Abstract:

This research is based on the analysis of linguistic features observed in a real-life business meeting of non-native Pakistani English speakers and its comparison to the materials of spoken discourse available in the Business English textbooks being used to teach Business English at Coventry University, United Kingdom. This research will look at the spoken discourse from a linguistic perspective. The aim of this research is to critically analyse how a real-life business meeting spoken discourse of non-native English speakers in Pakistan is different from the one provided and taught in textbooks for teaching Business English to the students of English linguistics at Coventry University. The underlying purpose of this research is to contribute to the English Language Teaching pedagogy by enlightening the spoken discourse in this context and providing authentic data on which future materials for Business English classes can be based on.

The data for this research were audio recordings gathered from a real-life Business meeting and textbooks from Coventry University. All the collected data was transcribed into written form. The methods used for research were both qualitative and quantitative but basically it was a qualitative research (QUAL-quan). The results found out that there is no difference in the introductions, greetings, announcements of decisions and ending of meetings in both the cases. However, the differences were identified while analysing the use of discourse markers, interruptions, agreements and disagreements. Results also highlighted that transactional discourse was more in the materials available in the textbooks rather than that in real-life meeting. Therefore, it is important for teachers to know that the use of authentic real-life discourse would be more helpful for the students’ comprehension level as they might work in intercultural contexts in their futures and having an experience of studying discourse from real-life meetings would enhance their understanding level about the language of Business meetings.

Keywords:

Teaching Business English, transactional discourse, students’ comprehension level.