International Research Journal of Humanities, Language and Literature

ISSN: (2394-1642)
Impact Factor- 5.401, Volume 5, Issue 8, August 2018
Website- www.aarf.asia, Email : editor@aarf.asia , editoraarf@gmail.com

ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC OR SPECIAL PURPOSES: ENGINEERING

M. Sridhar Kumar
Asst. Professor in English
Bandari Srinivas Institute of Technology
Chevella, Telangana.

ABSTRACT
This paper deals with the nuances of English language used in the domain of
Engineering. It focuses on the functional use of English with regard to what is indispensable for
the betterment of the students who are engineers-to-be and the curriculum that boosts the
performance level of the students at interviews and workplaces. The present world which has
been hegemonized by the corporate giants demands certain anglicized etiquette to follow as far
as the lifestyle and the language are concerned. Globalization has compelled students to be very
good at English communicative Skills irrespective of their professional areas. IT companies, HR
Managers and other Recruiters have been in search of competent communication and
employability skills in the students who have finished their graduation through any stream. Two
skills fetch success in one’s life: English Communicative Skills and Other Soft Skills that provide
a good grounding to their professional world. Students who are weak in communication have to
confront with frustrations in all walks of life. It has been observed that such students make
frantic efforts at the eleventh hour to groom their English Language Skills by visiting the tutors,
tutorials and coaching centers mushroomed in their neighborhood.
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Keywords: indispensable, hegemonized, corporate giants, anglicized etiquette, employability,

soft skills,

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By now it is clear as crystal that English Communicative Skills are a must in the globalized
scenario of the world. The concept of English for Specific Purposes‟ is to fulfill the demands of
the technologically advanced world in which one has to show off the needs of the companies.
The core purpose of Functional English is to help young learners in their attempts to fit well in
all contexts, either social or professional needs.

According to Crystal (1997), English for Science(s) involves a special vocabulary, which
often means a large set of words of Latin or Greek origin, but the development of sciences and
new discoveries impose the continuous renewal or enrichment of this scientific vocabulary.
There is also a “science-specific” grammar: this means that the language of science prefers very
accurate and unambiguous expressions, which leads to a higher rate of repetitive expressions, to
the frequent use of relative pronouns (which, that, of which) or adverbials. Linking words that
express contradiction, explanation, and conclusion are unavoidable. Such linking words are the
conjunctions (and, although, though, since, as), prepositions (despite, during) or adverbs
(usually, meanwhile, firstly, secondly). 1

English for Special Purposes has been abbreviated to ESP. The first part of this article
deals with the feasible areas that enhance the English language skills, may they be occupational
or personal and the second section throws lift on the pedagogic and academic aspects of
Functional English. The ESP as a Movement goes back to the 1960s when linguistic scholars
felt the need of the hour to teach English to the advancing world of technology. Thus ESP or
EFL, i.e., English as a Foreign Language, has been serving promising students to accomplish
great heights in the field of individual professional needs. Marianne Celce-Murcia succinctly
puts the purpose of ESL/EFL in the following paragraph:

Almost thirty years ago, ESL/EFL practitioners in many parts of the world began to
convene in order to discuss the development of systematic analysis of students‟ needs,
particularly as they related to the features of the English that students must employ in the real
world. 2

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 Other than ESP, ESL and EFL, there have been many nomenclatures of English for the
specific purposes like EST which stands for English for Science and Technology. Business
English concentrates on the arena of writing letters in the context of a business. The “Tree of
ELT”(Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, p. 6) describes the classification of ESP in detail which
offers significant insights into the broad scope of ESP: 3

The suggested classification of Dudley-Evans and St.John (1998, p. 5) is as under: 4

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The areas to be covered in the nomenclature of English for Special Purposes have the following
features to be earmarked as specific

:The field of reference is not a part of the speaker‟s regular routine;

It belongs to an area which has its own vocabulary and etiquette;

It may be termed as English as a medium of Specialized Communication;

It is the knowledge of the language that specific subject that demands training;

Its area is formally limited;

Its scope is governed by the requisite knowledge of specific sentence patterns and jargon;

Situational vocabulary and usage of particular sentence structures can be taught in the context of
the profession of the user of English.

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An important distinction is made between General English and English for Special Purposes.
Imola Katalin NAGY opines that certain fixed expressions are frequently employed as
representative modes of talking:

Certain structures and categories appear more frequently in special texts than in general language
texts:

Morphological structures based on Greek or Latin

formatives

b. Abbreviations and symbols

c. Nominalizations based on verbs

d. Straightforward sentence structure with little complex

Subordination. 5

Functional English is the appropriate English for the sake of Engineering Students along with the
basic and advanced vocabulary. It has been observed that Functional English has been
prescribed without an objectively tailored syllabus and supplementary material that evaluates the
course of study for the period of a couple of months.

To tell without mincing matters is that every profession needs two aspects of the English
language: its jargon, occupational idiomatic expressions and professional manners with a good
grounding in the basic and advanced sentence patterns. At this juncture, let there be light thrown
on the ingredients of Functional English for Special purposes. The syllabus of Functional
English for the Engineering Students has to include the following framework:

The syllabus has to cover LSRW skills in the respective fields;

It must be entirely learner-centred;

The teacher/tutor has to plan his pedagogic material by dividing it into daily units with a replete
with a rich repertoire;

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Long hours of daily drilling of passages, powered by technical words should be done without
fail;

Purpose-related orientation (Gatehouse, 2001 cf. Carter, 1983) has been identified as the
simulation of different communicative tasks to prepare the learners for different target
situations. The learners are given practice through simulation to enable them to handle various
linguistic roles in the target situation. Carter (1983) reported student simulation of different tasks
which were required for a conference. 6

“Self-direction”is the third characteristic of ESP courses which means “that ESP is concerned
with turning learners into users”(Carter, 1983, p. 134). It means that the students should “have
certain degree of freedom to decide when, what and how they will study” 7

To illustrate the required vocabulary, the following terminology is presented for perusal;
it is given in the form of „Substitute One-word‟ for the following:

The manner in which certain data is stored

Data Architecture

Principles and rules to solve problems quickly, adopted from experience

Heuristics

Part-wise manufacturing , finished at the right moment to be processed further

Just-in-time manufacturing

The hours an employee works on a particular day

Band width

Coming to the illustration of the English language used in the engineering sector is given
below; it portrays a typical engineering jargon. It elucidates the term „Delamination‟:

Delaminations are horizontal separations of the top surface of a floor slab from the underlying
concrete. Typically, delaminated thicknesses vary from about 1/8 to 3/8 inches but can be thinner
or thicker depending on the cause of the delamination. Unfortunately, surface delaminations are

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difficult to detect during the finishing operations but become apparent later after the concrete has
hardened or shortly after the floor has been placed into service. In some cases, workers including
electricians or plumbers discover delaminations during construction by dropping tools or other
items on the floor and hearing a “hollow” or “tinny” sound. Hollow sounds indicate the top
surface of the floor has separated from the underlying concrete.8

It is logically concluded that the material and tasks given to the students has to cater to
their needs. It should supply them with productively relevant and specialized content and
practical tasks through drilling every day. Syllabus designers must make a note that the content
ought to address the specific needs of the students concerned by attempting to motivate them
towards realization of the intended goal.

References:

English for Special Purposes: Specialized Languages and Problems of Terminology, Imola
Katalin NAGY, Department of Applied Linguistics, Sapientia Hungarian University of
Transylvania (Târgu Mureş, Romania), P 265, 2014

Celce Murcia, M. (Ed.) 1991. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Budapest:
Akademini Kiado—Newbury House. P 67

English for Specific Purposes: Its Definition, Characteristics,

Scope and Purpose, Choudhary Zahid Javid, Department of Foreign Languages, Taif University,
P-O-Box 888, Taif University, At-Taif, KSA, p 142

Ibid. p 143

English for Special Purposes: Specialized Languages and Problems of Terminology, Imola
Katalin NAGY, Department of Applied Linguistics, Sapientia Hungarian University of
Transylvania (Târgu Mureş, Romania), P 267, 2014

English for Specific Purposes: Its Definition, Characteristics,

Scope and Purpose, Choudhary Zahid Javid, Department of Foreign Languages, Taif University,
P-O-Box 888, Taif University, At-Taif, KSA, p 142

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Gatehouse, K., 2001. "Key Issues in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum,
Development", The Internet TESL Journal, 7(10), p 5

How to avoid the delamination of Steel-troweled Floors, 2017, ConstructionPros.com

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