The scientific debate in English-speaking texts : between ESP and CDS

The aim of this paper is to provide first a brief outline of the developments undergone by ESP as a field of study in applied linguistics from its onset to the present day and, second, to hypothesise a possible direction it may follow in future years. It has tried to show the main points of contacts and hybridisation with other perspectives in linguistics, evidencing the beneficial results and the occasional issues of these encounters. Finally, it has reviewed a few select studies conducted by the author over the past decade along the methodological lines exposed, as an illustration of one possible evolutionary pattern in ESP studies. These investigations have focused on the medical and scientific domains, and especially on the representation of scientific debates raising bioethical concerns with social repercussions by institutions, popular sources and the media, and have employed various perspectives in applied linguistics, also combining them with methods in social sciences.