English for Academic Purposes

Research into EAP has expanded enormously in the last decades, owing to the burgeoning use of English for professional reasons as well as for the concerted interest it has attracted in higher and further education courses for native speakers and non-native speakers of English worldwide. Stemming principally from ESP, EAP in the last few years has obtained its own space as a highly skill-based area of language study that can be examined at different degrees of specificity, more generally as English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) or more specifically as English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). Emerging from a long-standing literary tradition of theoretical and empirical contributions in the area of English linguistics and applied linguistics, EAP still needs defining. The aim of this panel is to explore the state of the art of EAP: i.e. where it stands today in relation to where it came from and where it is destined to go. We welcome papers that will discuss theoretically and/or empirically either the genesis and history of EAP or its present state and/or future direction.