Maritime English syllabus for the modern seafarer: Safety-related or comprehensive courses?

This article introduces some insights into the nature and features of maritime English and studies the effect of those on the future Maritime English syllabus. In this respect two approaches to the syllabus are highlighted: (a) the minimalist approach oriented to meet the minimum requirements the STCW Convention 1978/1995 (basically ensuring safe communication using appropriate parts of SMCP 2001), and (b) the extended approach within which Maritime English becomes a comprehensive educational subject within the overall Maritime Education and Training (MET) curriculum and ensures the future holder of a maritime academic degree efficient competence in English for conducting both sea and shore-based duties. To this end, the growing role and importance of General English within the Maritime English syllabus is emphasised. In order to be able to study the modern developments in Maritime English, a proposal is made for starting an international project of compiling and maintaining a web-based corpus of Maritime English, i.e. a textual and terminological database to be at the disposal of the students, Maritime English teachers and subject teachers in their research, learning and teaching activities.