HOW TO TEACH CONDITIONALS IN AN ESP ECONOMICS COURSE?

Abstract

In this paper we deal with the teaching and the adoption of conditionals in an ESP economics course. Firstly, a brief account of genre analysis is given, a theoretical and methodological model suitable for teaching English for specific purposes in such a way that the correlation between the syntactic form on the one hand, and its function within the specialised context, on the other, is closely observed. Various types of conditionals used in the language of economic science are presented and illustrated. We argue for such an approach to teaching conditionals which is radically different from the one used in a general English course. Due to some specific aspects of economics discourse, among which conditionals have a vital role, we conclude that conditionals should not be taught according to their formal expression, but according to the pragmatic and rhetorical function they perform in the discourse of economics.