Abstract:

In recent years linguists have had their focus on a series of problems connected with the dynamics of the functional field of English discourse. There has been a rise in the amount of research work dedicated to the analysis of systemic and asystemic properties of both the language and cross-cultural communication; significantly more attention is now paid to cooperative interaction among structural and semantic elements of discourse as well as to the problem of achieving communicative goals due to specifically chosen combinations of verbal means; a lot has been done to identify new tendencies of selecting tactical methods that can allow to implement native English speakers’ speech strategies.

Everyone who professionally deals with English as a foreign language (including teachers and translators) has started noticing massive transformational changes in one of the most important spheres which defines life of the whole global community – business communication. Nowadays Business English is the key to solving numerous work-related tasks all over the world. Its evolution can be clearly seen with the help of the diachronic analysis and serves as a major reason for the increasing popularity of new, atypical, unconventional, non-standard rhetorical devices in oral and written business discourse that contradict previously established basic norms of conventional behaviour.

The study of main functional peculiarities of British / American business discourse, encompassing linguopragmatic conventions vs. deregulation, rhetorical features and strategic planning of speech acts, is the priority for the linguistics of business communication. Teachers can benefit from the results of this study as they will be able to adjust the educational process and introduce non-native speaking students to the real-life specifics of Business English which is sometimes different from what is demonstrated in textbooks. The goal of this paper is to discuss evolutionary trends in modern English business discourse and their influence on the teaching practice.

Keywords:

Functional linguistics, Business English, teaching methodology, business rhetoric, pragmatics.