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Article published In: Language, Context and Text
Vol. 1:1 (2019) ► pp.65–101

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Engineering registers in the 21st century

SFL perspectives on online publications

ORCiD logo with link | Coventry University
ORCiD logo with link | City University of Hong Kong
Published online: 4 February 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00004.gar
Abstract
Following an exploration of engineering programmes in higher education, and a review of literature on engineering registers, genres and disciplines, this paper asks if there is a register for engineering. Word frequencies, n-grams and frequent n-grams in context were analysed in a 7.3 million word corpus created from four sections (Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results & Discussion, Conclusion) of over 1000 articles in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering. From the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, this reveals how engineering is construed through language that reflects the social context of high impact, open access, multi-modal, 21st century, international journal article publication, with multiple author roles, and prescribed genres, where reviewers focus on problem solving and facts, rather than persuasive claims.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1What is engineering?
    • 1.2What do engineers do?
    • 1.3What characterises the disciplinary practices of engineering?
  • 2.The social context of engineering
    • 2.1Engineering careers
    • 2.2Professional accrediting bodies
    • 2.3University courses
    • 2.4University faculties, schools and departments of engineering
  • 3.Empirical studies on the language of engineering
    • 3.1Engineering compared to other disciplines
    • 3.2Engineering genres and registers compared
  • 4.Halliday’s theories about scientific registers
    • 4.1Grammatical metaphor
    • 4.2The phylogenetic development of scientific language
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1An online engineering corpus
    • 5.2Procedures for word lists and lexical bundles
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Word lists
    • 6.2N-grams
      • 6.2.1N-grams in introductions
      • 6.2.2N-grams in materials and methods
      • 6.2.3N-grams in results and discussion
  • 7.N-grams in context
    • 7.1Introductions in engineering
    • 7.2Materials and methods in engineering
    • 7.3Results and discussions in engineering
    • 7.4Conclusions in engineering
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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