Soft skills and mediation in legal English:Towards a new methodological approach in ESP

CHOVANCOVÁ, Barbora. Soft skills and mediation in legal English:Towards a new methodological approach in ESP. In ESSE: 13th conference of the European Society for the Study of English, Galway. 2016.

Basic information

• Original name: Soft skills and mediation in legal English:Towards a new methodological approach in ESP
• Name in Czech: Mediace a soft skills v právní angličtině: Nové metodické přístupy v ESP
• Authors: CHOVANCOVÁ, Barbora (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: ESSE: 13th conference of the European Society for the Study of English, Galway, 2016.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50300 5.3 Education
• Country of publisher: Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14640/16:00093688
• Organization unit: Language Centre
• Keywords (in Czech): mediace; soft skills; ESP; právní angličtina; metodika výuky anglického jazyka; analýza potřeb
• Keywords in English: mediation; soft skills; ESP; legal English; ELT methodology; needs analysis
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

This paper argues that one of the central components of ESP courses, as revealed by the process of ‘transferred needs analysis’ (Chovancová 2014), consists of soft skills. Those go beyond fluency of speech and accuracy of terminology since they involve the students’ ability to effectively communicate and negotiate in work-related professional contexts. This is particularly acute in the area of law where a significant amount of work consists of legal professionals mediating technical information to lay people. Identifying this situation as ‘intralanguage translation’ or ‘mediation’ (CEFRL), the paper presents several activities for developing this area of soft skills and demonstrates that this approach combines several desirable effects that range from the use of authentic materials, presentation of believable scenarios and practice of reformulation rather than verbatim reproduction of discipline-specific content (such as citing acts and regulations).

Abstract (in Czech)

Jednou z klíčových složek kurzů ESP jsou tzv. soft skills, tj. dovednosti, které studenti potřebují v praktickém životě nad rámec tradičních jazykových dovedností. V tomto příspěvku představuji teorii mediace a její využití ve výuce právní angličtiny.