T HE GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL ASPECTS OF TEACHING EU E NGLISH

It depends on target audience, the target students. It is worth teaching the basic specialist terminology, the specialist terminology closely connected to the EU institutions. It is crucial then to teach the specialist terminology of legal acts, following this, the students will need to learn the jargon of their profession because they will need to use it to be able to work in the relevant field. (Mira, EUPR/1)

Szonja accentuated the role of teaching general Eurojargon by which she meant her own difficulties she had to face with regard to unknown EU terms when she started to work as an interpreter for the EU. In the next quotation, Szonja elaborates on this idea:

Well, one of the most important characteristics of this language is definitely its specialist vocabulary. EU interpreters having passed the accreditation exam think that they have an extensive knowledge of EU vocabulary. Then they first hear the expression scrutiny reservation, they get really intimidated because they have never heard of it before.

(Szonja, EUPR/3)

The respondents gave examples of EU terminology drawn both from the Eurojargon of the institutions and from legal terminology. These responses suggest that one of the objectives of the EU English class is the teaching of new vocabulary since the students identify it as a linguistic need and both the teachers-researchers and the EU professionals agree on the importance of it for EU English pedagogy. However, the teacher needs to have well-defined objectives and needs to be aware of the specialist knowledge which is sufficient to teach EU terminology. Secondly, the learners’ goals must be considered and must be used as a guideline to follow when making decisions about what to include or exclude concerning EU terms.

field of grammar. This was probably due to their own assessment of their language proficiency.

The other reason could be that they were not aware of the attributes of the grammatical, lexical and textual expertise the specialised language of the EU requires of them.

The recognition of the relevance of learning grammar in the EU English class was mentioned in only one student interview. Erik commented on the significance of grammar by referring to general language learning purposes:

I think the course does not focus enough on grammar tasks. We have had only one such task but it was in connection with vocabulary where we had to find the appropriate prepositions in some expressions. It is difficult to say how much grammar is needed because for those who come to this class to learn the language, it would be useful. It is difficult to know everyone’s language proficiency. But there are students who want to get to know the specialised language of the EU. I think for them it is better to learn the vocabulary or the lexical background. (Erik, S/1)

4.8.1 The teacher-researchers’ views

In what follows, the recommendations and insights of the teacher-researchers regarding teaching grammar in the EU English course is described. The tools that can be used to raise awareness of the special target grammatical needs are also discussed. Most of the suggestions are based on EU English corpus research that was carried out by the respondents of this study.

The teacher-researchers revealed various special characteristics of EU English written communication when they were asked about the difference between GE and EU English. They emphasised that reading or understanding EU texts are often found difficult by learners because the language use of EU documents shows differences from that of general English language texts.

Sandra, who conducted research in the field of terminology pointed out that the language of the EU is a specialised language for several reasons. These differences are richly illustrated in the next excerpts:

Corpus linguistics research in the field has shown that there are verbs, collocations and sentence structures, which distinguish the language of the EU from general English.

They occur only in this linguistic context or they occur more frequently in the EU context than in GE. An additional distinguishing feature of it is that it is not used by native speakers and this influences this particular language use. In my view, the reason behind teaching these special characteristics is that the students will meet EU documents in their professional lives even if it does not mean a job in the immediate EU context.

They will not be able to understand them without learning the differences. (Sandra, TR/1)

Lea who conducted corpus-based research in the field confirmed that the special linguistic characteristics, which appear in the EU documents, can be classified into lexical and grammatical categories. Lea speaks about these categories in the next excerpt:

EU English differs from GE in its lexis. The lexical characteristics of it are different just like in any other languages for specific purposes. There are different terms, its terminology is different. Moreover, differences have been identified in its collocations, which means that in the EU texts certain words are combined with different words than in GE. It is possible that certain words have fewer collocations than in GE.

Consequently, these language differences are demonstrated in the way we use these words which is again different in GE. At the same time, we can say that there are grammatical structures in the EU texts, which occur more frequently than in GE. We cannot say that these grammatical structures are different, they are used more often in EU texts. Therefore, understanding these structures becomes crucial for those who read such texts. (Lea, TR/2)

Hanna reported on the significance of all the differences mentioned above and she added another distinguishing feature of EU texts:

On the basis of my corpus, I have found that there are several lexical features which distinguish the language of EU texts form GE. And it must be underlined that I am not talking about the EU terms because they are probably the easiest to identify. I think what makes this language variety difficult beyond the EU terms is that there are numerous conjunctions, which typically occur in it and they do not occur or less frequently occur in GE. (Hanna, TR/3)

Hanna further commented on the textual organisation of EU documents. It was mentioned that EU legal documents, for example, the Treaties, looked different from general legal documents as regards their introductory sections, and to the organisation of the paragraphs.

The language use of their introduction is characterised by special words, which are only used

in EU documents. Therefore, they seem strange for those who are not familiar with this specialist language. When talking about the special characteristics of EU documents, it was reported that the layout of the documents follows a standard. They have to look the same in all the official languages to conform to the original text. She mentioned that originally, the Treaties were worded in French and were translated into English and this is one of the reasons why they sound ‘odd’ sometimes.

To sum up, based on corpus linguistic research in the field of the EU, the experts identified three areas of difficulty in the target situation based on studying EU texts, which can be of pedagogical interest. These areas appear in the EU texts at grammatical, lexical and textual level. It will be discussed in a later section (Section 4.9.2) that all these problem areas can be approached in the EU English class by improving reading and writing skills. By focusing on these skills, the main grammatical, lexical and textual characteristics of the most significant EU genres can be exemplified for the students.

4.8.2 The use of metaphors: EU professionals’ views

Another interesting point was raised by Mira who accentuated the special language characteristics of EU English from the point of view of different nationalities and multilingualism. This refers to the difficulty of the translation of metaphors, which are easily created in the English language in the EU context, however, their application in other languages for representatives of some Member States sometimes causes problems. According to Mira, mainly translators from Baltic countries complain about the use of these metaphors in their own languages, but they are not easy to be created in Hungarian either:

It is extremely difficult for the Baltic countries to use, for example, the expressions

‘sunset clause’ or ‘open sky agreement’. Such metaphors frequently occur in English, but the Baltic languages cannot find expressions or same metaphors in their own languages, which are close to the original forms. In Hungarian, it is possible to find equivalents or it is easier to ‘live’ with them. (Mira, EUPR1)

4.8.3 The use of verbs, particles and acronyms

Respondents recommended that some specific lexical items pertaining to the EU context were incorporated in the linguistic components of the course. Mira reported on the difficulty with the use of verbs in the legal documents of the EU. She indicated that she investigated this issue in the context of multilingual translation. The next extract sheds light on some of the words used in legal documents, which either did not exist in the Hungarian language legal documents or they carried a different meaning:

The legal documents of the EU like to use verbs in English, which are evaluated in Hungarian or in other languages as not having any grammatical function in the text. An example of this is the verb ‘enhance’. There are many similar verbs in the EU documents. Another example of words, which did not exist in Hungarian legal documents is the word ‘whereas’. It appears in the preambles of EU legal documents and the Hungarian legal texts do not even have such paragraphs. (Mira, EUPR1)

Mira finds that the translation of these ‘non-functional’ verbs or introductory expressions in legal texts of the EU is forced by the influence of the English language in the EU. Although by now in Hungarian these are established terms in EU translation, it was not by any means an easy process to find the ultimate equivalent forms of translation of these previously non-existent lexical components of EU legal texts.

Blanka reported on the frequent use of modals in the EU context (shall, should, may, might) in EU texts, and talked about how often it is debated, which modal verb should be included in certain texts. Her other comment reveals that she finds that it is not very important to use particles correctly in verbal interactions. In the following excerpt, Blanka also speaks about the difficulties acronyms can cause if someone is not familiar with them:

There are numerous acronyms, the name of the various specialist committees are all acronyms. In addition, half of these committees are named in French and from French, they are transformed into English. One such example is CATS, the Coordinating Committee in the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters is called CATS. It is, of course, pronounced as the word cats in English, so if the interpreter does not know the real meaning of it, she/he can be surprised. (Blanka, EUPR3).