The role of technical communicators is expanding due to technology. However, many individuals throughout Europe gain employment as technical communicators without undergoing specialized training. TecCOMFrame, a three-year project funded by the European Union, aims to develop: 1) a common academic qualification and competence framework for technical communication; 2) prototypes of technical communication curricula; 3) a competence and qualification profiling tool and an update of the TecDocNet Guideline, which describes professional education and training of technical communicators in Europe. TecCOMFrame is coordinated by tekom Europe and involves academic partners from eight European countries. The project started in September 2015. Partners have worked on the development of the qualification and competence framework, which was finalized and published at the beginning of 2017. Partners are now developing prototype curricula. Throughout the project, partners collect feedback from academics, practitioners and employers in technical communication to ensure that the project results meet the needs of all stakeholders. This paper discusses the background to the project and the process of developing the framework and curricula.
In Europe, the number of academic programs in technical communication is limited, and the academic profile of the field remains low as a result. The threeyear TecCOMFrame project, designed to address the shortage of academic programs, began in October 2015. The project involves academic partners from eight European countries and is coordinated by Tekom Europe, the European Association for Technical Communication. The project deliverables include an academic competence framework and several prototype curricula developed from the competence framework. The process of developing the prototypes was iterative and collaborative. The purpose of the prototypes is to provide inspiration and guidance for academics planning to develop a technical communication program. The prototypes follow European norms as outlined by the Bologna process: each curriculum corresponds to a level within the European Qualifications Framework, specifies European credits, and includes modules, subjects and learning goals. The prototypes include a three-semester master's program and a master's-level specialization in a language studies program.
This study investigates Nigerian and English interjections and emojis used for expressing surprise in Nigerian online communication. Interested in the factors influencing the choice between a shocked emoji and an English or Nigerian interjection, we apply automated emotion analysis and a language detection measurement we developed for an 840‐million‐word web forum corpus to test the influence of these and further variables on the choice of a surprise item. Our multinomial regression model suggests that the probability of Nigerian interjections is higher in messages containing Nigerian Pidgin, informal orthographically lengthened words, and positive emotions, while the shocked emoji occurs in negative contexts, in messages by established forum members, and alongside other emojis. The sad emoji, however, favors English‐language interjections, as do high arousal and emotionally laden words. Moreover, we argue that interjections are not only a spoken phenomenon but occur in any type of communication characterized by interactivity and emotional involvement.
This paper investigates the use of Nigerian English in lingua-franca interaction in Germany, focussing on the perspective of the German listener. Fifty-eight German-speaking respondents were asked to transcribe short extracts from English interviews recorded with Nigerian immigrants and sojourners resident in Germany. In addition to testing comprehension, respondents were requested to rate samples along parameters designed to measure speaker likability and competence. The study’s two major findings are that, in spite of the absence of contextual clues, respondents perform better than expected in the comprehension task, but that the single greatest obstacle to comprehension is the presence of German-language material in the stimulus. As realistic English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) interaction in Germany necessarily involves a level of English-German mixing, the experiment thus points to a major practical problem in ELF interaction. The study also yields provisional findings on gender (with male voices being understood better than female ones) and interactions between assumptions about speakers and transcription performance that should be revisited in future research.
Technical communication is a new field of work compared to other professions, and therefore it does not have a standardised curriculum. In Europe, many technical communicators do not have qualifications in the area. TecCOMFrame, a project funded by the European Union, aims to develop an academic competence framework and higher education prototype curricula at various levels that correspond to the European Framework of Qualifications. The project team has developed the competence framework, comprising six dimensions and 22 subjects. The team is currently developing prototype curricula, including one curriculum which is a focus of this paper, a specialisation stream in technical communication in a Master’s in Translation Studies.
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