DIACHRONIC / SYNCHRONIC.

(Gk, chronos, time; dia-, through, across; syn-, with, together).

A diachronic study or analysis concerns itself with the evolution and
change over time of that which is studied; it is roughly equivalent to historical.
Thus diachronic linguistics is also known as historical linguistics.
A synchronic study or analysis, in contrast, limits its concern to a
particular moment of time. Thus synchronic linguistics takes a language as a
working system at a particular point in time without concern for how it has
developed to its present state.
Diachronic linguistics is the same thing as historical linguistics. Diachronic
linguistics is the study of the changes in language over time.
Synchronic linguistics is the study of the linguistic elements and usage of a
language at a particular moment. Diachronic analysis can be the general
evolution of all languages or the evolution of a particular language or dialect.
Think of a sychronic analysis as a single frame in a roll of film. The diachronic
analysis would be the study of all the frames.
The Diachronic Dimension :
The intensification of worldwide social relations which linked social
localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring
many miles away and vice versa.
The history of English Language Teaching (ELT) does not constitute the
exception to the inter-connection between world macro-events and the effect
they have had on education, the micro ones. This has created a descriptive
framework for the interpretation of the varying sates of ELT through time. As
with most developments of human thought, English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
was not a planned and coherent movement, but a phenomenon that grew out of a
number of ideas and tendencies that have operated in a variety of for the birth of
ESP as a revolution in linguistics in general and language teaching in particular.
The origins of ESP can be related to the history of development of Language for
Specific Purposes (LSP). This last can be traced back to the Greek and Roman
Empires (Dudley Evans and St Johns 1998).

Strevens (1977) notes that the history of LSP teaching Special Purpose
Language Teaching (SP-LT) can go back to the 16th and 17th centuries, where
two types of language course were provided: the traveller language course and
what he calls the German for science students type of course. In fact this was
the period of new discoveries and experiments, of new approaches to science,
which called for a language suitable for expressing accurately the new
phenomena described and the concepts identified. Perhaps more interestingly,
Strevens (1977) further extends that the Second World War engendered the need
for specialist language courses where students only needed a limited competence
in a language in order to fulfill restricted tasks. He gives the example of the
Royal Air Force being trained to listen to Japanese fighter aircraft dialogue. The
personnel were trained only in listening skills and with a very limited amount of
lexical input. The end of the Second World War presaged an age of enormous
and unparalleled expansion in scientific technical and economic activity at the
international level. In this frame of mind the rise of ESP can perhaps be seen as
the result of two separate but related developments: the first is economic, the
second educational.
As far as the economic factor is concerned, it is logical to say that the
economic dominance of the United States after the Second World War has
resulted into the demand of the English language as a language for international
communication (Hutchinson and Waters 1987). The vast influx of US dollars
into many countries around the world created with it the need to communicate in
English. The development was accelerated by the oil crises of the early 1970s
(Hutchinson and Waters 1987). This has resulted into a massive flow of funds to
the oil-rich countries; English suddenly became a big business. The effect was to
create a whole new mass of people wanting to learn or say knowing why they
needed English that has become the key to the international currencies of
science, technology and commerce. The general effect to employ pressure on
English teachers to deliver the required good.
As far as the educational factor is concerned, it is worth mentioning that
world economy has created a new generation of learners who knew specifically
why they were learning a language. Therefore the learner started to be
considered as more central to the educational process. This has led to a learner
centred education (Strevens 1977). Learners were seen to have different needs
and interests, which would have an influence on their motivation to learn and
therefore on the effectiveness of their learning. In ELT this gave rise to the view
2

that there are important differences, for example, between the English for
commerce and the English for computers. This has given rise to a simple idea: if
language varies from one situation to another, it should be possible to determine
the features of specific situations and then make these features the basis of the
learners course (Swales 1990).
The Synchronic Dimension:
It becomes evident to say that an ESP initiative involves three spheres of
knowledge: the core of the language, pedagogy and the content of the students
specialisms Therefore, it is necessary to undertake a linguistic analysis in order
to try to describe those Special Englishes. The major difficulty would be then
to compare them to General English and to draw the attention to the
differences between the two, which arise at all the levels of language. In this
vein Robinson posits that:
"the general with which we are contrasting the specific is that of
general education for life, culture and literature oriented language
course in which the language itself is the subject matter and the
purpose of the course. The student of ESP, however, is learning
English en route to the acquisition of some quite different body of
knowledge and set of skills". (Robi nson1980 : 6)
In providing general English courses the sole priority of the teacher is to
widen the general educational program. In other words, learners are taught the
elements of the language essential to any program (Broughton 1981). The aim
behind such a process is, generally, to prepare learners to pass examinations and
tests whether they are sufficiently fluent in the English language or not since
general English courses do not cater for the learners immediate operational
needs as opposed to ESP; these courses are known to be language-centred, i.e.
teachers are more concerned with transmitting their message than satisfying
their learners needs and expectations.
In an ESP context, the aims and objectives of the courses are different as
compared to general language. In traditional literature differences between
specialized and general language in the lexical, morpho-syntactical, textual and
pragmatic features are constantly pointed out as central issues. (Mc Donald,
1980; Robinson, 1989-1991; Scarpa, 2001; Serianni, 2003). ESP courses are
goal directed. ESP teachers have to carry out a needs identification and
analysis in order to design the relevant materials. The starting stage would be
3

that of defining the notion of the discourse of the specialties the students are
concerned with, i.e. the notion of Specialized Discourse (Robinson 1991). This
discourse does not in fact represent a sociolinguistic variety but an actual
language which embodies a mixture of combined more or less specific features
coexisting in a quantitatively different degree as compared to general English.
The most outstanding feature of this Specific language is the lexicon. As Sager
et al put it, the lexicon of special languages is their most obvious
distinguishing characteristic (1980:230) which prevails from the related
syntax. The reason is that a large number of these lexical items is used
exclusively in their specific context and hence carry only one meaning (the
notion of monoreferentiality or semantic uniqueness). Besides these words are
information carriers of a referential precision. They lack any kind of emotional
and connotative meaning. As for the syntactic features, it is generally agreed that
ESP shares the same syntactic features of General English but it is different from
that in the frequency of use. Conciseness and precision, which are a central
matter in ESP, are usually syntactically achieved through the omission of phrasal
elements such as articles prepositions, and other function words; by avoiding
relative clauses and subordination in favour of solid, long, nominal groups and
coordination with complex premodification and nominalization which are
persistent in Specific language and help giving more objectiveness and
precision. In other words, ESP need to be characterised by elementary surface
structures and very simple Syntax
(Brekke 1989). The choice of tenses is also essential in ESP. Brekke maintains
that the present seems to be the most widespread especially in scientific texts
though the use of other tenses is regulated by the degree of generality of what is
being reported. In addition to this one need to point at the considerable use of
the passives in ESP. Robinson (1991) claims that the passive assures a degree of
depersonalisation of the language used. The next level would logically be the
Textual Features that need to distinguish specialized discourse. These generally
depend on the text genre, which establishes word order; the argumentative
models, the distribution of information within texts, the textual organization of
interactions, i.e. texts in ESP follow a codified accepted pattern depending on
the standard methodological framework of the discipline in question and on the
purposes of the texts, as in the case of summary, abstract, letters, contracts, etc.
surely in any case emotive language is to be avoided as this dimension is not
appropriate in scientific matters.

1- Need Analysis
Needs analysis has existed in the world of language education for two or
three decades. The role of needs analysis in any ESP course is invaluable.
Needs Analysis Needs analysis involves the assessment of the needs for
which a learner or group of learners may require language. As a research area, it
started in the early 1970s along with the development of the communicative
approach, and has gone through substantial developments in the 1970s and
1980s owing much to the work done by Richterich (1972) and Munby (1978).
Proponents of the communicative approach argued that the selection of
instructional materials should be based on a systematic analysis of the learners
needs for the target language.
It is considered as a prerequisite in any course design (Richterich and
Chancerel, 1987). "It is also considered as one of the key stages in ESP, the
others being the syllabus design, selection and production of materials, teaching
and learning, and evaluation." (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998, p 125). Johns
(1991) also regards needs analysis as the first step in curriculum design for it
can provide validity and relevancy for all the follow-up curriculum design
activities.
Needs analysis refers to the activities involved in gathering information
that will serve as the basis for developing a curriculum that will meet the
learning needs of a particular group of learners. Once identified, needs can serve
as the basis for designing tests, compiling materials, designing teaching
activities, and evaluating strategies, as well as for reevaluating the precision and
accuracy of the original needs analysis. It is regarded as an indivisible part of
systematic curriculum design. (Brown, 2001). Nunan (1994, p 54) argues that
"needs analysis is a set of procedures for specifying the parameters of a course
of study. Such parameters include the criteria and rationale for grouping
learners, the selection and sequencing of course content, methodology, course
length, and intensity and duration."
5

All authors seem to agree that it is essential to distinguish between needs, wants
and lacks. Needs are those skills which a learner perceives as being relevant to
him; wants are a subset of needs, those which a learner puts at a high priority
given the time available; and the lack is the difference a learner
1-a Classification of needs : Needs can be classified as follows:
Necessities: what the learner should be able to do effectively in the target
situation. It deals with the language a learner is required to master in order to
function effectively in a certain situation .
Lacks : the gap between target proficiency and present performance. In other
words, the ESP practitioner should determine what the learner already knows in
order to see whether the learner requires instruction in performing a given task.
Wants : what the learners want perceives between his present competence in a
particular skill and the competence he wishes to achieve (Dickinson, 1991: 91).
Some authors distinguish between the terms needs analysis and needs
assessment - which are often used interchangeably - claiming that assessment
involves obtaining data, whereas analysis involves assigning value to those
data (Graves, 1996: 12). or feel they need. This does not necessarily coincide
with the information collected by the ESP practitioner regarding necessities and
lacks.
2- Models of Need Analysis :
Scholars have put forward various models of needs analyses. However,
the four models of needs analysis are gaining much recognition by researchers,
each model can identify language needs from different perspectives.
1. Target Situation Analysis (TSA);
Target Situation Analysis (TSA) is a kind of needs analysis which mainly
focuses on students' needs at the end of a language course (Robinson, 1991).
The "target needs" are the "product" of a target situation analysis. The
identification of the target situation is a prerequisite for the ESPcourse
designers. Then a rigorous analysis of the linguistic features of the designated
6

situation should be carried out. The identified features, accordingly, will form
the syllabus of the ESP course. The information collected in the target situation
includes the language application information, communicative skills, and the
cognition of the teaching objectives of the learners, working institutions and
societies.
It is commonly agreed by all ESP practitioners that Munby is the first specialist
who have the systematic and influential ideas about target situation analysis. He
formulated the famous "Communication Needs Processor (CNP)", needs
analysis moved from being as discrete language items of grammar and
vocabulary, with the publication of Munbys Communicative Syllabus Design
(1978),to be placing the learners purposes in the central position within the
framework of needs analysis.
2. Present Situation Analysis (PSA);
While Target Situation Analysis deals with the analysis of learner's targets,
without which it is difficult to design a syllabus to achieve them. Present
Situation Analysis (PSA), on the other hand, analyses learner's present situation
and shows the gap between the present and the target. When emphasizing the
learner's motivations in the process of studying, the needs that the students'selfperception about learning cannot be neglected. PSA exlpores to find out the
language proficiency of the students when the language course begins and their
strengths and weakness (Robinson, 1991). Three basic sources of information
are suggested by Richterich and Chancerel in 1980: the information about the
students themselves, the language-teaching organizations and the userinstitution.
Present situation analysis may be posited as a complement to target situation
analysis (Robinson, 1991; Jordan, 1997). If target situation analysis tries to
establish what the learners are expected to be like at the end of the language
course, present situation analysis attempts to identify what they are like at the
beginning of it. As Dudley-Evans and St. John
7

(1998: 125) state "a PSA estimates strengths and weaknesses in language, skills,
learning experiences."
3. Hutchinson and Waters' Model
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) first put forward the learning-Centered
Approach needs analysis model. In the model, needs analysis consists of two
parts: target situation needs and learning needs. Target needs include
"necessities", "lacks" and "wants". "Necessities" are determined by the demand
of the target situation. They are the necessary needs that enable the learner to use
effectively in the target situation. "Lacks" are the gap between "necessities" and
what the learner already knows, that is the existing proficiency of the learners.
"Wants" are learners' subjective needs, which has no direct relationship between
the objective needs perceived by the teachers and course designers. Learning
needs, on the other hand, are how learners learn the language.
Learning needs are about the learners' motivation of learning the language, the
way they prefer to learn, the available resources, the time and place the course
will take place and the learners' personal information. Hutchinson and Waters
compare the ESPcourse to a journey (Figure 2). The starting point of the journey
is the "lacks" and the destination is the "necessities". Learning needs are how are
the learners get from the starting point to the destination. Sometimes the
"destination" may be deviated because the "necessities" perceived by the
sponsors may be different from what the learners want or feel they need.

4. Dudley-Evans and St John's Model of Needs Analysis

In this model, professional information are the tasks and activities in
which learners are using or will be using English for, this is the Target Situation
Analysis and objective needs of the learners; while personal information
concerns about the factors that might affect the way when learners learn, such as
their previous learning experiences, cultural background, attitude to English, or
even their reasons and expectations for taking the course, this can be called as
the learners' subjective needs, which includes learners' wants, means and
strategies. The English language information about the learners' is their current
skills and language uses, this part belongs to the Present Situation Analysis and
this is the effective way to assess the learners' lack, which is the gap between
"the English language information about the learner's" and "professional
information about the learners". The main concern of the Present Situation
Analysis is the current language proficiency of the learners. Learning needs
Analysis seeks to find out the effective ways of learning the language and skills
of the lacks. Professional communication information concerns the how the
language and skills are uses in the target situation.
With the progress of the course, the attitudes and approach of students may
change accordingly. Need analysis, therefore, is recommended to be conducted
during the whole process of the course. (Richterich and Chancerel, 1987;
Robinson, 1991) Moreover, need analysis can be carried out at different stages
during the curriculum design process and the identification and analysis of needs
should be a continuous process (Richterich and Chancerel, 1987; Knox, 1987).
This is helpful to both the course designers and teachers to make necessary
changes. Moreover, need analysis can take many forms, whatever the forms is,
the basic purpose should be the to find the wants and needs of learners. If the
teaching approaches and teaching contents match the determined needs, the
learners' motivation will be enhanced.

3- APPLICATION OF NEED ANALYSIS INTO

ESP CURRICULUM DESIGN
Need analysis must be reliable, efficient and usable. Need analysis can be
conducted through three steps: plan, information collection and information
analysis. Plan is of great importance to effective need analysis. Before the
research, designers should make it clear the following questions:
(1) What kind of information is needed?
(2) Why the information is needed?
(3) How to acquire the information?
After answering the above three questions, the next step would be to
design the research questions according to these questions. When the plan is
made and the questions are designed, the information can be collected. When
applying the need analysis theory into the curriculum design, course designers
should study the needs of learners, society and the school.
A. The Analysis of the Present Situation
As has mentioned above, the three basic sources of information is the
students, and language-teaching establishment and the user-institution. During
10

this information collecting process, a lot of information should be collected: the

learners' learning background, their concept of teaching and learning and their
preferred methodology and techniques, their wants, either objective or subject,
and the resources available etc. For an ESP student who is studying at a
university, the courses are compulsory and their attitude toward the ESP courses
varies. There are relatively large number of professional teachers, whose
knowledge of and attitude to the subject content varies a great deal. The attitudes
of the students and the teachers should be investigated and determined
accordingly. The learning materials are available and students can get aids from
various sources. On the other hand, the course designers are usually the ESP
teachers, it is comparatively easier for them to collect information from the
students and the teaching institutions. When doing present situation analysis,
learners' subjective need, objective needs, learning needs, learning motivation
and language proficiency should be considered. If the present situation is
finished, all the parties involved will benefit from a proper analysis of the
present situation and this will pave the way for the final accomplishment of
curriculum design.
B. The Analysis of the Target Needs
Target needs are determined by the needs of the target situation. The
target needs analysis is in fact a matter of asking information about the target
situation and the learners' attitudes of that situation. These questions are about
the reason why the language is used, the way the language is used, the content
areas of the courses, the relationship between the learners and the time and place
where language will be used.
For ESP students, their motivation of learning English might be to work in
a business-related institution. It is advisable for the course designers to analysis
the needs of the employer's anticipation and demand. The language learned by a
ESP student might be to understand business emails, to talk via telephone, to
communicate effectively at an trade fair and so on. During the learning process,
11

the corresponding language skills should be highlighted. When doing this,

questionnaires, interviews, observations, case studies can be used to inquire the
target need. If necessary, some other ways may be used to acquire the complete
and accurate information.
What should be noted is, when the curriculum design is done, the curriculum
designers should again solicit views from foreign trade companies, joint
ventures, foreign department of banks, foreign insurance companies and other
companies where the ESPstudents work to re-evaluate the curriculum and
further better the curriculum.
C. The Analysis of Localized Features
The goal of the ESP teaching is to cultivate interdisciplinary talents. Owing to
the different features of different provinces, districts and schools, such as the
regional economic development levels, the developing level of disciplines in
different schools, the guiding ideology for university management and the
school-running characteristics, the content of courses, teaching mode, training
objective and standard, are not estimated to be the same. It is suggested that
needs analysis should be established not only on the basis of target needs and
learning needs, the district features, suggestion from experts, school-running
orientation and features, guidelines for running universities, should be also be
considered. Examples like the main subjects in financial universities may be
international finance or international payment; while in marine universities, the
courses such as international shipping, international logistics should be
emphasized. As is famous for large number of "student bosses'', Yiwu Industrial
and Commercial College may set its main courses as "E-business or
international logistics" based on Yiwu's local characteristics.
D. Procedures of Needs Analysis
The aim of an ESP course is to move learners from A (current performance) to B
(target performance). It is not possible to design and develop an ESP course
without previously conducting a needs analysis. It consists of a procedure or
12

series of procedures intended to obtain information about both current

performance and target
performance. Rather than rules "written in stone," a needs analysis is an ongoing
process. This means that needs detected before the course might change during
the course and the teacher has to take notes of those changes . In general ,
designing a needs analysis requires completing the following process :
1 . Decide what information to gather and why.
2 . Decide when, from whom and how to gather it.
3 . Gather the information .
4. Interpret it.
5 . Act on it.
6. Evaluate the effects of the action.
When conducting need analysis, a variety of procedures can be used and the
type of procedures selected determines the information acquired. (Richards,
2002). Schutz and Derwing (1981), offered eight elaborative steps to
conduct a needs assessment.
These steps are: to define purpose, to delimit target population, to delimit
parameters of investigation, to select information gather instrument, to collect
data, to analyze results, to interpret results, and to critique the project.
(1) Defining the purpose involves identifying the goals of the study precisely in
order to achieve useful results.
(2) Delimiting the target population refers to defining the target population of
the study in order to make practical decisions about monetary, position and time
considerations.
(3) Delimiting the parameters of investigation includes the planning of the
limitations of the study in order to raise its effectiveness.

13

(4) Selecting the information gathering instrument refers to choosing the

appropriate data collection instruments. Selecting the information gathering
instruments depends on the conditions, scope and objectives of the study.
(5) The collection of the data is directly related to the data collection instruments
that will be used in this process. Different types of data gathering instruments,
such as distributing questionnaires, conducting interviews, or doing observations
require different processes to follow up.
(6) Analyzing the results, the researcher may benefit either from computerassisted analysis techniques or the observations and interpretations. Using
computer-assisted analysis techniques to analyze data is more reasonable for the
sake of time and effort, compared with observations and interpretations that
require extended contact with the target situations and qualitative interpretations
of the data.
(7) In the interpretation of the results section, the researcher explores what s/he
had derived from the process of data interpretation. There, the researcher
attempts to draw implications about the learners' language needs by using the
data analysis results.
(8) Finally, the critique of the project section includes drawing out implications
for further studies and explains the limitations of the study.

14

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