The chapter offers suggestions for pursuing the dual aim of teaching critical analysis skills in a Business English course designed for advanced learners of English as a foreign language. To illustrate the benefits of this approach, I use samples of business discourse drawn from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports of well-known international companies. The choice of CSR-related materials is due to the rising importance of social responsibility issues in the last couple of decades. A relative novelty in the early noughties CSR discourse rapidly became mainstream worldwide in the following decade, and is now ubiquitous in the world of business and beyond. Today, mastering the language of CSR is of paramount importance for business professionals; on the other hand, as a discursive construct CSR eminently lends itself to critical investigation, thus providing an ideal ground for raising students’ awareness of the importance of learning to question text and discourse, moving beyond a purely instrumental view of language.

Teaching CSR Discourse : A Critical Approach to Business English / P. Catenaccio - In: The Research-Practice Interface in English for Specific Purposes: Past, Present and Future : A Festschrift in Honour of Rita Salvi / [a cura di] E. Incelli, R. Mocini, J. Turnbull. - Bern : Peter Lang, 2022. - ISBN 978-1-5275-8910-0. - pp. 229-244

Teaching CSR Discourse : A Critical Approach to Business English

P. Catenaccio
2022

Abstract

The chapter offers suggestions for pursuing the dual aim of teaching critical analysis skills in a Business English course designed for advanced learners of English as a foreign language. To illustrate the benefits of this approach, I use samples of business discourse drawn from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports of well-known international companies. The choice of CSR-related materials is due to the rising importance of social responsibility issues in the last couple of decades. A relative novelty in the early noughties CSR discourse rapidly became mainstream worldwide in the following decade, and is now ubiquitous in the world of business and beyond. Today, mastering the language of CSR is of paramount importance for business professionals; on the other hand, as a discursive construct CSR eminently lends itself to critical investigation, thus providing an ideal ground for raising students’ awareness of the importance of learning to question text and discourse, moving beyond a purely instrumental view of language.
Business english; discourse analysis; ideology; language teaching; LSP
Settore L-LIN/12 - Lingua e Traduzione - Lingua Inglese
2022
Book Part (author)
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
PAOLA CATENACCIO 12 rev.pdf

accesso riservato

Tipologia: Publisher's version/PDF
Dimensione 281.67 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
281.67 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/951814
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact