Donlan, Connor F
Major Garriot
English and Rhetoric
20 September 2016
Help Received: Asked Brother Hart the proper form of “its vs it’s”
Looked up CAD
Discussing the Idea of a Discourse Community Using Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department
Mechanical Engineering is a large discourse community that encompasses many different smaller discourse communities. Mechanical Engineering can be split up into many different subgenres such as electrical, thermal, nuclear, etc. these sub genres make up specific specialties. There are also other types of sub genres within the community such as colleges, engineering firms, high schools, etc. Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering is a smaller discourse community within the larger discourse community of mechanical engineering. Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering department’s about the department page explains how mechanical engineering is different than other engineering fields.
“Of the many engineering disciplines, mechanical engineering is the broadest, encompassing a wide variety of engineering fields and many specialties. Although it is commonly assumed that mechanical engineers are automotive engineers, in fact, mechanical engineers are employed in an enormous range of technical areas” (About the Department)
Under the broader spectrum of Mechanical Engineering the threshold to become a member is a lot lower, to become a member you either have to be studying or have studied mechanical engineering and are consistently working with the subject either through the broad topic or a smaller topic. To be a member in Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department you have to either be a member of the faculty or a student with a mechanical engineering major. In order to become a member, you have to go become a prospective member, which means you have to apply to either be a student or a professor at Virginia Tech.
The goals of Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering department fall under home page of the department’s website. “Our missions are to: holistically educate our students for professional leadership as creative problem solvers in a diverse society…In order to produce engineers prepared for success across a range of career paths” (Department of Mechanical Engineering). Their mission demonstrates their capability as a discourse community to work toward a common goal through their many different types of engineering. They achieve these goals through actively teaching students in their specific fields. Through this paper I plan to look at how Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering department’s home page acts as a recruiting method for Virginia Tech and demonstrates its affiliation with mechanical engineering through its introduction, mission statement of educating students in order to produce mechanical engineers, and educational objectives.
The mission statement asserts its authority within the mechanical engineering field through its declaration to educate students in the engineering practice. “In order to produce engineers prepared for success across a range of career paths, our academic program integrates training in engineering principles…” (Department of Mechanical Engineering). Demonstrated within the mission statement are the department’s goals and topic. The page further describes its goals of education through its educational objectives. The objectives state, “the graduates will attain: 1. Positions …2. Practical experience and organizational skills… 3. Roles of increasing responsibility … 4. Skills in life-long learning… 5. Roles in professional and personal life…” (Mechanical Engineering Program Educational Objectives). These objectives assert its authority through defining the characteristics within the engineering community that graduates will have the opportunity to achieve. All of the topics covered by the home page demonstrate Swale’s ide of common agreed upon goals, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (Swales 220).
The mission statement is a median of discourse used to recruit and inform new members and remind old members of the ideas the department strives for. The median is a successful tool in order to recruit new students. This tool of a website is a good example of a genre, “a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” (Swales 221). The genre allows for communication within a particular discourse community so that they can continue to innovate the engineering field.
Participants that encounter the mission statement are students, teachers, engineers and strangers to the discourse community. The primary target audience of the text are new Virginia Tech students, prospective professors, current students, and current professors. The mission statement allows for them to learn more about the specific discourse it represents. The educational objectives allow for strangers, those who want to join, and those within the community to learn about the department. The mission statement displays a threshold of membership and the process of how to become member.
“holistically educate our students for professional leadership as creative problem-solvers in a diverse society, conduct advanced research for societal advancement, train graduate students for scholarly inquiry, and engage with alumni, industry, government, and community partners through outreach activities” (Department Mission)
The mission statement demonstrates these ideas and explains how they plan to engage new members while educating current members.
The mission statement demonstrates fluency within the discourse community through its knowledge of the topic and of the knowledge within the community. The educational goals describe the ability to possess, use, and work with specific genres related to the community. One example is “1. Positions where they utilize fundamental technical knowledge and skills in mathematics, science, engineering to analyze and solve problems…” (Educational Objectives).
Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department’s home page demonstrates the attributes of a discourse through Swale’s theory.
Works Cited
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Acadmeic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990.21-32.Print.