Discourse Community Analysis

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is an organization that has thousands of civil engineering members in countries all over the world (ASCE).7 The ASCE is the head of multiple tasks which some of them are: to plan, construct, and to protect and restore the environment (ASCE). Through the expertise that the organization has, it is the number one provider for technical and professional meetings, furthering education, and it is the biggest publisher of civil engineering content (ASCE). The ASCE is designed to provide essential value to their members and their collaborators, advance civil engineering, as well as to serve the public good (ASCE). Some of the ways that the ASCE carries out their mission are to: further develop technology, advocate infrastructure and environmental protection, and to develop civil engineer leaders (ASCE). Ewa Bauer’s, “Why We Need Renaissance Engineers: Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Phase II Case Study” affiliates with the characteristics of Swales’ theory on discourse community while also exemplifying Gee’s theory of second Discourse. For instance, the “renaissance” engineers have the goal of re-enforcing the Golden Gate Bridge. In order for them to achieve that goal they need “standard” engineers (novices) to become a “renaissance” engineer (expert). And also there are benefits of being a “renaissance” engineer than a so called “standard” engineer has.

This article talks about the project of re-enforcing the Golden Gate Bridge in order for it to withstand a seismic event (Bauer). The location of the Golden Gate Bridge has an impact on its stability. It is in Seismic Zone four and is in between two major earthquake faults: the San Andreas Fault (seven miles west), and the Hayward Fault (ten miles east). Making it prone to earthquakes, engineers need to have a large range of skills to fulfill the requirements as a role of an innovator to make sure the structure can tolerate even the largest scale earthquake (Bauer). They also have to have the qualities as a “renaissance” engineer such as being well educated and/or exceeds in a wide variety of professions/fields (Bauer). These qualities allow the engineers to incorporate construction knowledge into the design/blueprint process and then use it for the construction process (Bauer). This project is significant by showing success for civil engineers to “possess solid technical expertise coupled with a cross-disciplinary knowledge of design and construction (Bauer).

In Swales’ article, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.” The engineers mission is to check, fix, and re-enforce the Golden Gate Bridge. The “renaissance” (Bauer) engineers have the correct education in order to accomplish the goal that they are challenged to achieve. They have the higher ability as well as flexibility to be the best type of engineers to get the job done. By reinforcing the bridge, they will have completed an incredible and insane project. And the outcome? To be able to keep the bridge functional and still for it to be one of the biggest tourist attractions that it is. Also to restore this old monumental bridge so it can last for years to come. This shows how this discourse community is able to communicate a common goal by seeing this bridge withstand an earthquake and to last for a life time.