Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 971
Part of Session 169: Sociolinguistic perspectives on the internationalization of HE (Other abstracts in this session)
Discourses of Literacy on an International Master’s Programme: Examining Students’ Academic Writing Norms
Authors: McCambridge, Laura; Pitkänen-Huhta, Anna
Submitted by: McCambridge, Laura Liisa (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
English has long been the dominant lingua franca in international scientific communities and this dominance is in turn reflected in higher education worldwide: students are increasingly expected to be able to read course material written in English and in many European countries are expected to be proficient in academic English before graduating. A more recent development of this trend is the growing number of degree programmes conducted entirely through English in countries where it is not an official language. Finland is a prime example: all Finnish universities now offer at least one English medium programme. These ‘international’ programmes attract students and teachers from around the world, forming remarkably multicultural, multilingual discourse communities where English is used for participation and learning. English academic literacy in particular typically plays a central role on these programmes, with students’ learning and assessment culminating in the completion of a thesis.
Most research into English academic writing in non-English speaking countries has thus far been from an ESP (English for Specific Purposes) perspective with the aim of determining how students can best improve their language and acquire the academic writing norms of an apparently monolithic English-speaking world. Fewer studies have looked at this context from a sociolinguistic perspective, with the aim of understanding the norms of English use within these programmes as discourse communities in their own right and how they reflect the social world in which they exist. With this agenda in mind, we take an ‘Academic Literacies’ approach to investigating students’ expressed norms of English academic writing on an International Master’s programme, perceiving these norms to be ideological and interwoven with the purposes, values and power structures of the society that shapes them. International programmes where English is used as a lingua-franca between highly mobile students are particularly interesting from this viewpoint, as intersections between local and global social scales. These programmes therefore offer a valuable opportunity to explore the tensions and conflicts brought about by the globalization of English in academia.
The data for this study consist of semi-structured interviews with students from Finland, Germany, China, Japan, Iran and Brazil upon beginning an English medium Master’s programme in Jyväskylä, Finland. These students were asked about their previous experiences with English academic writing and their perceptions of good, normal and correct academic writing in English. Their answers were then analyzed to identify common discourses on the subject, as well as to uncover the authorities students oriented to in explaining correct practices. On a global level, it was found that students readily and easily resorted to seemingly universal norms of good English academic writing, usually with native English-speaking academics as authoritative models to follow. On a local level, however, these norms seemed to clash with their personal experiences of writing in various contexts and with the authority of local, often non-native, teachers.