Technology Structural Engineering Higher Education Level
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TECHNOLOGY – STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING – HIGHER EDUCATION LEVEL
CEF PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
A. TARGET PROFESSION 1 B. OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION 2 C. CONTEXT INFORMATION 6 D. THE MOST FREQUENT SITUATIONS 9 E. THE MOST DEMANDING SITUATIONS 11 F. SNAPSHOTS 15 SNAPSHOT 1: 15 SNAPSHOT 2: 18 SNAPSHOT 3: 20 SNAPSHOT 4: 22 SNAPSHOT 5: 25 SNAPSHOT 6: 28 SNAPSHOT 7: 30
A. TARGET PROFESSION: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Field Technology
Education/Program Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering; Bachelor’s Degree in Construction Engineering; Master’s Degree in Structural Engineering
Specialization(s) Structural Engineering
Degree/Qualification A structural engineer usually possesses a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a Master's degree in Structural Engineering. He may also possess a doctorate degree as a super specialization. Language English
Drawn up by Penka Taneva & Esko Johnson
Date/ February – May 2006 City and country/ Plovdiv, Bulgaria & Kokkola, Finland Organization Sofia Technical University – Plovdiv Branch & Central Ostrobothnia University of Applied Sciences
Methods used for - January 2006, description of structural engineering, career options, collecting the information employers, job descriptions and communications of structural (methods, persons, dates) engineers by Penka Taneva – Kafelova (Senior Lecturer in English for Specific Purposes with an MSc degree in Structural Engineering) based on her own experience as structural engineer and university lecturer. - February - May 2006, CEF Professional Profile draft by Penka Taneva – Kafelova (see above) and Esko Johnson (Principal Lecturer in
1 English Language and Communication) based on personal experience of the engineering profession, interviews, research literature and documents) - February 2006, interview with A, MSc (Structural Engineering), Head of an Engineering Consultancy in Plovdiv, Bulgaria - April 2006, interview with B, MSc (Structural Engineering), Head of an Engineering Design company in Plovdiv, Bulgaria - In the two interviews above the researcher used a paper-based questionnaire which is also available online at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162 and also a questionnaire adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23. - April 2006, interviews with C, Section Manager for Civil and Structural Engineering; D, Chief Designer, expert in the design of concrete structures; E, Designer, expert in the design of steel structures. Location: Delta Engineering, Finland. - In the first interview the researcher also used a paper-based questionnaire which is also available online at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162 - In the second and third interviews he used a questionnaire adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23. - April 2006, pair interview with F, Designer, expert in design of steel and fabric structures; G, Designer, expert in the design of steel structures. Location: Coverex Building Systems, Finland. - At the pair interview the researcher also used a paper-based questionnaire which is available online at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162, and another questionnaire adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23. May 2006, interview with H, MSc (Structural Engineering), Structural Design Engineer at InterDesign – a Plovdiv based subsidiary of a German world-leading company in metallurgical, petrochemical and chemical plant design In the interview the researcher used a paper-based questionnaire which is also available online at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx? id=87059&cid=24249162 and also a questionnaire adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23.
B. OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION
DEFINITIONS: Structural engineering is the science and art of designing and making, Typical examples of with economy and elegance, residential, non-residential, and public
2 professions/occupations/ buildings; stadiums and other sports facilities; highways, road career options/jobs junctions, bridges, tunnels; towers, airports, harbours, oil rigs; practically anything from a playground climbing frame to the tallest building. Design of a structure means determination of a most suitable structural system, and optimum sizes of various structural elements and reinforcement. The structure should be able to carry all design forces and loads safely to the soil below, and possess sufficient strength, durability and ductility. Structural engineers work in association with architects and various other engineers/specialists.
CAREER OPTIONS Starting as construction designers, structural engineers may move on to become project managers. They may work alone, liaising closely with architects and all other construction professionals involved, or as part of a project team. Career options include moving from an engineering consultancy to a construction company, or vice versa. Another option is to be employed as a contract engineer (self-employed) and be paid for each contract completed. Some set up their own engineering consultancies, either alone or with partners. Few are employed in architects' offices. Another possibility is a career as a researcher or a university lecturer teaching the subject or a similar one at the undergraduate or postgraduate levels. Some engineers specialize in a specific type of structure, such as concrete buildings, metal structures or timber-framed houses. Much of the work is concerned with the refurbishment of buildings or changing their use.
Typical employers of structural engineers: Typical organizations, companies, communities; - engineering consultancies, architectural and engineering professional associations companies. These organisations range from large firms operating internationally, sometimes with offices in many countries, to those run by one person. The large companies provide a broad range of work, and sometimes opportunities for international travel. Smaller firms tend to specialise in specific areas of engineering and the geographical spread of their clients is less extensive. - large construction companies. They often offer their clients a 'design and build' service, and therefore maintain their own designers, including structural engineers. - smaller construction firms. These take on engineers (known as 'contract engineers') when they need to for specific projects. - local authorities. Structural engineers may be part of the municipal administration or the authorities responsible for municipal property and buildings listed as being of historic value. - universities/Institutes of Technology. Some structural engineers
3 work in university departments as researchers and lecturers. - institutes for Research in Construction. Sometimes structural engineers work as researchers.
Examples of professional organizations/associations of structural engineers: - International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering – IABSE - http://www.iabse.ethz.ch/ - The Institution of Structural Engineers, UK (IstructE) – http://www.istructe.org.uk - American Society of Civil Engineers - Structural Engineering Institute -http://www.seinstitute.org/ - The Structural Engineers Association of Bulgaria - The Association of Finnish Civil Engineers (RIL), Finland -http://www.ril.fi - The Association of Finnish Construction Engineers and Architects (RIA) -http://www.ria.fi - The Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) - The Structural Engineers Association of Texas (SEAoT), - etc.
Structural engineers ensure that structures serve their function Typical job descriptions without collapsing, bending, twisting or vibrating in undesirable ways. Their responsibility lies in making efficient use of funds and materials to achieve these structural goals. A structural engineer dealing with structural design: - assesses the dead loads, imposed loads, wind loads, earthquake loads, snow loads and other loads acting on the structure in accordance with the relevant Standard Specifications - selects a suitable structural system to carry these loads safely to the foundation depending upon the nature of the soil - calculates the dimensions of beams, columns, slabs, walls, foundations, staircases, lift wells, etc. in accordance with the relevant Standard Specifications - determines the grade of concrete and amount of reinforcement in the various members mentioned above, and prepares detailed structural drawings in accordance with the relevant Standard Specifications In most cases their job is office-based. They use computers to make static calculations, earthquake calculations and computer aided design (CAD), so that the best solutions may be chosen for the structures being designed. - Their work also involves periodic on-site visits in order to verify the conformity of the structure being built with the technical drawings they have made, and giving solutions to problems that may arise in the course of building. They liaise closely with construction contractors to ensure that newly erected buildings are structurally sound. - Structural engineers are also a part of the board which inspects the structural integrity and conformity with the plans and the Standard Specifications of buildings already finished and due to be put in use.
4 - Structural engineers examine buildings or structures to discover whether or not they are structurally sound. For those that are at risk of collapsing they advise on measures to be taken to improve their structural integrity; for example, they may recommend removal or repair of defective parts or re-building the entire structure (the Leaning Tower of Pisa was recently saved from collapse by structural engineers).
Depending on their position and job description, Structural Engineers may To what extent is a foreign need a foreign language for the following purposes: language needed? - oral communication and interaction with different parties in the process of designing and building a structure - reading professional literature (books, journals, articles), standard specifications (e.g. Eurocode), technical literature, correspondence (e- mail, letters), technical reports, etc. - preparing project documentation (calculations and structural designs, specifications of materials), specifications for carrying out construction work, and for installing and assembling steel structures; composing explanatory notes and reports, for making records and writing orders at the building site, as well as for writing formal letters and e-mails - giving lectures, writing papers and presenting at conferences, in case they are university lecturers or researchers in research institutes in construction Structural engineers working in an international environment also need intercultural communication skills in order to successfully communicate with foreign subsidiaries, authorities, contractors (and other clients), subcontractors and members of projects teams, etc. coming from different national/cultural backgrounds.
5 C. CONTEXT INFORMATION
LOCATION PERSONS, COMMUNICATION SITUATIONS TEXTS COMMUNITIES, COMPANIES, INSTITUTIONS In the process of designing - initial introductions to each other - e-mails/letters and building a - clarification of the owner’s ideas and expectations - terms of reference building/structure the about the building/structure - documents issued by local - in the structural engineer - discussing the feasibility of the owner’s ideas and authorities (permissions, letters, W structural communicates with: expectations about the building orders) engineer’s or the owner of a - discussing the Terms of Reference developed by - project contract O architect’s prospective building or the owner - project documentation at office his/her representative - discussing the contract: project delivery details, different stages R (consultant) deadlines, prices, terms of payment, penalties of - minutes from meetings OR sometimes the parties K - on the - presenting the project in the different phases of Skills needed: telephone design – 35%; 50%; 70%; 95%; 100% - chairing/leading and participating in - by e-mail - discussing changes in the project at the time of meetings * Note: In some cases the design, at the time of construction or even after - presentations/ one-way and C owner and the construction is over interactive discourse builder/contractor (see - discussions in case the project is late or the - negotiations /interactive discourse O below) may be the same payment is late or any other business. - written discourse legal entity - intercultural communication N - in the - The rest of the design - each of the members of the design team develops - building code; e.g. Eurocode T structural team: ToR for each of the specialists on the team, so that - project documentation provided engineer’s or - architect the building designed is sound, safe, and by the other members of the E architect’s functional, and in conformity with the building team office - electrical engineer codes and standards. X - on the - water supply and - the SE discusses with each specialist (including Negotiations/interactive discourse telephone sewerage engineer the architect) on the design team how the different T - by e-mail - heating, ventilation and installations fit into the structure/building (for
6 air conditioning example: specific functional or service rooms, engineer openings/ apertures for installations and their - geologist servicing) - the SE reads the geological report about the soil - geodesist and conditions and characteristics at the building site landscaping engineer - the SE reads the geodesist’s report which contains - technologist (in the case the topography of the building site (other existing of industrial buildings) buildings, trees, etc.). - in the - The builder/contractor - giving explanations of the project - project documentation structural and his site engineer - - discussing the implementation schedule and the book of Building Orders and engineer’s and other specialists frequency of inspection by the structural engineer Instructions (kept at the building office at the building site site) - on the building site - writing procedures and giving instructions Skills needed: - on the concerning the project implementation or changes - giving presentations telephone in the project - giving instructions - by e-mail - solving problems concerning the structure in the - writing course of building - intercultural communication
- in the - construction - giving explanations and instructions on the project Oral communication; discussion/ structural supervisor; interactive discourse engineer’s office - managers of - on the installation teams building site - on the telephone - by e-mail - in the offices - the local authorities / - when the local authorities approve the project they Oral communication of the local municipality / city might need some explanations concerning the Letters administratio development authority project; or may require changes to the project. n - on the telephone
7 - in university In the case of study in the - during academic study, listening to lectures and - oral/interactive discourse - out of the country of origin: participating (interactively) in whole-class - discussions/interactive discourse S university (in - fellow students from discussions - negotiations/interactive discourse the case of foreign countries - participating in various interactive academic T student activities in small groups; in-class and out-of-class - discussions and - foreign university exchange situations negotiations/interactive discourse U programs) lecturers ………. - preparing and making formal oral presentations of - presentations/interactive D course projects or theses/dissertations discourse Or in the case of student - discussing class reading material in whole-class - written discourse Y exchange programs: situations and in small groups - host university - reading: books and articles assigned as class work, administration reading for essays and exams - completing written class and out-of-class C - fellow students in the host country assignments; taking notes; reports on lab work and field trips; essays and exams; academic theses O (international and local students) - interacting with instructors N - instructors/lecturers/pr - interacting with student counsellors, ofessors in the host representatives of the student body, etc. T university - interacting in other non-academic situations - people from the host (“campus situations”) E country - interacting in generic service situations related to X e.g. accommodation, transport, eating
T - REFERENCES - Braine, G.2002. Academic literacy and the non- native speaker graduate student. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 1(1), 59-68. - Kim, S. (2005/in press). Academic oral communication needs of East Asian international graduate students in non-science and non- engineering fields. English for Specific Purposes;
8 (In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 22 November 2005) - Dovey, T. (2005/in press). What purposes, specifically? Re-thinking purposes and specificity in the context of the ‘new vocationalism’. English for Specific Purposes. - Zhu, W. & Flaitz, J. 2005. Using Focus Group Methodology to Understand International Students' Academic Language Needs: A Comparison of Perspectives. TESL-EJ. Available at: http://writing.berkeley.edu/TESL- EJ/ej32/a3.html. [Accessed 3 March 2006].
9 D. THE MOST FREQUENT SITUATIONS
Common communication situation at work #1: Place: The structural engineer’s or architect’s office Persons present: A structural engineer and an architect A structural engineer (SE) talks with an architect in order to reach an agreement about good structural designs and how they may fit in with the aesthetic concept of the architectural design of the building. They discuss what is possible and what is not from a SE’s point of view, and try to compromise in order to make both an elegant and sound structure. Architects’ plans sometimes tend to require structural engineering solutions that are extremely challenging, if not impossible. The latter usually happens with inexperienced architects. In a situation like this the objective of the communication is to explain things like: why a column or a sheering wall (reinforced concrete wall bearing earthquake forces) that the SE has planned in a certain place should not/cannot be removed as the architect requires; or to seek and find a compromise through a different solution, so that in the end both parties are comparatively happy having found a sound and aesthetic solution. What is essential for the communication to be successful? - high professional level of both parties - good team work, and if the discussion is to take place in a foreign language: o knowledge of the concepts/vocabulary of architectural and structural design o linguistic abilities to make clear statements and interactive competences to negotiate
Common communication situation at work #2: Place: The SE’s office Persons present: A structural engineer and an electrical engineer (or water supply and sewerage engineer or heating, ventilation and air conditioning engineer (HVAC)) The structural engineer (SE) discusses separately with each of the specialists mentioned above (members of the design team) how the different installations which they develop (should) fit into the structure/building (for example: specific functional or service rooms and openings/apertures which are necessary for the installations and pipelines and their maintenance and service). Sometimes these other engineers tend to plan their pipelines or installations to pass through places and elements of the structure (highly) unfavourable for its static and dynamic performance. The aim of the communication exercise is to negotiate the optimum technical solution which is good for both the SE and his/her team mate, so that the structure is both sound and functional. What is essential for the communication to be successful? - high professional level of both parties, - good team work, and if the discussion is to take place in a foreign language: o knowledge of the basic concepts/vocabulary of structural design and electrical, water supply and sewerage, HVAC, etc. design; o linguistic abilities to make clear statements and explanations, and to discuss and give instructions for design work.
10 Common communication situation at work #3: Place: The building site Persons present: A structural engineer and a site engineer A structural engineer (SE) is on a site visit where (s)he inspects whether the building works are in conformity with the technical drawings. There are, however, some deviations from the reinforcement plans of the reinforced concrete structure being built. The SE writes his findings in the Building Site Log and gives written directions as to what the recommend corrective actions to be taken are. The SE explains to the site engineer the mistakes he has found and the proposed actions. The site engineer is expected to understand the problem and the required actions, and communicate them to the construction workers who have to implement the corrective actions. What is essential for the communication to be successful? - high professional level of both parties, - good team work, and if the discussion is to take place in a foreign language: o knowledge of the concepts/vocabulary of structural design and construction; o linguistic abilities to make clear statements, explanations, and give instructions for building activities.
11 E. THE MOST DEMANDING SITUATIONS
Demanding communication situation at work #1: Place: The structural engineer’s or architect’s office Persons present: The structural engineer, (the architect) and the owner of the building or his/her representative (consultant) A structural engineer (and an architect) have an initial meeting with a new foreign client – owner of a prospective building (or his/her representative or consultant). Describe the phases of the situation from beginning to end. - initial introduction to each other - clarification of the owner’s ideas and expectations about the building/structure - discussing the technical feasibility of the owner’s ideas and expectations about the building - discussing the Terms of Reference to be developed by the owner on the basis of which the designers shall prepare a quotation for the project What makes the situation demanding? A possible linguistic deficiency and/or lack of intercultural communication skills and negotiation skills may lead to the loss of a prospective project/client.
Demanding communication situation at work #2: Place: Building site Persons present: A structural engineer and a site engineer A structural engineer (SE) is on a site visit where (s)he inspects whether the construction works are in conformity with the technical drawings. There are, however, serious deviations from the technical drawings (plans) of the structure being built that threaten the durability of the structure and its earthquake safety. The situation requires immediate action: ceasing the construction works and prescribing remedial measures and further corrective actions.
What makes the situation demanding? A possible linguistic deficiency (i.e. not knowing the concepts/vocabulary of structural design and construction) or communicative insufficiency (inability to make clear statements, explanations, and give directions for building activities) could result in lack of communication between the SE and the site engineer about the mistakes found and the proposed actions. The site engineer therefore will not be able to understand the problem and the required actions. Nor will he be able to communicate them to the construction workers who are expected to implement the corrective actions thus eliminating the problem.
Demanding communication situation at work #3: Place: International structural design company’s office Persons present: A structural engineer and his/her superior (chief engineer/head of department)
12 A structural engineer (SE) working on the design of a building is being given feedback on the project by his superior, who is a foreigner. The boss is talking, trying to explain his points. However the SE’s poor knowledge of the foreign language does not provide the means for communication. At the same time he is a bit embarrassed to admit he does not really understand everything. The only “pillars” in the process of disentangling the given feedback are some familiar keywords – mainly professional jargon – around which the SE does his best to restore the message, sitting desperately in front of his computer long after the boss is gone.
What makes the situation demanding? The linguistic deficiency (i.e. lack of sound grammatical knowledge) could result in communicative insufficiency (inability to understand the given feedback), and could thus put at risk the quality of the project being developed. * * *
Examples of authentic demanding communication situations at work provided by some of the interviewees:
Demanding communication situation # 4. (For context see snapshot no. 3) In cooperation with Delta Group’s South-East Asian subsidiary, communication takes place in English on a daily basis. Lars Tallberg (Delta Engineering) has encountered miscommunication or communication problems that were caused by intercultural differences and related problems. The way that, for example, the concept of engineering is interpreted, can vary quite a lot depending on the country and local working culture. In South-East Asian contexts, ‘engineering’ means ‘design operations,’ yet in some other contexts, e.g. in Europe, it includes both design and project work. This is a major difference that he identifies between Finland (as part of Europe) and South-East Asia.
In a South-East Asian engineering company, working methods and procedures differ greatly from those in Europe. One must understand and learn the differences in order to be able to interact and collaborate with engineering experts representing different cultures; to interpret the cultural code correctly could be even more important than knowing the foreign language (English). Learning about intercultural differences may not take took long; one week’s encounter may help a lot. It is these encounters that for Lars make up the most demanding language and communication situations. * * * Demanding communication situations # 5. (For context see snapshot no. 4) - Ismo Mattila (Delta Engineering) has encountered three main types of demanding communication situations; firstly, those involving misunderstandings or misinterpretations of technical project information. In these situations, which luckily do not occur too often, one has to admit that things are being done the wrong way in the project, and react immediately to resolve the problem situation, thus preventing a waste of resources, which is of utmost importance. An element of cost is very often also involved in this, and therefore it is in the interest of everybody to correct, clarify and re-interpret the data available. Secondly, writing technical reports and minutes of meetings/ negotiations can also be demanding, because the information in the end result must be 100% correct. Thirdly, the working experience in Germany was a challenge to Ismo, simply because of lack of knowledge of the German language. * * * Demanding Communication Situations # 6. (For context see snapshot no. 5.) While employed in his previous job at the steel product manufacturer, Karl Wikman (Delta Engineering) had an incident he remembers well. With a colleague from his own company, he attended a meeting held in Denmark that had a focus on engineering and design issues. The meeting was organised
13 by a local consultancy specialising in concrete structures and acting as the main contractor in the project. From the very beginning of the meeting, communication took place in Danish. As Karl had difficulties understanding what was said, he asked the four Danes to speak more slowly, which they promised to do, and did accordingly, yet after a while the discussion in Danish got too intensive for Karl to follow. To help him understand what was going on, one of the Danes offered to interpret the discussion. However, interpreting the talk was not very successful, as it tended to cause shared frustrations. This went on until lunch, and following lunch for another three hours. * * * Demanding communication situation # 7. (For context see snapshot no. 6) - Simo Rantala (Coverex Building Systems) recalls an incident in the North American project. CBS had sent two Finnish installation supervisors to Cincinnati, Ohio. They were to oversee that the cover fabric was installed by the local team properly. From Cincinnati, one of the Finns telephoned Simo to make sure how to install the cover fabric in windy weather conditions. With Simo’s special instructions, they went on, but soon phoned again to tell Simo that the local supervisor absolutely refused to proceed as advised.
To solve the conflict, Simo had to take the next flight to Cincinnati and sort out the problem. When Simo had arrived at the building site, they sat down together and went through the problem again. Suddenly the American supervisor lost his temper, stood up and shouted: ‘You’re full of shit, Simo! You gave us two instructions that are different’. Simo, who had ‘never encountered such direct communication’ in his whole career, was confused, but kept his head, and simply told him: ‘That’s right, but I gave two sets of instructions, one for spreading out the fabric, the other one for installing it.’ The American supervisor then understood the situation and later, after the cover was installed successfully, apologised and shook hands with Simo. Also during the rest of the project he apologised on several occasions and explained how pressed he had been that week at work.
Simo wrote down the second instructions he had telephoned to reconstruct the cause of the problem. It turned out that the team had installed the fabric incorrectly, most likely because of the various verbalisations and interpretations of technical details by the non-native CBS supervisors, and this had given cause to the claim that Simo had given two instructions for the same procedure. However, Simo also identified an intercultural communication problem here: the American arrogance and uncompromising attitude in problem situations. * * * Demanding communication situations 5. (For context see snapshot no. 7.) In each export delivery, the installation/maintenance team with its Finnish supervisor serves as a link between the building site and the design office. Therefore, Erkki Laitinen (Coverex Building Systems) rarely takes part in negotiations and meetings abroad. However, these events have caused demanding communication situations that Erkki recalls. One of these meetings took place at a Russian oil-drilling site. Erkki was in charge of negotiating the rather complex installation of a CBS delivery together with several other parties. Each of these had their own interest: the North-American contractor, a Scandinavian oil company commissioning CBS; a British engineering company, and a South-European installation company. The meeting took six hours in all. This was partly because the installation company insisted on alternative procedures for installing the inner fabric cover, and did not seem to accept CBS’s standard method.
‘ I couldn’t really figure out what he said in his broken English… he went on and on, and brought up again and again the way he thought the fabric should be installed. He wanted to change the method, and also to have another fabric layout, and didn’t seem to listen when I said I’d send him some photos by e-mail.’ In spite of this disagreement, the prolonged meeting ended successfully, and Erkki returned taking a later flight back home.
14 F. SNAPSHOTS
List of snapshots: SNAPSHOT 1: Ilia Georgiev, Structural engineer – owner and manager of ProStructure Engineering Consultancy based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria SNAPSHOT 2: Petko Mitev, Structural design engineer at InterDesign – a Plovdiv based subsidiary of a German world-leading company in metallurgical, petrochemical and chemical plant design SNAPSHOT 3: Lars Tallberg, Section Manager for Civil and Structural Engineering, Delta Engineering, Finland SNAPSHOT 4: Ismo Mattila, Chief Designer, Delta Engineering, Finland SNAPSHOT 5: Karl Wikman, Designer, Delta Engineering, Finland SNAPSHOT 6: Simo Rantala, Designer, Coverex Building Systems, Finland SNAPSHOT 7: Erkki Laitinen, Designer, Coverex Building Systems, Finland
SNAPSHOT 1: Structural engineer in his own engineering consultancy
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this snapshot: Penka Taneva - Kafelova conducted an interview in Bulgarian with Ilia Georgiev, structural engineer (SE), owner and manager of ProStructure Engineering Consultancy based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on February 28, 2006 at the company office. The interview, which lasted about two and a half hours, was targeted at defining structural engineering as such, structural engineers’ job descriptions, the people along the communication chain of a SE, the location, type and topic of common and demanding communication situations at work, and types of written texts a SE deals with and the need for and use of foreign languages in the context of work on the basis of the experience of both interviewer and interviewee in the structural engineering profession. The researcher based the snapshot on both the interview data and her knowledge and experience in the field. Names of locations and business organizations, etc. mentioned by interviewee were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewee.
Some background information
I am Ilia Georgiev, a graduate of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria. I have a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering and made a postgraduate study in Applied Mathematics. At present I have my own engineering consultancy but years ago I used to work for the Plovdiv Regional Design Company, the largest architectural and engineering design company in the south of Bulgaria. I have been working as a structural engineer for 20 years now.
What is structural engineering all about?
15 When sometimes people ask me what my profession is and I say ‘structural engineer’1, they would nod their heads understandingly and say: “A-ha, you are an architect!” “Not exactly,” comes my polite answer, “but we work in the same area and a project of a building cannot do without an architect, and neither can do it without a structural engineer and likewise other engineers …”
As a matter of fact, architects and structural engineers are the ones who create the urban environment (and infrastructure) for humans to inhabit. They create the shell in which humankind dwells and functions, which is to humankind what the body is to the soul.
The architect in his both artistic and rational ways determines the shape, appearance and function of a structure, while the structural engineer provides the ‘skeleton’ and ‘fleshes out’ the creation, so that it possesses both elegance, and sufficient strength, durability and ductility to perform its functions.
Structural engineering is the science and art of designing and making with economy and elegance, residential, public and industrial buildings and structures; stadiums and other sports facilities; highways, road junctions, bridges, tunnels; towers, airports, harbours, oil rigs; practically anything from a playground climbing frame to the tallest building.
How does a structural engineer and head of an engineering company do his job?
Behind any structure or building you see, there is a structural system which consists of various structural elements which, when calculated and designed appropriately, are able to provide that the whole structure is strong enough to bear both its own weight and external impacts like wind, snow, and earthquakes. Selecting, calculating and designing this structure are part of our job.
Comfortably seated at my desk in the office (to be honest, sometimes I wish I did not have to spend such long hours seated, no matter how comfortably ) I do things like:
- assess the dead loads, imposed loads, wind loads, earthquake loads, snow loads and other loads acting on the structure in accordance with the relevant building code (it may be Bulgarian, Eurocode, Russian, Ukrainian or American) - select a suitable structural system to carry these loads safely to the foundation depending upon the nature of the soil - calculate the dimensions of structural members: slabs, beams, columns, walls, foundations, staircases, lift wells, etc. in accordance with the relevant Standard Specifications - determine the grade of concrete and amount of reinforcement in the various members mentioned above, and prepare detailed structural drawings in accordance with the relevant Standard Specifications. Whether it is a structure made of reinforced concrete, metal or wood, the procedure is not much different - put the finished project documentation in thick nice bright-coloured files and hand them to the client End of Design Cycle. This is the technical part of it.
However, the freedom of being your own boss naturally brings about some obligations too. Before I sit comfortably in front of the computer in my office and do what structural designers do, I have to provide a project to work on. This means a lot of communication, meetings, prospective site visits, and negotiations. I or the architect and I have series of meeting with the owners of prospective buildings or their representative/consultant (in some cases the owner and builder/contractor may be the same legal entity).
1 in some languages this is translated as ‘construction engineer’
16 After we have the Terms of Reference and sign a design contract, we have a kick-off meeting with the rest of the design team which usually consists of an architect, myself, an electrical engineer, water supply and sewerage engineer, heating, ventilation and air conditioning engineer, geologist, geodesist and landscaping engineer and a technologist (in the case of industrial buildings).
From this point on my job follows the rules and procedures of good project management where the project’s final product is: precise static calculations, detailed structural drawings (usually CAD), and all relevant written project documentation prepared and nicely arranged in the thick bright-coloured files I told you about earlier.
Does a structural engineer and head of an engineering company need foreign languages to do his job?
The project management process mentioned above involves an unexpected (for and outsider) lot of communication, and depending on who the owner/contractor is, who the design team members are, and where the building site is, the project documentation and all or part of the communication may be done in a foreign language. You can see details of communication situations in C. Context Information (work context)
There is another option which I feel lucky to have experienced, and it is working in a foreign country. Years ago I worked for two years as a CAD manager for a large architectural company in Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, and later on in the design department of a huge construction company in the USA which had offices in 12 of the states. The technical part of the job in such case is a piece of cake – building codes are quite similar from country to country. However, languages are not always .
Reading and comprehending professional literature is the easiest thing for an engineer to do. Thus, it is quite misleading and develops excessive self confidence related to foreign languages. On my first structural engineering job abroad language issues were far more challenging than purely professional ones, since managing the computer aided design of a huge hospital required a lot of oral communication, and my spoken English at the time was far from being perfect. In about three months it radically improved. Through a lot of effort on my side, by the end of the period I was able to read James Clavell’s Shogun in the original and to communicate fluently with colleagues. (I reckon, learning English through reading Shogun is my own trademark ). Later on, in my job in the US I could equally easily interact professionally with colleagues on the project team, with site engineers and other company staff, and take part in work-related social talk. I would say that a professional fluent in a foreign language or two inevitably enjoys a better quality, more exciting professional life.
17 SNAPSHOT 2:
Structural design engineer in a subsidiary of a foreign company
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this snapshot:
Penka Taneva - Kafelova conducted a semi-structured interview in Bulgarian with Petko Mitev on May 9, 2006 at InterDesign Co (pseudonym) office. The interview, which lasted about 2 hours, was based on a questionnaire similar to that of a survey, the Web version of which is currently available at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162 and also a questionnaire (in paper format) adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23.
The researcher based the snapshot completely on the interview data. Names of locations and business organizations, etc. mentioned by the interviewee were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewee.
Some background information
I am Petko Mitev and work as a structural engineer at InterDesign, a Bulgarian structural design subsidiary of a German engineering company, a world leader in the design and equipment of metallurgical, petrochemical and chemical plants. I am a graduate of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria. I got my Master’s degree in Structural Engineering in 1982 and have been working as a structural engineer ever since. My first employer was the Plovdiv Regional Design Company, the largest architectural and engineering design company in the south of Bulgaria. Then I spent a few years working as a structural engineer in Germany.
If you ask my boss what the requirements for employing a structural engineer in the company are, he will probably start with: excellent knowledge of at least one foreign language. The more languages an engineer knows, the better because the job description includes reading and implementing foreign building codes and other standards on a daily basis. Second come computer skills and knowledge of particular software used in engineering design, since the project calculations and drawings have to be precise and complete to the slightest detail.
Generally the German contractor does the pre-project surveys, develops the conceptual project, prepares the quotations for the final clients, signs a contract with them, and then subcontracts the project design with its subsidiary.
My working day
The core of my job is to assess the loads acting on a structure, select the most suitable structural system, and do the static calculations for the industrial buildings our company designs. In the course of my employment at InterDesign I have worked on the design of methanol plants in Trinidad, Chile and China.
My working day usually starts at 8:30. Being the early bird of the company, I am the first to come to the office, switch the security alarm system off and my computer on and there we go…
18 A cup of coffee in hand, I check my e-mail. This usually takes more than half an hour of my morning time.
Most of the mails I get are those from my team-mates – the German technologists – who send me explanatory letters with attached Workstation models of the plants we design. Those models present the basic idea of the plant interior both structure- and equipment-wise. Based on them, I have to select the best fitting structural system and make the static calculations (bearing in mind the loads from wind, snow and earthquakes), so that each and every element of the structure, and the structure as a whole is able to faultlessly perform its functions throughout its lifetime.
The e-mails we exchange usually deal with explanations of the drafts, suggestions for changes, discussions/arguments about changes in the design, accepting or rejecting changes, instructions, anything that can arise in the course of working on a common project while located at a distance of hundreds of kilometres from each other. We make amendments on both sides, attach the files and send them for consideration and approval.
Another means of communication and getting a job done is telephoning. This sometimes, depending on the phase of the project, might take a considerable amount of my time. Luckily my German is good enough, because sometimes these highly specific and highly technical telephone conversations are also highly demanding with respect to the foreign language fluency of the communicating parties. Yet, I prefer e-mailing to telephoning because e-mail communication enables discussions, decisions, responsibilities, etc., to be tracked.
The main part of my time in the office is devoted to working on the projects making static calculations, drafting and writing explanatory notes – part of the project documentation. The structural engineer’s job, especially the one dealing with structural design includes heavy responsibilities, since we are the people who decide on a reinforced concrete building for example, how thick the slabs, how big the columns and girders should be, how many and what size of sheering walls to withstand earthquake forces to put, etc. Structural engineers are the professionals ensuring that a building or a structure stands firmly on the ground bearing all possible imposed loads.
Foreign languages at work
The languages used at work are Bulgarian, German and English. I communicate with my colleagues in the Plovdiv office in Bulgarian and I do my static calculations in Bulgarian. When we work on a certain project, implemented in a foreign country we prepare the whole project documentation: calculations, drawings, explanatory notes, etc. in the language of the country. Communication with the German part of the team naturally takes place in German and only sometimes in English.
I finish work at 5:30. Sometimes I hate this set time frame 8:30 – 5:30, and I wish my job was more flexible time-wise. It could have been so if I had become a contract engineer… On my way home I enjoy a walk through the beautiful Old Plovdiv with its 18-19th century buildings, where our office is situated, and join the 21st-century city life by going to a fitness hall, a sauna or both, or just dining out with friends.
19 SNAPSHOT 3:
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this dataset:
Esko Johnson conducted a semi-structured interview in Swedish with Lars Tallberg (pseudonym) on 12 April at Delta Engineering (pseudonym). The interview, which lasted about 40 minutes, was recorded using a cassette recorder.
The questionnaire he used is similar to a survey, the Web version of which is currently available at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162
The researcher listened to the recorded interview several times to create themes and sub-themes. The questionnaire data were then compared and combined to elaborate and validate the snapshot. Names of the individuals, locations and the business organization, etc. mentioned by the interviewee were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewee.
Delta Engineering Ltd.
Informant: Lars Tallberg (pseudonym), Section Manager for Delta Engineering Ltd., a company based in Finland. Lars’ native language is Swedish. He has worked in the engineering field for ten years. About two and a half years ago he entered his present position of Section Manager. He has a BEng degree (ingenjör, YH) that he received from a Swedish-language polytechnic in 1995.
Ten years ago, when Lars Tallberg began his designer career, he was surprised to be immersed in a globalised workplace – he had no choice but to ‘hop in and start working with the English guys.’
Today at his work Lars needs English and Finnish; occasionally some German, in a few projects. For Lars, spoken skills in English and Finnish are more important than written skills; for written communication and documentation, support personnel may be available for him and others in the Section.
The presentation types that Lars is today involved with are both business and technical presentations. Lars makes presentations and has business appointments more or less on a daily basis. At these events, he may have various different roles – for example, merely assisting his colleagues while they make presentations. These presentations, as well as events involving oral instructions in English, range from business issues to technical support for clients.
In the case of business presentations, appointments and negotiations especially with Delta Group’s (pseudonym) South-East Asian subsidiary, Lars takes care of what relates to sales issues in the Section; these events he has each week. Lars’ colleagues Karl (pseudonym) and Ismo (pseudonym) do not take part in sales presentations or negotiations/transactions – and they only deal with technical issues and details.
In the case of the engineering company, e-mail is a very important channel of communication, the use of which occupies Lars up to 5 hours or more each day. He writes and receives most e-mail messages in English, as this is the official corporate language. The topics of the e-mails cover roughly the same as those of business meetings, negotiations and presentations: business deals, technical support, and co-operation with colleagues working for the Group’s subsidiaries.
20 The constraints and challenges that Lars faces when writing e-mail are related to spelling (of less frequent) words, the relatively formal language, or ‘fine words,’ used by colleagues in the South- East Asian subsidiary. When e-mail messages sent to the subsidiary are drafted, they need to be written with more detail and instructions, and more reference to background data.
Lars spends up to three or four hours each day writing business and technical reports and other documents. He designs, drafts and writes them either alone, however, with comments from colleagues, or writes them collaboratively with the Section’s colleagues. The types of documents Lars writes comprise working instructions and directions, action plans, written presentations of the company, etc., typically covering two or three pages. As Lars has ten years’ experience working in an engineering company, he says he does not need to pay a great deal of attention to the language – it is the content, organisation and composition issues that he is mostly concerned with. When writing documents Lars sometimes faces constraints or challenges with the more difficult words/terms. He checks these on his computer.
In cooperation with the Group’s South-East Asian subsidiary, communication takes place in English on a daily basis. Lars reports having encountered miscommunication or communication problems that were caused by intercultural differences and related communication problems. The way that, for example, the concept of engineering is interpreted, can vary quite a lot depending on the country and local working culture. In South-East Asian contexts, ‘engineering’ means ‘design operations,’ yet in some other contexts, e.g. in Europe, it includes both design and project work. This is a major difference that he identifies between Finland (as part of Europe) and South-East Asia.
In a South-East Asian engineering company, working methods and procedures differ greatly from those in Europe. One must understand and learn the differences in order to be able to interact and collaborate with engineering experts representing different cultures; to interpret the cultural code correctly could be even more important than knowing the foreign language (English). Learning about intercultural differences may not take too long; one week’s encounter may help a lot. It is these encounters that for Lars make up the most demanding language and communication situations.
However, Lars says, to reach a deeper, functional understanding of cultural differences may take as long as one year. It is typical, for instance, for a South-East Asian colleague to say ‘yes,’ while, in fact, the true meaning of ‘yes’ should not be understood too categorically by the European colleague. Another example: the South-East Asian engineer may write in his CV about experiences and competencies that the CV holder himself has no knowledge of, although some other people in the same department or organisation might have acquired these.
When asked to give suggestions on how to develop language education, Lars says he would like to see a lot more domain-specific terminology taught in the courses.
21 SNAPSHOT 4:
DATA FOR CEF PROFESSIONAL PROFILES AND SNAPHOTS
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this professional communicator profile:
Esko Johnson conducted a semi-structured interview in Finnish with Ismo Mattila (pseudonym) on 12 April at Delta Engineering (pseudonym). The interview, which lasted about 1 hour, was recorded using a cassette recorder.
At the interview the researcher used a questionnaire (in paper format) adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23. Note: only one column, for English
The interview was first transcribed in Finnish. The transcript and questionnaire data were coded, thematized, and then compared and combined to create the ‘snapshot’ narrative account. Names of the individuals, locations and the business organization, etc. mentioned by the interviewee were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewee.
Delta Engineering, 12 April 2006
Informant data: Ismo Mattila (pseudonym) graduated as an MEng from the Helsinki University of Technology in 1990. After graduation he entered a job within structural engineering design in the metropolitan area. The recession of the building industry in the early 1990s made him seek engineering employment in Germany. On returning from Germany after some four years, he settled in western Finland, working first for a small engineering company. After some years in this position Ismo decided to become self-employed and started his own structural engineering company.
Two years ago he joined Delta Engineering Ltd. (pseudonym) and was appointed Chief Designer responsible for the design of concrete constructions, in the section for structural and civil engineering. Delta Engineering is a civil engineering company employing some two hundred staff and providing engineering for transnational projects, which are typically, but not exclusively, commissioned by major marine, telecommunications, mechanical and process engineering companies in Europe.
Ismo’s section for structural and civil engineering has about 30 employees. The company belongs to Delta Group Ltd. based in Finland. It has sites in Finland, Sweden, and Asia. A new subsidiary of Delta Engineering was established in Asia about two years ago, and it now has a staff of ca. 50.
Ismo’s native language is Finnish, and he could be regarded as a late bilingual because of the Swedish language in his family and the dominance of Swedish at his present workplace. Today at work Ismo mainly needs Swedish and English in addition to Finnish. He occasionally uses German, especially when contacting his ex-colleagues in Germany. For Ismo, spoken competences in both English and Swedish are more important than written skills.
Ismo’s section of Delta Engineering has many designers and other staff from several countries who work at his site. In addition, Delta Engineering operates in close collaboration with technical staff of the Asian subsidiary. To Ismo the company therefore looks like a cultural melting pot of engineers.
22 The official language of Delta Engineering is English. It is also the language that the company’s clients, who are mainly based in Finland, require to be used systematically. Whenever representatives of non-national clients visit Delta Engineering, communication for presentations, meetings and negotiations held on site will naturally take place in English. However, at Delta Engineering, internal spoken and written communication mainly takes place in Swedish and Finnish, most of the staff being bilingual, so switching languages - a feature of communication that is used to enhance and speed up one-to-one interaction - takes place frequently. Since there are also many technologists from Asia, Africa and other parts of the world employed in the Section, who can speak neither Swedish nor Finnish, an intricate, personalised system of intra- company language switching has developed to be used for three different languages, both in spoken and written situations.
As Ismo does not travel much for work, e-mail is his main tool for reaching people in his off-site network of colleagues and clients. Using email occupies about 70% of his average working day. Whenever Ismo expects that an e-mail to a Finnish-based principal will be forwarded to a third party (contractor), he will write it in English. He estimates that he writes about 90% of his e-mails in English.
At times, Ismo finds it difficult to successfully manage all the e-mail he receives. Especially in the case of large projects that have many design areas and functions he finds it demanding (not only because of the multitude of messages) to decide which messages to read and which to react upon. It may be problematic to identify the roles and tasks of those who created the messages in the large contracting network. An e-mail communication protocol introduced at Delta Engineering helps to solve some of these problems, although it does not support the identification of actors and their roles and tasks in the large project networks.
Another main channel of communication is the telephone. Ismo estimates that he spends about one hour daily on the phone communicating with Finnish, European and Asian colleagues and clients. About 60% of the phone calls are in English, 35 % in Swedish, and 5% in Finnish. Teleconferences are not very common; in spite of the obvious advantages (saving time, bringing several persons together, etc.), they might not be ideal for networking and collaboration. Ismo says he does not like to have more than three people in a teleconference, especially if the conference has people with widely varied roles, tasks and cultural /business backgrounds (e.g. European and Asian), and one has never met them in person.
Ismo has made visits to the Asian subsidiary and has had engineers who represent this cultural background working in his section at the head office. This has given him an opportunity to learn about intercultural differences and their impact on working life. Business cultures can vary from country to country, and even within the same national culture. Naturally, it helps a lot if one has arrived at these insights based on experiences, workable interactive strategies, and a personality that facilitates interaction with professionals with different backgrounds.
It seems inevitable that intercultural differences come into play in the context of transnational engineering projects, sometimes bringing about major challenges. Ismo tells that Indian business organisations, for example, may embrace ‘old-fashioned’ and hierarchical leadership practices where the subordinate is more dependent on the decisions of the superior and has less say about issues at work. The manager/ superior who sits higher up in the organisation, has ‘total power for leadership and management,’ he says, while in the European business organisation the subordinate is more often consulted and more readily trusted for his or her expertise whenever decisions are to be made.
23 Yet, in Europe communication style/culture can be rather varied, too. While working in Germany Ismo noticed that if he was having difficulty understanding the German communication partners, they tended to raise their voices, to which Ismo routinely reacted saying he had no problems hearing, but only understanding their language, which then helped lead to a solution. Ismo doubts if one could get insight about intercultural differences by reading books; experiential learning is far more efficient.
The professional literature that Ismo reads comprises, among other things, Eurocodes and corresponding U.S. standards. The Eurocode system includes ten standards for the structural and civil engineering that cover the following areas: buildings (e.g. general rules and rules for buildings, design of joints, material properties; basis of structural design); bridges, and composite bridges. Ismo explains that he reads the standards - sometimes comparing with the corresponding national standards - mostly on a daily, sometimes on a weekly, basis.
Ismo writes documents such as reports, or statements twice a month. These are typically concise, covering about one thousand words (equivalent to two A4s) on the average, and issued as an official statement by Delta Engineering. An example of such a document would deal with the strength of a concrete structure. The writer here cannot really base it on a template (i.e. a model document), because the statement is always unique; yet there are comparable model documents available in Delta’s electronic information system.
When writing documents in English he always aims at credibility, trustworthiness, and acceptable language – but not total freedom from errors. In other words, Ismo does not aim at ‘perfect language’ as a document writer. Although Ismo regards himself as a skilled writer of professional documents in English, he is more confident and finds himself more proficient in spoken situations. He is more skilled at dealing with people and issues much more efficiently at meetings and negotiations than in writing; this strength is the result of experience as a professional communicator in the engineering field.
Demanding communication situations for Ismo have been of three main types; firstly, those involving misunderstandings or misinterpretations of technical project information. In these situations, which luckily do not occur too often, one has to admit that things are being done the wrong way in the project, and react immediately to resolve the problem situation, thus preventing a waste of resources, which is of utmost importance. An element of cost is very often also involved in this, and therefore it is in the interest of everybody to correct, clarify and re-interpret the data available. Secondly, writing technical reports and minutes of meetings/ negotiations can also be demanding, because the information in the end result must be 100% correct. Thirdly, the working experience in Germany was a challenge to Ismo, simply because of his lack of knowledge of the German language.
24 SNAPSHOT 5:
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this professional communicator profile:
Esko Johnson conducted a semi-structured interview in Finnish with Karl Wikman (pseudonym) on 12 April at Delta Engineering (pseudonym). The interview, which lasted about 1.5 hours, was recorded using a cassette recorder.
At the interview the researcher used a questionnaire (in paper format) adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23. Note: only one column, for English.
The interview was first transcribed in Finnish. The transcript and questionnaire data were coded, thematized, and then compared and combined to create the ‘snapshot’ narrative account. Names of the individuals, locations and the business organization, etc. mentioned by the interviewee were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewee.
Delta Engineering, 12 April 2006
Informant data: Karl Wikman (pseudonym) works as a designer of steel structures for Delta Engineering Ltd. (pseudonym). This is an engineering company employing some two hundred staff in projects commissioned by major engineering companies in Finland. The company belongs to Delta Group Ltd. (pseudonym), based in Finland and having sites in Finland, Sweden, and Asia. - Please see Profile Two for more about the company.
Prior to his present job, which he has held for about one and a half years, Karl Wikman was employed in design duties; first, with an architectural and engineering company, and later, over a period of five years, with a manufacturer of steel products.
Karl received his BEng (ingenjör, YH) degree in Construction Engineering from a Swedish- language polytechnic in 2002, which he had entered after completing a secondary-level technical education.
In Delta Engineering Ltd., Karl designs steels structures in the section for structural and civil engineering. This is the section of the company that Section Manager Lars Tallberg is responsible for (see Profile One), and where Ismo Mattila is employed as Chief Designer and specialist in the area of designing concrete structures (see Profile Two for more).
Karl’s native language is Swedish, and he is multilingual in three languages. At work Karl also needs Finnish and English, since the three languages have prominent positions in the engineering company. In Scandinavian technology projects, Karl says he is also expected to have a command of Danish and Norwegian, since Swedish is his native language, and it is related to these two languages. At times Karl uses German, and more rarely some Russian or French. This is mainly when adding details such as dimensions in drawings. For this purpose, he resorts to specialist dictionaries available online.
25 Each day, Karl spends about half an hour talking on the telephone, and very often the phone calls also involve interaction in English. He regularly attends meetings and negotiations, representing his own field of design, as he has never had the responsibilities of a project manager. At these events, he typically gives an informal presentation on a particular technical issue and interacts from this perspective.
E-mail is by far Karl’s most important tool of workplace communication (see Appendix 1). He estimates that he spends some eighty percent of his time on e-mail, and has calculated that he reads in detail up to twenty e-mails and writes about ten messages each day at work.
Some of the e-mails Karl writes can be fairly long, especially the ones that he sends to project members employed at Delta Engineering’s South-East Asian subsidiary. Through these experiences, Karl has gained insights into intercultural communication. According to Karl, his South-East Asian colleagues ‘need more than one or two lines in the message’ - they expect to get more background data and explanations than his European colleagues. Their very good language skills, on the other hand, would rarely create any problems. In the case of new people that one does not know very well, and with colleagues in the South-East Asian subsidiary--especially if they are management, not one’s peers--it is a good practice to be somewhat more formal and polite, and to use an indirect approach.
Yet, Karl likes to maintain his own point of view that ‘if you have to get something done at work and in the project, it’s no use beating around the bush.’ Communicating with Finnish professionals, for example, one can very well jump into the issue at hand, and leave out the regular salutations and closings.
Each engineering project at Delta Engineering lasts about three months. During this time, one learns from recurring or similar situations, for instance, which approach to use, the indirect or direct way, when interacting with each of the individuals in the project team.
Karl explains that his written skills in English are stronger but not necessarily more important than his spoken skills. Stating this, he seems to regret that he is less skilled in oral English. He occasionally experiences a skills gap and feels frustrated e.g. when talking on the phone, as his thoughts run fast, but he cannot find the right expressions or paraphrases to explain quickly enough what he thinks.
On the phone, ‘one can’t really sit quiet and just listen too long… you have to get the message across, and fast enough.’ When communicating in writing, on the other hand, there is always an advantage that one can set the piece of writing aside and come back to it after a while.
Karl attributes his skills gap in oral communication to two things: first, the way English was taught in the polytechnic. He says it was quite easy to pass the courses merely sitting in the class and taking part successfully enough in written tests, since spoken skills got little attention in student assessment and grading. Second, the very nature of his work description does not always optimally support language learning. It is ‘solitary work sitting in front of a computer - not very social at all.’ Yet, being immersed in a working environment where English has a strong position, Karl often notices that he has acquired and is using in his writings ’smart phrases’ that he noticed somebody else using months ago.
Karl says Delta Engineering’s management systematically recommends and supports the use of English only for both internal and external communication and documentation. However, he finds it much more natural to write e-mail and other communication in Swedish or Finnish, which are
26 the native languages of most of his colleagues, as long as the message and the details related are not going to be forwarded and used externally.
Demanding Communication Situations. While employed in his previous job at the steel product manufacturer, Karl had an incident he remembers well. With a colleague from his own company, he attended a meeting held in Denmark that had a focus on engineering and design issues. The meeting was organised by a local consultancy specialising in concrete structures and acting as the main contractor in the project. From the very beginning of the meeting, communication took place in Danish. As Karl had difficulties understanding what was said, he asked the four Danes to speak more slowly, which they promised to do, and did accordingly, yet after a while the discussion in Danish got too intensive for Karl to follow. To help him understand what was going on, one of the Danes offered to interpret the discussion. However, interpreting the talk was not very successful, as it tended to cause shared frustrations. This went on until lunch, and following lunch for another three hours.
27 SNAPSHOT 6:
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this professional communicator profile
Esko Johnson conducted a semi-structured pair interview in Finnish with Erkki Laitinen and Simo Rantala (pseudonyms) on 18 April at Coverex Building Systems (pseudonym). The interview, which lasted about 2 hours, was recorded using a Sony MD recorder.
At the interview he used two questionnaires in paper format: one adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23 (note: only one column, for English). The second questionnaire he used is similar to a survey, the Web version of which is currently available at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162
The pair interview was first transcribed in Finnish. The transcripts and questionnaire data were coded, thematized, and then compared and combined to create the snapshot narrative accounts. Names of the individuals, locations and the business organization, etc. mentioned by the interviewees were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewees.
Coverex Building Systems, 18 April 2006
Informant data: Simo Rantala (pseudonym) graduated from a Swedish-language institute of technology in Finland eighteen years ago, and has a degree in Construction Engineering (byggnadsingenjör). He has worked for three previous employers, and since 1998 has been employed as a designer of steel structures at Coverex Building Systems (CBS; pseudonym); see Communicator Profile Four for more about CBS. During the eighteen years of his career Simo has gained substantial expertise within structural design and membrane building. He is highly committed to updating his professional knowledge and is currently taking a PD course in welded structures organised by a technical university.
Both Finnish and Swedish are used in internal communication at CBS, and English for communicating about marketing and building projects externally. This is ideal for Simo, who was raised in Stockholm, Sweden, and is bilingual in the two languages. Code switching between the languages is easy for him at the CBS office. While studying at the institute of technology in the eighties he says he had difficulties understanding the Ostrobothnian (Swedish) accent. Yet nearly twenty years later at CBS he still needs to be ‘aware of not showing off his posh Stockholm accent,’ and tunes in by using another accent which is closer to the local variant. In spite of the regular language contact with Swedish, Simo often suspects that some of his engineering terms and general vocabulary might be gradually weakening, but tries to find ways to fight this attrition.
Simo does not travel nearly as much as he did in the early years of his career when he ‘ran around to meet clients in Sweden and Norway.’ The CBS sales staff take care of business negotiations, but consult Simo and use his reports, specifications and instructions in the negotiation process. The meetings and negotiations Simo regularly attends include project start-up meetings and project
28 audits; installation meetings2, and inspection meetings. Simo also attends international conferences on construction and engineering on a regular basis.
Like his colleague, Erkki Laitinen, Simo says that his written skills in English are strong and more frequently needed than spoken skills, although he would much like to be equally competent in the two skill areas. Simo reads professional literature (books, periodicals, articles), standards, manuals, reports, and forms. He regularly writes project documentation that covers design issues with calculations; steel specifications; instructions on steel and other material qualities; instructions for installation, and reports and procedures on quality issues. He spends 3 to 4 hours on translating, writing and co-writing these in English each day. Signed (official) documents are today mostly sent as e-mail attachments in PDF format.
Working mostly in the CBS design office, Simo uses e-mail and the telephone as the main channels for communicating with clients and colleagues at a distance. Today Simo spends about one hour on electronic communication in English. But in the active phases of a North American delivery project that lasted one and a half years, e-mailing with the contractor took up to two hours daily. During that time he wrote about one hundred email messages, and had dozens of telephone calls, a couple of multi-site teleconferences, and five or six Internet-based telephone calls with the North American contractor and project partners. Simo adds that the special advantage with e-mail is it can be used as black & white proof for things that have been agreed on with the contractor.
Demanding communication situation. Simo recalls an incident in the North American project. CBS had sent two Finnish installation supervisors to Cincinnati, Ohio. They were to oversee that the cover fabric was installed by the local team properly. From Cincinnati, one of the Finns telephoned Simo to make sure how to install the cover fabric in windy weather conditions. With Simo’s special instructions, they went on, but soon phoned again to tell Simo that the local supervisor absolutely refused to proceed as advised.
To solve the conflict, Simo had to take the next flight to Cincinnati and sort out the problem. When Simo had arrived at the building site, they sat down together and went through the problem again. Suddenly the American supervisor lost his temper, stood up and shouted: ‘You’re full of shit, Simo! You gave us two instructions that are different.’ Simo, who had ‘never encountered such direct communication’ in his whole career, was confused, but kept his head, and simply told him: ‘That’s right, but I gave two sets of instructions, one for spreading out the fabric, the other one for installing it.’ The American supervisor then understood the situation and later, after the cover was installed successfully, apologised and shook hands with Simo. Also during the rest of the project he apologised on several occasions and explained how pressed he had been that week at work.
Simo wrote down the second instructions he had telephoned to reconstruct the cause of the problem. It turned out that the team had installed the fabric incorrectly, most likely because of the various verbalisations and interpretations of technical details by the non-native CBS supervisors, and this had given cause to the claim that Simo had given two instructions for the same procedure. However, Simo also identified an intercultural communication problem here: the American arrogance and uncompromising attitude in problem situations.
2 This is called asennuspalaveri in Finnish; to translate the commonly used word palaveri is problematic. The meaning of palaveri partly overlaps, but does not fully cover, these English equivalents: appointment (‘a formal arrangement to meet or visit someone at a particular time and place’- Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, CALD), meeting (an act or process of coming together - Merriam-Webster; an occasion when people come together intentionally [[or unintentionally]], - CALD), negotiation (the process of discussing something with someone in order to reach an agreement with them, or the discussions themselves, CALD).
29 30 SNAPSHOT 7:
Conditions and data-gathering methods for this communicator profile (i.e. ‘snapshot’) Esko Johnson conducted a semi-structured pair interview in Finnish with Erkki Laitinen and Simo Rantala (pseudonyms) on 18 April at Coverex Building Systems (pseudonym). The interview, which lasted about 2 hours, was recorded using a Sony MD recorder.
At the interview he used two questionnaires in paper format: one adapted from Koster, C. (ed.) Handbook of Language Auditing, p. 22-23 (note: only one column, for English). The second questionnaire he used was identical to the Web survey which is currently available at: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=87059&cid=24249162
The pair interview was first transcribed in Finnish. The transcripts and questionnaire data were coded, thematized, and then compared and combined to create the snapshot narrative accounts. Names of the individuals, locations and the business organization, etc. mentioned by the interviewees were changed or left out to respect the anonymity of the interviewees.
Coverex Building Systems, 18 April 2006
Informant data: Erkki Laitinen (pseudonym) graduated from a Finnish polytechnic in 2001. He holds a BEng degree (insinööri, AMK) in Construction and Environmental Engineering. Since five years ago, he is employed as a designer of steel structures at Coverex Building Systems (CBS; pseudonym), an SME company based in Finland.
CBS designs and delivers PVC covered steel frame buildings mainly in the EU area. These non- residential buildings are used for industrial, commercial, and recreational purposes. CBS does not only supply the buildings through its network of agents, but also offers solutions that cover design, installation at site, and maintenance and repairs. For each major delivery CBS establishes a project. The CBS project often involves the two steel structure designers Erkki Laitinen and Simo Rantala, his senior colleague (see Profile Five for Simo Rantala) to work together. The delivery of projects varies over the CBS market area from year to year, which again affects the frequency and intensity of communication in various languages.
Erkki’s native language is Finnish, as in the case of most of his colleagues; a minority of his colleagues are bilingual in Swedish and Finnish. Language switching between the two languages is common, and sometimes employees in a CBS department may decide to communicate internally in the second language, Swedish, only in order to brush up their skills more systematically.
Erkki occasionally uses German, for instance when including captions in blueprints and other technical documents. Because Erkki’s foreign language skills are rather limited to English and Swedish, his colleagues or CBS agents who are in charge of sales and marketing can offer assistance whenever help is needed in communicating technical issues.
In addition to Finnish and some Swedish (in internal communication), Erkki regularly uses English (in external communication). Erkki tells that his written skills in English are both stronger and more frequently needed than spoken skills. The professional literature in English that Erkki reads is made up of standards, manuals, reports, and forms. Erkki writes project documentation
31 which includes e.g. structural designs with calculations, installation instructions, inspection plans, and reports on quality issues.
Because Erkki does not travel much for work, e-mail and the telephone are his main channels for keeping in touch with his clients and off-site colleagues. However, he finds e-mail is better suited than the telephone to exchanging specific information and discussing design and other technical details: ‘There’s more emphasis on e-mail. I ask about details, and I hope that they will reply by e-mail so I can write my response properly…I also like to send a detailed drawing as an attachment, to clarify the issue.’ The messages deal e.g. with repair issues and details needed for installation, or instructions for fixing bugs in the building delivery. At times, Erkki thinks it ‘takes too much time to write an e-mail abroad.’
Using e-mail for communicating in English takes about one hour daily, but can take much more and involve e-mailing every day when each project delivery is in the active phase of the project. This is roughly the same amount of time he uses on writing technical reports and other documents in English, which he often does by co-writing or with comments from his colleagues at the CBS site.
In each export delivery, the CBS installation/maintenance team with its Finnish supervisor serves as a link between the building site and the design office. Therefore, Erkki rarely takes part in negotiations and meetings abroad. However, these events have caused demanding communication situations that Erkki recalls. One of these meetings took place at a Russian oil-drilling site. Erkki was in charge of negotiating the rather complex installation of a CBS delivery together with several other parties. Each of these had their own interest: the North-American contractor, a Scandinavian oil company commissioning CBS; a British engineering company, and a South- European installation company. The meeting took six hours in all. This was partly because the installation company insisted on alternative procedures for installing the inner fabric cover, and did not seem to accept CBS’s standard method.
‘I couldn’t really figure out what he said in his broken English… he went on and on, and brought up again and again the way he thought the fabric should be installed. He wanted to change the method, and also to have another fabric layout, and didn’t seem to listen when I said I’d send him some photos by e-mail.’ In spite of this disagreement, the prolonged meeting ended successfully, and Erkki returned taking a later flight back home.
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