The primary aim of the research project was to describe the trades-specific language used in the automotive technology, carpentry, fabrication and plumbing trades, as well as how this language is taught and learned at institutes of technology and polytechnics in New Zealand. The project used both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate trades-specific language. Qualitative methods included: extensive interviews with trades tutors, trades professionals and trades students; observation of classroom, workshop and on-site teaching; and corpus-based analysis of vocabulary in use. Quanti
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The primary aim of the research project was to describe the trades-specific language used in the automotive technology, carpentry, fabrication and plumbing trades, as well as how this language is taught and learned at institutes of technology and polytechnics in New Zealand. The project used both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate trades-specific language. Qualitative methods included: extensive interviews with trades tutors, trades professionals and trades students; observation of classroom, workshop and on-site teaching; and corpus-based analysis of vocabulary in use. Quantitative methods included: the building and use of a 1.6 million word corpus of written course materials; 200,000 words of student writing; and a spoken corpus of 450,000 words of classroom/workshop/on-site teaching. Quantitative corpus methods were used to identify trades-specific vocabulary in course materials and investigate stylistic and grammatical features of student writing.
The research shows that the texts read by the trades students in this study are lexically as demanding as university-level academic texts. The report shows too that trades texts contain high levels of technical vocabulary, and that meaning in trades texts is expressed visually as well as in writing, using a wide range of drawings, graphs, photographs, etc. The report also shows the methods that trades tutors use in supporting student acquisition of this technical vocabulary. Finally the report describes the language of a key piece of writing by trades students, the Builders' Diary, and shows how students' command of this writing develops over the period of study in Levels 3 and 4, when they move from on-campus study to the workplace. This report also outlines the development of resources related to each of these findings (such as technical word lists, bilingual English-Tongan word lists, and resources to support writing), and offers recommendations for practice.
Edited excerpts from publisher's website and publication.
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