Abstract:

From the perspective of ESP, Business English, in nature, is a transnational Business Lingua Franca whose core value lies in the capacity to communicate in an international business environment. From the perspectives of disciplines/majors, Business English focuses on the communicative ability that comes from multidisciplinary fusion and has been well-accepted as an emerging academic discipline formulated by its character of interdisciplinary fusion and multidisciplinary crossing. However, the primary problems originating from the multidisciplinary fusion have remained unsolved even up to now, making Business English?s positioning still unclear and the research foundation relatively weak. The problems hinder the discipline and the specialty of Business English from further development. Developing Business English by building its discipline and updating its curriculum is urgent; it is crucial to have the teaching content and means to keep updated with economic growth and technological progress. Besides, the teaching staff of Business English need to improve their interdisciplinary academic literacies and the policies of administrating policy on interdisciplinary research require substantial reform. Those abovementioned are the main hindrances making business English lag behind domestic economic development. For these problems, the paper presents practical solutions, which the New Liberal Art earnestly calls for.

Key words: New Liberal Arts, Business English, Interdisciplinary intersections, Key issues and Development paths