Non-native English-speaking Engineers’ Writing at the Workplace

93 Pages·2020·1.731 MB·English

by  Juan Du

Juan Du
Non-native
English-speaking
Engineers’ Writing
at the Workplace
’
Non-native English-speaking Engineers Writing
at the Workplace
Juan Du
Non-native English-speaking
’
Engineers Writing
at the Workplace
123
JuanDu
ShanghaiJiao Tong University
Shanghai, China
ISBN978-981-15-1982-6 ISBN978-981-15-1983-3 (eBook)
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Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Project Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Limits of the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 The Importance of Writing in the Engineering Field
in Today’s Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Writing Needs in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Globalized Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4 A Focus on Chinese Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 High Writing Demands and Standards in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . 23
3.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2 Writing Demands at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 The Demand for Good Writing Skills at Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4 Chinese Engineers’ Writing Difficulties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.1 Writing in a Second Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.1.1 Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.1.2 Syntax: Complexity Versus Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.1.3 Coherence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.1.4 Social Contexts and Communicative Purpose . . . . . . . . . . 44
v
vi Contents
4.2 Textual Purpose in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2.1 The Similarities Between the Writing Process
and the Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5 Engineers’ Explanations of Writing Difficulties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.1 Inexperienced Writers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2 Professional Reputation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5.3 Avoiding Writing in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.3.1 Relying on Data to Avoid Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6 Discussion and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.2 Discussion About Writing Difficulties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.2.1 Language Versus Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.2.2 Disciplinary Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.3 Writing Process: Thinking, Revision, Not Just Editing . . . . . . . . . 73
6.4 Lack of Writing in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.5 Perceptions of Professional Identities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.6 Avoiding Writing in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.6.1 Reliance on Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.6.2 Lost Opportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.7 Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.7.1 Implication for Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.7.2 Implications for Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.8 Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.9 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Appendix A... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 87
Appendix B... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 89
Appendix C... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 91
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Overview
It is an inarguable truth that a nation’s economic vitality and growth depends on
technology and innovation. Innovation never happens in a vacuum. Innovation
requires skills and knowledge across a wide array of engineering and technical
discipline, but also requires effective communication between engineers and other
workers as well as collaboration and teamwork. Collaboration and teamwork
play a key role for engineers to tackle large-scale, heterogeneous problems in the
engineeringfield.Whenitcomestocollaborationandteamwork,digitaltechnology
tends to capture the attention in its radical impact on communication, and writing
servesthedominateroleincommunicationinthisdigitalage.
Few people within the engineering discipline would dispute the importance of
writing for their career and few people would dispute the challenges they face to
improving on-the-job writing skills. However, what is evident from surveys and
existingresearchisthatengineeringgraduatesareunderpreparedandtheirwriting
skills cannot meet the workplace needs (Core Curriculum and Undergraduate
ServicesCommittee,2003;Heuchan&Archibald,2003;Seat,Parsons,&Poppen,
2001;Vest,Long,&Anderson,1996).Eventhoughalargeportionofengineering
students have attended writing classes at college, they did not receive adequate
writing instruction related to their job needs at their undergraduate or graduate
study(Reave,2004).Researchersandengineeringalumnicalledforabetterwriting
instructionandcurricula,citing—adisconnectbetweentheacademicpreparationof
engineersandtheworldofworktheyenterongraduation(Pinelli,Barclay,Keene,
Kennedy, &Hecht,1995, p.495;Reave,2004).Inadequate writingskillsnotonly
impairengineers’abilitiestodevelopandrefinetheirideasbuthindercareersuccess
andpromotion(Warnock&Kahn,2007).
In order to make engineering work as effective and efficient as possible, it is
importanttoposeaclearanddeepunderstandingofwritingneedsintheengineering
workplace.Studiestodateonlyprovidedaquantitativefoundationforunderstanding
engineers’writingatwork(Tenopir&King,2004).Verylittleresearchhasfocused
©ShanghaiJiaoTongUniversityPress2020 1
J.Du,Non-nativeEnglish-speakingEngineers’WritingattheWorkplace,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1983-3_1
2 1 Introduction
specificallyontheneedsofemployersofengineeringgraduates.Growthintheliter-
aturemerelyreflectsagrowthinthenumberofengineers,butfailstoechothevaried
increasingpopulationofengineerswithdiverselinguisticandculturalbackgrounds
whichaccountfor21%ofthewholeengineerpopulationintheworkplace(National
ScienceFoundation,2012).Veryfewempiricalstudiesexaminethewritingneedsof
engineerswhosefirstlanguageisnotEnglish.Tofillthisgap,aqualitativestudyis
neededthatseekstounderstandthewritingneedsofsecond-languagespeakersfrom
theirownperspectiveandchallengestheyencounterasengineerswhoareexpected
tocommunicateabouttheirworkinwrittenEnglish.Thisstudyseekstodiscoverthe
perceptionsofL2Chineseengineersregardingwritingintheworkplace.
1.2 Framework
The study of Non-native English-speaking engineers’ writing in the workplace:
ChallengesandneedsinwritingforL2engineersstrivestounderstandChineseengi-
neers’uniquewritingexperienceandperceptions,aswellastheirworldsofwritingin
theworkplace.Itnotmerelyexploresengineers’writingpatternsandtypesneededin
theworkplaceingeneralbutinvestigatesthereasonsbehindtheirwritingchallenges.
In order to understand engineers’ worlds of writing in the workplace from their
ownperspective,Iadoptedthephilosophicalstanceofconstructionismasitposits
that the meaning of the knowledge, events, and experience regarding to writing is
situatedandconstructedbyindividualsthroughactivity(Crotty,1998;Hatch,2002).
Inalignwiththeepistemologyofconstructionism,thisstudychosethetheoretical
perspectiveofconstructivism.Constructivismpositsthatknowledgeandmeaningare
generatedthroughtheindividualhumansubjectengagingwithobjectsintheworld
andmakingsenseofthem(Crotty,1998,p.79).Ithighlightsthemeaning-making
activityoftheindividualmind(Crotty,1998,p.58)andhowindividualsmakesense
oftheactivityfrominteractionsbetweentheirexperiencesandtheirideas.Itthereby
addressestheinherentuniquenessofindividualengineer’sexperiencesandpercep-
tionsonwriting.Thus,thestudyfocusedonhowparticipantsthemselvesthinkoftheir
writingactivitiesinbothofprocessesandproducts.Anythingrelatedinwriting,such
asparticipantsobservations,writingprocess,andunderstandingofwriting,aswell
astheirusageofwritingwereallpartsofthestudyandallincludedintheinterviews.
Besides, qualitative study that is supported by constructivism also cen-
tered on the participant’s meaning-making process or individual’s perceptions
embeddedinacertaincontext(Koro-Ljungberg,Yendol-Hoppey,Smith,&Hayes,
2009, p. 694). This kind of study depicts a world with multiple realities and the
realityissociallyconstructed,complex,andeverchanging(Glesne,1999,p.5).This
requires researchers to situate the participants as the knowledge producers (Koro-
Ljungbergetal.,2009)andtounderstandhowtheparticipantsmakesenseoftheir
own writing experiences and formed their figured world in the English dominant
workplaceinthehigh-techcorporations.Thelengthofemploymentforparticipants
should be varied from 1 or 2 years to around 10 years in order to understand the
1.2 Framework 3
multiple experiences and challenges from different perspectives in the workplace.
Whentryingtogettheoriginsofthereasonbehindtheirwritingdifficulties,itwould
bebetterifalltheparticipantsattendgraduatedschoolintheUnitedStatesinengi-
neeringfieldsothattheunnecessaryvariablescanbecontrolled.Meanwhile,Iam
abletoseehowtheirwritingskillsweredeveloped,andwhatneedstobeaddedinthe
curriculumofwritingforengineeringeducationintheUnitedStates.Inthissense,
theparticipantsaresituatedastheknowledgeproducersinthisstudy.
As a researcher, I see myself as the interpreter in the study. I view engineers
as individual writers in the workplace who must actively construct knowledge
andskillsandasindividualswhohavetheirownuniquewaysofmeaning-making
and meaning constructs processes. The knowledge about writing exists within
these built constructs rather than in the external environment (Huitt, 2003). Those
engineers’ own perceptions and writing experience transmitted through interviews
describingknowledgenotastruthwhichisuncoveredbutastruthwhichisemergent,
developmental, nonobjective, viable constructed explanations by humans engaged
in meaning-making in cultural and social communities of discourse (Huitt, 2003,
p. 162). In this sense, these engineers’ experiences in writing are fundamentally
self-referentandrecursiveandcannotbeunderstoodapartfromtheirembeddedness
andengagementinsocialandsymbolicsystems.
1.3 ProjectDesign
During 2012–2013, many of my Chinese friends in the electronics department
in my university landed their jobs in the high-tech corporation that dedicated to
either hardware design or software design in California, the United States. When
we reunited during holidays, I found that our topic shifted from life and studies
to their distresses and worries they have experienced at work. My husband, who
just got his internship in Silicon Valley, was one of them. They talked about how
misunderstandings were created between themselves and their coworkers through
both oral and written communication, how upset and powerlessness they were
whentheyfoundtheyseemedtobemarginalizedingroupworkseventhoughthey
contributed a lot on technical details and design, and how big a role they realized
English had played in the workplace communication. While listening to their
complains,Ithoughtthecommunicationtheyreferredtomustbeoralperformance
because I knew as an international student, our oral expressions were not good
enoughforustopassmeaningsfullyincertaincontexts.Ihaveneverthoughtabout
writing was their major problems until at one time one of my friends asked me if
Icanrecommendabookorclassofwritingforhim.Irepliedwithjokingtone“do
you need to write as an engineer at work?” His facial expression said yes and he
explainedthewritingneedsatworkandhispersonalneedsofimprovingon-the-job
writing skills to me. And then he added that many of Chinese engineers faced
the challenges in writing and they believed that the real culprit that leads to their
underestimatedworkperformanceistheir“poorEnglish”,intheirownwords.
4 1 Introduction
Ithenaskedsomeofmyotherfriendswhoworkedinthehigh-techfieldsthesame
questionofwhethertheyneedtowriteatwork.Allofthemstartedtocomplainabout
theirhigh-demandingwritingactivities,andtheyareunsatisfiedtowardtheirEnglish
writing skills. Since then, I started to pay close attention to engineer’s workplace
writing,andmyinitialquestionwassimplyhowdemandingworkplacewritingcan
beandwhatkindofbookcanbehelpfulandIcanrecommendtomyfriends.Besides
gettinginformationfrommyfriends,Ialsostartedtolookintotheengineeringfield,
thingslikeChineseengineerscapturemyeyes.
Withtheinitialreadingonlineandoffline,Ifoundthatsince2010,talkofIndian
engineers/techleadersintechnicalcorporationsandstart-upshasbeennumberone
topic when regarding to innovative technical leadership in Silicon Valley. It is the
focus of blogs, newspaper articles, and research reports. The light also shed on
Chineseengineers,whoholdalargerproportionofforeign-bornengineerpopulation
in the tech companies and had a similar educational background or even higher
academic degrees over Indian engineers. Comparisons between Chinese engineers
and Indian engineers of their roles in leadership led to discussions of English
language proficiency and cultural assimilation. Bloggers, experts, and freelancers
tried to explain the phenomenon that Indian engineers can climb up the career
ladder and whisked away to the corner office in the workforce while the majority
ofChineseengineersstayedontheengineerstracktillthedaytheyretired.Istarted
towonderwhyChineseengineersfellbehindincareerdevelopmentandpromotion
in the workforce. When media attributed the reason why fewer engineers take the
management roles to language barriers and eastern culture, I wanted to confirm
with the engineers about how big a role language and culture, or workforce daily
communicationplayintheircareerdevelopment,andmostofall,Iwantedtoknow
the root of such problems. Therefore, learning about engineers’ current writing
situation,experience,andneedsshouldbethefirststep.
In 2013–2014, after the initial research, I set my doctoral dissertation title as
Chinese engineers’ own perceptions of their writing difficulties and needs in the
workplace.Iaimedtounderstand:1.HowdoChineseengineersperceivetheirexpe-
rience of writing at work? 2. What writing difficulties do Chinese engineers think
theyfaceintheworkplace?
AtJune2014,ImovedtoCaliforniaduetomyhusband’sjobtransfer.Ibeginto
recruitparticipants.Inorder togather in-depthinformationaboutmyparticipants’
perceptions of writing and their writing experience in the workplace, I tended to
chooseengineerswithsimilareducationalandculturalbackgroundsandexperiences.
Usingthiscriterion,IselectedtheChineseengineerswhocurrentlyemployedand
have been worked in high-tech corporations in California, where most high-tech
companiesarelocated.TheindividualparticipantsdonotworkatasinglesiteandI
triedtoselectparticipantsfromlarge,medium,andsmallsizeofthecorporation;this
isbecauseif“theyaredispersed,theycanprovideimportantcontextualinformation
useful in the focus coding phase of research” (Creswell, 2007, p. 122). Lastly, the
participantsshouldworkintheelectronicengineeringindustry,eitherspecializedin
hardwareorsoftware,foraboutatleast2years.Theyshouldalreadybefamiliarwith
workplacewritingtasks.