Daily professional communication demands both (general) linguistic knowledge and specialised (linguistic) knowledge relating to the specific profession. Each profession develops its own technical language or jargon and part of the knowledge of this language includes particular forms of literacy connected with the understanding of technical texts and their (re)production. This paperfocuses on the relation between the language abilities and the special (linguistic) knowledge required within a profession: in this case, by those employed in the Slovene armed forces. A methodological basis for the analysis of specific language needs is offered, on the basis of which, in the next phase of research, authentic tests of functional literacy could be developed. Our assumption is that, by taking into account typical communicative situations and employing authentic testing tasks, the test performance will provide a more realistic picture of language use outside the test situation.
|
