Understanding the role and practice of English in a workplace is a key concern in English for special purposes (ESP). This chapter outlines the research conducted in this area over the past two decades, identifying issues which can inform the teaching and learning of workplace English. The chapter includes a description of a course, which uses teaching materials developed from a corpus of naturally occurring workplace talk. While ESP typically focusses on skills development and language learning, workplace discourse research is interested in identifying how language is used to achieve both task and people-oriented goals. The focus on teaching discourse analytic skills and encouraging a focus on sociopragmatic competence provides one possible option for ESP practitioners, an option which incorporates findings from research that investigates authentic workplace talk.
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