Rethinking ESP Teaching in Higher Education: New Horizons Through Cognitive Discourse Functions

This book proposes a shift in early higher education instruction, examining why novice ESP students in EFL contexts benefit from focused attention to recurrent academic language functions, rather than being expected to grasp complex, discipline-specific genres from the outset. Motivated by challenges such as the Bologna reform, the spread of English-Medium Instruction (EMI), and increasingly diverse student profiles, the authors draw on Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs), taking the position that attention to these cognitive operations and their linguistic realisations can help make academic expectations more accessible to learners who are still developing both disciplinary knowledge and academic language, while scaffolding rhetorical flexibility and genre awareness. The book provides an empirical exploration of the emergence and realisation of CDFs in undergraduate writing across a range of disciplines. It will be of particular interest to researchers in applied linguistics and language education, especially those working in ESP and EMI contexts.