Search

The given investigation describes the phenomenon of competition, considered and analyzed by the author as one of the key means of positive vector of agonism in modern English business discourse representation. Various approaches to analyzing the empiric papers to understand the phenomenon of agonism and ways of its representation in the business discourse were used within the investigation. The article also describes the factors determining the choice of linguistic means for competition realization as the essence of business communication. Comprehensive research methods allowed determining which ways of agonism representation on grammar and lexical levels are the most effective for reaching goals. The author underlines that during a process of verbal and cognitive activity of business communication participants their high-priority task is to demonstrate their dominant position. Conducted analysis of the agonism modes of expression and reaching goals shows that the most frequent grammar aspects are Superlative forms of Adjectives and verbs in Present Continuous Tense. The most frequent lexical aspects of agonism representation are lexical items performing achieved success within various activities of the company, frames “first”, “number one”, “the best”, “advantage”, “strength” etc.

Undergraduates of the University of Economics in Bratislava need to receive decent economic and legal education to be able to work successfully in different areas of the national economy and in the management structures of all levels. The previous research has shown that Slovakia follows a significant negative trend with performance in reading. Online learning platforms like LMS Moodle are ideal for students in higher education. This paper is a part of the KEGA Project carried out at the Department of English Language of the Faculty of Applied Languages. It demonstrates the work of an experimental group of sixty-four first- and second-year students of the Faculty of National Economy in a course “Business English for Advanced Students III” supported by an e-course “Business Communication”. During the semester, students developed reading skills and improved communication by reading and investigating written discourse for unknown words and idiomatic expressions. The rationale for the quantitative research is to compose a corpus of professional articles from English-language periodicals read by “Economics and Law” students. The rationale for the qualitative research is to identify important business, legal and academic vocabulary in them. The method of “Statistical Hypothesis Testing”, T-test, tests the significance of the difference between the knowledge of idioms of the experimental group and the control group (33 students doing a traditional course). The results indicate that LMS Moodle increased students’ motivation to study English. The results prove that “Economics and Law” students enlarged greatly their legal vocabulary and that both groups were interested in learning idiomatic expressions.