Chapter 3. Data and Methodology
3.1 Maritime English Corpus
3.1.3 Maritime English Corpus (MEC)
3.1.3.1 Sampling of the MEC
In order to build a specialized MEC, I carefully selected the data involved, cleansed the data manually and ended up with an approximately 2.5 million word corpus. For the sampling of the corpus I divided it into two sub-corpora, arts, and sciences, each of which further stemmed from two sub-subcorpora, as shown in Figure 3.1.
46
Figure 3.1 Sampling of Maritime English Corpus
In the sub-corpus “sciences”, I included two genres of text. One is Marine Engineering English. Another is Navigation English. This way of classifying Maritime English is based on function, an approach accepted and used worldwide.
Generally speaking, Navigation English is used “above” the deck, while Marine Engineering English is used “below” the deck. The data were extracted from major international maritime journals, as listed in Table 3.1 and English-written maritime textbooks, as listed in Table 3.2.
Maritime English Corpus (MEC)
Sciences
Navigation English
Marine Engineering English
Arts
Maritime Conventions and Codes
Agreements on Maritime Transport between China and Other Countries
47 Table 3.1 List of maritime journals
TEXT ID TITLES
A1 JOURNAL FOR MARITIME RESEARCH (2010-2015)
A2 MARITIME STUDIES (2012-2014)
A3 GYROSCOPY AND NAVIGATION (2010-2014) A4 WMU JOURNAL OF MARINE AFFAIRS (2010-2015) A5 THE JOURNAL OF NAVIGATION (2010-2012-2013)
Table 3.2 List of maritime textbooks
TEXT ID TITLES
B1 COMMAND OF THE SEA THE HISTORY AND STRATEGY OF MARITIME EMPIRES, CLARK G. REYNOLDS, 1974 B2 USE OF ENGLISH FOR MARITIME STUDENTS, MERCEDES
HERRERA ARNAIZ, 2014
B3 ENGLISH FOR THE MARITIME INDUSTRY: AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSE BOOK FOR SEA FARERS, TONY GRICE, 2012 B4 THE ARTS OF THE SAILOR, HG SMITH, 2012
In the sub-corpus “arts”, I similarly included two genres of texts: one is maritime conventions and codes, the other is the agreements on maritime transport between China and other countries.
As a specialized agency of the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the global standard-setting authority for the safety, security,
48
and environmental performance of international shipping. Its main role is to create a regulatory framework for the shipping industry that is fair and effective,
universally adopted, and universally implemented
(http://www.imo.org/en/Pages/Default.aspx). As an internationally important authority, IMO has promoted the adoption of many conventions and protocols, nearly all of which are now in force (Lu, Lee, & Jhang, 2017). Conventions and protocols are binding legal instruments, and upon entry into force their requirements must be implemented by all countries which are party to them.
Therefore, in the MEC, conventions and protocols take important roles in the sampling frame. The list below shows the conventions and codes included in the MEC.
Table 3.3
List of maritime conventions and codes
TEXT ID TITLES
C1 CONVENTION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF CERTAIN RULES OF LAW RELATION TO ASSISTANCE AND SALVAGE AT SEA, 1910 C2
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF CERTAIN RULES OF LAW WITH RESPECT TO COLLISION
BETWEEN VESSELS, 1910 C3
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION AND STATUTE CONCERNING THE REGIME OF NAVIGABLE WATERWAYS OF INTERNATIONAL
CONCERN, 1921
C4 CONVENTION AND STATUTE ON THE INTERNATIONAL REGIME OF MARITIME PORTS, 1923
C5 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF CERTAIN RULES OF LAW RELATING TO BILLS OF LADING, 1924 C6
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF CERTAIN RULES OF LAW RELATING TO MARITIME LIENS AND
MORTGAGES, 1926
C7 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF CERTAIN RULES CONCERNING THE IMMUNITY OF STATE-
49
OWNED SHIPS, 1926
C8 CONVENTION ON THE INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION, 1948
C9 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PREVENTION OF POLLUTION OF THE SEA BY OIL, 1954
C10 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION RELATING TO STOWAWAYS, 1957
C11 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION RELATING TO THE LIMITATION OF THE LIABILITY OF OWNERS OF SEA-GOING SHIPS, 1957 C12 GENEVA CONVENTION ON TERRITORIAL SEA AND CONTIGUOUS
ZONE, 1958
C13 GENEVA CONVENTION ON THE HIGH SEAS, 1958
C14 CONVENTION ON THE LIABILITY OF OPERATORS OF NUCLEAR SHIPS, 1962
C15 CONVENTION ON FACILITATION OF INTERNATIONAL MARITIME TRAFFIC, 1965
C16 CONVENTION RELATING TO REGISTRATION OF RIGHTS IN RESPECT OF VESSELS UNDER CONSTRUCTION, 1967 C17 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON CIVIL LIABILITY FOR OIL
POLLUTION DAMAGE, 1969
C18 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON TONNAGE MEASUREMENT OF SHIPS, 1969
C19 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR PREVENTING COLLISIONS AT SEA, 1972
C20 UNIFORM RULES FOR A COMBINED TRANSPORT DOCUMENT, 1973
C21 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PREVENTION OF POLLUTION FROM SHIPS, 1973
C22
PROTOCOL RELATING TO INTERVENTION ON THE HIGH SEAS IN CASES OF MARINE POLLUTION BY SUBSTANCES OTHER THAN
OIL, 1973 C23
1996 PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION OF MARINE POLLUTION BY DUMPING OF WASTES AND OTHER
MATTER, 1972
C24 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA, 1974
C25 YORK ANTWERP RULES, 1974
C26
PROTOCOL OF 2002 TO THE ATHENS CONVENTION RELATING TO THE CARRIAGE OF PASSENGERS AND THEIR
LUGGAGE BY SEA, 1974
C27 TORREMOLINOS INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE
50
SAFETY OF FISHING VESSELS, 1977
C28 PROTOCOL OF 1996 TO AMEND THE CONVENTION ON LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR MARITIME CLAIMS, 1976 C29 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON STANDARDS OF TRAINING,
CERTIFICATION AND WATCHKEEPING FOR SEAFARERS, 1978 C30 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE CARRIAGE OF GOODS
BY SEA, 1978
C31 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON STANDARDS OF TRAINING, CERTIFICATION AND WATCHKEEPING FOR SEAFARERS, 1978 C32 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON MARITIME SEARCH AND RES
CUE, 1979
C33 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT OF GOODS, 1980
C34 COMMITTEE MARITIME INTERNATIONAL CONSTITUTION, 1981 C35 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE SEA, 1982 C36 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CONDITIONS FOR
REGISTRATION OF SHIPS, 1986
C37 CONVENTION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF UNLAWFUL ACTS AGAINST THE SAFETY OF MARITIME NAVIGATION, 1988 C38
UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LIABILITY OF OPERATORS OF TRANSPORT TERMINALS IN INTERNATIONAL
TRADE, 1991
C39 SEAFARERS’ HOURS OF WORK AND THE MANNING OF SHIPS CONVENTION, 1996
C40
PROTOCOL ON PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE AND CO-OPERATION TO POLLUTION INCIDENTS BY HAZARDOUS AND NOXIOUS
SUBSTANCES, 2000
C41 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE CONTROL OF HARMFUL ANTI-FOULING SYSTEMS ON SHIPS, 2001
C42 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON CIVIL LIABILITY FOR BUNKER OIL POLLUTION DAMAGE, 2001
C43
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT OF SHIP’S BALLAST WATER AND SEDIMENTS,
2004
In addition, 19 agreements on maritime transport between China and other countries were included as another source of sub-corpus arts in MEC, including those with France, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, South Korea, Laos, Lebanon,
51
Mongolia, Morocco, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Southeast Asian Nations, Sweden, Thailand, Tunisia, United States, and Bulgaria. Neither China nor most of the countries involved in the agreements is a “native-speaker of English” country;
however the agreements were all signed in English, which further proves that English is used an official language in maritime industry.
All the four genres mentioned above were carefully cleansed and edited manually so that as a UTF-8 text version, it can be freely imported into Wordsmith and NetMiner for further analysis.