Discourse Analysis in “Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities”

Introduction

The text “Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities” is chosen from Oracle Customer Case Study. It is a comprehensive and informative manual of the Higher Education Commission in Pakistan. This manual consists of four pages in which the main body of the text has seven subtitles： （1） Brief Introduction; （2） Student Administration Information Delivered Fast; （3） Improved Efficiency with Electronic Records; （4） The future; （5） Why Oracle; （6） Implementation Process; （7） Advice from Higher Education Commission. Meanwhile， the column sited on the left also provides relative information concerning Industry， number of employee， etc.

Considered as a kind of professional communication， the text written and issued by Higher Education Commission， is available to a certain range of people. In other words， the readers of the text could be： university students， university staffs， professors， academic advisors， and administration staff—those who will get benefit from the Higher Education Commission. Meanwhile， this manual is also for the ones who are interested in University system in Pakistan.

Analysis and discussion

In this part， I will elaborate my analysis of “Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities” at cognitive， pragmatic and macrothematic levels. Some terms that I will use are for texts in technological or scientific or popular science field， but I think they still work well in the text I choose.

（1）Cognitive level

As Gunnarson stated， “a text reflects the beliefs and the norms of the professional community to which the author belongs. The cognitive level of the text reflects how the author structures the knowledge he or she wants to present or at least what the author believes is the accepted way of structuring this knowledge within the school or group to which he or she belongs.” （Gunnarson， 2009， p31） Moreover， language is one of the most important factors in illustrating the beliefs and norms of the author. Let alone the content of the text， if we just look through the text in one minute， we can find that the text is written in English instead of Urdu language， which is the national language in Pakistan. Why does HEC prefer English？

Gunnarson also suggested that we use language to construct professional knowledge. And if we consider a professional group as a whole， we see that its professional language has developed as a means of expressing the professional view of reality. （Gunnarson， p18）

HEC is an educational institution in Pakistan. Its work and services are also provided in Pakistan universities. The professional view of the reality is that people who had already got high education grasp English very well in Pakistan. That could be one of the reasons for the text to be put in English. Most importantly， the HEC also aims to let the world know about its service and works， for the reason that education is a world-wide topic. And HEC also provides the website： www.hec.gov.pk on the left column to welcome its visitor all over the world. The website is also written in English.

（2）Pragmatic level

The perspective of pragmatic analysis can be divided into two categories—the micro analysis and macro analysis. Micro analysis is based on Searle’s speech act theory which consists of six main types of speech act： formative， explicative， expressive， argumentative， directive and metacommunicative. （Gunnarson， p41） The use of speech act goes through the whole text. I will take the words in paragraph one as an example：

“The Higher Education Commission （HEC） was established by the Government of Pakistan in 2002. Since then， the HEC has undertaken a five-year reform process to turn Pakistan’s universities into world-class centers of education and research and development. Today， the HEC is investing in the development of 124 private and public institutions across Pakistan.” （Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities， p1）

These words are used to describe the history， function， position and development of the HEC. So it belongs to the informative and explicative types of speech act.

As for the macro analysis， it focuses on action and goal-directed structure of communication and auxiliary information. （Gunnarson， p41-42） The goal of the text， as I have mentioned in the former paragraph， is to give a brief introduction of the HEC to the people who need it. In addition， it also provides the inner culture of this institution. Concerning the auxiliary information， firstly， it is obvious that the source of the text is from official website of HEC， and the sender of the text is HEC. In the first page of the text， there is an illustration as following：

Logo of an institution is a symbol of authority. The logo marked with HEC identified its authority to this institution. Moreover， a “speaker” named Dr Sohail Naqvi， his word appears all over the text， giving introduction， making comments， etc. His identity is also given in the text—Dr Sohail Naqvi， Executive Director， Higher Education Commission （下轉第頁）

（上接第頁）

which guarantees that the information given in the text is authoritive and reliable. It is also can be considered as a representation of ethos， focusing on the credibility. Secondly， in part two “Student Administration Information Delivered Fast” gives examples in how HEC works and how its work comes into efficiency： “Professors， academic advisors， and administration staff spend much less time on administrative tasks. For

example， it previously took six to 12 months for some students to receive their university degrees. This process now takes no more than one week.” （Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities， p1） Besides， the “Key Benefits” which sites in the left column clearly states the benefits of the HEC which can be considered as the short summary of the main part of the text and it is easier to attract readers’ attention by being positioned in the left column. All these logo and examples are used to illustrate the professional image of HEC.

（3）Macrothematic level

Macrothematic analysis deals with structure of a text. Gunnarson has pointed out that for scientific and popular science; the analysis of the content structuring comprises two steps. The first step involves four superthemes， namely： Introduction， Theme development， discussion and Conclusion. （Gunnarson， p41-42） I think it also applied well with the structure of this text.

Part one is the introduction part. It gives brief introduction to HEC. And part two “Student Administration Information Delivered Fast” and part three “Improved Efficiency with Electronic Records” is the theme development part which brings about its beneficent and working process in details. Part 4 “The future” is the discussion part. Part five “Why Oracle”， part six “Implementation Process” and part seven “Advice from Higher Education Commission” are the conclusion part. It explains the problems the HEC had met and how it worked with Oracle to solve the problem and also gives suggestion for the future action.

Summary

To sum up， upon the analysis， the text “Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities” is well organized and informative in content. M?rdsj? argues that technical manuals can be considered as “communicative genres”， which means they are more than a text but always having the function of communication.（M?rdsj?， 1992， P280-281） So does this manual. It does not only provide the readers careful introduction of the HEC， but also succeeds in establishing good relationship between the reader and the sender HEC by providing websites in the text in order to welcome future visit of the commission.

Reference：

[1]Britt-Louise Gunnarsson， 2009， Professional Discourse， Continuum

[2]Higher Education Commission Automates Student Administration at Pakistan Universities