The Impact Of The English Economic Terms In The Business Environment
2017-04-18郭彬
1 Introduction
As a branch of ESP(English for Specific Purposes,Business English education concern is of great importance.With the development of market economy,the deepening of reform and open-up and the further strengthening of economic globalization,Business English is receiving more and more attention and is showing unprecdented momentum.And in the world of Business English,need analysis is at the heart of planning and instructional design.Yet,designing a Business English course requires collaboration among several concerned stakeholders,including students,subject teachers,institutional administrators and Business English teachers themselves.This article gives a detailed description of Business English and need analysis,analyzes the importance of need analysis to syllabus design,and the syllabus design based on need analysis.
2 Literature Review
As a sub-division of English for Specific Purposes.Business English is difficult to define and limit in linguistic terms.It is a study of English fundamentals(grammar,punctuation,spelling,word usage,capitalization,and so on)applied to sentences containing the vocabulary and concepts of business(Moyer,1980).Business English must be seen in the overall context of ESP as it shares the important elements of needs analysis,syllabus design,and materials selection and development which are common to all fields of work in ESP.As with other varieties of ESP,Business English implies the definition of a specific language corpus and emphasis on particular kinds of communication in a specific context,the business context(Ellis & Johnson,1994,p.3).
2.1Business English
Concurrent with the upsurge of interest in BE has been the development of the idea of need analysis.ESP researchers lay emphasis on need analysis which has existed in the world of language education for two or three decades.Need is most commonly referred to as the discrepancy or gap between what is the present state of affairs in regard to the group and what should be desired state.There are different distinctions of needs,such as objectiveneeds vs.subjective needs;target needs vs.learning needs and felt needs vs.perceived needs.
Hutchinson and Waters divide needs into target needs and learning needs.Target needs are an umbrella term which refers to the knowledge and skills which the learners should master in target situation.Specifically,target needs include necessities,want and lack.Necessities refer to what the learners have to know in order to function effectively in the target situation.Wants refer to the students′ needs based on the requirements of the target situation and lacks refer to the gap between what the learners have already known and the necessities.
2.2Need And Need Analysis
Analysis is closely linked to the curriculum and occupies an important place in the curriculum.In the field of foreign language teaching,need analysis is very important.It is the preliminary step in course design and is considered as a prerequisite for any course design.It plays an important role in curriculum design in that it largely determines the goal and content of the course being designed.The answer to how educators develop effective curricula often lies in need analysis.Need analysis is a powerful tool that helps clarify and validate true needs.It enables educators to shape the curriculum development that bases the content of language courses on the communication needs,wants and interests of the learners.(Lepetit & Cichocki,2005)
Since Business English should be categorized under the title of ESP,the research on Business English should follow the general theoretical framework of ESP,whose most important part is the needs analysis.Need analysis is the starting point of every course and is of utmost importance for Business English course design and its proper application can result into a focused course.A lot of courses are designed on the basis of objective needs perceived by course designers or concluded from social needs,without considering students′ subjective needs.But the learners in BE courses are thinking beings that have their own needs which will affect the whole process of BE learning.Nunan(1988)indicate three main purpose that NA serves in terms of general curriculum processes as follows:NA remains an important first step of curriculum development,serving as a key source of input for decisions to be made with respect to objectives,student placement,content specification and methodology.It also provides a means of obtaining wider input into the implementation of a language program.It can provide data for reviewing and evaluating an existing program for the purpose of improving curricula.Accordingly,NA assures a flexible,responsive curriculum rather than a fixed,linear curriculum determined in advance by administrators or instructors.When learners know that educators understand and want to address their needs and interests,they are motivated to continue to learn.
Needs analysis in Business English is a must because most of the learners are aware of what they need.By conducting needs analysis,teachers can not only collect factual information for the purpose of setting broad goals related to language content;but also gather information about learners that can be used to guide the learning process once it′s under way.Needs analysis is not a static process,but a dynamic one.It entails many procedures and a lot of efforts to accomplish.The learner′s needs analysis is the primary but the fundamental stage of learner-centered curriculum design,without which,all efforts will turn out to be in vain.Therefore,as a branch of ESP,needs analysis of BE is of vital importance for Business English.Based on broad materials103 provided by the aforementioned widespread press,we will handle the following issues regarding Anglicisms:their form adjustment – in terms of phonetics,spelling,morphology(II and III);terms are mainly grouped according to their higher(II 1)or lower(II 2)frequency.Given that economic Anglicisms are used as simple terms,as well as in complex forms of different types(composed and syntagmas),.we will also attempt to classify the material according to this approach(IV).The Anglicisms′ decoding by laypersons could be favored if these terms are to be listed in dictionaries(specialized,but mainly general),however the analysis does not have a positive answer for such requirement(V).Finally,the semantic areas to which belong the economic terms deriving from English words could increase their linguistic chances and,implicitly,the significance of such type of influence in the Romanian language.
We will try below to see what issues arise from the English words from the economic press.Our intention is to ascertain the difficulties Anglicisms have to adjust to the Romanian phonetic,inflexion system,etc.fluctuations in their writing,meaning extending or restricting and similar situations.A first class of Anglicisms,whose presence is noticed repeatedly and which appear quite often in the economic press(in every issue and even several times in the same newspaper)gathers the following terms.We have listed in the following several examples for these terms,highly used in the economic press under investigation and,therefore,in the economic environment
The Bucharest Stock Exchange might resume an upward TREND”,Business Standard,2007,no.92,or a closing of almost 1.3400 of the EUR/USD rate might lead to a continuation of the downward TREND”,Capital,2007,no.23,pp.34,TREND The domestic media market is developing by integrating operations in large entities”,Capital,2007,no.7,pp.20.We can note the term′s linguistic integration both by sound and spelling forms,which do not pose any issues,and,also,by an inflexion typical to Romania;moreover,a positive role is played by the term′s establishment in somewhat stable syntagmas.,Capital,2007,no.7,pp.6.(We can notice here a sort of definition or explanation of the term LEASING).The increase is due to the involvement of NEW BUSINESS in a field that is about to emerge on the market”,Business Standard,2007,no.88,pp.19,The watchword seems to be concentrating BUSINESS operations under the umbrella of a trust”,Capital,2007,no.7,pp.20,For BUSINESS clients,it is highly important to simplify the offer,Capital,2006,no.22,pp.20”.The successes obtained by Butan Gas Romania in the first six months of this year are mostly the outcome of such specialized classes...”,Banii No tri,2005,no.34,pp.10,where they explain the English term with the help of a synonym Romanian expression.The same we see in Bursa,2007,no.87,pp.8:Egedex brings an innovative concept of TRAINING solutions through specialized training programs for various professional fields...”.The word TRAINER shares the same situation,with a Romanian plural:“The Company has over 40 years of expertise in human resources development consulting and over 3000 TRAINERS(TRAINERI)certified in over 38 countries.”,Business Standard,2007,no.88,pp.13.The frequency of such terms(especially TRAINING)is quite high and the linguistic means concerning its implementation are similar to the examples discussed above104.
2.3Importance Of Need Analysis
To design a curriculum,the first thing is to know to whom and for what the curriculum is designed,that is,the designers have to know the target group and the purpose of the design.In traditional curriculum designs,usually,the purpose is defined according to state policy or designers′ own understanding of the educational requirement.Focus is on what are available for learners,what teachers can offer to learners and what the learners have to acquire,but little few is considered about what the learners themselves want.The inefficiency of a foreign language course is ascribed to improper goals set in the language curriculum and failure of taking into account the curriculum consumer-learner in a specific institution.Thus the identification of learners′ needs is a fundamental step in school-based curriculum development.A learner-centered curriculum design fully realizes the importance of the learner′s role in teaching activities,and places the learner′s needs,not only what he has to acquire,but also what he wants to acquire,at the central part of the whole designing process.Brindley divides the learner′s needs into objective and subjective.
3 Conclusion
In conclusion,need analysis of both the society and the business English learners is the starting points of course design.Both target needs and learning needs analyses should be done in order to achieve the optimization of BE course design.There is a gap between the society′s needs and the present condition of business English talents.The development and implementation of the need based Business English and the syllabus design can be regarded as highly effective in enhancing the learners′ performance and promoting their achievement in Business English learning.If the course designer starts his or her attempt for an in-depth needs analysis and builds up the course materials according to the students′ expectations and necessities,the course has reached halfway success.
References:
[1]Lili Zhang.Error Analysis of Business English Translation Based upon Functional Theory[D].Advances in Literary Study,2016,4,37-40
[2]MUSEANU ELENA.THE IMPACT OF THE ENGLISH ECONOMIC TERMS IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTAnnals of the University of Oradea[M].Economic Science,2010,Vol.1(2),pp.181
[3]MIN YU.Business English Practice Teaching Conforming to Chinese Students′ Expectations[M].Canadian Social Science,2013,Vol.9(5),pp.46-52
[4]Mae Baker.Avoiding toxic assets and ensuring bank stability[J].English commercial bank investments,1880-1910 Business History,2009,Vol.51(6)
[5]Chunling GENG.Syllabus Design for Business English Based on Need Analysis[M].Studies in Literature and Language,2014,Vol.9(2),pp.53-56
[6]Juan Li.Study on the Effective Ways to Organize Business English ClassesStudies[M].in Literature and Language,2014,Vol.8(3),pp.111-115
[7]Gulzhan Doszhan.Semantic and Pragmatical Aspects of English Business Lexemes in Turkic Languages[J].Procedia Economics and Finance,2016,Vol.39
[8]Franck Julien.Recharacterisation and bank finance:some aspects of French and English law[M].Law and Financial Markets Review,2008,Vol.2(6),pp.507-515
[9]崔丹.银行英语应用简介[J].科技创新与应用,2013,01:291
[10]李薇.The Stylistic Features of Banking English and Its Translation[D].西南财经大学,2006
[11]孙启耀,史谦.从认知角度看银行用语中的隐喻[J].乐山师范学院学报,2011,02:66-68
[12]孙艳.基于语料库的银行英语词汇教学模式探究[J].当代外语研究,2016,06:84-87+94
[13]王雪清.证券英语词汇的翻译[D].湖南师范大学,2012
[14]王婷玉.银行英语的特点及其翻译原则[J].长春教育学院学报,2013,04:66-67
[15]杨波.经贸英语汉译技巧研究[D].上海外国语大学,2007
作者简介:
郭彬(1993.12-),男,汉族,山西忻州人,浙江越秀外国语学院,研究方向:銀行英语。