How Should Quality Management be Taught?

The teaching of quality management at Chalmers University is described in detail and there is discussion of some important issues to be considered. Possible developments in quality management education for engineers are discussed.     

Keeping Secrets: ESP/LSP and the sociology of knowledge

Summary This article examines the notions of ‘specialisation’ or ‘specificity’ as they are used in expressions such as ‘English for special purposes’ (ESP) or languages for specific purposes’ (LSP). It is argued that a given variety of language is not ‘special’ or ‘specific’ in some absolute or objective way, inherent to its formal structures, topics and norms. ‘Specificity’ is, rather, the result of a particular relationship between participant and discourse, between two cultures or worlds of knowledge. For these reasons, it is often not particularly helpful to attempt to describe specific varieties in terms of linguistic features. Instead, we need to situate the problem within a general theory of the sociology of knowledge by asking fundamental questions such as ‘Specialised for who?’ and ‘Who knows what?’, ‘How do they acquire and use their knowledge?’. Such a theory will necessarily be both relative and social: relative to the individual and to the way in which knowledge is socially distributed. But it will also be a theory of discourse, since interactive language‐use is the principal mechanism by which individuals acquire, stock and share all knowledge, ‘specialised’ or otherwise. It is suggested that two factors need to be kept in mind by the didactician interested in LSP. First, is the discourse asymmetric?, i.e. does it assume or contain knowledge which the learner does not have? Secondly, is the discourse non‐collaborative?, i.e. one where no attempt is made to share the knowledge with uninitiated participants.     

The interaction of conditioned taste aversions and schedule-induced polydipsia: Availability of alternative behaviors

Animals poisoned following exposure to saccharin subsequently avoided the schedule-induced consumption of saccharin. While this suppression was transient for subjects who had access only to the saccharin solution during the free-food presentations, recovery of schedule-induced saccharin consumption was significantly retarded for subjects who had concurrent access to saccharin and a running wheel. It has been suggested that the transient suppression of schedule-induced polydipsia by conditioned taste aversions results from the pellet-induced tendency to drink within the schedule-induced polydipsia procedure. That access to the running wheel reduces schedule-induced polydipsia in general and prolongs the suppression of schedule-induced polydipsia by taste aversions supports this view.