Speaker
Description
This study investigates how evaluative language is used in English for International Tourism coursebook – the official teaching material for students at a Vietnamese university. Adopting Appraisal Theory developed by James R. Martin and Peter R. R. White (2005), the study employed a mixed-method approach with the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 30 reading texts belonging to four distinctive genres selected from the textbook. The results indicates that the evaluative language varies significantly across genres depending on their communicative purposes. Tourism promoting texts predominantly apply positive Appreciation and intensified Graduation in order to build appealing and persuasive destination images, whereas Affect and Judgement are emphasized in travel blogs and vlogs to represent personal experiences and evaluate tourism services. While guided tours and itineraries primarily use Appreciation and Focus to highlight the practical values of tourist attractions, reviews and emails feature both positive and negative evaluations for addressing customer concerns and sustaining professional relationships. The findings suggest the need for Tourism ESP instruction to move beyond grammar and vocabulary by fostering persuasive communication, genre awareness, interpersonal interaction skills, and the effective use of appraisal resources in authentic tourism contexts.
Biography
MS. PHAM HONG PHUONG is currently an English lecturer and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hanoi Financial and Banking University. She holds an M.A. in English Language Studies and has nearly 20 years of experience teaching English at the tertiary level. Her teaching areas include General English, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Academic Writing, Translation and Interpreting. She is also the author of four internally circulated coursebooks, namely Interpreting 1, Interpreting 2, Writing 1, and Writing 2, which are used in English language teaching at her institution. Her professional interests include English language teaching methodology, curriculum development, and the application of English linguistics in teaching and learning. She is particularly interested in conducting research on English language education in Vietnamese higher education contexts and plans to pursue a doctoral degree in the near future to further develop her academic and research expertise.
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