Professional Communicative Competencies for Engineers

1
Professional Communicative Competencies for
Engineers
2
Topics

1. Computer-mediated methodologies to study language
   use in a range of professional engineering
   contexts of situation
2. Variation in language and textual organisation
   across a range of professional engineering
   text-types

3
Corpus-based inquiries

• a corpus is a collection of naturally-occurring
  language text, chosen to characterize a state or
  variety of a language (Sinclair, 1991 171)
• General and specialised corpora
• Computer-mediated programmes for text analysis
  and manipulation, e.g. ConcGram, WordSmith Tools
  
• Wordlists and concordances
• The importance of surrounding language
• The strong recurrent patterns of language

4
Impact of corpus linguistics

• Since the 1980s, linguists have been studying
  large collections of naturally-occurring spoken
  and written texts (corpora) using computers to
  better describe language use.
• Examples of the impact of corpus linguistics
• COBUILD, Cambridge, Longman dictionaries,
  grammars etc.
• better understanding of patterns of word
  association and meaning
• tracking changes in the English language

5
General English language corpora

• The worlds two largest corpora are in the UK
• British National Corpus (BNC) (100 m words)
  (http//sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html)
• Bank of English (approx. 500 m words)
  (http//www.collins.co.uk/corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx
  )

6
Examples of specialised corpora

• Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English (prosodic)
  (academic, business, conversational and public
  texts), 2007
• Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC), 2007
  
• Hong Kong Engineering Corpus (HKEC) to be
  compiled A small corpus of symposium papers from
  website of HKIE Electrical Division

7
HKIE Electrical Division Annual Symposium papers
(2002-2006)
Annual Symposium 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
No. of papers 9 9 8 9 9
No. of words 25,702 26,849 23,017 27,282 28,415
Total no. of words 131,265 131,265 131,265 131,265 131,265
8
Determining KEY words in a specialised corpus

The weirdness ratio The asymmetry in the
distribution of a word in a special language
corpus and a general language corpus
If weirdness gt1, a specialist term If weirdness
lt1, not a specialist term.
9
Sample of key words in symposium papers

• autotransformer arresters anisotropic
• arc-fault broadband ballast-driven
• combustor chillers criticality
• dimmable diode double-busbar
• energized epoxy electrorheology
• electrolytic feeders gratings
• hydrogen-cooled inverter impedance

10
Corpus-based inquiries

• Not sure what word or words to say or write?
• Consult a corpus and study the frequencies and
  contexts of use of the words or words.
• A corpus can be more reliable than relying on
  ones intuition or the intuition of somebody else

11
Symposium papers Wordlist

• 1 the 9104 7.2172
• 2 of 4770 3.7814
• 3 and 4103 3.2527
• 39 electrical 257 0.2037
• 44 electricity 245 0.1942
• 66 turbine 184 0.1459
• 79 wind 162 0.1284
• 149 electric 97 0.0769

12
2-word concgrams electrical

• electrical the 52
• electrical of 48
• electrical and 24
• electrical engineering 23
• electrical installation 23
• electrical equipment 19
• electrical system 16
• electrical power 14
• electrical for 13
• electrical installations 13

13
2-word concgrams electrical

• electrical in 12
• electrical an 11
• electrical main 11
• electrical data 10
• electrical distribution 9
• electrical supply 9
• electrical infrastructure 8
• electrical parameters 7
• electrical systems 6
• electrical energy 6

14
2-word concgrams electrical

• electrical engineers 5
• electrical engineer 4
• electrical forces 4
• electrical industry 3
• electrical information 3
• electrical signals 3
• electrical to 3
• electrical on 3
• electrical from 2
• electrical general 2

15
3-word concgrams wind turbine

• wind turbine the 69
• wind turbine a 52
• wind turbine of 48
• wind turbine and 32
• wind turbine is 30
• wind turbine to 29
• wind turbine for 22
• wind turbine site 17
• wind turbine was 14
• wind turbine in 13
• wind turbine on 12

16
3-word concgrams wind turbine

• wind turbine Lamma 13
• wind turbine capacity 8
• wind turbine construction 8
• wind turbine Island 8
• wind turbine wider 7
• wind turbine yawed 5
• wind turbine sensor 5
• wind turbine farms 5
• wind turbine located 5
• wind turbine connected 5

17
Wind turbine

• e 6 Automatic Slope Irrigation System 2.3 WIND
  TURBINE PROJECTS Wind turbines
• a full EIA was required to ascertain that the
  Wind Turbine Project on Lamma Island or research
  purpose. Currently, the largest wind turbine is a
  single 2.5kW machine grid connected hybrid RE
  system. Figure 7 Wind Turbine at Shek Kwu Chau
  There are
• cablecar.com FIRST GRID-CONNECTED WIND TURBINE
  FOR POWER
• onmentally acceptable to install one 800kW wind
  turbine as a demonstration
• er of 50m and a rated power of 800kW. The wind
  turbine is of stall-regulated, horizontal
• generation at Tai Ling on Lamma Island. The wind
  turbine system with built-in safety

18
wind turbine
Purpose/Function power generation in HK wind turbine Purpose/Function for power generation for wider application (3), to produce electricity (2), renewable energy,
19
wind turbine
Location Lam Ma Island/ Lamma (6), potential sites, preferred site (Tai Ling) wind turbine Location site (5), Lamma Island (8), Shek Kwn Chau, Tai Ling
20
wind turbine
Development installation (2), operation (2), construction, maintenance, development, one-year monitoring wind turbine Development installation (2), automatic operation, operation, monitored and controlled, site unmanned, construction stage, in operation,
21
wind turbine
Nature/Features first, a pilot scheme, in-service, potential, grid-connected, power, Principle of Power wind turbine Nature/Features built-in safety and protection, the most common configuration, uses its wing profile
22
wind turbine
Height ground level wind turbine Height hub height, limited to 92 to 97 m, complying with the aviation height restriction,
23
wind turbine
Evaluation the largest, desirable, reputable, acceptable, unsuitable, adequate, artistic view of Lamma (2), wind turbine Evaluation desirable height, suitable size,
24
2-word concgrams electrical

• electrical SERVICES 2
• electrical sensor 2
• electrical Contractors 2
• electrical Chief 2
• electrical conduction 2
• electrical conventional 2
• electrical circuits 2
• electrical fixed 2
• electrical field 2

25
2-word concgrams electrical

• electrical historical 2
• electrical kV 2
• electrical enhancing 2
• electrical RMS 2
• electrical safety 2
• electrical large 2
• electrical monitoring 2
• electrical Office 2
• electrical quality 2
• electrical Responses 2

26
2-word concgrams electricity

• electricity of 43
• electricity NATIONAL 40
• electricity THE 33
• electricity MARKET 33
• electricity supply 31
• electricity to 15
• electricity industry 12
• electricity generation 12
• electricity Rules 10
• electricity demand 9

27
2-word concgrams electricity

• electricity Law 8
• electricity for 7
• electricity in 7
• electricity SINGAPORE 7
• electricity Code 6
• electricity wholesale 6
• electricity reliable 5
• electricity transmission 5
• electricity WIRING 4
• electricity generated 4
• electricity system 4

28
2-word concgrams electricity

• electricity is 3
• electricity new 3
• electricity grid 3
• electricity on 3
• electricity prices 3
• electricity retail 3
• electricity supplies 3
• electricity effective 3
• electricity from 3
• electricity Finnish 3

29
2-word concgrams electricity

• electricity CLASS 2
• electricity secondary 2
• electricity Ordinance 2
• electricity sold 2
• electricity sector 2
• electricity integrated 2
• electricity produce 2
• electricity Power 2
• electricity total 2
• electricity existing 2

30
2-word concgrams electric

• electric Hongkong 34
• electric power 18
• electric Co 17
• electric The 15
• electric Company 10
• electric field 9
• electric XIAN 8
• electric vehicle 7
• electric machine 5
• electric hybrid 4
• electric Manufacturing 4

31
2-word concgrams electric

• electric Mitsubishi 4
• electric Ir 3
• electric Import 3
• electric high 2
• electric lEE 2
• electric of 2
• electric Proceedings 2
• electric through 2
• electric China 2
• electric General 2
• electric GE 2

32
3-word concgrams gas turbine

• gas turbine the 110
• gas turbine and 48
• gas turbine to 46
• gas turbine is 43
• gas turbine a 42
• gas turbine of 40
• gas turbine by 19
• gas turbine steam 36
• gas turbine class 24
• gas turbine generator 21
• gas turbine with 15

33
3-word concgrams gas turbine

• gas turbine at 14
• gas turbine for 12
• gas turbine on 12
• gas turbine efficiency 12
• gas turbine exhaust 12
• gas turbine temperature 12
• gas turbine coupled 11
• gas turbine single 10
• gas turbine consists 10
• gas turbine system 9
• gas turbine located 8

34
References

• Ahmad, K. Terminology in Text. Tuscan Word Centre
  Workshop. Siena, Italy. June, 2005.
• Bhatia, V.K. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse.
  London and New York Continuum.
• Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and Assessing
  Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon,
  UK Multilingual Matters.
• Capucho, F. and Oliveira, A.M. 2005. Eu I On
  the notion of intercomprehension. In Martins, A.
  (ed.) Building bridges EUI. European Awareness
  and Intercomprehension (pp. 11-18). Viseu
  Universidade Cato lica Portuguesa, Centro
  Regional das Beiras.
• Cheng, W. 2004. // ? did you TOOK // ? from the
  miniBAR // What is the practical relevance of a
  corpus-driven language study to practitioners in
  Hong Kongs hotel industry? In U. Connor T.
  Upton (Eds.), Discourse in the Professions. (pp.
  141-166). Amsterdam John Benjamins.
• Crismore, A., Markkanen, R., Steffensen, M. 1993.
  Metadiscourse in persuasive writing A study of
  texts written by American and Finnish university
  students. Written Communication, 10/1 39-71.