was a partner at Shahrizat, Rashid and Lee for over 25 years.
He continues as a consultant and a board member of Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia,
and also of United Bintang Berhad in Malaysia.
Bertha Du-Babcock is an Associate Professor teaching (intercultural) business communication
and Communication Strategies in Business Projects at City University of Hong Kong. She
also is the Vice-President for the Asia and Pacific Region of the Association for Business
Communication.
Matt Falconer recently completed an MA degree in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies
at Carleton University, Canada, and is currently an intern with the Council of Canadian
Academies, a non-profit organisation providing independent, expert assessments of science
relevant to public concerns. While this is his first publication, Matthew’s research has also
focused on tutor training in a Canadian university’s academic writing centre.
Gail Forey is an Associate Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has carried
out research and published in the areas of discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics,
written and spoken workplace discourse, language education and teaching development. Gail
edited a book in 2010 with Jane Lockwood, Communication and the Workplace, which is directly
relevant to the present chapter and discusses the BPO industry from different perspectives.
Janna Fox is an Associate Professor at Carleton University, Canada. Her research focuses on
assessment, teaching, and the development of academic literacies in culturally and linguistically
diverse settings. She holds a 3M National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of contributions
to scholarship and leadership in Canadian higher education.
Finn Frandsen is Professor of Corporate Communication and Director of the Centre for
Corporate Communication (CCC) at the Department of Business Communication, School
of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Jeremy P. Fyke is an Assistant Professor, Communication Studies and Strategic Communication,
in the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University,
USA. His research focuses on consulting, leadership development, ethics and discourses of
social change.
Michael B. Goodman is Professor and Director of the MA in Corporate Communication at

Baruch College, The City University of New York, and Director of CCI Corporate Communication International. He is Visiting Professor at Aarhus University (Denmark), Hong
Kong Polytechnic University, and Universita IULM (Italy). He has published widely, including
Corporate Communication: Strategic Adaptation for Global Practice, with Peter B. Hirsch.
David Grant is Co-Dean and Professor of Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney
Business School, Australia. His current research interests focus on the application of discourse
theory and analysis to organisational change and leadership.
xii


Notes on contributors

Elizabeth de Groot is Assistant Professor in Communication and Information Studies at the
Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research interests involve the use and
effectiveness of English and multimodality in international business texts.
Christoph A. Hafner trained as a lawyer and is now Assistant Professor in the Department of
English at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include legal discourse,
academic and professional literacies, and language learning and technology. In addition to his
other publications, he has co-authored a book (with Rodney H. Jones) entitled Understanding
Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction, published by Routledge in 2012.
Michael Handford is Professor of the Institute for Innovation in International Engineering
Education at the University of Tokyo, and works on professional and intercultural discourse
analysis. He is the co-editor, with JP Gee, of The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis.
Peter B. Hirsch is Executive Vice President, Director of Reputation Risk for Ogilvy
Public Relations. With more than 30 years experience in public relations, he counsels global
corporations on issues of corporate reputation and risk management.
Janet Holmes holds a Chair in Linguistics and is Director of the Wellington Language in the
Workplace Project at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She teaches and researches in the area of sociolinguistics, specialising in workplace discourse and language and gender.
Winni Johansen is Professor of Corporate Communication and Director of Study of the
Executive Master’s in Corporate Communication (EMCC) at the Department of Business
Communication, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Alan Jones is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University,
Sydney, and a Visiting Fellow in Anthropology at the Australian National University in
Canberra. Research interests include discourse analysis, English for Specific Purposes, and
professional communication.
Sujata S. Kathpalia is Senior Lecturer at the Language and Communication Centre, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, where she teaches academic writing courses.
Her research interests include genre analysis, academic writing and English language
teaching.
Koo Swit Ling, Deputy Director, Language and Communication Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, is currently teaching Professional Communication to engineering
students. Her research interests include business communication, classroom teaching, and
language learning.
Becky S.C. Kwan is Associate Professor of English at City University of Hong Kong where
she teaches on a variety of theory and ESP courses. Her areas of research include thesis
writing, academic discourse, genre analysis and doctoral publishing.
William Littlewood taught in secondary schools and teacher education before moving to
Hong Kong in 1991. He has published widely in the field of language teaching and is now
Honorary Professor at the Language Centre at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
xiii


Notes on contributors

Jane Lockwood is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at City University of
Hong Kong and her research interests involve English for Specific Purposes curriculum and
assessment design. She has also developed ‘train the trainer’ education programmes for Asian
workplace settings.
Jane Lung has been working closely with language specialists, subject specialists, ESP practitioners
and language teachers in a number of research projects. She has interests in discourse analysis,
genre analysis, corpus linguistics and professional communication including legal, business
and promotional genres, as well as language teaching and learning. She is an Associate Professor

at Macao Polytechnic Institute.
Carmen Daniela Maier is an Associate Professor and member of the Centre for Business
Communication and of the Knowledge Communication Research Group at Business and
Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her main research interest is the theoretical
and methodological development of multimodal analysis of knowledge communication.
Meredith Marra investigates workplace discourse (including meeting talk and workplace
identities) as a core member of the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project team.
She currently teaches sociolinguistics from first year to PhD level at Victoria University of
Wellington.
Lindsay Miller is Associate Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong
Kong. He has been responsible for designing, developing and teaching a wide variety of ESP
courses in the department, mostly English for Science and English for Engineering.
Catherine Nickerson is a Professor in the College of Business at Zayed University in the
United Arab Emirates. She is currently working on research on the impact of language and
languages in the Islamic business world.
Daniel Nyberg is Professor in Sustainability at Nottingham University, UK. His main research
interest is investigating how organisations take part in negotiating and shaping how we, as
individuals, organisations and societies, respond to global or societal phenomena.
Anne Peirson-Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University
of Hong Kong teaching courses on advertising copywriting, fashion communication, public
relations and popular culture. Her research focuses on the discourses of fashion branding,
advertising and public relations. She is co-author of Public Relations in Asia Pacific: Communicating
Across Cultures (2009).
Robyn V. Remke is Associate Professor of Intercultural Communication and Management at the
Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. Her interests focus on organisational irrationality
and resistance in public welfare organisations, organisational diversity and women’s leadership.
She is the immediate past-president of the Organisation for the Study of Communication,
Language, and Gender.
Priscilla S. Rogers, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business,
teaches in Global MBA and Executive Education programs, trains for diverse companies and

is an Association for Business Communication Outstanding Researcher Award recipient.
xiv


Notes on contributors

Graham Smart is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies at Carleton
University, Canada. He has published research on writing in professional and academic
settings, including Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking,
an ethnographic study of the discourse practices and collaborative knowledge-making activity
of economists at Canada’s central bank. His current research focuses on the discourses and
argumentation of various social actors in the debate over global climate change.
Alina Wan is a PhD student at City University of Hong Kong. Her research relates to communicative practices in the accountancy profession. She has published in this area in the
journal English for Specific Purposes.
Yunxia Zhu is Senior Lecturer at UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia.
Her research interests include cross-cultural communications and management and written
communication. She has published extensively in these areas and her works have appeared in
books, book chapters and prestigious international journals such as Management International
Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Discourse &
Communication, Discourse Studies, Discourse & Society, Text, and Journal of Business and Technical
Communication. She also has extensive consulting experience with companies and government
agencies in Australia and China.

xv


Introduction
Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremner

The Handbook of Language and Professional Communication is an attempt to introduce current

research and practice in the field of language teaching and learning in professional contexts to a
wide audience, which includes not only newly initiated professional communicators, teachers
and trainers, but also researchers in the field of professional communication. In addition to
bringing readers up to date on the current understanding of professional communication, the
Handbook also takes them a step further in making them aware of the most recent thinking on
the issues confronting the field. The Handbook is multidimensional and multiperspective in
its design and implementation, and brings together not only researchers from a wide range of
disciplines, such as English for Specific Purposes, business communication, management communication, corporate communication, organisational communication, and translation, but also
practising professional communicators from the field.

Professional communication
Professional communication, like many other terms in applied linguistics, has been variously
understood, interpreted and used in published literature. Broadly interpreted, it refers to the use
of all forms of semiotic resources (linguistic as well as multimodal) in and for academic as well as
professional contexts, both spoken and written. This interpretation is common in English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) and business communication literature.
A narrower interpretation is common in Business and Technical Communication (BTC)
literature, which incorporates sub-disciplinary contexts, and often includes management communication, corporate communication, organisational, and institutional communication. Professional
communication is also sometimes viewed as incorporating what is generally referred to as workplace
communication.
In addition to these interpretations, professional communication also has some overlap with
‘Writing In the Disciplines’ (WID), or even ‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ (WAC), although
these two are mostly concerned with communication in academic and disciplinary contexts,
whereas professional communication most often refers to communication in the world of work.
Although these two types of writing programmes (WID and WAC) address different audiences
and may claim different motivations, they do seem to have some synergy and overlap with
professional communication. A fourth possibility, historically strong but not very common
xvi

Introduction

today, is the use of professional communication to refer to what is popularly known as mass
communication, media communication, and sometimes new media communication.
Although all the somewhat different forms of communication outlined above have common
and overlapping interests, in that most of them are concerned with communication issues in
specific academic, professional, institutional or other workplace contexts, they essentially draw
their inspirations from different theoretical orientations, some paying more attention to texts
(use of language) while others regard context of use as more central. However, none of these
approaches ignore either the text or the context completely. In theory, they all tend to work
within their specific frameworks; in pedagogical practice, however, they often have overlapping
use of resources. ESP approaches, for instance, have traditionally been driven by discourse and
genre analyses of academic and professional discourses (which draw on a strong British tradition
in the analysis of specialised genres, as in Swales 1990, and Bhatia 1993), or rhetorical theory
(which likewise heavily relies on the American tradition in rhetoric and genre, as in Devitt
1991, 2004), whereas others have drawn their strengths from either general communication
theories, or from more specific management or organisational theories (as in Reinsch 1996;
Rogers 1998, 2000, and 2001; Jameson 2000, 2001). However, in spite of these different theoretical and disciplinary orientations, most of these approaches have the same ultimate objective,
that is to be able to understand and appreciate how professional communication is used in their
specific contexts, and how best they can teach and train professionals to communicate appropriately in their specific contexts to achieve their disciplinary and/or professional objectives.
And since their concerns are somewhat similar or shared, they are more likely to benefit from
an integration of one another’s approaches and available work. There have been a number of
studies published in the last few years, particularly in business communication, which have been
using discourse and genre frameworks to enrich their understanding of issues in various areas of
business, management, and organisational communication (as evidenced in Bargiela-Chiappini
and Nickerson 1999; Nickerson 1998; Chia 2000; Rogers 2000 and 2001; Grant, Keenoy and
Oswick 2001; Louhiala-Salminen 2002; Boje, Oswick and Ford 2004; Rogerson-Revell 2007;
Charles 2007; and a number of others). These recent developments (see Bhatia 2007) encourage a
synergetic integration of various approaches and frameworks.

Integrated view of professional communication
This view favouring integration of various approaches is further strengthened by the fact that in
more recent pedagogic practice there appears to be a considerable interest in incorporating
methodologies and insights from seemingly different approaches to professional communication,
certainly more than was the case a few years ago. Considering the situation today and what it is
likely to be in years to come, this Handbook of Language and Professional Communication takes a
broader perspective on professional communication than has been taken traditionally.
Professional communication thus integrates three main areas of study: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), which draws its inspiration in turn from analysis of disciplinary variation
within the framework of register or genre analysis, the second area. The third main tradition
that seems to have influenced current thinking in professional communication consists of business communication, management communication and corporate communication. Unlike ESP,
none of these sub-areas of communication studies have been seriously influenced by register
or genre analysis until recently (see Bhatia 2007 for a detailed review). Instead, they have
drawn their strength from various communication theories. The focus in these sub-dimensions
of professional communication has been primarily on text-external factors, including
context. However, as Bhatia and Bhatia (2011) point out, although at least two of these
xvii


Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremner

approaches to professional communication, i.e. ESP and business communication studies,
developed almost independently of each other, and remained separate for a long time, they
seem to have been brought together by their common interest in the analysis of discourse variation in professional communities, which makes discourse and genre analysis a key contributor
to the current integration of ESP and business communication we have called professional
communication.
In this volume, we give more substance to this integrated view of professional communication
by referring to some of the main developments in recent research in all three areas: analysis of
discourse variation in professional communities, ESP, and various other contributors to professional communication, such as business communication, management communication, corporate
communication, and organisational communication. This integrated view of English for professional
communication can be visually represented as follows:

Socia-linguistics

Genre Analysis
Critical Discourse
Analysis

n
o
8
8~

~
.....
n
.....
.....
o
~

r

~

~

~
Pr~fessional
Professional

Communication

English for
Englishfor
Specific Purposes

~

~
~

::r"

(1Q

o
~

(])

V>

(])

p...

f-j

o' i
.....

(])

~

(1Q

CONTEXT

TEXT

ESL and Prcifessional Communication
Figure 0.1 ESP and professional communication

Taking this broad integrated perspective on professional communication, the proposed
Handbook will essentially incorporate not only an historical view of the field, but will also lead
readers in the direction in which we think it is likely to develop in the coming years. This has
been achieved by specially solicited papers from some of the best-known and most well-established
scholars and practitioners in their respective fields to give their understanding of specific issues
relating to professional communication and also to project their views about its future development.
The main objectives of this Handbook thus are:





To
To
To
To

xviii

provide an overview of the key contributors to professional communication,
make readers aware of the major approaches to professional communication,
bring into focus the recent research in professional communication, and
argue for the integration of various dimensions of professional communication.


Introduction

Organisation of the Handbook
The Handbook has four major sections:

1 Approaches to professional communication
The first section of the Handbook consists of three separate and yet conceptually interrelated
sub-sections, which share an overlapping concern with theoretical inputs to various areas of
professional communication. They provide, though in varying degrees, some indications of the
various kinds of inspiration that have provided strength to individual strands of professional
communication.

A General theoretical perspectives
This section reflects the underlying philosophy and some of the key components of theoretical
frameworks that have inspired and contributed to the present-day understanding of what we
have referred to here as professional communication, while at the same time illustrating its
development through a range of ideas and approaches.
In the first chapter, ‘Analysing discourse variation in professional contexts’, Vijay Bhatia introduces
one of the most established and most popular frameworks for the analysis of discourse variation in
language use in academic and professional contexts. Although his starting point is the development of discourse and genre analysis of academic and professional discourses, his focus is on
both text and context: text as the object of analysis, and context as text-external phenomenon
that makes such textual genres possible in real academic and professional contexts. He concludes

by suggesting the integration of genre as discursive practice and context as professional practice.
Winnie Cheng, in her chapter ‘Corpus analyses of professional discourse’ explains a popular
research approach used to empirically analyse variation in language use in professional contexts.
This corpus-driven approach, based on large quantities of textual data, has brought an increasing
amount of credibility to analyses of discourse variation, and hence is being widely used in ESP
and business communication studies. Based on reviews of some of the key contributions to the
field, Cheng offers a very comprehensive introduction to this immensely useful approach,
illustrating her chapter with insights from instances of professional discourses.
Yunxia Zhu, in the next chapter, proposes a situated genre approach for cross-cultural
business communication and education, which she explains as a genre learning process in
professional contexts. Drawing on the experiences of Chinese students learning English
business writing in New Zealand as an example, she claims that the situated model can help
learners guide their learning processes to achieve an in-depth understanding of communication
genres through active participation in class. This research finding with its focus on student
knowledge construction has implications for professional communication learning and education in
general.
In the final chapter of this sub-section, Carmen Daniela Maier introduces multimodality as a
methodological tool, exploring specific aspects of professional communication. Looking beyond
language and across several media, she focuses on the present and future communicative
potential and challenges provided by the simultaneous appearance of more complex communicative tools of multiliterate generations, who create, disseminate and use these tools in broad
multidisciplinary contexts. She also investigates several types of multi-resources kits that are
meant to facilitate new forms of inter-institutional and inter-professional communication and
interaction related to the context of the film business.
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B Broad disciplinary frameworks
The first part of this section contains five chapters concerned with the ways in which researchers

have traditionally approached professional communication, looking at the diverse theories that
have informed research and analysis. The intention is, on the one hand, to help readers understand the various perspectives from which professional communication has been viewed, and on the
other, to help readers recognise commonalities among the theories and frameworks employed in
the field in order to consider ways in which they might be combined and integrated in subsequent
research.
Catherine Nickerson, in her chapter ‘Business communication’ traces the historical development of business communication as an academic discipline from the beginning of the 1990s
to its present-day evolution. She provides an insightful overview of published work based on
some of the key international journals and other related publications in the field of business
communication research and pedagogy. She identifies some of the most important theoretical
and methodological frameworks that have influenced business communication researchers
and practitioners in the field, discussing how business communication has made a substantial
contribution to our understanding of professional communication. She also identifies a number
of common trends in business communication in recent research and pedagogical approaches,
and speculates on how these may shape the future of the discipline in the course of the next ten
years.
Bertha Du-Babcock, in her chapter, revisits theory, research, and teaching in business communication to claim that since theories in this field are proliferating as researchers strive to
explain a more complex and diversified global communication environment, they may either be
leading to a theory jungle that explains business communication from different positions or to
an orchard representing different yet complementary aspects of business communication. She
argues that to prevent a jungle from emerging, it is important to distinguish the goals and
methods of each research study and to integrate concepts from all of the various approaches
whereby they contribute to a better understanding of the field of business communication.
Drawing on a corpus of research studies of the discursive dimension of knowledge-making in
the natural sciences, Graham Smart, Stephani Currie and Matt Falconer explore how theory is
employed in qualitative empirical research for the purposes of framing, data analysis, and further
theory-building in scientific communication. Their analysis of a corpus of ten research studies is
intended to help graduate students and early-career scholars in reading and producing qualitative
empirical research in the natural sciences, and more generally in professional communication.
In the next chapter Saul Carliner offers a useful and comprehensive account of the field
of technical communication, which he defines as a broad field that includes any form of communication about technical or specialised topics, or that communicates by using technology,

or provides instructions about how to do something, or a combination of these. For him,
the discipline of technical communication has many roots, including in writing, cognitive
psychology, and linguistics, and their underlying philosophies, though most technical communicators take a broad view that focuses on designing content for users. The profession of technical
communication, he claims, has a growing body of literature rooted in peer-reviewed and professional publications and conferences, and has established quality standards as part of its awards
programmes.
Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra, in ‘The complexities of communication in professional
workplaces’, review research on the analysis of workplace communication, focusing on interaction in workplace contexts. They identify a rich and diverse number of theoretical frameworks that have been developed for the analysis of workplace communication, along with a
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Introduction

range of contrasting and complementary methods of data collection. Within a broad sociolinguistic framework, their review describes some of the significant theoretical orientations, key
issues and methodologies relating to workplace communication. They also consider likely
directions for future research in this area.
In our view, there are two additional areas of concern that have potential relevance to and
synergy with professional communication. These are the use of electronic media, and translation,
which are becoming increasingly relevant because of their shared interest in theories of discourse
and communication. The first chapter in this sub-section concerns the importance of new media
in present-day professional communication, while the second addresses the challenges of dealing
with professional communication issues in the context of translation settings.
This sub-section opens with a chapter by Michael B. Goodman and Peter B. Hirsch, who
highlight how electronic media – Web 2.0 – has created internal and external communication
challenges for corporations, what they are, and some of the ways in which companies deal with
them. They also point out the key challenges: these include globalisation, employee use of social
media in a networked enterprise, news aggregation and timely corporate responses in an
instantaneous media environment, and the use of electronic media in the regulated environment
of investor relations.
Marta Chromá, in the next chapter, considers translation in and as professional communication.
She introduces basic translational theories relevant in professional settings, outlining the process

of translation and comparing specific aspects within three different domains of professional
communication – engineering, commerce and law – as diverse backgrounds for translation, and
finally indicates basic assumptions regarding the future position of translation in professional
communication.

C Specific disciplinary frameworks
This sub-section brings together five chapters introducing four very specific and different subdisciplinary frameworks that have become established in their own right. Each of the chapters
deals with one discipline, drawing strength from somewhat different disciplinary concepts,
which include management, organisational, institutional and corporate communication.
Priscilla S. Rogers in her chapter describes the historical development of management communication, identifying its unique focus relative to other professional communication fields, and
its core content related to managers’ communication activities. Management communication,
she explains, examines managers’ effective use of writing and speaking to get work done with
and through people. Her sources for this important overview of management communication
include a range of key journals in the field, in addition to descriptions and syllabi of related
courses from some top business schools.
In the next chapter, David Grant and Daniel Nyberg provide a framework to analyse prevalent organisational discourses communicated and employed within contemporary organisations. The use of the framework is illustrated with examples based on studies of how business
engages with climate change and the emerging discourse of sustainability to highlight how discourses are operating at different levels – societal, organisational and individual – that form
organisational realities. The framework serves as a useful means by which to understand interand intra-organisational dynamics, which also allows us to theorise and give examples of the
possibility for corporations to shape and reshape discursive formations.
In the next chapter, Patrice M. Buzzanell, Jeremy P. Fyke and Robyn V. Remke discuss
organisational communication for scholars in professional communication, noting how recent
inquiry in their field can contribute to professional communication. Their chapter provides
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overviews of organisational communication from the earliest reviews to current reframings, at
the same time encouraging emerging research trends that underlie organisational-professional
communication intersections. They point out that although organisational and professional

communication have quite distinctive orientations, both of them attend to intersections between
discourse and materialities, as well as theory and practice, and power, authority, and agency.
The next chapter, by Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen, is a state-of-the-art account of the
field of corporate communication, defined both as a specific organisational practice and also as a
young and emerging academic discipline. They discuss the historical conditions and drivers that have
triggered the rise of corporate communication as a new strategic management tool in private
and public organisations, distinct from other related disciplines such as public relations, organisational communication, marketing communication and business communication, by identifying
key concepts such as corporate identity, image and reputation, integration, and stakeholder relations.
Elizabeth de Groot in the following chapter develops the theme of corporate communication
further by identifying it as a management instrument that focuses on the orchestration of all
internal and external communication activities, in order to generate and convey a consistent
corporate story based on which favourable relationships are established with stakeholders.
Drawing on her extensive work on corporate disclosure practices, she identifies several of the
theoretical and analytical issues that scholars in the fields of corporate communication and corporate
reporting currently face.

2 Practice
This section addresses the varied ways in which professional communication practitioners, both
in ESP and business communication contexts, have been handling various issues confronting the
teaching and learning of language in professional contexts in order to prepare students to make
the transition from the academy to the workplace. This section addresses two major kinds of
perspectives: pedagogical, such as needs analysis, curriculum design, materials development, and
appropriation of relevant pedagogies, especially focusing on innovative aspects of methodology,
both from ESP and business communication; and secondly, disciplinary perspectives such as
English for science and technology, engineering, accountancy, law, business processing outsourcing,
public relations, and media communication.

A Pedagogic practices
In the first chapter, on needs analysis for professional communication, Jane Lung examines different approaches to determining language and communication needs in the workplace. She
introduces a blended approach to needs analysis by combining Critical Genre Theory with

traditional needs analysis approaches as a tool to determine the actual needs of learners in specific
professional communication contexts. She illustrates the approach by looking into the future English
language communicative needs of students in the hotel industry and identifies the typical skills
and activities required and desired by the respondents to improve their effective professional
communication in English.
Based on a survey of practitioners and a review of current research, the next chapter, by Sujata
Kathpalia and Koo Swit Ling, attempts to reach a deeper understanding of the emergence and
development of professional practices in business contexts, specifically to determine how
workplace communication has changed due to technological advances in the context of globalisation with its focus on flexibility, mobility and diversity. With a focus on programme design
in professional communication, they examine these changing trends in the use of
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Introduction

communication modes such as websites, instant messaging, emailing, audio and video conferencing that have given rise to new communicative processes and multimodal genres that
integrate text, speech, graphics, recorded sound and movies, affecting discourse in ways that
were not possible in the past. They investigate these shifts in communication practice in order
to capture snapshots of the changing landscape to better equip old and new employees with the
dynamically changing world of business discourse.
In the next chapter William Littlewood reviews how teaching methodology has been dealt
with, focussing on published books and chapters for ESP teachers rather than research articles.
He considers whether there is in fact an identifiable ‘ESP methodology’ which is separate from
that for general EFL, and claims that at the level of principles for language teaching, a single
framework embraces both domains. He then considers attempts to formulate contextfree principles that inform a context-sensitive methodology relevant to ESP and professional
communication teaching strategies and instructional materials.

B Disciplinary perspectives
This sub-section looks at the different disciplinary fields for which professional communication
programmes are designed and implemented, always keeping in mind the ways in which practising specialists achieve their academic and professional objectives. This section has several

chapters on principles and insights from specific sites of practical and pedagogical engagement.
This section on ESP practice opens with an historical review of the research into English for
Science and Technology by Lindsay Miller. He points out how English for Science and Technology (EST) has moved along with trends in linguistic theory. Based on research impacts on
pedagogy and a review of textbooks in EST, he shows how materials development in EST has
moved from a focus on accuracy, to fluency, to socio-cultural agency. This he illustrates by
examining case studies of materials and courses in EST, suggesting ways to prepare EST students
for the ever more complicated world of dealing with multi-genres in EST that are emerging
due to the multiliteracies students are expected to have in the twenty-first century.
Alan Jones, in the next chapter of this section, highlights the cross-functional roles of
accounting professionals, in particular their involvement in strategic management and responsibility for adding value to commercial operations. He rightly claims that all this entails a very
high level of interpersonal skills along with the ability to articulate policies and decisions both
lucidly and persuasively. In order to give more substance to this view, he identifies and problematises key aspects of what counts as professional communicative expertise in the context of
specific professions, especially accounting. Taking a top-down functionalist orientation, he
describes the types of work accountants do, what they need to know to do this, and the kinds
of social-institutional problems they engage with on a daily basis, in order to conceptualise
professional expertise in terms of skills and attributes.
In the next chapter, Christoph A. Hafner provides an overview of the existing research into
professional communication in the legal domain. He argues that, in order to reach a satisfactory
understanding of specialised legal genres and interactions, it is necessary to go beyond a focus on
texts and take into account the full socio-cultural context, in particular the discursive practices of
the legal professional community, which are shaped by the social goals of those practices, as well
as the jointly held tacit system of values and beliefs of community members. He reviews three
main areas of scholarly activity in professional legal communication research: 1 descriptive
studies of written professional genres, 2 interpretive studies of talk and interaction, and 3 studies
of multilingual and multicultural legal contexts, before speculating as to how the study of
professional legal communication might usefully develop in the future.
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Drawing on a discourse-based project in the construction industry, Michael Handford outlines how what he calls the ‘construction communication’ process is structured, with particular
reference to the different parties involved. He looks at how communication within the industry
is portrayed in academic and professional studies, and the types of research that have been
conducted. He then considers how studies in professional discourse might be operationalised to
have practical relevance in construction contexts, and goes on to outline an appropriate methodology, demonstrating how it has been applied to audio, video and ethnographic data collected
on a Hong Kong construction project.
In the next chapter, Gail Forey, based on her work in the Business Process Outsourcing
(BPO) industry, focuses on the differences between written and spoken discourse in order to
build a bridge between what we know within applied linguistics and how language is understood in the workplace. Using the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),
she claims that if the industry wants to hire and train Customer Service Representatives (CSRs)
to deal effectively with customer service enquiries, it may be futile to test and train potential employees through models of written language. Drawing on her data from actual BPO
industry interactions, she argues for an evidenced-based understanding of significant features of
spoken language in the BPO industry to help change how language is perceived within the
industry.
Isabel Corona, in her chapter, attempts to clarify the current state of media communication,
by taking a threefold perspective: media as a discipline, media as professional practice, and media
as object of research by discourse analysts. For her, media as a discipline is concerned with
media studies in tertiary education as part of communication studies; media as professional
practice involves encompassing a multiplicity of professions and practices, with an increasing
demand for both specialised knowledge and adaptability to respond to evolving new media
texts and genres and globalising contexts for production and dissemination processes; and media
as object of research responds to an increasing demand for interdisciplinarity as shown by the
current trends and methodological approaches in the study of media discourse. The chapter thus
tries to find some common ground for an integrated view of the problems and challenges posed
by technological, social and globalisation factors that have a strong impact on the current
developments in media studies, practice and research.
In the final chapter of this section, Anne Peirson-Smith outlines some of the main theories
and debates surrounding the current role of public relations as professional practice and as a
subject for academic study. After defining public relations, its history and origins, and its role

within the integrated marketing communications framework, she focuses on the rationale behind
public relations, stakeholder relationships, the development of public relations, and the application of professional communication theories to analyse and direct public relations activities.
She also speculates where public relations education and practice are heading in the future,
given the rapidly changing nature of communication brought on with the application and
dominance of new technology.

3 Acquisition of professional competence
This section addresses the varied ways in which people become competent performers in professional settings, looking at how professional competence is acquired, whether as a participating
member of a particular discourse community or community of practice, or as a student being
prepared to make the transition from the academy to the workplace.
In the first chapter in this section, Becky S. C. Kwan discusses the notion of community in
professional communication, which has been variously used and interpreted in Applied
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