A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDY Literature

Abstract

Business English is not only a language for specific purposes, but a discipline in Chinese university. A content analysis of Business English  study literature is conducted to comprehend its studies. In total, 200 journal articles (n=200) are studied and the title of “Business English” is retrieved from six journal databases including the main Chinese journal databases CNKI and WanFang, and four international databases SAGE Journals, ScienceDirect, SCOPUS, and ProQuest Education Journals from the year of 1999 to 2013. The findings reveal that 1) Chinese scholars publish a large quantity of journal articles; 2) Business English studies are main at three disciplines: “Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics”, “English Language and Literature”, and “Curriculum and Pedagogy”; 3) The study of Business English in academic dissertations is mainly at the level of Master; 4) Business English study focuses on the four categories from 1999 to 2013: issues of language study, issues of education, issues of translation, and issues of cross-culture communication. This study also critically analyzes the research limitations and recommendations of Business English study.