The role of generic communication in preparing students for engineering workplace practices : the contribution of the communication course towards the student's preparation in genre and contextualized language in the workplace.
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Date
2011
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Abstract
This thesis argues that generic communication practice plays an important role in preparing
engineering students for the workplace. Engineering courses, being contextually-bound, cannot
prepare students in the same way as generic courses, which can be more flexible in being able to
bring workplace practices, documents and artefacts into the academic domain. Therefore the
thesis promotes the view that the communication course can provide a basic structure in terms of
genre training and technical language from which the students may access further knowledge
from the workplace. In an engineering faculty, the communication course facilitates the student’s
interactions in classroom discourse. The course also plays a vital role in the student’s transition
from academic discourse to the professional discourse of the workplace. This research views this
transition from a social perspective, placing the student within the context of the engineering
faculty’s discourse community, and, subsequently, sees the student-trainee in the workplace as
part of a community of practice. The study concentrates on the contradictions between these two
contexts in order to investigate how the communication course impacts on the progress of the
student’s discourse practices between classroom and workplace. The observable features of
discourse which the investigation focuses on are genre rules, the use of technical language, and
the student-trainee’s interaction with colleagues, supervisors, and artifacts of the workplace.
The study uses discourse theory with an academic literacy underpinning to establish a framework
for the student’s interactions with academic language. These interactions are explored by means
of 100 questionnaires administered to first-intake engineering students at Durban University of
Technology. The findings reveal that, while students say they do not always understand what is
expected of them in terms of using genres to produce documents assigned by the communication
course, they appear to be capable of using genre rules when applied to group tasks. Furthermore,
students do not seem to regard technical language in its wider context, as a feature of classroom
discourse practices. Instead they see it narrowly, as a necessary but isolated skill to be learnt for
workplace discourse practices. The research considers the impact of these perceptions and
practices on the findings and analysis of workplace practices.
The investigation into workplace discourse practices is guided by activity theory which sees a
document’s genre rules in a mediating function, and community of practice theory, which places
the student-trainee’s interactions within the construct, situated learning. The study used the
participant-observer technique to explore workplace discourse in eight engineering companies in
Durban and surrounding areas. The observations were complemented by follow-up questions in
interviews with thirty six student-trainees in these companies. The findings have shown that,
even though students said they had difficulties with technical language in the classroom, they
were able to apply it adequately within the context of the workplace. Furthermore, genre rules
needed to be adapted to suit workplace practices, therefore the rules of document design in
classroom practices should focus on flexibility as well as structure. The findings also suggest that
the communication course should see the classroom and the workplace as two activity systems
which complement each other, and the communication course should be placed in close
proximity to the student’s entrance to the workplace.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.
Keywords
Communication in education--KwaZulu-Natal., English language--Technical English--Study and teaching., Engineering--Terminology--Study and teaching., Theses--Linguistics.