01 Editorial.qxd Editorial Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake, and vanish into a great silence in which your ship moves on with a sort of magical effect. They pass away, the days, the weeks, the months. Nothing but a gale can disturb the orderly life of the ship; and the spell of unshaken monotony that seems to have fallen upon the very voices of her men is broken only by the near prospect of a Landfall. (Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea) In September 2006 I took command of Ibérica, the flagship of AELFE. Now that I am about to make the land, after eight years of exciting voyage and 16 ship’s calls, it is time to briefly look into this maritime adventure and share the records in the ship’s logbook. As I look astern I see how this once coastal ship has been upgraded to the global trade and converted into an ocean-going vessel fit to cross the seas of global academia and reach any port of the world. In my first editorial published in the journal I pointed at those issues which, to my judgement, would guide my editorship: (…) my most immediate concern is the consolidation of Ibérica as a worldwide reference journal in LSP scholarship. In so doing, many new, as well as corrective, actions will need to be undertaken: new index lists will be applied for so that they contribute to the “global spread” (quoting Gibson Ferguson’s paper in this issue) of Ibérica; the International Advisory Board will be updated and the Editorial Board enlarged; the “instructions for authors” section will be enhanced so as to provide greater detail; the referees’ evaluation form and assessment process will be improved so that the peer- reviewing outcomes become more specific in the provision of comments and recommendations for further submissions; and, indeed, all suggestions put forward by readers and AELFE members alike will be welcome and taken into consideration (Editorial to Ibérica vol. 13, page 6). ibérica 28 (2014): 9-16 iSSN: 1139-7241 / e-iSSN: 2340-2784 9 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 9 Today, those target issues, attained and firmly established, are part of the ship’s life and, together, contribute to a safe passage for both passengers and crew. During this time, Ibérica has welcomed on board a multilingual and multicultural crew. The Editorial Board, the International Advisory Board and the external reviewers have made their best for providing the journal with helpful and detailed reviewing reports leading to excellent pieces of research that are gathering a good number of citations worldwide. Passengers, at first predominantly Spanish authors, have yielded an interesting mixed group of nationalities from the five continents, represented in both proposed submissions and eventually published articles and reviews that provide a good overview of global trends and research niches on languages for specific purposes (LSP). The special issues together with the celebration of AELFE’s 20th anniversary guided us, at least initially, through uncharted seas but provided the journal with greater international visibility and very fine volumes. Michael White, Maria Kuteeva and Juan Carlos Palmer-Silveira did very well as Chief mates for volumes 17 (metaphor and LSP), 22 (academic English in parallel and ELF-settings) and 26 (international and intercultural business communication). Volume 24, published in 2012, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Association and, in a longer-than-usual volume, very illuminating contributions to the field of LSP and its state-of-the-art were published by most members for the International Advisory Board. Indeed, gale “impact factor” and gale “seal of excellence” disturbed “the orderly life of our ship”, but very positively. The number of index lists, databases and repositories containing this journal has risen from 6 (in 2006) to 28 at present. In 2009 Ibérica was indexed in the index lists and databases hosted by ISI Web of KnowledgeSM: Social Sciences Citation Index®, Social Scisearch®, Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition, Arts and Humanities Citation Index®. By that time it was also accepted for coverage in SCImago journal rank (run by SCOPUS). Today, the journal is positioned in quartiles 3 and 2 of JCR and SJR, respectively, and has become and internationally reputed journal within the field of applied languages (see the quotes by relevant scholars gathered in my editorial for volume 25 published in 2013). In 2011 we were also shaken by the seal of excellence awarded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology that accredited Ibérica as an excellent journal in Spanish academia and highlighted its international projection abroad. Two years later this seal of excellence was renewed, and very recently (July 2014) Ibérica has been ranked with the second h-index EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-1610 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 10 position according Google Scholar Metrics for the period 2009-2013 in the list of scientific journals in the area of Linguistics in Spain (see URL: http:// digibug.ugr.es/bitstream/10481/32471/7/HIndex_RCE_GSM0913.pdf). The ship’s wake along these lines indicates that we are approaching our port of destination, and here the reader will find the details of this 16th voyage under my supervision. Helen Basturkmen, Associate Professor of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), opens this volume with a contribution on Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) teacher education. LSP teacher education is a very relevant topic for this journal, given its scope and target audience; however, this potential and under- researched area has not been so far the object of any proposed or published articles. In her study, Basturkmen discusses the needs of LSP teachers as well as models of teacher education and then identifies themes in the existing literature. Her most important contribution to the state-of-the-art is first, the gaps she identifies in the literature and, second, her suggestions of “topics for the research agenda to develop understanding of the nature of LSP teaching expertise” (page 17). Professor Basturkmen shares her interest in the LSP teaching profession with other research projects currently underway: a genre-based investigation into disciplinary variation in research reporting, and a study of supervisor feedback on dissertation writing. Following Basturkmen’s study is a group of four papers that explore medical English from different angles. First, Neslihan Önder Özdemir attempts to diagnose the learning needs of Turkish medical students. In order to obtain reliable data, Önder Özdemir uses varying research instruments (observation, reflective journals, questionnaires and in-depth interviews) with 525 participants. Findings are discussed against (i) the perceived needs of medical students, and (ii) the potential differences between the perceptions of academics and medical students regarding such needs. Next, Shirley Carter-Thomas and Elizabeth Rowley-Jolivet analyse the functioning of if-conditionals in medical editorials and how it compares in research articles (RAs). The target corpus consists of 171 and 119 occurrences of if-conditionals taken from 74 editorials and 30 RAs respectively. After measuring several parameters in both groups of if- conditional occurrences, authors conclude that “[a]lthough research articles and editorials can both be classified as argumentative professional discourse, EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-16 11 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 11 their argument strategies, as illustrated through the form and use of if- conditionals, are very different” (page 76). The following article examines cosmetics brands and the rhetorical strategies cosmetics companies use in websites to advertise their products upon the myth of “eternal youth” and persuade consumers for purchasing. Here, Marisa Díez Arroyo makes use of eighteen websites of well-known cosmetics brands to extend our knowledge of medical language in the advertising context and with persuasive, rather than informative or scientific, purposes. The last article in this group of studies within the scope of Medical English discourse discusses how Chinese medical doctors negotiate the pressure of publishing RAs in reputed journals for attaining professional promotion and raising the performance standards of their own institution. Yongyan Li conducted interviews with eleven surgeons working at the Orthopedics Department at a major hospital in East China and found that: (i) institutions prioritize publishing in English in mainstream journals; (ii) research and publication constitute the main source of pressure despite doctor’s high clinical workload; (iii) domestic publication is also accepted but it poses a lower level of challenge and implies lower professional rewards. Following with RAs as an object of study is Ling Lin’s study on the innovative elements that structure those RAs article introductions that are followed by an independent literature review. Lin’s analysis of 30 article introductions shows that these rhetorical sections may follow either the traditional Swalesian CARS model type or a new two-move orientation type. Even though findings derive from an Applied Linguistics RA corpus, they can be illuminating for researchers dealing with academic writing in other fields. Metaphor plays an important role in architectural professional practice and discourse, and Rosario Caballero offers an overview of how architects think, draw and write architecture through metaphor. By focusing on extracts from architectural reviews, Caballero surveys the ways metaphor informs the professional practice of English-speaking architects and provides ideas for implementing metaphor in architectural education and for training architecture students into visual knowledge and thinking. Next, Patrick Goethals explore the tourism context through the statements of tourists (testimonials) uploaded at widely known commercial websites in the field. Linguistic accommodation – or the selection of different languages EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-1612 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 12 among tourists and tourism professionals – and the use (even interference) of English along with a wide array of mother languages is common practice in social media conversations and written notes provided at websites. Hence, Goethals supports its study and implementation in language classrooms so as to establish informed links between teaching/learning, lifelong learning and direct experienced. Last, Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez and Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid explore multimodality for comprehensive communication in the classroom. More particularly, they explore audience- and content-oriented questions with the aim of identifying those verbal and non-verbal strategies that foster interaction in guest lectures. The use of “okay?” and the use of clusters are the main focus of the last section of this small scale research piece and help to illustrate the importance of nonverbal behaviour in line with other genre- related studies. The next section of this volume contains reviews on nine recent publications dealing with: • the language of tourism and internet (Miguel Ángel González Macías); • individuality and community in the disciplinary identities of academic discourse (Carmen Sancho Guinda); • narratives in academic and professional genres (Carmen Piqué- Noguera); • the roles and global challenges faced by English-medium instruction (Francisco Rubio Cuenca); • research writing in multilingual settings (Pilar Mur-Dueñas); • the influence of electronic media in written communication using English as a Lingua Franca (Carmen Pérez-Sabater); • statistical research as applied to language and linguistics (Alejandro Curado Fuentes); • the language and discursive practices of business and finance (Françoise Olmo Cazevieille); and, finally, • Bhatia’s and Lassen’s genre-related models as applied to the language in technical manuals (Concepción Orna-Montesinos). EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-16 13 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 13 I would like to thank the members of the editorial board who have contributed to the ongoing work of the journal with their suggestions and thorough evaluations during this past semester. These have been (in alphabetic order): Amparo García-Carbonell, Carmen Sancho Guinda, Chelo Vargas, Elena Bárcena, Honesto Herrera, Joseba González Ardeo, Juan Carlos Palmer Silveira, Mª Ángeles Orts, Maria Enriqueta Cortés, Maria Kuteeva, Marisol Velasco, Marta Aguilar, Mercedes Eurrutia, Michael White, Ramón Plo, Rosa Gimenez, Victoria Guillén. Special thanks go to the 44 external reviewers who have collaborated with the journal during this past semester by assessing submitted manuscripts to ordinary volumes. These have been, in order of reviewing, the following: Matthew Peacock (City University of Hong Kong, China), Sonia Oliver del Olmo (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona), Neslihan Önder Özdemir (Uludağ University, Turkey), John Skelton (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom), Pascual Cantos (Universidad de Murcia), Marisa Blanco (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos I); Patrick Goethals (Ghent University, Belgium); Mercedes Roldán (Universidad de Jaén); Yu-Hua Chen (Lancaster University, United Kingdom); Viviana Cortés (Georgia University, United States); Pilar Durán (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid); Georgina Cuadrado (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid); Ismael Arinas (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid); Mª Mar Soliño Pazo (Universidad de Salamanca); Jesús García Laborda (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares); Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares); Mª José Luzón Marco (Universidad de Zaragoza); Cristina Tejedor Martínez (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares); Hanna Skorczynska (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia); Bozena Wislocka (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid); Christian Jensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark); Guzmán Mancho (Universitat de Lleida); Rosario Caballero (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha); Zsófia Demjén (The Open University, United Kingdom); Anna López Samaniego (Universitat de Barcelona); Raquel Taranilla (Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar); Pedro Mogorrón (Universidad de Murcia); Miguel F. Ruiz-Garrido (Universitat Jaume I); Isabel K. León Pérez (Universidad de La Laguna); Purificación Sánchez Hernández (Universidad de Murcia); José Mateo (Universidad de Alicante); Helen Basturkmen (University of Auckland, New Zealand); James Wilson (University of Leeds, United Kingdom); Joseph Zompetti (Illinois State University, United States); Moisés Escudero (University of Michigan, United States); Daniele Besomi (University of Lausanne, Switzerland); Hilary Nesi (University of Coventry, United Kingdom); Claudine Lecrivain (Universidad de Cádiz); Chris J. Kennedy EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-1614 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 14 (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom); Natasha Artemeva (Carleton University, Ontario, Canada); Patricia Arnaiz (Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez (Universitat Jaume I); Begoña Bellés-Fortuño (Universitat Jaume I); Beatriz Cendón Méndez (Universidad de Valladolid). Ibérica has made this landfall in a safe and orderly manner. She will soon be manned again and get ready to heave up anchor and set sail. The new master and the whole crew will certainly watch for the seaworthiness of the vessel, will plot the chart for new routes and destinations, will plan safe passages and a successful voyage. As far as I am concerned, it has been a pleasure to be in charge of this efficiently-crewed craft for these eight years. The satisfaction of the achievements attained (particularly the quality, visibility and international positioning of the journal) far exceeds the time, effort and work invested. I am most grateful to the AELFE board, the journal editorial and international advisory boards, external reviewers, AELFE members, contributors, readers, printers, and all those colleague-friends for their help, support, collaboration, understanding, enthusiasm and encouragement that have contributed to, perhaps, the most pleasant voyage in my academic career. Ana Bocanegra Valle Universidad de Cádiz (Spain) Editor of Ibérica EDITORIAL ibérica 28 (2014): 9-16 15 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 15 00 IBERICA 28.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 22/09/14 19:19 Página 16