English for Special Purposes: Specialized Languages and Problems of Terminology

This paper deals with some aspects of English for professional purposes. After a short historical overview of theories related to LSP (language for special purposes), we focus on some of the linguistic peculiarities of English for Specific Purposes. Our aim is to make a synthesis of the main theories and debates upon the issue of specialized languages, as the number of articles and writings on the topic is tremendous. We also wish to make a brief presentation of the most important contributions (still, we have to admit that the list of authors and articles is much longer, we had to make a selection, due to the editorial limitations of this article). We have gathered and synthesized what authors like Cabré, Celce-Murcia, Crystal, Croitoru, Motos, Strevens and others have said and we have also tried to make a comprehensive list of the names given to specialized language or language for specific purposes over time. Still, we have to state that it is not our goal to come up with examples or conclusions regarding our own personal ESP experience and/or previous research. The goal of this present study is to make a synthesis of the theories and writings on the topic of English for specific purposes (i.e. metaelemzés/metaanalysis in Klaudy's words or szekunder kutatás/secondary research in Fóris's words).