Abstract
Following an exploration of engineering programmes in higher education, and a review of literature on engineering registers, genres
and disciplines, this paper asks if there is a register for engineering. Word frequencies, n-grams and frequent n-grams in context
were analysed in a 7.3 million word corpus created from four sections (Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results &
Discussion, Conclusion) of over 1000 articles in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering. From the perspective of systemic
functional linguistics, this reveals how engineering is construed through language that reflects the social context of high
impact, open access, multi-modal, 21st century, international journal article publication, with multiple author roles, and
prescribed genres, where reviewers focus on problem solving and facts, rather than persuasive claims.
