01 Editorial.qxd Editorial Ibérica is ringing an international bell. In a recently-published review paper entitled “Keeping in touch: A survey of lexicography periodicals” and published in the reputed journal Lexikos (no. 19 (2009): 404-422), R.R.K. Hartmann lists Ibérica among the 40 most relevant journals to lexicography and scholars involved in lexicographical research. Also, there must be something about it when Ibérica merits the attention of a wide array of international scholars who submit their manuscripts for peer review (see some of the outcomes in this volume), and, moreover, when Ibérica provides the whole corpus for an interesting piece of research (see Moisés-Escudero & Swales in this volume) and serves to draw relevant conclusions on contrastive genre analysis aiming at a worldwide readership. Ibérica is ringing an international bell and we all have to contribute to keep it ringing. On this occasion, the invited paper opening no. 21 comes from one of the top- cited scholars in Ibérica. Just a look at the references section of the articles in this volume will show his name and works to appear recurrently. Ken Hyland makes a contribution to this volume with a study on the construction of academic identity in three peripheral genres such as thesis statements, doctoral prize applications and bio statements. After discussing the importance for academic writers to manufacture their identity and find a credible position within academia, Hyland digs into the ways writers from different disciplines manage to show their credentials, value their research or try to establish some sort of valued reputation with the final aim of claiming an academic self in scholarly life. Conclusions show, among others, a prevalence of disciplinary patterns and practices; but, most importantly, that “identity results from the command of an “idiom”, or mastery of a community repertoire, which we appropriate and shape to our own needs and personal preferences to best present ourselves to valued others” (page 28). The second chapter, which addresses the Latin American situation pertaining to EAP research, also deals somehow with the need to portray a credible academic self in global scholarly life. As Iliana A. Martínez observes, it is not easy for researchers from “periphery countries” to make themselves visible in today’s highly competitive publishing arena; however, “instruction based on the knowledge and expertise accumulated by EAP in the last twenty years may contribute to balance the inequalities faced by non-Anglophone scholars when they have to communicate in a language other than their own” (page 33). As a whole, Martinez’s paper displays optimism in different ways: it provides figures from the Science Citation Index database that indicate that the number of non- Anglophone researchers who publish in English is increasing and her discussion shows a positive evolution of Latin American countries that are gradually finding a credible position in international research. Last, she reflects on what ibérica 21 (2011): 5-8 iSSN 1139-7241 5 ˇ 00 IBERICA 21.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 10/03/11 17:17 Página 5 she calls the advantages of the Latin American situation and claims a capitalization of such advantages in view of maximizing EAP writing instruction. The following two contributions both examine research article writing from different points of view. Adopting a contrastive-rhetoric based analysis, Moisés Perales-Escudero and John M. Swales investigate patterns of rhetorical convergence and divergence in English and Spanish abstracts published in issues 3 (2001) to 18 (2009) of this very same journal. Their corpus consists of 84 pairs of abstracts written by academics working at Spanish universities and specializing in applied discourse analysis and LSP/ESP. Based on this group of abstracts, Perales-Escudero and Swales are engaged on the analysis of text- referring expressions, degree of epistemic commitment, amplified attitude, self- mention and periphrastic equivalents. Both myself, as current editor-in-chief, and the authors of all these abstracts were contacted so as to confirm or refute initial assumptions. The study and translation of examples provided reveal insight into the stylistic and collocation behaviour of English and Spanish in research article abstract writing and serve to outline specific rhetorical convergent and divergent patterns with potential implications for ESP pedagogy and translation studies. Next, Jason Miin-Hwa Lim provides a detailed account of the descriptions and justifications of sampling procedures in the method-related sections of research articles. Based on a corpus of 32 experimental research articles published between 2004 and 2008 in eight reputed international refereed journals related to the teaching of English as a second language (the Journal of English for Academic Purposes being one of them), Lim investigates and handsomely illustrates the language resources and semantic functions current researchers employ to describe the locations, size and other features of sample participants (Step 1) and justify the sampling procedure implemented (Step 2). Findings reported are practically oriented and, hence, are expected to assist both expert and novice researchers when writing research reports. Also concerned with written genres, Ruth Breeze examines the notion of “disciplinary values” in English legal discourse. In particular, Breeze focuses on six adjective/adverb sets having a prominent role in legal discourse and, by means of WordSmith tools (Scott, 2007) studies the behaviour of such sets in a 2-million word corpus within the scope of commercial law: academic law articles, case law (law reports and court opinions), legislation (Companies Acts) and legal documents (like contracts or merger agreements). Other sources such as the British National Corpus (BNC) and the British Academic Written English Corpus (BAWE) are taken into account so as to contrast frequencies and draw conclusions. Among the six adjective/adverb sets under study, “reasonable” and “reasonably” merits most attention, simply because the constructs of “reasonableness” and “reasonable persona” stand out in legal discourse. Results EDITORIAL ibérica 21 (2011): 5-86 00 IBERICA 21.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 10/03/11 17:17 Página 6 show, among others, the existence of complex patterns between subcorpora and that the target sets of adjectives/adverbs emerge “as being particularly prominent in particular areas of legal discourse, and as being likely to embody community-specific values that shape the disciplinary culture of law” (page 110). Diplomatic language lays the groundwork for Aditi Bhatia’s research. In her study of political press conferences, Bhatia draws on a data set of conferences between leaders of different nations held from 2001 to 2009 and published in well-known international newspapers and magazines. The various conference extracts provided help to illustrate the array of language strategies international political leaders deploy with a view to overcoming differences, negotiating, strengthening solidarity, forging alliances or creating diplomatic ties. Most important of all is the construction of the ideal of a so-called “international community”, that is, “a self-organised group that is united by common beliefs, interests and commitments” (page 127), in which language has an important role to play. The last chapter deals with cognitive-oriented dictionaries for learners and their potential contribution to the development of lexicography in the near future. Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera and Sven Tarp, both authors with extensive experience in lexicographical works and dictionary making, claim that lexicography is an independent science of academic study and an area of social practice whose main challenge is to provide a reliable framework for the development of cognitive- oriented specialised dictionaries. Fuertes-Olivera and Tarp first discuss the relationship between knowledge, skills and communication as they relate to dictionary use; next they explore the lexicographical and cognitive needs of LSP learners, and last, they discuss a proposal for the development of systematic introductions in specialised dictionaries to be accessed via Internet with particular reference to the recently published Diccionario Inglés-Español de Contabilidad (Nielsen et al., 2009). This issue no. 21 contains eight book reviews in all. First Miguel A. González Macías writes on a collection of papers exploring Spanish for specific purposes and published by Maria Vittoria Calvi’s competitive research group in Italy. You probably remember that issue no. 19 opened with Calvi’s invited contribution on the discursive genres in the language of tourism. Second, Cristina Calle Martínez reviews Diane Belcher’s latest edited book on the theory and practice of ESP, and which contains chapters related to English for Academic Purposes, English for Occupational Purposes and English for Sociocultural Purposes. Third, Rosa Giménez Moreno digs into the challenges professional English has to face in view of the changes required by the Bologna process and the role ESP has to play in the European Higher Education Area. Next, Alejandro Curado Fuentes explores the latest advances and achievements in corpus linguistics as his review provides a detailed account of a selection of papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Corpus-based Approaches to ELT held in EDITORIAL ibérica 21 (2011): 5-8 7 00 IBERICA 21.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 10/03/11 17:17 Página 7 Universitat Jaume I (Castelló – Spain) in November, 2007. In a fifth review, Piedad Fernández Toledo assesses Ruiz-Garrido, Palmer-Silveira and Fortanet- Gómez’s latest edited volume dealing with the discourse analysis of English for academic purposes, the discourse analysis of professional English and the pedagogy of English for both academic and professional purposes. The translation of English business and economics texts into Spanish is the focus of the review by Ángel Felices Lago who highlights the usefulness of the volume for future translators. Also Business English, or more particularly, English for International Business and Economics, is the focus of the volume reviewed by Mª del Carmen Lario de Oñate which gathers theoretical and practical proposals for undergraduate and postgraduate students wishing to operate within an international professional context. Lastly, Mª Dolores Perea Barberá examines the latest English-Spanish/Spanish-English dictionary to date in the field of English for Maritime Studies. Given the scarcity of publications in this ESP variety, this publication will be welcome by students, teachers, translators, researchers and professionals alike. I am pleased to announce that Ricardo Mairal Usón, a Full Professor in Linguistics at the Department of Foreign Philology and Linguistics at the Spanish National Distance-Learning University (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain) has kindly accepted to join Ibérica’s International Advisory Board starting from this issue. Professor Mairal’s main areas of research interest are the architecture of the English lexicon, the representation of lexical knowledge, linguistic universals and the interactions between lexical semantics, syntax and morphology with particular reference to theoretical models, both formal and functional. His most recent research has dealt with the design of a multilingual and multifunctional lexical conceptual knowledge base for natural language processing applications. Finally, I would like to acknowledge those invited external reviewers who have assessed submitted manuscripts during this past semester. These have been: Nuria Edo Marzá (Universitat de València), Carmen Pérez-Llantada Auría (Universidad de Zaragoza), Maria Vittoria Calvi (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy), Aquilino Sánchez (Universidad de Murcia), Camino Rea Rizzo (Universidad de Murcia), Giovanni Garofalo (Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy), Ana C. Lahuerta (Universidad de Oviedo), Ester Usó-Juan (Universitat Jaume I), Carmen Sancho Guinda (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) and Mª del Mar Robisco (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). My appreciation for their detailed assessments and cooperation with this journal. Ana Bocanegra Valle Universidad de Cádiz (Spain) Editor of Ibérica EDITORIAL ibérica 21 (2011): 5-88 00 IBERICA 21.qxp:01 Editorial.qxd 10/03/11 17:17 Página 8