On Some Features of Conversation in Maritime VHF Communication 195

Goffman, E. (1976): Replies and Responses, Language in Society, 5, 3, 254-313.Halliday, M. A. K., McIntosh, A. and Strevens, P. (1964): The linguistic Sciences and Language

Teaching, Longman.Hatch, E. (1992): Discourse and language Education, Cambridge University Press.IMO Standard Marine Navigational Vocabulary (SMNV), IM'O, London, 1977, 1985.IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP), IMO::'London, 1997.Johnson, E. (1982): The Seaspeak research strategy and the computer, paper delivered at Wolfson

College, Cambridge.Riggs, F. W. (1989): Terminology and lexicography: Their Complementarity, International Journal

oflexicography, 2, 89-110.SincIair, J. McH, Forsyth, 1. 1., Coulthard, R. M. and Ashby, M. C. (1972): The English used by

teachers and pupils, Final report to SSRC, mimeo, Univ. ofBirmingham.SincIair, 1. McH and Coulthard, R. M. (1975): Towards and Analysis of Discourse, Oxford

University Press.Stenstrčm, A. (1994): An Introduction to Spoken Interaction. Longman.Strevens, P. (1983): Language engineering, applied linguistics and special-purpose language

teaching: A case history in the construction of International Maritime English, paper presentedat the Univ. ofIllinois.

Strevens, P. (1988): International Maritime English (Seaspeak), Fachsprache, Wien, 2-9.Strevens and Johnson (1982): Seaspeak: A project in applied linguistics, language engineering, and

eventually ESP for sailors, TESOL Convention Proceedings, Honolulu.Strevens, P., Weeks, F. (1985): The Creation of a Regularised Subset of English for Mandatory Use

in Maritime Communications: SEASPEAK, Institute of Culture and Communication,Honolulu.

Weeks, F., Glover, A., Johnson, E., Strevens, P. (1985): Seaspeak, Pergamon Press.

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Dialogue Analysis VII:Working with DialogueSelected Papers from the 7th lADA ConfereneeBirmingham 1999

Edited byMalcolm Coulthard, Janet Cotterill and Frances Rock

M.I~ N h)IIH'Yt'j Vt'llng'ro bh11t1)fI 2()OO

Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera

On Some Features ofConversation in Maritime VHFCommunication

1. .Introduction: Maritime English and the Language of MaritimeVHF Communications

The language of maritime VHF radiotelephone communications, the subject ofthis paper; can be regarded a particular subset of English whose lexicalcomponent, grammatical and discourse features:

(a) are appropriate to the requirements and restrictions of specific communication situationsin navigation, both at sea and in port,

(b) meet the communicative needs and linguistic capabilities of users (participants) inconveying and exchanging messages with in outboard or inboard communications, and

(c) meet the specific technical, i.e. extralinguistic requirements 'ofusing VHF radiotelephonein conversation and broadcasting.

English for maritime communications is a specific, narrow-scope realisation ofMaritime English, which in tum, following Halliday, McIntosh, Strevens 1964,Crystal and Davy 1969, and Bhatia 1993, represents a language variety adapted toa wide range of needs appropriate to the use (e.g. registers of navigation,seamanship, marine engineering, communications, maritime law and shippingbusiness) and users of such a language variety in the specific speech communityand the maritime-related environment. This highly restricted sub-variety ofmariti me English is characterised by a limited vocabulary and simple grammaticalstructure to suit the specific requirements of interpersonal communication andinteraction with similar goals as mentioned before. It is also constrained bysituational and contextual dimension (Bhatia 1993, Coulthard 1985, Hatch 1992)such as subject-matter or domain (navigation, safety, shipping, maritime law, etc.),field (e.g. distress communications), mode (cf. spoken vs. written varieties; e.g.those to be read or uttered, transcriptions of spoken text, etc.) and tenor or attitude(e.g. formal - informal, stiff - loose, polite - impolite, standard - colloquial stylesin mariti me discourse and communications).

186 Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera Or.~.~

2. Maritime English in VHF Communication - General FeaturesThough never obtaining amandatory status, English has been used as aninternationally-agreed language of maritime communications for over half acentury. The risks of navigation and the development of modem technology andcommunication, combined with the multi-national and multi-cultural ship's crew,necessitate unambiguous and effective communication at sea. This has resulted ina gradual normalisation (Riggs 1989) and, in some instances in standardisation ofmaritime communications, predominantly using VHF radio frequencies as themedium. Such a standardised linguistic form of maritime communications is aspecific kind of arestricted language (Crystal 1987, Bhatia 1992), usually labelled'speak' in the compounds such as PoliceSpeak, MeteoSpeak, SeaSpeak, AirSpeak,EmergencySpeak etc. (Crystal 1995).

As a particular form of discourse in English, maritime VHF communicationshave a specific purpose (safety of navigation) and are characterised by a set offixed operational routines (Strevens and Johnson 1982: 5) in dealing with arestricted number of topics. The most typical unit is a transaction between twoparticipants on asingle topic or two topics or sub-topics, Opening and cJosingexchanges tend to be compressed into not more than two tums each. Tum yieldingand taking is typically signalled by lexical devices carrying performative power(e.g. over, roger) and is entirely controlled by the speaker holding the tum. Forsafety reasons no (simultaneous) back-channelling or participants' overlapping ispossible because of the technical restraints excJusively allowing simplex mode ofworking. Question - answer acts are the most frequent form of exchange, with Yes,No, Right, and DK used as acknowledgementlcompliance-signalling moves andback-channel signals in the response tum. The speakers are normally the carriersof two different roles, e.g. one speaker (usually a coast station, Vessei TrafficService (VTS) centre, port control station etc.) assuming the superior position inrespect of the other speaker/receiver (i.e. a ship station) in a particularcommunicative situation. Most frequently the participants are non-native speakersof English. As already stated the conversational structure and format of mostmessages is simple, routine-like and therefore predictable (consisting of threeparts: opening, message exchange, cJosing) and in this respect VHFcommunications cJosely resemble ordinary telephone conversations from whichthey mainly differ in tenor or attitude (e.g. a higher degree of formality) and aspecial restraint of an extralinguistic nature (i.e. simplex working system). Thegrammar is comparatively simple (at least in the more formal, regularisedinstances of dialogues). The vocabulary of the message part is largely topic-dependent, whereas that of the open ing and cJosing sections is restricted andsubjected to more or less ritualised opening and cJosing formulae used in maritime

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On Some Features ofConversation in Maritime VHF Communication

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VHF conversation. Since the number of tepics is restricted, the register-boundtechnical (i.e. navigational and safety) terminology tends to be highly regularised.

The fact that the speakers or participants in such conversations arepredominantly non-native, places speciai requirements on their interaction withother non-native and, particularly, with native speakers of English who eitherseem to neglect any standard form of communicating or are even unaware of thestandard.

Here is an example of a typical maritime VHF communication as introducedabove:

(1) Setting: Harbour approach channel I fairway

Speakers: MV MARLIN (non-native), (DB) Deutsche Bucht VesseI Traffic Service (non-native)Main topic: First notice of ship's arrival

MARLIN: W-4-X-N, W -4-X-N. OverDB: Martin. Deutsche Bucht. Good afternoon.

MARLIN: Ah. Good afiemoon, Sir. I'mjust passing Delta Bravo 13. OverDB: Yes. Your maximum draught?

MARLIN: My maximum draught is 5.5 metres. Er ... , last port FeIixtowe.Destination Hamburg. OverDB: Yeah. And ETA Elbe Light, VesseI?

MARLIN: ETA Elbe 19.30. OverDE: DK, thankyou. Please call me again abeam of Delta Bravo 17.

MARLIN: Roger, Sir. I will give you a call back on Delta Bravo 17.DB: Thank you. Good voyage.

3. The CorpusTo substantiate the above description of the nature of maritime VHFcommunication in English, a corpus of recordings of authentic VHFcommunications at sea has been analysed. The corpus was compiled over a periodof eight years, from 1990 to 1997. It includes over 500 records, each recordconsisting on average of 60-90 words. The majority of the recordings were madeon a two month voyage on board a container ship in the Mediterranean, Red Sea,US East Coast and Northem Europe, and the rest in some of the world's busiestwaters. The records include VHF conversations (90%) and broadcasts (10%). Nodistress communications were recorded. The principa Isettings in most records areship approaches to major ports, fairways or straits both by day light and at night, infair and adverse weather. The most frequent communication topics in therecordings were: arrival of a ship at a port, pilot arrangements, berthing,anchoring, departure from a port, tow:age, manoeuvring, collision avoidance,telephone link calls, cargo operations, bunkering, etc .• _'-'- .u.u ,e

187

188 Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera

As far as the corpus is concerned, the typical conversation in marine VHFcommunication normaIIy takes place between the ship's master and the harbourpilot or VTS operator (ship-to-shore communication) foIIowed by brief exchangesbetween the master/pilot and the tug skipper, or between the master and ship'sofficers at the ship's communication stations (fore, aft, bridge, engine room: on-board communication). Most frequently the participants in the conversation are anon-native shipmaster speaking to another non-native VTS/port controloperator/pilot or shipmaster. In all those instances there is always a relationship ofsubordination of varying degree, but the necessity for co-operation (safety ofnavigation) between the carriers of the different roles provides a great deal ofredundancy and has a felicitous effect on the overall success of theconversation/communication, i.e. conveying the communicational intent andobtaining an appropriate response.

4. Maritime VHF Communication: Corpus Versus Standard·

The vocabulary, basic sentence structure, and to a certain extent the format andstructure of conversation in the language of maritime VHF communications werefirst standardised by IMO (International Maritime Organisation) in 1977 in theform of 'Standard Marine Navigational Vocabulary' (SMNV), foIIowed bySeaspeak (1988), and recently in 1997 - Standard Marine CommunicationPhrases - SMCP. These were laid down by IMO as a set of recommendedstandards for use first in safety of navigation and subsequently in other spheres ofmaritime activity. This paper aims to show that actual maritime VHFcommunications differ significantly from the relative standards laid down by IMO.The difference Iies mainly in the format and structure of the conversation(transaction), topical development, the linguistic and other means of signalling ormarking turns (taking, holding, yielding and ending turns), the making of movesand performing interaction acts. It will be shown that these also depend on thedegree of formaIity and subject-rnatter (field) of discourse as opposed to standardVHF communications which are highly formaI.

The conversational structure in mariti me VHF communications has beenstudied extensively by the authors of the Seaspeak Project (Strevens and Johnson1982, Johnson 1982, Strevens 1983, Strevens and Weeks 1985). FollowingSincIair et al. (1972) and SincIair and Coulthard (1975) they developed a modelof basic international maritime English conversation in 7 and subsequently 9.stages (cf. Weeks et al. 1985, Strevens 1988), i.e.:

1. make initial call, 2. respond to call, 3. indicate working channel, 4. agree working channel, 5.switch over, 6. send message, 7. respond to message, 8. end transmission, 9. end procedure.

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On Some Features ofConversation in Maritime VHF Communication 189

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This is referred to as an 'ideal procedure' by Johnson 1982. However, in realcommunications this 'ideal procedure' undergoes significant changes (mostfrequently shortening of the opening stage and merging of the final tum of themessage stage (call-offs) with the closing one, closers and farewells). The study ofthe corpus for this work has indicated that a more general and simpler (e.g. threestage) model, applicable to everyday (particularly telephone) conversation, canalso successfully account for the description of maritime VHF conversation.Therefore, the model of conversation analysis adopted here is an adaptation of themodel offered in Sinclair and Coulthard 1975, Coulthard 1985 and Stenstrčm1994: 135. It includes the following major stages: I. OPENING, n. MESSAGE,III. TERMINA TE. The following example illustrates the simplified model:

(2) Setting: Savannah River Fairway - outbound traffic, U.S.Speakers: US pilot on board an outbound vessei, Savannah Information Service (US)Topic(s): 1. Proceeding down the river - departure from the port, 2. Estimated time of arrival

1- Initial (or Opening) StageP: Vessei outbound on Savannah River giving security call.SlS: Say again, please.II - Message StageP: This is the container ves sei KE, outbound on Savannah River.SlS: Container ship, will you he continuing along on the Savannah River area near the

coast? Over.P: Roger, we're bound to sea.SlS: What is your ETA for Pilot Station - in thejunction with the Savannah River? Over.s of

III - Closing (or Terminate) StageP: In about 2 to 3 minutes.SlS: OK. Thanks very muchfor the information.

In stage I, i.e. the opening and make contact procedure, the usual adjacency pairADDRESS - RESPOND is left out and, since reception is poor, the vessei Sresorts to a repair move in order to maintain contact, marked by: Say again,please. However, full contact is only achieved in the course of the second tumstarted by the speaker P. In stage n (Message) the response (Roger, we 're boundto sea) doesn't seem to follow the line of the main topic but communication issuccessful thanks to shared knowledge and participants' awareness of theextralinguistic situation. This, as the corpus shows, is a frequent feature ofmaritime VHF communication. Overlapping of Stage II and III (shown in thegraph above) allows an abrupt winding-up move and termination of the exchange.Note also the ellipsis of the subject and verb and shifting of focus to theprepositional/adverbial phrase (absence of the usual back-channel marker YES,which is substituted, however, by heavy nuclear stress, falling tone and pause) in

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190 Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera

the response to the question on the ship's ETA. Unlike most maritime VHFexchanges the greeting sequence is omitted here because the pilot and the PortInformation Service speaker know each other well and perform a routineexchange. There is obviously no place for phatic or small talk in the opening stage(two native speakers). There are no special lexical markers or discourseconnectors to smooth out shifting from one (sub )-topic to another in the messagestage: instead, direct questions apply and, at the same time, a very strong tum-giving marker (Over) ensures the tum holder full command of the coriversation.Note also the ever present, though, by IMa standards, optional polite closing andfarewell sequence. Here is another example with a different, though very frequenttopic:

(3) Setting: the Mediterranean, off Port SaidSpeakers: Port Said Radio, Ve1ar (Greek ship)Topic(s): VTS, traffic control+ advice on anchoring on arrival

1- Initia1 (or Opening) StagePS: This is Port Said Radio, ... Centre, Channell-6.V: Velar, Velar. Come in.II - Message StagePS: OK, my friend, will you pass east of ... , will you pass east?V: Because I 'm now proceeding to er, I will now after my course about two mi/es to the

waiting area, anchorage. Over.PS: Correct, my friend,'correct.V: I will go to the harbour waiting area, over?PS: Correct, harbour area, halfmile, halfmile from port, drop the anchor, call me again.V: DK. I will drop my anchor at the anchorage area, waiting pilot. Is that correct? Over

(rising intonation)PS: Correct, Sir. Correct, Sir. Anyhow, when you are past Number 2 buoy area, please.V: Yes, Sir. How will I proceed from anchorage?III - Closing (or Terminate) StagePS: I will give you all inforrnation after drop of anchor, my friend. No problem.V: DK. I'll do that. Thankyou very much.

In the opening stage the second speaker (MV Velar) does not, as is frequently thecase, address the calling station (Port Said Radio) and, by ignoring such arequirement imposed by IMa recommended standards on VHF communications,runs the risk of failing to establish contact. This, however, is counteracted by theparticipants' mastery of the situation (i.e. shared information) and helped byintonation (falling tone on Velar) and a pause before Come in on the one hand and'tactics' (linguistic information, cf. Coulthard 1985: 129), back-channellingmarker (OK) and the almost phatic insertion made by the calling station (my

friend) on the other. Lexical repetition in the response acts also reinforces successof communication (correct).

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On Some Features ofConversation in Maritime VHF Communication

Within the first topic the interrogative sentence uttered by the holder of thefirst tum (PS) is here a request closing on a command, and therefore interpreted inmaritime VHF communication as ADVICE (used as one of the 'message markers'in Seaspeak, though in fact performing the role of interaction act markers). In theresponse tum, the vessei Velar first makes comments on advice and then shifts to adifferent topic, without any linguistic signalling (except the gap filler er and apause) giving a pragmatic signal of the performance of his next action (alteringcourse). The pragmatics of this sequence (sub-topic), however, is only known tothe two participants in the communicative event, and the fact that thecommunication was successful can only be traced from the lexical and sententialrepetition (correct, my friend, correct; harbour area; halfmile) and a question Iwill go to the harbour waiting area?).

The conclusion (winding-up) move, just as in the example before, overlapsbetween the last tum in the message stage and the first tum (of only one or two, inthe closing stage). In this respect there is a striking difference from a telephoneconversation where such overlapping occurs during asingle act, the participantsspeaking at the same time, which is undesirable and is therefore made technicallyimpossible in safety-bound VHF communications-o

It could be concluded therefore that the stages observed in the corpus mainlydiffer from the above model in that the openin~ stage is much simpier, theexchange being usually reduced to a simple greeting (Good morning/ afternoon/evening). End transrnission procedure, or closing, is abrupt if compared with thosein everyday telephone conversation, though farewell and polite remarks are alwayspresent and can sometimes be pretty elaborate (e.g. Yes, thank you very much, Sir.We 'll be standing on channel 1-2. Good night.; Thank you very much for your co-operation. Bye, bye. Going back to channel 1-6; Have a good watch; I wish you asafe transit. Good trip to ...; A pleasant watch to you, Sir, and pleasant voyageonwards; Good watch to you, Sir, and pleasant journey on the way to ...)

The corpus furthermore shows an interesting regularity as the various records ofconversations move down the scale of formality. Thus, as the maritime VHFdiscourse reduces formality, the markers of such exchanges and the moves andacts will become more similar to those encountered in an every-day telephoneexchange. In addition to the universal frames (Coulthard 1985: 123) marking theboundaries oftransactions such as DK, well, right, now, good, and No problem (amarker so often used by non-native speakers of English), such markers as anyway,anyhow, you know, actually, sorry, etc.), typical of informal phone conversationalso occur in the more informal comparable conversations by VHF. This is evenmore so when the participants are native speakers, particularly in intemalwaterways (rivers, lakes etc.):

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192 Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera

(4) Setting: New York: Sailing in the river - barge towingSpeakers: tug skipper (US), barge skipper (US)Topic(s): Picking up the barge, turning around - safety ofnavigation

A: Asper. Good morning, Sir.B: l'm coming around now with the load.A: Ves.B: l've got the Etlen Bush and I'll pick you up at 59 bridge.A: The Maran is stemming the current in the road, she's waiting to ... I guess we'llwork out

something.B: Yes. DK. There is not any fide here at the gate. So, if you wanna come here that 'Il be fine.A: Well, the problem is turning around, you know. But turning around in the river is pretty

difficult, ifyou wanna do itoB: Yes, roger on that. DK. I'll kick her ... and try to get her on by you.A: 1'11appreciate that, Sir. Thank you very much.

or if the subject-matter of VHF conversation does not immediately refer to safetyof navigation, e.g.:

(5)DR: Yeah. DK. DK. That 's good. DK. Captain (name).DS: Yeah, and also please inform that the ship is in my point ofview not fit for anything but

harbour operation until, until, minimum requirements are fulfilled.DR: Yeah, DK, Captain (name). You know, may I suggest one thing, that, you know, white you

are at the anchorage. 1fyou can just swing the vessel and try to get some deviation cardor something, then, you know, I know it 's going to be really (interruption), but then wecan see, you know, if we can get somebody from the shore . ~ you can send medeviation card and I will have a look in order to do something. f!!1f!, you know, what isrequired with regard whether it is the ...

DS: Ya, yaoYou know also. I know this is a little bit, er, beside er .., are you there?DR: Yeah. I'rn there Captain.

DS: OK, we can have a look at it but then, er, we will need some time to do it. Look. anyway,I hope you take this carefully with the Owners.

DR: Yeah. I will take this. In the meanwhile, you know. I mean there is no hurry about this,Captain.

DS: Ves, this is, by the way. You know, that is, I can start working on this. I assure you.DR: Yap. DK. Captain (name). Thanks very muchfor the call.DS: Same to you. You're most helpful, and thank, all the best, nice talking with you.DR: DK, Captain. Thanks. Bye.DS: Bye, bye.

As arestricted 'language' English for maritime VHF communications isprincipally aimed to serve the needs of emergency situations, particularIy iftheparticipants in communication are non-native English speakers. 'Standard MarineNavigational Vocabulary' (SMNV 197711985), SEASPEAK (Weeks et al. 1985)and 'Standard Mal(jne Communication Phrases' (SMCP), are the current IMO

On Some Features of Conversation in Maritime VHF Communication 193

official labels for an extreme sub-division (variety) of maritime English,deliberately designed and more or less expressly recommended for use in maritimesafety communications. One of the most prominent pragmatic features of both theVocabulary/SeaSpeak and the Phrases is the recommended/obligatory use ofmessage (i.e. communicative act) markers within asingle tum signalling thespeaker's intention: QUESTION, INSTRUCTION, AD VICE, WARNING,INFORMA TION1 These are always implied and therefore normally left out in realmaritime exchanges because of the economy of communication, as shown in allthe examples above.

In the Supplement, a comparison has been made between the standard ascontained in SMNV/SMCP and Seaspeak (the dialogue on the left-hand side hasbeen devised here for the purpose of contrast) and 'real' conversation, i.e. the typeof dialogue record ed in the corpus (on the right-hand side). This shows that themain weakness of the standard lies neither in the vocabulary (e.g. lexicalambiguity) nor in the grammar (in spite of some obvious grammatical errors) butrather in the fact that persistent use of some of the forms of express ingcommunicative acts and purpose as recommended by IMa proves unnecessarilyrepetitive, uneconomical, at times too formal, and therefore inappropriate to thesmooth unfolding of maritime discourse. This often makes the standard unnaturaland therefore not sufficiently user-friendly. This is one of the reasons why IMaVHF communication standards in English are difficult to leam and to teach.

5. ConclusionThough the recommended IMa standard (i.e. SMNV) has been in use for morethan twenty years now, actual communications at sea differ significantly from therecommended standard and there is no reason to believe that the latest standard(SMCP) will change the situation significantly. Thus there is a sharp distinctionbetween the standard and the actual form of communication (by VHF or any othermeans of radiotelephony). This is particularly true of the elicitation moves (i.e.repeated use of Question, Instruction marker words, etc.) in contact-making,responding or confirming message receipt, particularly in the communicationinvolved in the ship's arrival at a port. Though regularly studied and drilled in theprocess of education and training for certification, highly formalised IMa signalsof making contact, tend to give way to much shorter forms, often leaving out thewhole preliminary or opening exchange (usually consisting of two tums). In thisway contact is established more directly and thus more naturally, almost assumingthe course of a normal telephone exchange. The same holds in the case of

Along with the distress, urgency and safety markers MA YDA Y, PAN PAN, and SECUR1TE thesemarkers are frequently used to signal the whole transaction both in exchanges and in broadcasts.

194 Boris Pritchard and Damir Kalogjera

adjacency pairs (cf. Coulthard 1985: 70-73) so typical of safety-related maritime 'VHF communications. It is therefore claimed by way of conclusion in this paperthat:

a) the dialogue in real maritime communication differs, sometimes significantly, fromthe IMO recommended standard (SMNV 1977/1985 and SMCP 1997), and

b) apart from the structure layout, (i.e. division into stages), it does not essentially differfrom everyday speech dialogue (i.e. conversation), minor differences beingattributable to the various factors operating in a particular context of situation

Moreover, amaritime VHF exchange, particularly the one involved in ship-to-shore communications, with topics like arrival at a port, exchange in collisionavoidance etc., largely resembles a telephone conversation, showing many lexical,syntactic and pragmatic elements typical of such discourse.

The corpus has also shown that, unlike Airspeak, the restricted code in.marineVHF communications works less successfully than expected and intended. Thereasons are (a) linguistic (unnatural structure, especially the syntactic placement ofdiscourse markers in individual speech acts: adjacency groups with questions,requests, advice etc., which are strange both to the non-native and native speaker)and (b) extralinguistic (impact of formulae and language habits on board, lack oftraining, etc.). Although originally based on field research (recordings within theSeaspeak and earlier projećts) the standard does not entirely meet the needs of themodern seafarer, except in case of distress communications (which today tend tobe fully automated, e.g. the GMDSS, Global Maritime Distress and SafetySystem). The recommended language standard s of maritime VHFcommunications, particularly the discourse and pragmatics elements, need to befurther investigated and constantly adapted for everyday use. This also urges forconstant adaptation and improvement of the linguistic form of the standard to theneeds of both acquiring and teaching it. This paper, therefore, is an attempt atcasting more light on the nature of real and standardised maritime communicationsin English, with a view to reducing the gap between the two.

ReferencesAkmajian, A., Demers, R. A., Farmer, A. K., Harnish, R. M. (1995): Linguistics, An Introduction to

Language and Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.Bhatia, V. (1993): Genre Analysis. London: Longman.Coulthard, M. (1985): An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.Crystal, D. and Davy (1969): Investigating English Style. London: Longman.Crystal, D. (1989): The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language. Cambridge University Press.Crystal, D. (1995): The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. Cambridge University

Press.Glover, A, Johnson, E, Strevens, P., Weeks, F. (1983): 'Seaspeak: Computer-assisted language

Research'. The IVth'j:<:uropean Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, University ofBordeaux II.