2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Development of an ESP Law Dictionary Based on the US Constitutional Cases : Suggestions for ESP Education in Japan
| Project/Area Number |
15320072
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Foreign language education
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| Research Institution | Takachiho University |
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Principal Investigator |
TERAUCHI Hajime Takachiho University, Department of Liberal Arts, Professor, 教養部, 教授 (50307146)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MORI Seiichi Keio University, Faculty of Law, Professor, ・法学部, 教授 (80051762)
NOGUCHI Judy Mukogawa Womens' Univ., Faculty of Pharmacy, Professor, 薬学部, 教授 (30351787)
POOLE Gregory Takachiho University, Department of Liberal Arts, Professor, 教養部, 助教授 (60307147)
SASAJIMA Shigeru Saitama Univ.of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Lecturer, 医学部, 講師 (80301464)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Keywords | ESP / Legal English / Dictionary / Electronic Search System / Constitutional cases / Translation / Autonomous Learning |
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| Research Abstract |
This research discusses issues related to the teaching of semi-technical vocabulary, present tools and techniques for analyzing such terms, and offers examples of how the analyses can aid applications in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). As an example, we use legal vocabulary from a corpus of US Constitutional Cases from the United States which was analyzed for word meanings, grammatical features, collocational patterns and frequently occurring specific discoursal features. The theoretical foundations of this research lie in applied linguistics and corpus linguistics, which are currently being used to prepare general English-Japanese dictionaries. Law dictionaries offer definitions of legal technical words and their historical backgrounds, but unfortunately lack examples of how these legal words should be used in context. Furthermore, there are no explanations as to how words with general senses are used with legal senses in legal documents.
This can be a problem for non-native English-speaking law students, leading to difficulties in comprehending cases written in English because they frequently cannot fully understand the meaning of semi-technical legal words. The highly technical terms, on the other hand, tend to be easier to master. This research project presents an approach to identifying differences in the usage of words in general and specific contexts as well as to find collocations common to field-specific corpora. This project lays the basis for developing effective teaching materials, and the model developed can be applicable to other fields of language for specific/special purposes.
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