MARITIME ENGLISH REGISTER: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF ITS SPOKEN AND WRITTEN SUBVARIETIES
MARITIME ENGLISH REGISTER: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF ITS SPOKEN AND WRITTEN SUBVARIETIES

Summary/Abstract: Maritime English, a language variety in the domain of occupational English, is considered the official language of communication in shipping. This study aims to provide a corpus-based description of language characteristics of subvarieties of Maritime English. This description will serve as the basis to analyze the distinctive use of linguistic features in different subvarieties. The study was conducted on four corpora: a spoken corpus of Maritime Communications, and three written corpora: a corpus of Maritime Law, a corpus of Marine Engineering English and a corpus of Maritime Academic English. Corpus data, e.g. parts of speech frequencies, noun and verb frequencies, wordlists, keywords and key terms lists, and n-grams, were used to identify some of the recurring features or patterns. These were then further analyzed qualitatively to explore their functional and pragmatic aspects. The study is an attempt to provide insight into generic features and patterns of variation in maritime discourse and compare different subvarieties within the Maritime English register. The results may have possible pedagogical implications for teaching Maritime English by providing insights into how various disciplines manipulate linguistic resources to achieve different functional goals. This could enable course designers to create domain-specific syllabi tailored to the actual needs of language learners in their field of study or to train them in discourse strategies specific for a particular register.

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