engleski

Importance of Language Functions

A Maritime English lecturer's aim is to teach English to future seafarers for different communication goals. Appropriate communication involves much more than standard phrases related to seafarers' tasks on board and is based on their mutual understanding developing in their free conversations. Since ship's crew is becoming increasingly multi-national, it is essential for students to get acquainted with the basic functions of English as global language in the maritime environment. A Maritime English lecturer should obviously teach his/her students the vocabulary and grammar required for efficient carrying out specific tasks on board and for communication with services on shore. However, the lecturer should not neglect the functional aspect of the English language used as a means of inter-personal cross-cultural communication. This is where modality plays an important role as it serves to modify utterances in order to make communication effective. The aim of this paper is to propose a functional approach to lecturing English to students of maritime faculties and to present the results of an initial research on the ability to use English functionally for communication purposes by students of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Split.

language functions; communication goals; global language; cross-cultural communication; free conversations

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