Faculty Profile

Professor: Computer Science

Michael McDONALD

• MA in Music

Research area:

• Technical writing
• Text analysis

Related site:

• http://www.k.hosei.ac.jp/~mcdonald/

Personal Statement

I grew up in Liverpool when the Beatles were just becoming popular. Both my parents were classical musicians. I also studied music at university, but after teaching music for a short time (in Yemen) I became an English teacher, and taught at language schools in England and Japan for 10 years. In 1987 I changed jobs again, when I joined IBM Japan as a technical editor. Since coming to Hosei in 2000, I have been able to combine my two most recent lines of work by teaching both English and technical writing. Of course, I still love music, but it’s just my hobby now.

Message

Every time I meet business people in Japan, I hear the same message: we need people who can speak and understand English. At one time, English was not essential for a high-level career in this country. That is no longer true, especially in the IT world. The globalization of the economy and technology means that most IT business is international, and the common language of international business is English. Our international faculty provides an opportunity not only to study English, but to use it for real communication.

Teaching Courses

Undergraduate School

• Communication English 1
• Understanding English 1
• Communication English 2
• Understanding English 2
• Technical Writing 1
• Technical Writing 2

Research Area

Research Motivation

Fostering international communication skills

My professional life has been dedicated to helping non-native English speakers to live and work in an international environment. In my last two jobs, at IBM Japan and Hosei, my particular focus has been on helping technically minded people to realize their full potential internationally by developing their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in the international language of science: English. To do this effectively, I need to understand in detail how English-speaking scientists communicate professionally, and how to pass on this understanding to non-native English speakers. I am interested in all forms of technical communication, but my special interest is technical writing.

Text analysis

How do we build a text?

My current research interests are the structural and rhetorical organization of text, particularly the ways in which research papers are constructed in accordance with academic conventions. Drawing on several traditions of discourse analysis, particularly those of genre analysis (Swales), rhetorical patterning of text (Winter, Hoey), and systemic functional grammar (Halliday), I hope to clarify the ways in which expert writers present technical discussions, and to use the insights gained to enhance the teaching of technical writing.