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Editorial

In the time span from my last editorial note (Ibérica no. 16, Fall 2008) to this
issue, Ibérica has gained stronger international presence in academic research.
Beginning with no. 15 (Spring 2008), Ibérica is indexed, abstracted and
referenced in the following 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®. Also, the
journal has very recently been selected for coverage (abstracting and
indexing) in the international databases EBSCO, “Communications & Mass
Media Complete” products (managed by EBSCO Publishing), and SCOPUS
(included in Elsevier’s Bibliographic Databases); in both cases starting with
2009 published material. As Editor-in-chief of this journal, I dare say that all
AELFE members, Ibérica’s contributors and Ibérica’s readers are honoured
with this international acknowledgment, boost and support that we have
longed for. From now onwards, it is also our duty to take care of this
favourable and privileged position and maintain this journal up to the
present standards of academic quality.

As a regular issue, Ibérica no. 18 contains papers and reviews from Spain and
abroad. The research contributions to this issue may be classified according
to three broad themes: the study of specialised genres and discourse (papers
by Berkenkotter, Zhou & Heineken, Edo, and Carciu); translation and
legalese (papers by González-Ruiz, and Orts); and pedagogical issues as
influenced by the new European Space for Higher Education (ESHE)
(papers by Ezeiza, and Kavaliauskienė & Kaminskienė).

The first group of papers and the whole issue opens with Berkenkotter’s
invited contribution. Carol Berkenkotter, a renown scholar in genre analysis
and the study of the rhetoric of science, is among Ibérica’s most-cited authors
thanks to her celebrated volume Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication:
Cognition/Culture/Power (with T.N. Huckin and published by Lawrence
Erlbaum in 1995). In her work to this issue, Berkenkotter studies case history
narratives in psychiatry from a “wide-angle” perspective. Based on the
experience gained with the writing of her latest book Patient Tales. Case
Histories and the Uses of Narrative in Psychiatry (University of South Carolina
Press, 2008) she focuses on the role of psychiatric narrative from the 18th

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century to the present time and takes a mixed-method approach to describe
case histories of mental illness as “a knowledge-producing medical art”.

The second contribution is a paper that was not eventually published in the
previous monograph on Metaphor and LSP (Ibérica no. 17) due to
overshooting space availability. As Michael White, Guest Editor of that
special issue, explains, Dehui Zhou and Edgar Heineken compare and
contrast student perceptions of teacher metaphors among a Chinese and a
German audience showing them to rely heavily on factors of cultural
heritage. Significantly, their evidence brings us back to Zoltan Kövecses’
initial insights on the role of specific cultural and local factors in triggering
metaphor. In a third contribution, Nuria Edo Marzá renders a detailed
account of the development of a bilingual, corpus-based dictionary for use
in the ceramics industry. By focusing on the selection and generation of
“active entries”, Edo describes the process she has followed and the
decisions she has made on the selection of the different pieces of
information contained in the dictionary entries so that they meet the needs
of prospective users. Finally, Oana Maria Carciu offers empirical evidence
from her research on biomedical writing. Drawing on a contrastive analysis
of first-person plural references in the different sections that make up a
research article written in English, Carciu discusses the rhetorical similarities
and differences in the choice and use of “we”, “our”, and “us” by Anglo-
American and Spanish writers.

The second group of papers deals with the translation of legal language and
the subtleties and intricacies this entails due to the complexity of the legal
discipline itself. Víctor González-Ruiz tries to unravel the language of the
law in Spanish courts by describing the principles of statutory interpretation
in Spain and examining a case study that illustrates his discussion. Then, Mª
Ángeles Orts Llopis resorts to the domains of public and private law to
compare delegated legislation and tenancy agreements as examples of legal
genres produced within the scope of Common Law and Continental (Civil)
Law that have to be understood, interpreted and explained in terms of
cultural products of different specialised communities.

The European reform for higher education is dealt with in the last group of
papers from two complimentary points of view. Joseba Ezeiza Ramos begins
by exploring ESHE guidelines in relation to the communicative and
linguistic competences to be mastered by experimental sciences students in
their own mother tongue. In his paper, Ezeiza describes an R&D project

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under development and details the communicative needs together with the
general and specific competences to be adapted to the learning profile of
experimental sciences graduates. Lastly, the work by Galina Kavaliauskienė
and Ligija Kaminskienė encourages ESP practitioners to embed lifelong
learning principles in their ESP courses by implementing learning strategies
in the language classroom. Lifelong learning is a buzz issue throughout the
ESHE framework and its implementation is required in all sorts and stages
of learning. Here, the authors relate lifelong learning to strategy training to
a group of Psychology and Social Work students.

As Ibérica no. 17 special issue on Metaphor and LSP contained no reviews,
this issue is prolific in discussing and assessing some of the latest
publications on LSP research and LSP pedagogy. There are seven reviews in
all. 1) Manuel Botella describes a practical book dealing with the promotion
of academic writing skills among nursing and midwifery students; 2)
Alejandro Curado discusses the works of a research group from the
Pontificia Universidad Católica (Valparaíso, Chile) which focus on the study
of specialised discourse and corpus linguistics from common viewpoints; 3)
Based on a collection of papers edited by experienced colleagues from the
Spanish universities of Valencia and Jaume I, Honesto Herrera helps readers
to “speak English at University” with both research and teaching purposes;
4) Bárbara Eizaga reviews seventeen chapters written in Italian and Spanish
published as the outcome of an international conference (Milano, Italy,
November 2006) that gathered presentations on the intercultural issues
pertaining to communicative events in business organisations; 5) Also
dealing with this LSP field is Mª del Carmen Lario’s review on a practical and
innovative handbook whose layout conforms to the effective development
of ESHE general and communicative competences while learning Spanish
for the business industry; 6) Ángel Felices accounts for the theory and
practice needed for the production of business dictionaries with pedagogical
purposes by examining a volume that is highly useful to dictionary compilers,
lexicographers, lexicologists and users; 7) Finally, Elena Bárcena reviews a
pioneering work wholly focused on LSP and ESHE. This collection of
papers offers an overview of ESP teaching and learning in Western
European higher education after Bologna and provides illustrating examples
of national adaptations aiming at integrating content and language in
compliance with ESHE requirements.

As usual, issues published in each year’s second semesters include a list of
welcome and farewell. In recognition to their work to Ibérica I would like to

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EDITORIAL

IBÉRICA 18 [2009]: 5-88

appreciate the collaborative effort and dedication shown by Patricia Edwards
(Universidad de Extremadura), Carmen Rueda (Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya), Russell DiNapoli (Universitat de València), and Esther
Hernández (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares). Indeed, this journal is most
indebted to these members of the Editorial Committee who have assessed
proposed manuscripts on a permanent basis for the past years. From this
issue onwards, Marta Aguilar (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), Elena
Bárcena (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia), Mercedes
Eurrutia (Universidad de Murcia), and Rosa Giménez (Universitat de
València) will be actively involved in reviewing proposals for the journal in
the position of Editorial Committee members. Lastly, I would like to
acknowledge the cooperation of invited external reviewers: Anabel Borja
(Universitat Jaume I), Diana Yankova (New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria),
Pedro Martín (Universidad de La Laguna), Marta Aguilar (Universitat
Politècnica de Catalunya), Mª Ángeles Alcaraz Ariza (Universidad de
Alicante), David Giannoni (Università degli studi di Bergamo, Italy), Rosa
Giménez (Universitat de València), Carmen Pérez Sabater (Universidad
Politécnica de Valencia), Carmen Pérez-Llantada (Universidad de Zaragoza),
and Chelo Vargas (Universidad de Alicante).

Ana Bocanegra Valle
Universidad de Cádiz (Spain)

Editor of Ibérica

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