An investigation into formal and functional characteristics of qualifications in legislative writing and its application to English for academic legal purposes.

The present investigation is based on a linguistic analysis of the 'Housing Act 1980' and attempts to examine the role of qualifications in the structuring of the legislative statement. The introductory chapter isolates legislative writing as a "sub-variety “of legal language and provides an overview of the controversies surrounding the way it is written and the problems it poses to its readers. Chapter two emphasizes the limitations of the available work on the description of language-varieties for the analysis of legislative writing and outlines the approach adopted for the present analysis. This chapter also gives some idea of the information-structuring of legislative provisions and establishes qualification as a key element in their textualisation. The next three chapters offer a detailed account of the ten major qualification-types identified in the corpus, concentrating on the surface form they take, the features of legislative statements they textualize and the syntactic positions to which they are generally assigned in the statement of legislative provisions. The emerging hypotheses in these chapters have often been verified through a specialist reaction from a Parliamentary Counsel, largely responsible for the writing of the ‘Housing Act 1980’• The findings suggest useful correlations between a number of qualificational initiators and the various aspects of the legislative statement. They also reveal that many of these qualifications typically occur in those clause-medial syntactic positions which are sparingly used in other specialist discourse, thus creating syntactic discontinuity in the legislative sentence. Such syntactic discontinuities, on the evidence from psycholinguistic experiments reported in chapter six, create special problems in the processing and comprehension of legislative statements. The final chapter converts the main linguistic findings into a series of pedagogical generalizations, offers indications of how this may be applied in EALP situations and concludes with other considerations of possible applications.

Developing translation competence

This volume presents a comprehensive study of what constitutes Translation Competence, from the various sub-competences to the overall skill. Contributors combine experience as translation scholars with their experience as teachers of translation. The volume is organized into three sections: Defining, Building, and Assessing Translation Competence. The chapters offer insights into the nature of translation competence and its place in the translation training programme in an academic environment and show how theoretical considerations have contributed to defining, building and assessing translation competence, offering practical examples of how this can be achieved. The first section introduces major sub-competences, including linguistic, cultural, textual, subject, research, and transfer competence. The second section presents issues relating to course design, methodology and teaching practice. The third section reflects on criteria for quality assessment.

Distinctive manufacturing competence or core competence:which is more relevant in non-corporate organizations?

This paper addresses the issues of what core competencies mean in the light of the earlier existing concept of distinctive manufacturing competencies (or manufacturing competencies). The apparent parallels bel ween these two concepts are highlighted and considered. The results of empirical research comlucled via a survey of UK non-corporate organizations is presented and then analyzed. The results from the investigation lead directly to conclusions about the relevance of these competency concepts to non-corporate, non-multinational organizations.

A comparative evaluation of the legislative controls on unfair terms and exemption clauses in consumer and business contracts in England and Brazil

The purpose of the present study is to make a comparative evaluation of the legislative controls on unfairness in the context of B2B, B2C and small businesses contracts in England and Brazil. This work will focus on the examination of statutes and relevant case law which regulate exemption clauses and terms on the basis of their ‘unfairness’. The approach adopted by legislation and courts towards the above controls may vary according to the type of contract. Business contracts are more in line with the classical model of contract law according to which parties are presumably equals and able to negotiate terms. As a consequence interventions should be avoided for the sake of freedom of contract even if harmful terms were included. Such assumption of equality however is not applicable to small businesses contracts because SMEs are often in a disadvantageous position in relation to their larger counterparties. Consumer contracts in their turn are more closely regulated by the English and Brazilian legal systems which recognised that vulnerable parties are more exposed to unfair terms imposed by the stronger party as a result of the inequality of bargaining power. For this reason those jurisdictions adopted a more interventionist approach to provide special protection to consumers which is in line with the modern law of contract. The contribution of this work therefore consists of comparing how the law of England and Brazil tackles the problem of ‘unfairness’ in the above types of contracts. This study will examine the differences and similarities between rules and concepts of both jurisdictions with references to the law of their respective regional trade agreements (EU and the Mercosul). Moreover it will identify existing issues in the English and Brazilian legislation and recommend lessons that one system can learn from the other.

Journey towards cultural competence:developing university teachers

Purpose - This paper examines the importance of intercultural training for lecturers; describes innovative training to address this, based on a new theoretical framework; and evaluates training and framework. Background - UK HE is becoming increasing internationally diverse. The UK HEI population is also very multicultural. The proportion of lecturers who come from outside the UK has risen. It is, therefore, important that students develop intercultural awareness. One way of doing this is to work with students. A more sustainable approach focusses training on lecturers who will embed cultural awareness into their practice. Method - This paper sets out a theoretical framework which underpins training developed for lecturers as part of a Postgraduate Certificate. The paper describes the training and evaluates the effectiveness of this. Findings and results - Findings show that participants were apprehensive about the training. Afterwards they expressed surprise at the participative approach, but were pleased with outcomes. They enjoyed the exercises and the training appeared to have opened up their outlook. They praised the freedom to share thoughts with others. Conclusions - Findings show that participants learnt intercultural skills to use in class. This was due to the design. The nature of the training encouraged reflection on cultural diversity and participants attested to the effects this would have on their teaching. These results replicate other studies Implications - The implications are immediate in the design of intercultural training in different contexts. It has already been used to design innovative training for students and managers. In both cases the same far-reaching results were achieved.

Competence requirements for managing supply in interorganizational networks

The authors address the growing call for research into the management of supply networks serving the public sector. Building on prior action research, this empirical paper focuses on the management of supply in interorganizational, health sector networks identifying the competence requirements (skills, knowledge, traits, and behavioural indicators) associated with effective team performance. Drawing on empirical data, the authors present a competence framework that aims to capture a team’s tacit understanding of strategic supply management. Competence indicators are organized into six themes: network understanding; developing network position; relationship management; learning, knowledge and knowledge management; strategy formulation; strategy implementation. Finally, the relevance of the framework to boundary spanning personnel outside the purchasing function and to other organizations is considered.

Supply network strategy:role and competence requirements

This paper presents an argument that it is possible for an organisation to manage networks, but understanding this involves consideration of what is meant by "managing". Based on prior research and data from a major longitudinal action research study in the health sector, the paper describes six network management roles: network structuring agent; co-ordinator; advisor; information broker; relationship broker; innovation sponsor. The necessary "assets" for effective performance of these roles are identified, in particular those relating to team competence. The findings enrich and significantly develop previous work on network management roles and activities, and their influencing factors. It is concluded that, given the specific nature of the networks studied, further research is required to evaluate the generalisability of the findings, though initial indications are promising.