Stanford Engineering’s Website in the Engineering Discourse Community
Hayden Faust
Word Count: 1285
Help Received: See Work Cited
When most people think of academic communities, their first thought is of those involved with the social sciences, philosophy, politics or english. Sometimes even the theoretical sciences, such as physics or mathematics. But at first thought no one considers the engineering field to be a discourse community, with active members that debate and discuss topics or situations pertinent to engineers. Many of these groups are academic, such as Stanford University’s engineering college. A group made up of both students, who are new to the field, and professors, who are recognized experts in their subject, Stanford’s engineering college “…conducts research that continues to have a significant impact on society and trains the engineers of the future to meet the challenges of the 21st century”(About the School). This is the statement displayed on the front page of their website, a method of communication that is now frequently used by most communities or groups seeking to get information to the public. The website will almost surely be one of the first things that makes an impression on the outsider, as well as a source of news for members of the community. By examining Stanford’s engineering website, using Swales writings on discourse communities as a guideline, I will examine how it fits into the engineering discourse community as a tool for new members, and how it accomplishes its goals of preparing people to be engineers.
As a method of public relations as well as an informational site for engineers, the language of the website is quite varied. On the outside, on pages where information about the visions and goals of the college is brazenly displayed, simple language is used with a mix of emotional words that evoke memories of most speeches or mission statements from non-profit public organizations. Through this mix the community attempts to make it clear to outsiders that they strive to solve all problems and that they love to diversify. But in John Swales’ writings about discourse communities, he creates six criteria that a community must meet to be considered a discourse community. The fifth one of these criteria is that a community must possess it’s own unique lexis that it has developed in order to cultivate more efficient communication between its members. Much in the same way a tool would work in an activity system as described by Cain and Wardle, group-specific lexis are naturally developed as a group focuses more and more on discussing their specific topic. Specific lexi appear commonly in the engineering community in the form of acronyms or short phrases, used to convey long names or complicated concepts respectively. These do appear on Stanford’s engineering website, once you look beyond the title pages and into the news articles posted on the website. Despite their catchy headlines, many of the articles use or relate to complicated theories or methods used in the engineering field, such as ‘machine learning’. In the lexis of engineers, this phrase is used to talk about computers that use algorithms to detect patterns and then adapt to better do their job based on the patterns they detect.Such language as this is found abundantly in the news articles, written by students and professors about work involving the school.The information and vocabulary within these articles is enough to identify the website as a fluent member of the discourse community, despite the use of simple language for recruitment purposes. This seems to be a conscious decision made with good reason. It makes sense for the website to use simple language that is easy for a non-member to understand, because it is critical that the website be able to attract non-members to the discourse community. The website’s goal, as it says, is to induct new members into the community and train them to be experts, fluent in the lexis. It does not expect them to be experts to begin with. In this way, straying from one of Swales main discerning factors for a discourse community is justified by the need of the website to achieve it’s goals, which are themselves important to the community.
A community can have all the language it wants, but it becomes useless if there is no means of communication. Intercommunication between community members is the backbone of any community, discourse or otherwise.This is an area where Stanford’s website seems lacking at first. But upon closer review in other areas of the website, it is soon discovered that communication is facilitated, just not in an obvious or conventional method. The website provides a calendar with the school’s upcoming events, news articles as previously mentioned, and ways to find out about collaborations with the school or alumnus projects. The calendar is a good communication tool, and while it only contains events related to Stanford it is still an important information source for outsiders. The news articles accomplish their goal well; they provide quick and easy access to research and experiments done by Stanford, if only at a basic level. Even the section dedicated to collaborations plays a critical role, as it creates a dedicated space for companies to contact Stanford and recruit their students. This is a very important function, as it bridges the gap between the education phase of an engineer’s life and their carer. This is essentially the gateway to the cultivation of Stanford’s goal, as it puts engineers in the field where they can begin to solve problems and “meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
But there is one notable area where the website fails to facilitate a discourse community. Intercommunication between members. Stanford’s engineering website provides no means or even connections to means for engineers, or even prospective engineers, to communicate and talk to each other. This is an important piece of the puzzle that is missing, since one of the principal purposes of a discourse community is to debate and discuss the things that bring the community together in the first place.I believe that the website voluntarily gives this up, however, so that it can better shift its attention to more important communication; communication between groups and institutions within the community in their entirety. As mentioned, the website features a page specifically for companies looking to hire engineers to contact them. It is displayed prominently in the ‘connect’ section, a whole system is set up and displayed so that groups looking to hire engineers can easily contact Stanford in order to partner and get graduates of the school jobs working in the field. A vital step in accomplishing their goal, but at the cost of shifting attention away from one of the defining characteristics of a discourse community.
At first glance, Stanford’s website may not seem like an important tool in a discourse community.Swales states as his second most important characteristic of a discourse community is that it “has methods of intercommunication among its members” (Swales 221). The website, although one of the most easily accessible resources about the community for those looking to enter, has nothing that facilitates this. Upon further analysis, however, it becomes clear that it exists to play a role in an already developed and very intricate discourse community that extends beyond one institute . Stanford’s Website very clearly states the goal of Stanford’s entire engineering department, the development and training of new engineers to meet new problem, but the goal of the website itself is not immediately clear. The website does not exist to create or manage discussion about engineering at all. Instead, through its use of plain language and focus on connecting both prospective students and companies seeking employees to the school, Stanford’s website fulfills its own goal of spreading information to prospective engineers and helping them become inducted into the community.
Work Cited
Primary Source:
Stanford Engineering. Stanford University. 2016, engineering.stanford.edu.
Secondary Source
Wardle, Elizabeth and Downs, Doug. Writing about Writing.
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings.
Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990