English for academic purposes in Japan : an investigation of language attitudes and language needs in a Department of Law

This thesis is concerned with the development of English courses in a Department of Law in Japan. It presents a case for the introduction of courses in English for Academic Purposes. It begins with a description of the setting for the present research, which consists of the historical development of legal education in Japan (chapter 1) and a study of Japanese approaches to English language teaching (chapter 2). This is followed by a survey of previous work into the language of the law and the teaching of legal English (chapters 3 and 4). Chapter 5 considers the needs of students who are required to read legal textbooks in English and reports on an investigation into the lexis of these textbooks. The analysis (using computational concordancing methods) demonstrates that the needs of undergraduates are not covered by existing wordlists or by proposed standards that would ignore the special needs of law students. A list of essential lexis is proposed, and the collocations of frequent legal terms are identified, thus providing a list of common legal phrases that could be valuable as a teaching resource. Chapter 6 reports on a questionnaire survey into the attitudes of students, law teachers and English teachers to the existing courses and to possible innovations. This reveals that many students and some teachers would welcome changes but that there are conflicting of attitudes and resistance to change by some staff members. Chapter 7 draws on the findings of the lexical research and the attitude survey to suggest the introduction of a more varied English curriculum that should be acceptable to teachers and students and that includes courses relating to the language of the law. Proposals are also made for staff development. Chapter 8 provides a short postscript with suggestions for further research