Academic Style Proofreading: An Introduction 1800797303, 9781800797307

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ACADEMIC STYLE PROOFREADING

CONTEMPORARY STUDIES IN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS VOL. 54 Edited by PROFESSOR GRAEME DAVIS & KARL A. BERNHARDT

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

Roxanne Barbara Doerr

ACADEMIC STYLE PROOFREADING

AN INTRODUCTION

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Doerr, Roxanne, author. Title: Academic style proofreading : an introduction / Roxanne Barbara Doerr. Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, [2023] | Series: Contemporary studies in descriptive linguistics, 1660-9301 ; vol no. 54 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036136 (print) | LCCN 2022036137 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800797307 (paperback) | ISBN 9781800797314 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800797321 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Academic writing. | Proofreading. | English language--Study and teaching (Higher)--Foreign speakers. | English language--Errors of usage. Classification: LCC P301.5.A27 D64 2023 (print) | LCC P301.5.A27 (ebook) | DDC 808.02--dc23/eng/20220917 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036136 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036137 Cover design by Peter Lang Ltd. ISSN 1660-9301 ISBN 978-1-80079-730-7 (print) ISBN 978-1-80079-731-4 (ePDF) ISBN 978-1-80079-732-1 (ePub) © Peter Lang Group AG 2023 Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers, Oxford, United Kingdom [email protected], www.peterlang.com Roxanne Barbara Doerr has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work. All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed.

Contents

List of tables

vii

Foreword

ix

Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction

xiii

1

Chapter 2 Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands and profiles

15

Chapter 3 Publishing in academia is a matter of ‘style’

61

Chapter 4 Style and stylistics in academic English and proofreading

87

Chapter 5 Methodology, dataset and areas of interest

119

Chapter 6 Qualitative analysis and main findings

151

vi

Contents

Chapter 7 Concluding remarks and considerations

201

Bibliography

215

Index

235

Tables

Table 1.

Terminology card: Revisor

25

Table 2.

Terminology card: Copyeditor

32

Table 3.

Terminology card: Proofreader

38

Table 4.

Most common content words and verbs in ECO subcorpus

135

Table 5.

Most common content words and verbs in HUM subcorpus

139

Foreword

Among the many consequences of globalisation, we must not forget the widening of horizons that has resulted from the internationalisation of academia and academic disciplines. Dealing with a global economy means working within a global knowledge economy, with the promotion of knowledge sharing on a global level in an attempt to extend debates with a multiplicity of peers and stakeholders. Such collaboration leads to the creation and strengthening of connections and relationships among scholars from different countries and higher education institutions. When interacting, these academics display diverse communicative and organisational behaviours that reflect their cultural and linguistic backgrounds and, in turn, their professional and personal identities. Indeed, a scholar’s academic identity is created and built throughout his or her career, starting in the classroom and growing with each international publication and partnership in English, which is currently recognised as the global scientific language and the main means to connect with one another. Accordingly, university systems all over the world have followed suit and adopted the forms and standards of communication, as well as the organisational culture, of the international academic discourse community. When this variety of English is achievable by non-​natives and aligned with their communicative patterns and academic culture, it is fast and efficient; on the other hand, when it is exclusive and restricted, it slows down and limits knowledge sharing. This is where the main term proposed by this book comes into play: academic style proofreading. Differences in academic approaches stem from the diversity of academic linguistic and cultural mindsets that must be voiced and circulated so as to open the floor of academic debates to various cross-​cultural perspectives. For this to happen, and to communicate better within the academic community, alongside the question of ‘what’ to communicate, there is also the question of ‘how’ to communicate. This ‘how’ has been extensively studied in terms of vocabulary, grammar, syntax and textual

x

Foreword

organisation, but there is an equally significant component that has been overshadowed, that is ‘academic style’. The struggles of non-​native academics to get their work published have been dealt with extensively in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and ERPP (English for Research Publication Purposes), but style has still not been considered as a significant part of textbooks and courses. The word ‘style’, in fact, is used on an everyday basis and often dismissed as unmeasurable. In truth, it hides a significant knowledge gap that can impact on an academic’s chances of being published in international journals. In addition, the analysis of style has been hitherto approached only in a fragmented manner, and more specifically in the field of stylistics with literary and rhetorical origins. Therefore, the only way to approach this fragmented field and enable academics (and, in particular, non-​native academics) to write and communicate more efficiently is to combine methods and frameworks deriving from different branches of linguistics. Doing so will yield qualitative and quantitative insights and better outline the main issues that non-​native academics have to consider when submitting their writing within a semi-​Anglo-​Saxon model of international academic communication. Along with academic style, this book approaches ‘academic proofreading’ to draw insights from the experience and practice of language professionals who become mediators between academics and the promoters of knowledge in international publishing. These, in fact, are the professionals who are in the best position to intervene on behalf of non-​native academics and help them with the style of their writing. However, the role of these language professionals is often confused and intermingled with those of copyeditors and revisors, and they are often expected to either correct everything in the initial phase or correct as little as possible at the end, as the terminological study points out. Because stylistic ‘errors’ are often not pointed out because they are not ‘mistakes’, non-​native academics are unaware that these diverging patterns are noticed by other editors and language professionals. By understanding and underlining the importance of academic style (which is different from the style of non-​academic texts) during the proofreading phase, academic proofreaders provide a bridge between the individual scholar’s findings and the academic community’s reception of these findings by enabling the non-​native academic to gain awareness

Foreword

xi

of expected stylistic patterns and avoid at least some of the common criticisms regarding the language use of non-​native academics. This book therefore attempts to address these grey areas by using examples of proofread texts to focus on four broad categories of ‘errors’, why they occur and how they may be treated. This could be of assistance to three large groups: non-​native academics at all levels, proofreaders and other language experts in the international academic editorial field, and instructors of academic writing. It is also necessary for higher education institutions to understand the differences between intercultural communication and style in order to improve their relations with both national and international interlocutors. This awareness also enables practical and professional experience to be used to build theories and research on academic style, and therefore to plan and create materials that can be useful when including style in academic writing courses, in the spirit of experiential learning and knowledge sharing. In conclusion, this study encourages awareness and understanding of academic style proofreading on multiple levels. First of all, it promotes better understanding and valuing of the academic proofreading profession and the gradual and subtle increase in the requirements on it. Second, as regards communication within the academic discourse community, it allows academics to understand the impact that their language and style, as well as the underlying cultural mindset, have on others and how to develop their writing to convey their ideas and academic identity more clearly. Last but not least, it enables students and scholars at any stage of their career to train (or retrain) effectively and critically, and therefore to make their style publishable and appreciated within the scientific community. Ofelia Palermo, Nottingham Trent University

Abbreviations

AFEPI Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland CARLA Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition EAL English as an Additional Language EAP English for Academic Purposes ERPP English for Research Publication Purposes ESP English for Specific Purposes ESPP English for Scientific and Professional Purposes IATE Interactive Terminology for Europe IB international business IL interlanguage IMRaD Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion L1 first language NNS non-​native speaker RA research article SfEP Society for Editors and Proofreaders SVO subject-​verb-​object TL target language

Chapter 1

Introduction

The idea of studying the concept of ‘academic style proofreading’ and providing an introduction to it stems from the personal and professional experience as a revisor and proofreader of the author, who is a native English-​speaking academic working in the field of English language. More specifically, in light of increasingly frequent requests by linguistically competent non-​native academics to ‘revise’ and ‘correct’ papers that had sometimes already been translated and revised by a native speaker but rejected by reviewers and publishers on linguistic grounds, it became apparent that the idea of ‘good academic English’ was changing in the international academic context. While it is true that requesting a non-​native author to revise the language of his or her paper is often a way of further justifying a ‘minor revisions’ or ‘major revisions’ evaluation, it is also true that even the most reluctant academics have accepted that it is essential to write in proper academic English and have therefore trained or employed assistance accordingly. Nowadays, in fact, it is clear that publishing in international journals or with international publishing houses is considered to be a sign of prestige for both the academic and his or her institution, and has therefore become a determining factor in decisions on tenure and funding. This led to the realisation that the intervention of a native speaker (especially if he or she is not an academic) and studying EAP are no longer sure-​ fire guarantees that a paper will be linguistically acceptable. In fact, EAP is focused on the academic author’s written and oral production, over which he or she has control, and a proofreader can predictably intervene in the text by using the materials and resources at his or her disposal. EAP remains, however, unable to completely foresee the way a non-​native academic’s writing will be perceived beyond what is indisputably and grammatically

2

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‘correct’. Another, related, important field of research –​ERPP –​has already taken a step further and expounded on the requirements of international publishing, as well as the challenges and occasional injustices that non-​ native academics have to face when writing and publishing in English. It therefore focuses on the international academic community’s perception of an academic’s linguistic competence, and consequently on what is outside the non-​native academic’s and –​to a certain extent –​even the proofreader’s control. This has resulted in various proposals, editorial practices and standards, and didactic improvements, but there is still one piece missing: determining precisely which level of linguistic and discursive competence lies in the gap between the current level of teaching and training preparation of academics and the perception of the receiving community. Excluding what can and has already been taught and contemplated in textbooks and research makes it increasingly evident that this ‘gap’ is positioned between various linguistic levels and between language and discourse. As a result, it eludes any precise description, although it may be ‘sensed’ by experienced reviewers and editors. This linguistic, academic and research gap lies in ‘style’, an aspect of communication that has been studied since the times of Aristotelian rhetoric. However, it was epistemologically codified much later on, with the emergence of ‘stylistics’, a methodological approach that is as flexible and elusive as the object of its inquiry. Style, in this case, refers to ‘academic style’, which is different from the idea of ‘style’ in literature and everyday discourse. To some extent, academic style has been noticed and investigated as an area of particular interest and from a descriptive perspective in attempts to explain the style in which texts are written in specific disciplines and professions, or to provide native speakers with practical advice on how to adjust their style and improve their writing. Nevertheless, much remains to be explored in empirical terms and in relation to international publishing. Proofreading, as the ubiquitous practice that aims to ensure that an academic text is ready for submission or final publication, could represent the linguistic and stylistic point of mediation between the academic author and his or her target audience. It is also a position that provides a good overview of the current standing of English as the international lingua franca of academic knowledge exchange and approaching developments in this area.

Introduction

3

This led to the coining of the phrase that dominates the title of this book: ‘academic style proofreading’. This wording is intended to narrow the focus of stylistic inquiry to a combination of ‘academic proofreading’ –​as opposed to proofreading (and/​or copyediting where the two professions overlap) in non-​academic editorial practices –​and ‘academic style’, in an attempt to veer off the well-​trodden path of academic writing and EAP. Exploring academic style proofreading means involving the many and diverse professions that contribute to academic publishing, and considering how their skills may be effectively honed, integrated and employed to provide the necessary theoretical frameworks, professional and academic know-​how, and attitudinal approach to best communicate within a growing international knowledge-​based network and exchange. This book aims to address these three main areas and open the door to future research on all of them, hence the ‘an introduction’ in the title. As far as theoretical frameworks are concerned, due to the novelty of the field, the book presents a multifaceted analysis of academic style proofreading that considers various texts and methodologies in order to answer the questions that have arisen when deconstructing and reconstructing the concept of ‘academic style proofreading’. Academic proofreading, academic style and academic style proofreading are the three components that provide the foundations of the awareness and understanding of different aspects that are covered in respective parts of the book as each requires its own survey. As a result, academic proofreading makes use of terminology and the close-​reading analysis of online definitions, academic style includes reflections on the online genre of academic blogs, and academic style proofreading –​which is the main focus of this work –​is analysed using a combination of corpus stylistics and error analysis that has been carried out on a corpus of proofread research articles in economics and the humanities. Professional and academic know-​how are dealt with in the book through investigation of the competences of language professionals and, more precisely, revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders. The definition and understanding of their specific tasks and skills leads to the realisation that this is ‘style’ in an editorial sense, which is regulated through house style guides and copyeditors’ responsibilities for correcting and adjusting style when necessary. However, understanding that this is what is generally

4

chapter 1

meant by the word ‘style’ leads to yet another gap: determining ‘who’ is responsible for correcting or ‘treating’ academic style. This gap and the inability to address it leads to two risks: the risk that non-​native authors are blocked but not guided properly, and the risk that proofreaders who are also well versed in academic style are not appropriately valued even if they possess this special ‘sense of (academic) style’. The final element of change that is proposed in relation to academic style proofreading is in the attitude of both non-​native authors and proofreaders. In fact, while there is generally a clear intention and tendency for these two categories to collaborate for the good of the publication, some hesitance and resistance may emerge when it comes to interventions on academic style. As previously mentioned, in fact, academic style is hard to grasp for those who are not acquainted with it, and it is often either ignored or quickly glossed over in textbooks on academic English. Therefore, in the mind of an academic who has not had the opportunity to learn about –​ much less master –​this level of almost-​intuitive linguistic and discursive competence, any corrections or observations on style could be perceived as unjustified criticism from someone whose job is limited to correcting typos and indisputable mistakes. By the same token, a proofreader –​even one who is a native speaker –​who has not been instructed to intervene on style may feel obliged not to ‘overstep’ his or her boundaries by pointing out any divergences from the standards of the academic community, even when he or she has noted such occurrences. This is even more likely when the proofreader is dealing with a text in a discipline that he or she is not familiar or comfortable with, and therefore feels it is not his or her place to correct anything more than the common lexico-​grammatical and syntactic mistakes found in all disciplines. Therefore, to achieve true practice of academic style proofreading, it is necessary for both parties to fully understand that divergences in academic style are not truly ‘mistakes’ but rather ‘errors’ that are caused by the author’s incomplete awareness and understanding of subtleties, but can also impact on perceptions of the clarity and transparency of information in the text. Moreover, it is important to specify that changes in style improve the ‘flow’ and expression of the text without changing the content or meaning. One last –​but fundamental –​change in attitude requires the proofreader to assist the non-​native academic when

Introduction

5

‘treating’ and not ‘correcting’ academic style: for the author to accept and appreciate the proposed changes in style, the proofreader should briefly explain the reason for the modification. This will make the author aware of the presence of a stylistic convention and enable him or her to learn from the experience and improve his or her academic writing in the long run. This book seeks to provide insight on all of the above-​mentioned matters, as well as food for thought for their future study and implementation in research, proofreading and teaching/​training. The key to studying academic style proofreading lies in gathering and analysing real material and experience from academics (students, scholars, and EAP and ERPP instructors) and language professionals (revisors, copyeditors, proofreaders and reviewers) and exchanging proposals and solutions. These are also the people who the author hopes to help and console (in the case of rejections) by exploring a hitherto almost exclusively unspoken level of communication that can empower, just as it can discourage. Having provided the premises for the study, the rest of this introductory chapter will be dedicated to illustrating the aims and purposes of the work, and providing an outline of the book’s structure and line of reasoning.

1.1. Aims and purposes This book intends to explore an area of linguistics that is currently understudied and entirely lacking in systematic theoretical analysis, that is academic style proofreading. This gap may be attributed to the almost exclusive focus of EAP and its related error analysis studies on grammar or spelling, as well as the current widespread confusion surrounding the professions of the ‘copyeditor’ and ‘proofreader’. Such a knowledge gap is a result of the ‘slipperiness’ that characterises both the concept of ‘copyeditor’ in relation to style (and even more so with regard to academic style) and the professional profiles of the language professionals who have to deal with proofreading academic style. As far as the professional standing of proofreaders is concerned, much of the misunderstanding is due to the fact that proofreaders can intervene at multiple

6

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stages, especially in the case of academic publications by non-​native writers. Moreover, although ‘copyeditors’ are instructed to intervene on style in general, in academic publishing the notion of style becomes that of ‘academic style’, which must be checked after the text has been peer reviewed and adjusted accordingly (and therefore after the stage at which the copyeditor usually intervenes). This can and must be done in the final phase preceding the publication, and therefore at the moment when the final proofreading is performed. As a result, the professional dealing with this delicate moment stands at the crossroads between copyediting and proofreading, and fulfils a more extensive role than simply ensuring that there are no typos or obvious mistakes. Such a position leads to much confusion about the extent of the academic proofreader’s ‘presence’ within an academic text. The issue that stems from this increasingly specialised form of proofreading, that is the linguistic competence of those who carry out academic writing and proofreading, is an extremely urgent one. In fact, mastery over appropriate ‘academic style’ has become a factor that can explicitly or implicitly block or slow down academic research and publication by non-​native academics. While these academics are quite capable of communicating well in English, they face the challenges of writing highly specialised content in a language that is not their native tongue and has often been imposed on them by the understandable practical needs of the international academic community. Nevertheless, when they submit to high-​quality international academic journals, they are often simply labelled ‘non-​natives’ due to the underlying unconscious ‘non-​native’ style and flow of their writing. In fact, in contrast to other levels of linguistic competence and proofreading, the improvement in style of an academic’s scientific writing is one that is often acquired painstakingly and implicitly through the consistent reading and analysis of natives’ use of language, as well as constantly writing and learning from mistakes after receiving revisions from a native proofreader. In addition, the scarcity of studies and resources on academic style, combined with the vague descriptions in journal guidelines of what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ writing and style, and the often vague feedback with no explanation or examples from those who decree that the author must ‘revise the language’, do not allow non-​native authors to fully understand

Introduction

7

why their work has been rejected or how they can avoid similar outcomes when submitting their research in the future. The first aim of the book is therefore to shed light on the current standing of style in academic publishing by highlighting areas of potential confusion about specific categories of language professionals using terminology cards and the analysis of definitions from dictionaries and professional communities. This is followed by an exploration of the concept of ‘academic style’ within the international academic discourse community as a means of promoting homogeneous communication and a means of knowledge exchange on a collective level. In contrast, on an individual level, academic style entails an adjustment in thought processes and their illustration, as well as a change in language. It often represents a means of promoting or delaying an academic’s career and endowing him or her with a separate international academic identity in addition to their national one. However, it is now also possible for academics to reappropriate their academic identity to some extent by making productive use of online networks and channels for knowledge exchange, such as individual academic websites, videos and blogs. This study touches on the last two of these and their possible contribution to the cause of informing perplexed academics about the inner workings of academic style. A further difficulty in disseminating research on academic style in linguistics lies in the constant interaction between ‘stylistics’ and ‘style’ and in their hybrid nature, which is both their boon and bane. On the one hand, in fact, hybridity encourages novel approaches to this vast field of research and the application of diverse methodology in attempts to adapt procedure to the questions at hand. On the other hand, the lack of an official or established research protocol and the flexibility with which methodological frameworks are applied lead to criticism and questions about credibility. Nevertheless, stylistics remains the most promising starting point for understanding academic style because the very focus of its inquiry has always been style in terms of language, use and development. It also has the merits of being highly contextualised and able to consider the possible outcomes of individual academic writing within the extended academic discourse community. This leads to the second aim of this book, which is to consider possible theories and methods to be used in the attempt to fill

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the current knowledge gap on academic style as it is and as it should be. Doing so could encourage further reflection on identified critical areas where non-​native academic style diverges most from the standard as a starting point, as well as on the thought processes underlying unproductive outcomes. These reflections could in turn be reversed to identify more productive stylistic patterns that may be taught to and used by academics based on their discipline. The second half of the book will present and employ a specific branch of stylistics, that is corpus stylistics, in combination with taxonomies drawn and adapted from error analysis studies. This methodological framework enables a focused empirical analysis of academic style based on quantitative and qualitative inquiries, thus responding to the common criticism that exclusively quantitative research loses sight of many significant individual expressions and that excessively qualitative research is subjective and biased. The findings are further enriched by their integration with the descriptive approach to and explanation of deviations from the norm that characterise error analysis. In particular, the analysis adopts the conscious use of the term ‘error’ rather than ‘mistake’, and that of ‘treatment’ rather than ‘correction’, when it comes to tackling non-​native divergences in style. It also adapts the criteria that are typical of error analysis –​and usually refer to grammar, syntax and vocabulary –​to style, that is the ‘flow’ of sentences and lines of reasoning in academic writing. In these cases, in fact, non-​natives have not made an ‘indisputable’ mistake, but rather expressed themselves in a manner that does not adhere to the criteria of clarity and conciseness that are the ideal of the diversified international community. The empirical data used throughout the study consists of a corpus (referred to as the ACASTYLE corpus) composed of real research articles that were written by non-​native academics and proofread by the author before being published. These papers have been divided into two subcorpora based on their discipline: economics (ECO subcorpus) and the humanities (HUM subcorpus), which are two macro areas in which the pressure to use proper academic style is particularly strong. To better understand academic writing and academic proofreading in terms of style in these two macro areas, this data is investigated from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. The intent of the quantitative analysis is to glean preliminary

Introduction

9

insight on the form that ‘good’ academic style takes within these disciplines and connect them with the conditions and restrictions that non-​native academics in these fields have to consider when writing for publication. The disciplinary differences that emerge from this comparative inquiry could be of great assistance in diversifying materials and resources on academic style for these scholars while realistically addressing their specific needs. The qualitative analysis that follows these findings starts from the most common areas of stylistic divergence that have been noticed by the author and overlays them with the taxonomies and criteria used by studies in error analysis to categorise, comment and treat frequent errors. Because these errors concern style, and not grammar or form, they go unnoticed by the non-​native author and by both native and non-​native proofreaders who are not acquainted with the communicative and discursive expectations of the international academic discourse community. This results in the identification of four specific areas with a high proliferation of intralingual errors (i.e. resulting from incomplete learning of the target language) and related to academic style that, when frequently present and overlooked before submission, may lead to unnecessary rejections or requests for revisions. In this way, the analysis pursues its third aim: becoming a means to help non-​native academics improve their writing by making them more aware of common errors in academic style, and to assist academic proofreaders by drawing their attention to particularly sensitive areas where they could provide more productive and insightful proposals and feedback. Each area is thus explored from the starting point of an overall assessment of the relevance of the area, along with a series of examples drawn from papers in both fields. These examples are subject to detailed commentary both in relation to the author’s reasoning and to the reasons why they are considered ‘errors’. They are then ‘treated’ by the author with accompanying commentary on the proposed solutions for these and similar cases. The separate focus on economics and the humanities leads to different reasons for errors that are partially motivated by –​and therefore confirm –​the observations that emerged in the course of the previous quantitative analysis. After separately tackling the errors in the four areas of interest within the two macro areas, the book expounds a final comparison between the two subcorpora in relation to the occurrence and treatment of errors. This

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comparison sheds light on differences in stylistic choices and the use of academic language in the two disciplines, and on possible benchmarks and directions for the future. The book closes according to the manner in which it unfolded and with the fourth and final aim in mind, that is presenting considerations on all the components that articulate the concept and practice of ‘academic style proofreading’. Due to the multifaceted nature of this topic, the book necessarily studies and compares multiple genres and the implementation of various methods and approaches. There is therefore a section dedicated to the introduction of this new term and its potential to mediate between the needs of the international academic community, the language professionals involved in promoting and improving the circulation of knowledge, and individual non-​native academics, all of whom must be properly informed and equipped to deal with this ‘grey area’ of academic style. This means gaining awareness and understanding of three main issues and their implications. The first concerns the preparation and valuing of academic style proofreaders or, more specifically, of proofreaders who are acquainted with the style adopted by the international academic discourse community. The second focuses on the potential training of academics and language professionals in academic style, as well as in academic English, through interprofessional exchanges involving experiential learning and practice. The third, and final, issue and section of the closing chapter addresses and justifies a variety of open questions, including the need for further research and debate on what academic style was, is and can be, how it changes according to the discipline, how it should be studied and disseminated, and how it could and should be productively enforced in the field of international publishing.

1.2. Outline of the book After framing ‘academic style proofreading’ as a specific and understudied form of intervention in and treatment of academic texts skill, as well as the fil rouge of the entire work, and in light of the previously outlined aims

Introduction

11

and purposes, the book is arranged so as to properly cover its author(s), contexts and texts. The ‘author(s)’ element is given in the plural form here because academic writing and publishing require the attention of multiple subjects who contribute to the crafting of the text, especially in the case of publications by non-​native academics. These include the non-​native academic author –​or authors for multi-​authored publications –​the editorial and language professionals who revise the text before its publication (e.g. editors, reviewers, revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders) and the international academic discourse community as a whole. Chapter 2 starts by focusing on three professional ­figures –​revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders –​whose roles often overlap in academic publishing. This is especially the case with copyeditors and proofreaders, leading to confusion as to ‘who’ should do ‘what’ when preparing an academic text for publication, which often results in interventions on style being left out of the process. Therefore, to understand whether this problem is exclusive to the Anglophone context and how these professional figures are considered in a non-​native context, three terminology cards have been compiled in multiple languages (English, Italian, German, French and Spanish) with detailed commentary by the author. Coupled with the analysis of online dictionary definitions of ‘proofreader’ and definitions of ‘copyeditor’ and ‘proofreader’ from professional websites, this feeds into considerations of how the definitions and roles of these professionals might be updated. Online material has been considered in this case, as it is an immediately accessible resource that academics in need of assistance are likely to turn to if their institution does not provide language services. It also introduces the ‘academic proofreader’ as a highly specialised expert who is well versed not only in academic English, but also in the unspoken rules of academic style that may have an impact on a publication’s acceptance or rejection. Chapter 3 focuses on the other subjects: the non-​native academic and his or her interaction with the academic discourse community. More specifically, it focuses on the role academic style plays in both an academic’s explicit communication of his or her research and the implicit conveyance of his or her ‘mind style’ and academic identity, which may differ according to the language in which he or she is writing.

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Having dealt with ‘authors’, Chapter 3 then introduces the second element, which is the ‘context’ in which academic style must be employed and improved by means of (self )proofreading the underlying dimension of style, including the emerging but underemployed genre of academic blogs. Having dealt with the institutional context in which the non-​native author is increasingly pressured to perform and succeed, the baton is passed to Chapter 4, which explores the ‘context’ of research in which the book positions itself. Here, the focus is on style and stylistics in academic proofreading, and therefore sets the methodological context of the rest of the book. Accordingly, it defines ‘academic style’ and argues that it constitutes an entire discursive level of its own that has been understudied in EAP but has the same relevance as grammar, vocabulary and syntax, and is actually as decisive in the evaluation of a publication as it is subtle. Moreover, because an academic’s style reflects his or her ‘mind style’, changing language implies changing the thought patterns behind the reasoning and –​as a result –​changing or adjusting one’s academic identity in order to better conform to the communicative needs and expectations of the discourse community (Garzone and Archibald 2010). The second part of Chapter 4, on stylistics, creates a bridge between ‘context’ and the final element of ‘text’ by presenting stylistics as the study of style, combining a variety of texts, approaches and methodologies in an attempt to adapt the analysis to the text and research questions at hand. Chapter 5 describes the methodology, data collection and areas of interest that were selected to carry out the analysis of the data. As far as methodology is concerned, the ‘corpus stylistics’ method, uniting the quantitative and qualitative analysis of empirical data, was applied and combined with an adapted error analysis approach. This has made it possible to observe, analyse and comment on individual cases in detail while maintaining an objective perspective on the data to prevent bias, and to treat the identified ‘errors’ in a descriptive and productive manner. The main analysis in this book was carried out in two separate stages: a brief and focused quantitative1 inquiry, covered in the methodological 1

For an in-​depth exploration of all of the aspects and procedures of corpus stylis­ tics in relation to various stylistic approaches and accompanied by case studies, see McIntyre and Walker (2019).

Introduction

13

Chapter 5, and a more extensive qualitative investigation, outlined in Chapter 6. Both analyses were based on the ACASTYLE corpus, which was composed of 120 research articles that had been proofread by the author in the period 2013–​21. This corpus was divided into the ECO and HUM subcorpora, each composed of 60 research papers, representing the two macro areas of economics (the ECO subcorpus) and the humanities (the HUM subcorpus). The first stage of the analysis, the quantitative analysis, initially explored the subcorpora separately in terms of word tokens, word types, type/​token ratio, most frequent content words and verbs, and the changes in number of hits that occurred in the course of the papers’ proofreading. This immediately highlighted differences in the academic language (with resulting reflections on the peculiarities of style) of the two macro areas, which could lead to improvements in courses and materials on academic style in economics and the humanities. The chapter then proceeds to set the grounds for the second analysis, which is at the heart of the following chapter, by listing and describing the specific ‘areas of interest’ in which non-​natives’ errors in style could create a sense of defamiliarisation, or even confusion, in the reader and the receiving discourse community. These are addition of extra text, deletion of redundant text, shifting of clauses and phrases, appropriateness and register. This is followed by and integrated with the categories of intralingual errors drawn from error analysis; the choice of ‘intralingual’ instead of ‘interlingual’ was based on the reasoning that the former attributes the error to lack of mastery over the target language, as is necessarily the case because academic style is induced rather than formally taught. The following categories from error analysis were adapted to be applied to style rather than grammar: overgeneralisations; simplification; developmental; communication-​based; induced; of avoidance; of overproduction. Chapter 6 delves fully into the ‘text’ element through a qualitative analysis of the reasons for and possible treatment of real errors taken from the ECO and HUM subcorpora. They are analysed according to the previously mentioned four areas of interest and classified according to one or more of the intralingual error categories. In addition, there is detailed commentary on the author’s intent, why his or her choice was not completely successful, and suggestions on how such errors could be avoided or treated.

14

chapter 1

The concluding section compares the findings in the two macro areas and provides observations on the types of errors that are most typical in the two disciplines, and on the discursive and non-​discursive reasons that lead to them. These reflections are the basis for suggestions of possible future developments in academic style as it applies to these distinct disciplines, tying in with the comparison between the ECO and HUM subcorpora at the end of the quantitative analysis. The book closes with Chapter 7 providing concluding remarks on various areas relating to ‘academic style proofreading’, which are accordingly divided into separate sections. It follows the structure of the book by starting with the relevant findings and issues related to academic proofreading as a practice and an increasingly specialised profession that must be valued as such. The second subsection focuses on academic style and the possible paths that future research and education on style in academic writing could and should take. These include possible areas of integration with pre-​existing fields of research like EAP and ERPP, as well as didactic proposals based on the need to unite academics and language professionals in training as well as in publications. The final subsection concludes the book with considerations on areas and open questions that –​to the author’s knowledge –​remain unanswered or unexplored. These focus on matters that could provide insight into why academic style is sometimes ‘evaluated’ rather than ‘assessed’, and how this issue could be addressed to the mutual satisfaction of students, academics and the language professionals involved with academic style proofreading.

Chapter 2

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands and profiles

This chapter sets the stage for the book’s exploration of ‘academic style proofreading’, or the practice of proofreading academic style, by starting from the final and most concrete element: proofreading. It presents and clarifies common misconceptions surrounding the definition of proofreaders as a profession and the activity of proofreading in general. Over the decades, in fact, the importance of proper academic writing has been acknowledged in parallel with the significant increase in the volume and publication speed of print and online academic publications. To encourage widespread circulation and sharing of knowledge among novice and experienced members of the academic community, the English language has been adopted as a standardised means of communication. The accepting and citing of these publications thus contribute to academic discourse, which has come to be: a privileged form of argument in the modern world; a demonstration of absolute truth, empirical evidence or flawless logic respecting representing what Lemke (1995: 178) refers to as the discourse of ‘Truth’. It gives us an objective description of what the world is actually like and we, in turn, invest it with a cultural authority free of the cynicism with which we view the partisan rhetoric of politics and commerce. (Hyland 2009: viii)

As a result, in order to enable academics all over the world to be published and ensure the security of their positions, third parties known as ‘RA (research article) mediators’ (Luo 2017) or ‘literacy brokers’ (Lillis and Curry 2010) provide linguistic and editorial services and counselling to those who need to improve the quality of their academic writing, and in particular to non-​native academics who are not familiar with academic

16

chapter 2

English or English in general.1 Nevertheless, the extent to which proof­ reading –​and proofreaders –​can and should intervene in this highly specialised discourse community remains quite vague and misunderstood to date. Many revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders maintain that their role is only to intervene to address obvious mistakes, as they are not authorised –​or competent –​to rework the style of sentences or texts. In their opinion, anything that is ‘unusual’ but not grammatically incorrect simply falls under the category of the ‘complexity of academic and scientific English’, and changing it may even offend the author. This is due both to the arrival of other ‘literacy brokers’ who intervene in the language of an academic text at various stages and to various degrees (e.g. revisors, revisers2 and copyeditors) and to the growing expectation of the international academic community that non-​native3 academics must now 1

2 3

As Luo and Hyland explain, ‘RA mediators’ provide text mediation services to im­ prove manuscripts (editing, translation, professional writing), process mediation services to assist authors with the publication process (e.g. journal selection, submission, responding to reviews, etc.) or both. The term ‘literacy brokers’, by contrast, refers to all professionals, including journal reviewers, who directly influence text production without being listed as authors (2019: 38). The second term has more commercial connotations but will be used when necessary throughout the book to refer to this category precisely to underline the importance of intervening to ‘promote’ an academic’s work and enable it to complete the publication process by means of proper academic English and style. While similar and often confused, there are relevant differences between ‘revisors’ and ‘revisers’, which will be explained in detail in Subsection 2.1.1.2. Studies in ERPP and language teaching at various levels, as well as in applied lin­ guistics, are increasingly adopting the term ‘EAL (English as an additional language) learners’ or ‘users’ instead of ‘native’ and ‘non-​native’ speakers. This choice is based on language politics and the desire to underline the competence of these learners in other languages and their interest in English for utilitarian reasons or convenience rather than highlighting the fact that they are not native speakers. In fact, it has been claimed that the ‘non-​’ descriptor implicitly hints that something is missing or lacking, while the term ‘EAL writer’ or ‘learner’ acknowledges that he or she is already competent in at least one native language (Holliday 2005; Luo and Hyland 2019). Englander and Cocoran even use the term ‘plurilingual EALs, when referring [sic to] a diverse group of scholars using English as an additional language from non-​Anglophone geolinguistic contexts’ (2019: 3). While acknowledging this situation, this book uses the ‘native’ and ‘non-​native’ speaker dichotomy as it

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

17

also master the style and ‘flow’ of their writing and expression of their ideas, not merely grammar and sentence structure. However, this level of linguistic competence is the quasi-​exclusive domain of native speakers or extremely highly competent and experienced non-​native academics as it relies on a profound knowledge of the appropriateness, conventions and legibility of English academic writing that even native speakers must work to acquire. Moreover, when it comes to academic publishing, a native speaker who translates or proofreads the work of non-​native academics will be at an indisputable advantage compared to his or her non-​ native counterparts, but this no longer guarantees that a submission will be accepted. As a result, it is widely believed that experience in academic language and knowledge dissemination is the main criterion for knowing how to write, which is often regarded as a natural talent, although it can be honed through multiple attempts at submitting and inductively learning from the feedback and assistance of seniors, literary brokers and reviewers. This means, however, that the situation is particularly challenging for non-​native novice academics who lack both training in academic style (and sometimes even in academic English, based on the availability of resources)4 and experience in the process of growth through academic editorial trial and error (Paltridge 2019). This raising of the bar for standards of academic linguistic competence, along with the spread of English as the recognised standard language of international scientific and academic communities, has entailed a significant gain in decision-​making power for the editorial boards of international journals. These may be composed of English native speakers who are not aware of the linguistic barriers and lack of stylistic know-​how that their non-​native colleagues must face, or of non-​native members who apply the same stern (if not even sterner) standards that they had to abide by when

4

is more commonly known, and as the areas of interest that are discussed are generally intuitively known to native speakers. Moreover, the EAL mindset positions non-​native academics in a more detached position compared to the perceived need to master the English language, and this could lead them to underestimate the importance of doing so until they find they are unable to publish in prestigious international journals. For more on this, see Habibie (2015 and 2019); Fazel (2019); Hultgren (2019).

18

chapter 2

entering and establishing themselves within the academic community. This is even more complicated when considering that many journals require and instruct authors to use ‘standard’ or ‘good’ English but do not provide definitions or explanations beyond what is already specified in their style sheets (Flowerdew 2013). As a result, it has been observed that: there had been a growing realization that many scholars who used English as an additional language (EAL) had difficulty in participating in the international world of research because of linguistic difficulties or other non-​discursive reasons related to being located outside the main centres of knowledge production. (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 1)

While many journals have tried to mitigate their demands and be more tolerant towards certain spreading lexical and morphological patterns that would be unacceptable to their more prescriptive counterparts, the inability to express oneself with ‘typically Anglo-​Saxon’ clarity and turns of phrases can still block or slow publication by non-​native academics. This results in a loss for both the academic, who is unable to share his or her research, and for the scientific community, whose activity and development are based on exchange and collaboration among its members. The first section of this chapter will therefore unpack the current complications surrounding the role of academic proofreading by identifying the official and characteristic duties of proofreaders. These will then be directly compared to those of adjacent professional profiles (revisors and copyeditors, with which proofreaders are often confused) that precede or follow proofreading but will blur in with proofreading when not maintained as distinct phases. Such blurring and the sources of the widespread confusion concerning proofreading will be demonstrated in the second subsection by means of multilingual terminology cards that have been compiled by the author, using the IATE (Interactive Terminology for Europe) terminological database5 and consulting reliable sources available online. They will provide evidence that the confusion surrounding proofreading actually persists in the editorial field at an international level. In turn, the 5

IATE has been the active official terminological database of the EU since 2004 and may be found at , accessed on 15 March 2022.

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

19

distinctions provided will underline the significance of academic journals’ and publishers’ roles as forms of linguistic and stylistic gatekeepers,6 as well as proofreaders’ consequent role as indirect facilitators and mediators of knowledge dissemination for non-​native academics, given that: A paper is judged as a contribution to a particular field by an audience of colleagues who are potentially in a position to make use of it. If editors, referees, proposal readers, conference attendees and journal readers regarded as original and significant, allow it to be published, cite it in their own work and develop it further, then the writer receives the reward of recognition. (Hyland 2009: 15)

To further investigate the common perceptions of proofreaders and proofreading, these terminological findings will be integrated with traditional definitions found in online dictionaries and the definitions of ‘proofreaders’/​‘proofreading’ and ‘copyeditors’/​‘copyediting’ provided by UK-​ based associations in order to verify whether there have been any changes in the definitions of these roles and their tasks within professional circles in recent years. This is especially important given the increase in online (academic and non-​academic) publishing, which has been further accelerated by the Covid emergency. In proceeding as described above, the following questions will be addressed and explored in this opening chapter:

6

1) What are the differences (or similarities) between often confused roles like revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders? 2) What does it mean to ‘proofread’ and have there been any changes in the definitions and tasks connected to proofreading?

Hyland suggests that those approaching the academic discourse community will have to undergo an apprenticeship involving ‘a careful negotiation with two principal audiences: the journal gatekeepers who will judge the paper as ready for publication and the community of scholars who will read the finished paper and hopefully cite it and use it in their own research’ (2009: 70).

20

chapter 2

2.1. Revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders: A terminological comparison The term ‘proofreading’ has been used in the field of printing and publishing since its very inception, and the term’s flexibility has led to vague definitions of the professional proofreader’s role and expected tasks. As a result, proofreading is well known and necessary in practice, but also often taken for granted, underestimated and understudied within the academic community. Moreover, the profession is often confused with other ‘ “literacy brokers”, such as editors, reviewers, academic peers, and English-​speaking friends and colleagues, who mediate text production in a number of ways’ (Lillis and Curry 2006: 4). This category was later expanded to include ‘networks’, that is local or international groups cooperating on writing for publication purposes (Curry and Lillis 2010; Lillis and Curry 2010) which recall the network-​form that the academic community is taking on. In other cases, ‘proofreaders’ are identified with ‘revisors’/​’revisers’ and ‘editors’, all of whom are more closely connected with translation7 and/​or a more thorough transformation and elabor­ ation of the draft before the official proofreading phase (Guasco 2013). The matter becomes even more complicated when one or more of these roles are covered by the same person, and when considering that different journals and publishing houses may prefer to proofread before or while copyediting. The aim of this section is therefore to outline the roles of and differences (or occasional intersections) between these professions to clarify the crucial role of proofreading (and of pre-​submission self-​ proofreading) style for non-​native academics. Three terminology cards of the terms related to the professional profiles of ‘revisor’, ‘copyeditor’ and ‘proofreader’ are presented in the main European languages (Italian, German, French and Spanish) to enable a comparison of these professional terms from an international perspective.8 7 8

For a specific study on the profession and practice of translating, which is quite consolidated in Canada, see Bastin and Cormier (2007). For more on terminology and terminology cards, see Dubuc (1992) and Zanola (2018 and 2020). These specific terms were chosen because they all involve, at some

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

21

In fact, Edwards and Redfern have posited that ‘Sometimes the same terms have different connotations across national contexts’ (1992: 4), and such connotations may lead to a better understanding of what academics from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds have in mind when responding to requests to rework the language of their papers. In order to highlight the use of these terms in both theory and practice, each card has been divided into the following fields:9

9

• Term: the word used as the starting part for the terminology card and corresponding to the word that is used throughout the book; • Domain: the sectors in which the ‘term’ is used (e.g. medicine, economics, literature, etc.); • Subdomain: further information on specific subfields or areas of specialisation within the ‘domain’; • Word class: the grammatical category of the ‘term’; • Variants: other terms that differ from the ‘term’ but have the same semantic value; • Ontological relations: relations with other concepts and categories in the ‘domain’; • Definition: denotative definitions of the ‘term’ found in dictionaries and encyclopaedias; • Source of definition: website where the ‘definition’ was found; stage and to some extent, the intervention of a language professional (and, more specifically to this study, one who is familiar with academic language) in the writing of a non-​native academic before the publication –​and very often even before the reviewing and acceptance –​of his or her work. The term ‘copyeditor’ was chosen instead of ‘editor’ to keep the profile within the realm of linguistic revision and not that of editorial supervision. For more on the planning and compiling of terminology, or terminological, cards, see Bregato (2015) and the related guide Cos’è la Terminologia e Come si fa un Glossario by Hellmut Riediger at < http://​www.term-​mina​tor.it/​corso/​doc/​mod3​ _​ter​mino​_​glo​ssa.pdf>, accessed 10 April 2022. The fields and degree of specificity of terminology cards differ based on their purpose and use. Here, they are in line with the aims of this study: observing differences and overlaps in the definitions (and therefore the conceptions) of these three profiles of language professionals at an international level.

22



chapter 2

• Context: sentences using the ‘term’ in accessible everyday contexts and sentences that are not related to dictionaries or encyclopaedias; • Source of context: website where the ‘context’ was found; • Notes: other observations as necessary.

The order of the terms and related cards reflects that of this book’s main interest. In fact, it is not possible to establish a clear, standard order in which these professional figures, if all present and separated, are likely to work on the English text of a non-​native academic’s manuscript before its publication. This is because each journal and/​or publishing house may coordinate their work differently and because there could be extra coordination among different professionals prior to the manuscript’s submission. Furthermore, when the author is not a native speaker, there are often even more steps to be considered. Subsection 2.1.1. therefore starts by introducing the ‘revisor’, Subsection 2.1.2. focuses on the ‘copyeditor’, and Subsection 2.1.3. concludes with the ‘proofreader’. Each of these subsections is divided into three parts: a very brief introduction, the presentation of the terminology card, and a final section with remarks on the surprising or interesting overlaps and blurred areas of translation and on the noteworthy aspects that emerged during the compilation of the terminology card. It is the author’s hope that these initial considerations on the matter from a terminological perspective could spark further studies and the inclusion of other languages and countries in the future. It would also be worth exploring whether the lack of clarity is also reflected in professional and contractual practices. 2.1.1. Revisors Due to the current encouragement –​if not pressure –​to use English when publishing, non-​native academics may adopt different approaches when writing based on their linguistic competence and level of comfort with the language, as well as the time, funding and language professionals available. Those who are most accustomed to expressing themselves and writing in their native language, as was accepted in the past, often prefer

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

23

to start by writing in their own language to best express their ideas. This means entrusting their manuscript to a translator, preferably one who is experienced both with the source and target language and with the subject. In cases where this is not possible, it commonly falls on the author to provide the translator with the necessary specialised terminology (Garzone 2020) and information: The discourses of the disciplines, in fact, work to interpret the world in particular ways, each drawing on different lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical resources to create specialized knowledge. Wignell et al. (1993), for instance, characterize the sciences as reworking experience technically by establishing a range of technical terms which are ordered to explain how things happen or exist. (Hyland 2009: 7)

On completing the translation, the author or the language centre the translator works for may request that another language professional revises the translation, as a ‘fresh set of eyes’ would be most capable of detecting any differences in content and meaning between the original manuscript and the translated version. This is performed by a ‘revisor’, a person who carries out a post-​translation check using specific translation skills and bilingual competence, which also means being aware of peculiarities in the syntax and style of the target language. This aims to ensure that the target text is suitable and complies with accepted terminology and standards of correctness. 2.1.1.1. Terminology card: Revisor In light of these reflections, the ‘revisor’ is introduced as the first professional figure to rework the academic style of the translated text whenever and wherever the translator did not do so. However, the extent of the revisor’s intervention in the text may be limited at the author’s request or due to the revisor’s professional ethics and policy of being as literally faithful as possible to the original text. Moreover, he or she may recommend corrections but neither rewrite unnecessarily nor implement all of the suggested changes throughout the text. Like translators, revisors are therefore limited in their actions, as are revisers, in the same manner that proofreaders were –​and in certain cases still are –​when considered from

24

chapter 2

a traditional perspective, as will be outlined in more detail later. The first terminology card, presented as Table 1, will therefore help to translate the word ‘revisor’ and explain the profession. 2.1.1.2. Comments on revisors When comparing the languages and their translations, the first peculiarity that emerges in this terminology card is the difficulty in defining and distinguishing the term, and therefore the profession, of the ‘revisor’ in English. In fact, the spelling and reference often shifts from ‘revisor’ to ‘reviser’, and therefore from a professional whose role is to compare the source and translated text to one who focuses only on the latter to check the ‘flow’ of the language. It was therefore necessary to consult the meaning of the verb ‘revise’ to gain a better understanding of what this role consists of, as the word ‘revise’ is much more commonly used as a verb than as a noun. Revisors focus on accuracy (Morin-​Hernandez 2009; Robert 2014) while revisers focus on readability; moreover, the latter term, in connection with its root verb, may also be used in a wider sense to indicate any professional who must revise any work, while a revisor is specifically connected to the field of translation. Furthermore, when a professional has to take on the role of both revisor and reviser, he or she is not only responsible for ensuring the translation’s accuracy, but also for the overall effect of the text in its English version because anyone else working on it (e.g. proofreaders and/​or copyeditors) will only be focusing on the English version. Another interesting, but also potentially complicating, factor concerning the definition and consideration of revisors on an international level lies in the tendency of certain foreign languages to confuse ‘revisors’ with other professional figures associated with writing and publication in general. In Italian, for instance, it was found that the corresponding term ‘revisore’ equates to ‘reviser’ in the definitions, and in certain cases even to ‘proofreader’. The difference, in this case, is based on the type and scope of text to be revised: revisors and revisers, or ‘revisori’, must be specifically referred to with the prepositional phrase ‘revisore di testi’ [reviser of texts] to avoid the role being confused with professionals who revise business

Chi per ufficio o per incarico Kontrolleur, Untersucher, è addetto a un’opera di Kontrollor (Österr.), revisione: r. dei conti, Inspektor, Prüfer. delle tasse; r. di bozze di stampa; r. degli atti parlamentari, prima della loro pubblicazione’; Persona addetta alla revisione di qlco.: r. di bozze.

Definition

a reviser.

associato al termine ‘revisione’ in Zusammenhang mit ‘Überprüfung’ und ‘Korrektur’

Ontological contained in ‘revision’ relations

(m) Revisor, (f ) Revisorin, (f ) Überprüferin, (m) Korrektor, (f ) Korrektorin

reviser, (language) reviewer

Variants

(f ) revisora

sostantivo, sintagma nominale Substantiv

noun

Veröffentlichung, Verlag, Überprüfung, Korrektur der Sprache

Berufe

Word class

professioni

(m) Überprüfer

German

pubblicazione, editore, contratto di pubblicazione, revisione e correzione linguistica

professions

Domain

(m) revisore

Italian

Subdomain publishing, editing, language revision and correction

revisor

Term

English

Table 1.  Terminology card: Revisor

1. Personne qui révise, qui vérifie; 2. Professionnel chargé de réviser les épreuves typographiques; Reviseur désigne celui qui revoit, qui fait la révision d’un ouvrage, un travail, après une autre personne, dans le but de corriger celui-​ci, de le verifier.

associé à la ‘révision’

(f ) réviseuse

Substantive, nom masculin

publication, révision et correction de la langue, édition

professions

(m) réviseur

French

(Continued)

1. adj. Que revisa o examina con cuidado algo; 2. m. y f. Persona que tiene por oficio revisar o reconocer’; ‘1. adj. Que revisa o examina.

asociado con ‘revisión’

(f ) revisora, (m) revisor editorial

sustantivo

verificación y modificación lingüístico y tipográfico, publicación

profesiones

(m) revisor

Spanish



Your revisor at Language Services will undertake to check correct spelling, grammar and punctuation in addition to ensuring that the text follows the standards of clarity and fluency of academic writing. Your revisor will also give consideration to your manuscript’s adherence to the journal’s instructions for authors (e.g., format and style, usage of abbreviations, tables and figures), provided that a copy of these accompanies the text to be revised.

Source of definition

Context

English

German

il revisore di testi lavora in diversi ambiti, dai testi scritti a quelli audiovisivi e multimediali, nonché in ambito scientifico. Il revisore di testi più del correttore di bozze è infatti chiamato anche a conoscere ed approfondire i temi affrontati nei testi a lui sottoposti e per questo motivo richiede delle ottime capacità di apprendimento attivo.

Beschäftigte mit einschlägiger wissenschafticher Berufserfahrung als Überprüfer oder Übersetzer.

,https://​www.trecc​ani.­it/​

Chi%20per%20uffi​cio%20 o%20per,prima%20de​ lla%20l​oro%20pu​bbli​cazi​ one%3B%20r>

Italian

Table 1.  Continued

Personne qui lit et révise des textes destinés à être publiés (manuscrits, articles, bulletins d’information, etc.) afin d’en corriger les fautes d’orthographe, de grammaire et de syntaxe, d’en clarifier ou d’en réorganiser le contenu et la structure, de vérifier l’exactitude des données et des citations fournies par l’auteur ou, encore, de raccourcir ou d’allonger le texte si nécessaire.

French

Siendo muy simplistas podemos decir que la particularidad esencial reside en que los correctores trabajan con un documento que fue redactado directamente en el idioma que el corrector lo recibe, mientras que el revisor trabaja con la traducción de un texto origen.

Spanish

The term itself is ambiguous, in that ‘revisor’ and ‘reviser’ are both found and often used interchangeably although, in a strictly linguistic sense, ‘revisors’ focus on the quality of a translation while ‘revisers’ revise a text (even in one language).

Notes

French

Le réviseur effectue ses travaux après une autre personne (probablement le correcteur d’épreuves).

German

Il revisore dei testi si occupa Substantive mit die Wurzeln di diversi tipi di testi (e quindi ‘Korrek-​’ oder ‘Kontroll-​’ sind non solo di pubblicazioni) häufigere als ‘Überprüfer(in)’. mentre il correttore di bozze lavora in ambito editoriale.

Italian

Puede ser confudido con ‘revisor’ (crítico) de publicaciones.

Spanish

Source: Author’s elaboration All of the websites cited in the English column of this terminology card were last accessed on 23 February 2022. All of those cited in the columns dedicated to Italian, German, French and Spanish were last accessed on 21 March 2022.

English

Source of context

28

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records and tax laws or Acts of Parliament. Moreover, ‘revisori’ may deal with any sort of text (e.g. audiovisual or multimodal), while a ‘correttore di bozze’ [proofreader] works specifically in the field of academic and non-​academic publishing. The German language also displays a divergence between ‘reviser’ and ‘revisor’: in fact, the former may be translated as ‘Revisor(in)’, which is used to refer to anyone who revises something and is commonly found in fields other than publishing. The latter, in contrast, is strictly translated as ‘Überprüfer(in)’, but occurrences of this noun are scarce, and the use of the verb ‘überprüfen’ and the less specific noun ‘Revision’ (which refers to the process of revision) are much more common. The verb ‘prüfen’ is also used as a translation of ‘review’ or ‘check’ in a broad sense, with ‘Korrektor(in)’ commonly used as an interchangeable synonym for this role, although this word actually corresponds to ‘proofreader’, and occasionally to ‘copyeditor’, as will be illustrated in the third terminology card. In contrast, French seems to be the most linear in terms of use of words, with a noun referring to the professional –​‘réviseur’ –​and the activity –​ ‘révision’ –​both aligned with the verb ‘reviser’. However, these words are used to refer to both ‘revisor’ and ‘reviser’ and their work, and are therefore distinguished by the addition of defining adjectives: ‘révision comparative’ refers to the bilingual revision of a ‘revisor’ and ‘révision linguistique’ to the monolingual check of a ‘reviser’. In this case as well, the language professional can enter at different stages of the editorial process, and the French term ‘réviseur’, as in the other languages, is used in relation to any other profession who performs a revision of content. Clearly, ‘revisor’ and ‘reviser’ must not be confused with the ‘reviewer,’ who carries out a specialised form of criticism of the academic text in both content and form on the basis of his or her technical expertise in the field. However, in German and Spanish, there are words (‘prüfen’ in German and the Spanish noun ‘revisor’) that may be used to refer to both revisors and reviewers. The stage at which revisors and reviewers come into play, and their position in relation to non-​native authors, is also quite different. After the editors of the journal or volume, (peer) reviewers are the first to alert the journal or publishing house to the quality of the submitted text. They therefore perform an extremely important, albeit occasionally questioned and challenged, gatekeeping role. As

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

29

such, they could help the non-​native author by providing specific comments and examples of corrections to language and style use, especially if they are native English speakers and academics themselves. This would certainly assist the author by allowing him or her to correct the mistakes directly before resubmitting the paper, or if the reviewer were to only correct the first examples and explain that there are other instances in the text, it would at least provide a starting point for the author’s revision. However, this often does not happen because reviewers do not have the time to make such detailed comments or because (when the reviewer is also a native English speaker) he or she intuitively ‘feels’ or ‘understands’ that the text does not follow the inherent rules of academic style but does not have the metalanguage or sufficient knowledge of the needs of non-​native speakers to understand how to explain such ‘sensations’, let alone provide solutions. 2.1.2. Copyeditors The ‘copyeditor’ will be the second profile of interest and the focus of the second terminology card although the stage at which he or she enters the process varies based on the tasks that he or she must perform, the language in which the text is written (and, more precisely, whether it is the author and/​or copyeditor’s native language) and the adopted publishing protocol. Moreover, a copyeditor may not always be employed, and in this case, his or her role will be taken on by the proofreader. In general, the copyeditor’s role is to elaborate, modify or even simply read the author’s manuscript to ensure the general readability and homogeneity of the text or the entire work if it consists of a monograph or a collection of papers. In an academic context, a copyeditor may be employed by a publishing house or assist in the preparation and coordination of the text(s) in a special issue of an academic journal. In the former case, the copyeditor will work in accordance with the choices and overall style of the publishing house, while in the latter case, he or she will follow not only the instructions of the publishing house, but also those of the editors of the specific issue or volume. When the roles of copyeditor and proofreader are filled by different people, the copyeditor may intervene either before the

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proofreader, and therefore limit his or her activity to editing and checking that all texts are homogeneous from a formal and visual point of view, or after the proofreading and directly before final publication. This usually happens when the copyeditor is also a native or very competent speaker of the language of the publication. In this case, the copyeditor may also edit the final text, making any changes he or she introduces even more definitive than those of the proofreader. Such adjustments may also involve the syntax and style of the text. Another possible misunderstanding is between ‘copyeditor’ and ‘copywriter’, whose roles are completely different. While the former ensures that the text is free of errors, flows smoothly in accordance with the expectations of the scientific community and is consistent in tone and register, the latter’s role is writing (or rewriting) a text in a compelling way with the aim of effectively marketing a product or publication. Moreover, copyeditors will only intervene in the text when and to the extent that is necessary because their role is to ensure that the author’s message is clear to the audience, refining its smooth dissemination; therefore, their duty is to both the author and the publisher. Copywriters, in contrast, work in the field of marketing and therefore write to persuasively introduce the publication into the market, to the publisher’s benefit. The two professions require different skills and relationships with the text and the author (who may be a native or non-​native speaker) they are dealing with.10 It is also interesting to note that the spelling ‘copy editor’ is more common than ‘copyeditor’ when referring to the professional, although the verb ‘copyedit’ is more common than ‘copy edit’,11 implying that the coining of the word related to the action predates that of the profession.

10 For more on this, see ‘Copywriter vs. Copy Editor: What’s the Difference?’, Maryland University, , accessed 21 February 2022. 11 For more on the development of the spellings of ‘copyedit’/​’copy edit’ and ‘copyeditor’/​’copy editor’, see Brenner (2019) ‘I Say Copyedit, You Say Copy Edit’, American Copy Editors Society, , accessed 15 February 2022.

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

31

This has fuelled debates within the fields of publishing and editing because it further highlights the fact that the task of copyediting has run parallel with –​when it does not correspond to –​that of proofreading (a term whose verbal and nominal forms are both well established as a single word). Therefore, proofreaders have copyedited in the past, and often still do in the absence of a copyeditor, while the figure of the copyeditor emerged much later, presumably due to the significant increase in publishing activity. In the attempt to grant more ‘solidity’ to the role of the copyeditor, this book uses the one-​word spelling in the second terminology card (except when quoting source texts), and throughout the text. 2.1.2.1. Terminology card: Copyeditor Although, as previously mentioned, the copyeditor may intervene at different and multiple stages during the preparation of the text, especially when a non-​native author is involved, the role will be discussed before that of the proofreader because it is a hybrid position that may manage different tasks and roles. Moreover, this order allows more focus on the third and final terminology card, for ‘proofreader’, which is presented in Subsection 2.1.3. 2.1.2.2. Comments on copyeditors While the use of the term ‘copyeditor’ in English is broadly consistent overall, albeit with small variations in spelling (i.e. ‘copy editor’, ‘copyeditor’, ‘copyeditor’), as previously mentioned a cursory glance over the columns dedicated to the other languages is sufficient –​even to an untrained eye –​to confirm the multifaceted nature of the copyeditor’s work. When focusing on the first noun(s), the Italian term ‘editore di copia’ (along with the variations ‘copy-​editore’, ‘sotto-​editore’, ‘redattore’ and ‘caporedattore’, which are presumably based on the number and hierarchical levels of the professionals involved) and the Spanish term ‘editor’ more explicitly connect the profession’s name to the activity of editing, while the German ‘Redakteur(in)’ associates the role strictly with publishing. The French ‘relecteur’, on the other hand, puts the emphasis

professions

publishing, editing, language revision and correction

noun

copy editor, copy-​editor, sub-​editor

Domain

Subdomain

Word class

Variants

Berufe

(m) Redakteur

German

editore, copy-​editor, sotto-​editore, redattore, caporedattore, curatore/​ curatrice editoriale

sostantivo maschile, sintagma nominale

substantif

publication, révision et correction de la langue, édition

professions

(m) relecteur

French

in Zusammenhang mit der ‘Manuskriptbearbeiterung’ und ‘Redigierung’

associé à la ‘relecture d’épreuves’

(f ) Redakteurin, (f ) relectrice (m) Lektor, (f ) Lektorin, (m) Manuskriptbearbeiter, (f ) Manuskriptbearbeiterin

Substantiv

pubblicazione, Veröffentlichung, Verlag, editore, contratto di Überarbeitung und pubblicazione, revisione e Korrektur der Sprache correzione linguistica

professioni

editor di copia, curatore editoriale

Italian

Ontological contained in ‘copyediting’ (as- associato al termine relations sociated term) ‘copyediting’, ‘copy-​ editing’ o ‘editing di copia’

copyeditor

Term

English

Table 2.  Terminology card: Copyeditor

asociado con ‘editorial manuscritos’

(f ) editora, (m) corrector de manuscritos, (f ) correctora de manuscritos

sustantivo

verificación y modificación lingüístico y tipográfico, publicación

profesiones

(m) editor

Spanish

Definition

a person whose job is to correct and prepare a text for printing; The copy-​editor’s role is to make sure that your message reaches the reader as clearly and directly as possible. She or he will correct errors in spelling and grammar, ensure that the ‘editorial style’ (capitalization, use of italics, styling of numbers, etc.) is consistent with OUP’s practice (see the section ‘House style’), monitor factual integrity (checking that statements made at different points in the text are congruent, matching the text to figures and tables, checking cross-​references against the headword list, etc.), and mark up the text so that the design can be applied to it and figures and tables are suitably positioned.

English La definizione di editor di copia nel dizionario è qualcuno il cui compito è preparare la copia per la stampa mediante lo styling, la correzione, ecc; Una persona che prepara un testo per la pubblicazione eseguendo questi compiti [correzione degli errori in a testo e renderlo conforme a uno stile editoriale] si chiama editor di copie (o in Gran Bretagna, editor secondario).

Italian in Zeitungsverlagen oder Buchverlagen, bei Rundfunk oder Fernsehen tätiger Fachmann, der Manuskripte verfasst, überarbeitet und für die Veröffentlichung vorbereitet; männliche Person, die für eine Zeitung oder Zeitschrift, für Rundfunk oder Fernsehen, für ein [wissenschaftliches] Sammelwerk o. Ä. Beiträge auswählt, bearbeitet oder selbst schreibt (Berufsbezeichnung).

German Homme en charge de la relecture; Homme chargé de corriger des textes, des épreuves d’imprimerie.

French

(Continued)

Persona que prepara un texto para publicarlo, como el encargado en una editorial, el que compila textos y los reúne en una obra y el que corrige y anota un texto antiguo siguiendo criterios filológicos.-​el editor del manuscrito.

Spanish



Copy editors require a number of skills, including an excellent command of the language, an ability to identify factual errors, an eye for detail and critical thinking skills that allow them to see inconsistencies in the work.

Source of definition

Context

English

Un buon copyeditor sa asciugare il testo, eliminando le parole inutili, e indicare all’autore possibili miglioramenti di tipo formale.



Italian

Als Redakteur sind sie für die Themenauswahl und das Redigieren von Beiträgen verantwortlich.



German

Table 2.  Continued

Le relecteur est l’expert de la rédaction au back-​ office. Ancien rédacteur lui-​même, il connaît les conditions d’intervention chez le client.



French

El editor de texto se diferencia del procesador en que permite ingresar texto plano, en lugar de enriquecido; en otra palabras, no ofrecen la posibilidad de modificar su aspecto a través de fuentes y colores, ni la creación de tablas, entre otras muchas opciones.



Spanish



Sono stati trovati anche casi in cui il termine inglese ‘copy-​editor’ è stato tradotto con ‘correttore di bozze’ È significativo il fatto che il termine ‘copy editor’ non sia stato incluso nei dizionari principali, oltre alla preferenza del termine ‘editor di copia’ o ‘redattore’ (non sempre corrispondente al significato di ‘copyeditor’ come inteso in inglese) nelle definizioni italiane

Italian

German

Source: Author’s elaboration All of the websites cited in this terminology card were last accessed on 15 January 2022.

Notes

Source of context

English

Le mot ‘relecture’ est parfois traduit comme ‘proofreading’ en anglais

French

Spanish

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on the activity of re-​reading, thus implying that it is the copyeditor who performs a final check and intervenes as little as possible before sending the text(s) to press. However, looking at the variants, it becomes apparent that copyeditors may be expected, depending on the previously mentioned factors, to re-​ elaborate and therefore reformulate the text where necessary (e.g. the Italian term ‘curatore/​curatrice’, the German term ‘Manuskriptbearbeiter(-​in)). They may also correct any remaining mistakes, like proofreaders, as is indicated in certain specific words (e.g. the German term ‘Korrektor(in)’ and the Spanish ‘corrector(a) de manuscritos’) or implicitly suggested in the ‘notes’ sections for Italian and French. Finally, copyeditors may re-​ read the finalised text(s) so as to guarantee uniformity (e.g. the German ‘Lektor(in)’). It is therefore possible to provide cases where copyeditors may coincide with proofreaders and revisers. However, this could concentrate the responsibility for a non-​native author’s text in the hands of one or very few people, and therefore result in it being significantly or barely changed, from a stylistic point of view, based on the copyeditor’s discretion as to what constitutes a ‘well written text’. Moreover, the fact that the ‘definitions’ and ‘contexts’ of the terms in the various languages alternate between references to ‘manuscripts’ and ‘proofs’ confirms that copyeditors may work on either of these two forms of texts according to the specific situation. Further study on instances of overlapping and their frequency, which seem to differ from language to language, could shed light on national and cultural peculiarities in publishing and editing and on ways in which this could impact on ERPP and international academic publishing in general. Another matter of particular interest for the purposes of this study is the relation between copyeditors and their intervention (or lack thereof ) in the style of the author’s text. The definitions found in accredited dictionaries do not always mention style, and when they do (as in English), it is either ‘editorial style’ (or ‘stile editoriale’ in Italian) or ‘house style’, but not ‘style’ in the sense that is dealt with in this study. ‘Editorial style’ refers to the homogeneity of the written form of all texts (e.g. spelling, capitalisation, abbreviations), while a publishing house’s ‘house style’ (e.g. layout, font, colour scheme) is intended to define that all texts have undergone the same

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

37

inspection and standardisation before print. The different uses of the word ‘style’ in the editorial field have led to misunderstandings about what ‘style’ consists of, as will be explored in Chapter 3. Finally, in the ‘context’ sections of the card, specifically in Italian and French, there are brief mentions of the fact that copyeditors may guide the author on possible improvements to the text. Such advice seems discretionary and haphazard when dealing with native speakers and non-​academic publications, while in the academic field, copyeditors, who intervene before the final proofreading, are often required to intervene in the author’s style to ‘clean it up’, especially in cases where the author is a non-​native speaker. Consequently, in many cases, the copyeditor shares this role with the proofreader, as will be verified in the following section and terminology card, and would therefore also benefit from more precise instructions as to what constitutes ‘proper’ or ‘acceptable’ style in today’s more Anglophone-​oriented academic English. 2.1.3. Proofreaders The third and final professional figure that will be analysed, in Table 3, is the proofreader, who –​despite the misleading impression that the word ‘proof(s)’ may convey of the text being almost ready for publication –​generally intervenes in a non-​native author’s text both before its submission and during the stage following reviews and preceding final publication. This extra step usually leads to the employment of two or more proofreaders: the first (and possibly also a second, depending on the results of the initial reviews and the author’s satisfaction with the first proofreading) by the author(s) and the second/​third by the publishing house for a final check. In contrast to the revisor, who is required to remain as faithful as possible to the original text, and occasionally to the copyeditor, who usually only adjusts the style based on the house or editorial style, the proofreader is expected to have the final word on whether the text is linguistically acceptable to the international journal or publishing house.

professions

publishing, publication, language revision and correction

noun

proof-​reader

Domain

Subdomain

Word class

Variants

Ontological contained in relations ‘proofreading’

proofreader

Term

English

associato al termine ‘correzione di bozze’

(f ) correttrice di bozze, (m) revisore

sostantivo, sintagma nominale

pubblicazione, editoria, contratto di pubblicazione, revisione e correzione linguistica

professioni

(m) correttore di bozze

Italian

im Zusammenhang mit ‘Korrektorat’ und ‘korrekturlesen’

(m) Korrekturleser, (f ) Korrektorin, (f ) Korrekturleserin

Substantiv

Veröffentlichung, Verlag, Überarbeitung und Korrektur der Sprache

Berufe

(m) Korrektor

German

associé à la ‘correction d’épreuves’

(m) correcteur d’imprimerie, (m) correcteur d’épreuves typographiques,(m) correcteur d’épreuves d’imprimerie, (f ) correctrice d’épreuves

substantif

publication, révision et correction de la langue, édition

professions

(m) correcteur d’épreuves

French

Table 3.  Terminology card: Proofreadera

asociado con ‘corrector’ y ‘corrección de pruebas’

(f ) correctora de pruebas

sustantivo

verificación y modificación lingüístico y tipográfico, publicación

profesiones

(m) corrector de pruebas

Spanish

a person whose job is to read and correct pieces of written or printed work; a person whose job is to check text before it is printed or published online.

;

Definition

Source of definition

English

(f. -​trice) Persona addetta a un’opera materiale di correzione. In partic.: a. C. di bozze, in tipografia, chi si occupa della correzione delle bozze di stampa.

Italian

Wird vom Rubrik-​ Redakteur berufen, Beitrag abschließend zu korrigieren. Verantwortet Lesen der Fahnen, Weiterleitung aller typographischen und formalen Fehler an den Layouter.

German

Personne qui corrige les épreuves et en élimine les erreurs, les coquilles.

French

(Continued)

El/​la corrector/​a de pruebas se encarga de verificar la redacción de textos originales después de que hayan sido editados y antes de que sean impresos o publicados, proporcionando un control de calidad para asegurarse de que no se ha perdido nada en el proceso desde los originales.

Spanish

Context

A proofreader is the person within the book publishing world who works in conjunction with the copy-​editor to ensure that a publication fulfils its purpose and is readable. […] The proofreader acts as a second pair of eyes, checking for errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Proofreading also has important functions that copy-​editing does not –​it involves checking the typesetter’s work: ensuring that correct fonts and styles have been used, that the layout makes sense and is readable, and that rules of typesetting (e.g. correct hyphenation, avoidance of poor line breaks) have been followed.

English Nello specifico, il correttore di bozze è quella figura professionale che si occupa della correzione dei testi, prima che essi vadano in stampa. Risulta essere una figura poliedrica spesso confusa con l’editore o curatore editoriale, anche se in molti casi il professionista svolge entrambi i ruoli.

Italian Wenn du deine Bachelorarbeit Korrekturlesen lässt, werden dabei nicht nur Rechtschreibfehler und Tippfehler korrigiert, sondern der Korrektor ordnet, wenn nötig, Satzteile sinnvoller an und schlägt dir schärfere Formulierungen vor, solltest du nicht zum Punkt kommen.

German

Table 3.  Continued

Pour un document imprimé en recto verso, le correcteur ou la correctrice doit s’assurer que le recto des feuilles est impair.

French

El Parlamento Europeo y el Tribunal de Justicia buscan a correctores de pruebas /​verificadores lingüísticos de griego, español, estonio, irlandés, italiano y portugués (grado AST 3) para trabajar en sus servicios lingüísticos en Luxemburgo. Si te contratan, tus tareas incluirán la corrección de pruebas de manuscritos, la verificación de textos traducidos para comprobar su coherencia con el original, la preparación y revisión de pruebas para su publicación en distintos formatos y medios, y la preparación de manuscritos en formato electrónico o en papel en cuanto a ortografía, corrección gramatical y sintaxis.

Spanish

Same definition in both sources

Notes

Definizione come sottovoce ‘c. di bozze’ alla voce ‘correttore’

Italian

German

French

subpartida de la palabra ‘corrector’

Spanish

Source: Author’s elaboration a All of the websites cited in the English and Italian columns of this terminology card were last accessed on 15 January 2022. All of those cited in the columns dedicated to German, French and Spanish were last accessed on 23 February 2022.

Source of context

English

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2.1.3.1. Terminology card: Proofreaders The ‘proofreader’ of a non-​native author’s publication is more at liberty to suggest extensive changes to the style of the text before submission or resubmission than he or she would be before the publication of the final proofs. However, the degree to which proofreaders should intervene on style (as opposed to grammar, vocabulary and typographical irregularities) is not always clear. 2.1.3.2. Comments on proofreaders In contrast to the previous cases, in this terminology card, all of the languages –​except English –​contain the root ‘c/​korrec/​kt’ in their translation of the term. The heart of the word, and the profession, remains that of correcting –​making the final text ‘correct’ –​and therefore of evaluating it from a prescriptive perspective, as opposed to the more descriptive approach adopted by this study, which ‘treats’ rather than ‘corrects’ deviations that are not ‘mistakes’. Furthermore, of all of the roles explored in this section, the proofreader is the one who must always be employed in some form and at some stage, because any publication entails the use of proofs and their linguistic correction, even if this is limited to avoiding typos. This initially leads to the impression that the proofreader will be the most defined and protected professional profile, and the theoretical ‘definitions’ confirm this. Yet observing and comparing the descriptions of proofreaders’ roles across the languages both in the terminology card (in the ‘context’ section) and in the literature actually reveals the contrary. In truth, proofreaders are expected to be the most flexible of the language professionals, occasionally also taking on the roles of translators, revisors, revisers and/​or copyeditors based on their skills (native, non-​native or bilingual competence in the source and/​or target language, experience in translation and specialised language, etc.). For instance, according to the English ‘context’, even when a copyeditor is used, the proofreader may be required to check the text as ‘a second pair of eyes’. This is confirmed by a study by King, according to which proofreaders claim that ‘Even light copyediting responsibilities—​such as checking spelling, grammar, and

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

43

punctuation—​fall under the heading of proofreading at times’ and that ‘Sometimes proofreading can be checking for style—​changing words. Other times, it’s just looking for grammatical mistakes. It all depends on who is paying you’ (2006: 84). This situation is more implicit in the Italian context, which simply states that the proofreader is a ‘multifaceted figure’ that is often confused with the copyeditor and in many cases performs both roles. Interestingly, there is no mention of style in the definitions or contexts except in the English ‘context’, which mentions making the text readable. However, working on the final proofs leads to the common assumption that if anyone is to make improvements to the ‘flow’ of the specific text before publishing, that should be the proofreader. This proves that there is a divergence between the theoretical and professional definitions of proofreading and the practical expectations associated with proofreading. For instance, Mossop points out, in what he explicitly refers to as a ‘terminology note’, that ‘The term proofreading is sometimes used by translators to mean copyediting […] It is also used by some translators to refer to the procedure called unilingual rereading […] It is even used as a synonym of revision’ (2014: 33, original italics), which identifies the proofreader with revisers and copyeditors. Further on, in his own definition of ‘proofreading’, Mossop provides more than one version depending on the professional’s industry and extent of intervention:

1) In the publishing industry, checking an edited text for any errors remaining after page design and typesetting. 2) In the translation industry, checking of a text for Mechanics and the Presentation parameters, often by a non-​translator. 3) In the translation industry, sometimes used as a synonym of unilingual re-​reading or revision. (2014: 227, original italics)

The first definition is the most traditional and typical of unilingual journals and publications, where native speaking proofreaders check the ‘proofs’ that have already been edited by the copyeditor (who may propose changes in style that make it easily ‘readable’ or bring it in line with the house style) for any last-​minute imperfections. The second definition may be associated with a technical check following a translation,

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and therefore a specialised form of revision (by a revisor) (Scarpa 2019 and 2020). Therefore, of the three, the focus of this study more closely matches the third definition, underlining the need for more detailed linguistic revision –​at different stages –​especially when a text has been produced by a non-​native author. It is important to point out though that both the first and second forms of proofreading may be involved in academic publishing, because a paper must be proofread for both correctness and clarity in its language and style before and after the peer review phase, and later for typos or incongruities with the rest of the issue or volume just before going to print. Now that the role of proofreaders –​and of proofreading in general –​ has been investigated in theory and practice from a multilingual perspective, it is possible to suggest that the complications detected lie at a conceptual level. The following section will therefore focus on proofreaders’ definitions of their own profession and its evolution, in an attempt to understand what impact this could have on academic proofreading and the role of academic style.

2.2. What does proofreading include (or exclude)? As the terminological analysis above has illustrated, the term ‘proofread’ often but not always relates to ‘the last stage, after a piece of writing has been drafted and re-​drafted several times’ (Scott and Turner 2008: 1). Rather, this is generally the case when the author is a native speaker, but in the case of non-​native authors, different language professionals and types of control over the text are necessary in order to ensure that the publication conforms to the academic community’s linguistic and professional culture: A manuscript develops slowly through several drafts with inputs from colleagues, language specialists, proofreaders, reviewers, and editors, what Lillis and Curry (2006)

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

45

call ‘literacy brokers’. This often frustrates writers, but contributes to the final polished product shaped to the cognitive and rhetorical frameworks of a disciplinary community. The brokering of published research therefore mediates academic cultures as well as texts. The process not only manages the quality of published research, but also functions as an apparatus of community control by regulating appropriate topics, methodologies and the boundaries within which negotiation can occur. For newcomers to a discipline it is both a critical situated learning experience and a rite de passage that marks the route to full membership. (Hyland 2009: 68)

As mentioned, in fact, the proofreader is the most common and flexible of the three professions analysed and works in the phase that supposedly, but not always, follows the drafting and editing of a text and precedes its final printing, thus distinguishing the role from translators, revisors or copyeditors. 2.2.1. Definitions of proofreading A great deal of confusion and oversimplification concerning what and how much should be changed when preparing a text for publication may be traced back to the fact that traditional dictionaries, in defining the verb ‘proofread’, and therefore the activity of ‘proofreading’, have hitherto only focused on spelling, grammar and punctuation, as may be observed in the following examples: reading and marking corrections on a proof or other copy of the text of articles and books before publication. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘proofreading’)12 read (printer's proofs or other written or printed material) and mark any errors. (Oxford English Dictionary, ‘proofread’) to read and correct a piece of written or printed work (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, ‘proofread’)13

1 2 , accessed 20 December 2021. 13 , accessed 20 December 2021.

46

chapter 2 to read and mark corrections in (something, such as a proof ) (Merriam Webster, ‘proofread’)14

These definitions, drawn from both British and American sources, all characterise proofreading as simply aiming for the optimum ‘correctness’ of a text by pointing out and amending obvious errors while maintaining the overall structure of the author’s text. This is also reflected in the official multilingual translations of the term ‘proofreading’ that were found in the IATE terminological database when compiling the terminology cards in the previous section. Moreover, in the case of technical language, the proofreader’s activity is further restricted to the search for perfect correspondence between terms possessing the qualities of a specialised microlanguage (Gotti 2005). Nevertheless, these traditional definitions are used by publishing institutions or international journals, which are separate entities, and therefore come into play after the acceptance of the author’s paper. As a result, they do not cover the proofreading that is necessary before the paper’s submission and/​or acceptance, or the new tasks that have been entrusted to proofreaders and/​or are divided with copyeditors. These two factors have resulted in significant confusion as to ‘who’ is responsible for intervening in an author’s style and ‘how much’ can be changed. 2.2.2. Proofreading in professional online communities The observations presented in the previous subsection are confirmed by studying and comparing examples of subtle variations that have been detected in the 2019 and 2022 versions of the websites of three editorial professional communities based in the UK and Ireland and their definitions of the terms ‘proofreading’ and ‘copyediting’. These three associations were selected for this comparison in order to illustrate how the ‘centre’

14

, December 2021.

accessed

20

Proofreading: Shifting definitions, demands, profiles

47

of linguistic power defines these professional figures, who are employed precisely due to their standing as native speakers. Moreover, as observed in the comparison of traditional definitions of the word ‘proofreading’ above, there appear to be no relevant differences in the concept in British and American English. Confining these examinations to the UK and Ireland avoids possible complications that could stem from divergences in the professional status and rights of proofreaders and copyeditors in more countries. Finally, they are all associations focusing on editors and proofreaders, and therefore do not involve the other categories of revisers and translators. The first website to be investigated is that of SfEP (the Society for Editors and Proofreaders):15 1a) 2.2.1 'editing' In this code, 'editing' embraces copy-​editing, proofreading and editorial project management. It is used as a general term for the range of work undertaken by members, in the context of printed or electronic publication. To avoid confusion, the term 'copy-​editing' is reserved for the specific task of preparing a text for publication, including stylistic, structural, intrusive and substantive editing where applicable (see 5.1.3). 2.2.2 'proofreading' This term is used in this code to define a process of identifying typographical, linguistic, coding or positional errors and omissions on a printed or electronic proof, and marking corrections. (SfEP, Code of Practice –​section 2, 2019 version,16 my italics) 1b) 2.2.1 'editing' In this code, 'editing' embraces copyediting, proofreading and editorial project management. It is used as a general term for the range of work undertaken by members, in the context of printed or electronic publication. To avoid confusion, the term 'copyediting' is reserved for the specific task of preparing a text for publication, including technical, stylistic, structural and substantive editing where applicable (see 5.1.3).

15

16

The SfEP (the Society for Editors and Proofreaders) changed name in 2020 and became the CIEP (the Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading). Because the definitions in the study are from the 2019 and 2022 texts, both names will be referred to accordingly. The 2019 version of the Code of Practice is no longer available online.

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chapter 2 2.2.2 'proofreading' This term is used in this code to define a process of identifying typographical, linguistic, coding or positional errors and omissions on a printed or electronic proof, and marking corrections. (SfEP, Code of Practice –​section 2, 2022 version,17 my italics)

In definitions 1a and 1b, copyediting and proofreading are separate professions that come under the ‘editing’ umbrella category, and the fact that they are positioned within a ‘range of work’ solidifies their distinct roles. It also confirms the importance of copyeditors, as mentioned when analysing the meaning, translation and use of the term ‘copyeditor’ in Subsection 2.1.2.2. Interestingly, the updated version of the website has shifted from using ‘copy-​editing’ to the consolidated one-​word version ‘copyediting’. The presence of the term ‘stylistic’ editing in reference to copyeditors without any further explanation gives the impression that copyeditors are responsible for implementing any changes to the author’s style. However, in line with the previous terminological analysis, the word ‘style’ here refers to ‘editorial style’ or ‘house style’, not to style in a linguistic sense. The addition of ‘technical’ editing to the list of copyeditors’ tasks in the 2022 version is also significant in this sense, because it refers to reviewing technical documents (i.e. checking the quality, objectivity and relevance of their content) and identifying any errors or areas of improvement related to the standards and expectations of technical language to ensure that the text is clear and effective for the target audience of members of the relevant professional community.18 In contrast, idiosyncratic, 17 CIEP. (2022). ‘Code of Practice –​Section 2’, , accessed 4 October 2022. 18 Interestingly, studies on technical editors demonstrate that, for decades, they have been a category that views and must justify their interactions with both native and non-​native authors from a linguistic perspective. Among these studies, Power (1981), for instance, uses a checklist entitled ‘Do you need a technical editor?’ and a detailed description of skills and possible forms of collaboration to convince engineers to hire or entrust their work to a technical editor. Buehler (1980) encourages technical editors not to limit themselves to correcting texts for grammar and house style, but rather to consider a situational, or rhetorical, approach to be applied individually to each situation. Finally, Mackiewicz and Riley consider that ‘editors will increasingly work with a nonnative speaker at some point during the document creation or review process’ (2003: 83). This indicates that the relationship between technical editor and author starts early on, even during the preparation of a

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authorial ‘style’ may be traced back to the ‘linguistic’ focus referred to in the definition of proofreading in both 1a and 1b, albeit only in cases of ‘error and omissions’, thus excluding any discretionary suggestions. Again, this concerns editorial proofreading immediately preceding publication, and not that preceding the paper’s submission or resubmission, when it is still possible to make relevant changes to the text. In the case of non-​native speakers, the proofreader must intervene earlier so as to enable the paper to reach this final phase. Moreover, according to these definitions, it is the proofreader who can mark corrections to be forwarded to the author(s), therefore maintaining his or her role as a linguistic and editorial mediator between the publisher and the author(s), while the copyeditor is free to integrate editorial changes that do not need any confirmation by the author(s). The next examples, 2a and 2b, are from the website of AFEPI (the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland): 2a) The proofreader reads page proofs after edited copy comes back from the typesetter or desk-​top designer. The proofreader’s job is to make sure that text, illustrations, captions, headings, etc., are properly placed and complete; to check that design specifications have been followed; to check running heads; to ensure that captions and legends match artwork; to ensure that pagination matches the Contents list; to check end-​of-​line breaks; to proofread preliminary pages and end matter (e.g., the index if there is one); to fix incontestable errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar that have slipped through the net during copy-​editing; and to query inconsistencies. The copy-​editor reads a text to make sure, among other things, that grammar, spelling and punctuation follow standard rules and the publisher’s house style (if supplied); that the language and style are appropriate for the audience and genre; that spellings of unusual names are consistent; that the author doesn’t promise five examples and give

document, and continues throughout the review process, as opposed to what commonly happens with academic journals. In addition, they describe the interaction between editors and authors as a potentially conflictual one in which change is considered to be a very delicate matter because commenting and advising on writing represents a potential ‘face-​threatening act’ (2003: 84) that can only be avoided if the editor employs and hones his or her diplomatic linguistic and pragmatic skills.

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chapter 2 only four; that figures in a table add up correctly; that headings and sub-​headings are marked correctly for the typesetter; that inconsistencies are queried with the author or publisher; and that references to illustrations are clear enough for the typesetter to place them correctly. (AFEPI, FAQs, 2019 version,19 my italics) 2b) Copy-​editing deals with the mechanics of the text and applies an appropriate set of rules (and/​or a publisher’s house style) for spelling, grammar and punctuation. Copy-​editors ensure, for example, that text is clear and concise and appropriate for the target readership, that spellings of unusual names are consistent, that the author doesn’t promise five examples and give only four, that figures in a table add up correctly, that the hierarchy of headings and sub-​headings are correct, that inconsistencies are queried with the author or publisher, and that illustrations or images are clearly labelled. Proofreading is the final stage of text preparation before publication. Traditionally, the proofreader reads page proofs after they come back from the typesetter or designer, but nowadays the term is often used to mean the final polish of the text. The proofreader’s main job is to fix incontestable errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar that may have slipped through the net during copy-​editing, but their duties also include making sure that text, illustrations, captions, headings, running heads, etc., are complete, ensuring that page numbers match the Table of Contents; proofreading preliminary pages (copyright page, etc.) and end matter (e.g. a bibliography or index, if there is one). (AFEPI, FAQs, 2022 version,20 my italics)

Although the overall content appears to be very similar, there are several changes between the 2019 and 2022 versions, implying that there has been a development in the perception of copyeditors and proofreaders. The first, and most obvious, change is in the order of the two parts of the text: in the 2019 FAQs, the ‘proofreader’ preceded the ‘copy-​editor’, while in the 2022 version, ‘copy-​editing’ is positioned before ‘proofreading’. This could have been done to reflect the order in which the two categories act and to be in line with other, similar associations. Another significant modification may be seen in the change in word category from nouns (‘proofreader’ and ‘copy-​editor’) to verbs (‘copy-​editing’ and ‘proofreading’). This highlights two possible trends: that of focusing on the action rather than the position –​adding a dynamism that is further 1 9 The 2019 version of the FAQs is no longer available online. 20 AFEPI. (2022). ‘FAQs’, , accessed 4 October 2022.

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enforced by the choice to use the progressive rather than the infinitive form of the verbs –​and the perhaps implicit consequent intention of blurring the lines between the two professions. This decision may reflect the trend for one person dealing with both activities. In addition, the specific tasks have been changed: for example, copyeditors shift from ensuring that grammar, spelling and punctuation follow ‘standard rules and the publisher’s house style’, which are imposed from the outside, to applying ‘an appropriate set of rules (and/​or a publisher’s house style) for spelling, grammar and punctuation’, which leaves room for the copyeditors’ own judgement of an individual text. The proofreaders’ increased responsibility is explicitly stated: while they ‘traditionally’ read the final proofs, now they work on the ‘final polish’ of the text. This reformulation makes it easy to identify this ‘polish’ with the style and flow of the text, and it also makes it easier for the two roles to merge, as often happens when there is no copyeditor involved. The final website description is from the Editors’ and Proofreaders’ Alliance of Northern Ireland: 3a) Copy-​editing gets down to the nitty-​gritty of the text. This is your last chance to improve your text. The copy-​editor makes everything consistent (all British English spelling, for example) and corrects problems of spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, style, repetition, word or phrase overuse, and appropriate vocabulary. With non-​fiction books, the copy-​editor is often also responsible for checking facts and citations, footnotes/​endnotes and bibliographies, and for cross-​checking references, figures and tables. […] Proofreading is the lightest form of editing and usually comes last in the production process, once the text has been copy-​edited, formatted and paginated, and just before the text is published. The proofreader checks for errors only, correcting those that have been missed (or introduced) at the copy-​editing stage –​spelling, grammar and punctuation. If a text is revised as a result of a proofread (even if only small parts are re-​written), a second (or even third) proofread is advisable. A final proofread should find no errors at all. (Editors’ and Proofreaders’ Alliance of Northern Ireland, What We Do section, 2019 version21 and 2022 version,22 my italics)

2 1 The 2019 version is no longer available online. 22 Editors’ and Proofreaders’ Alliance of Northern Ireland. (2022). ‘What We Do’, , accessed 4 October 2022.

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This particular definition is the clearest in stating that it is the copyeditor’s job not only to unify the text, but also to address ‘style, repetition, word or phrase overuse’, as well as other common areas like grammar and syntax. This requires not only changing indisputable mistakes, but also using linguistic and discursive discretionary judgement, where necessary, in view of the fact that the publication is still at a phase when it is possible to make relevant changes. The proofreader, in contrast, must only perform ‘the lightest form of editing’, as everything has already supposedly been taken care of during the copyediting phase. At the end of each description, there is a separate link that leads to an FAQs page with a variety of questions and related answers on copyeditors and proofreaders, along with extra resources. 3b) The tasks carried out during copyediting will vary depending on the nature of the text, how and where it will be published, what work has or will be carried out by someone else, and practical considerations such as the budget and time available. Here are some typical copyediting tasks. […] Correcting and making consistent:

• Correcting errors or inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, grammar, style and usage. • Checking and correcting spellings of names, for example of places or people. • Imposing consistency in use of, for example, italics, bold and capitals. • Improving clarity by rewording or reformatting text that is confusing or convoluted, or suggesting structural additions to help readability such as headings or lists. […] Communicating:



• Creating and populating information documents (such as a style sheet and instructions for the designer/​typesetter) that those following them in the project will need. • Liaising with the author or intermediary on anything that the copyeditor cannot confirm alone, such as preferred points of style, approval of suggested rewording or the location of missing information. Many changes at copyediting stage are made for consistency, either within the document or publication or to comply with a client’s style guide. If you don’t have a style guide for your documents, you can learn how to create one in our short guide Your House Style. You can also hire an experienced editor to create a style guide for you.

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(Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, ‘What Does a Copyeditor Do?’, What Is Copyediting?, 2022 version, my italics)23 3c) In traditional publishing, proofreading is the stage in the workflow that comes after copyediting –​once the text is in layout and before publication. Often the word ‘proofreading’ is used more loosely, to describe almost any editorial intervention and correction to a text. Because proofreading and copyediting are different tasks and need professionals with specific skills, it’s important for both client and professional to understand which service the text needs.

• A proofreader should help to ensure that a text is ready to be published. You can think of it as the final quality check. • Because the proofreader works near the end of the publication process, they are usually looking for remaining errors that must be corrected. • Unless they have been specifically briefed to do so as extra paid tasks, the proofreader will not be rewording sentences, making larger structural interventions such as reordering blocks of text or inserting headings, or fact-​checking (but they may raise a query about anything that seems wrong). (Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, ‘What Does a Proofreader Do?’, What Is Proofreading?, 2022 version, my italics)24

Although presented in different pages and under a new name for the association (the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading),25 the in­ formation that is presented in 3b and 3c is mostly, but not completely, in line with that provided in 3a. There is, in fact, a repetition of the fact that the copyeditor is responsible for style, as well as ‘usage’ and ‘rewording or reformatting text that is confusing or convoluted’. Interestingly, the 23

Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, ‘What Is Copyediting?’, , accessed 28 February 2022. This page is directly linked to the homepage of the Editors’ and Proofreaders’ Alliance of Northern Ireland to explain the definitions provided in 3a in further detail. 24 Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, ‘What Is Proofreading?’, , accessed 28 February 2022. This page is directly linked to the homepage of the Editors’ and Proofreaders’ Alliance of Northern Ireland to explain the definitions provided in 3a in further detail. 2 5 As previously mentioned, the SfEP (the Society for Editors and Proofreaders) changed name in 2020 and became the CIEP (the Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading).

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section on ‘communicating’ –​which is not addressed in any of the other descriptions –​apparently connects this category with the technical editing that is only mentioned in passing in 1b. The sentence that follows, however –​‘Many changes at copyediting stage are made for consistency, either within the document or publication or to comply with a client’s style guide’ –​brings the concept of style back to that of house style or conformity. Therefore, in contrast to the other page, this definition of copyeditor is substantially similar to that of the other associations. 3c presents an interesting addition in relation to the role of proofreaders by pointing out that ‘the word “proofreading” is used more loosely, to describe almost any editorial intervention and correction to a text’ and that ‘proofreading and copyediting are different tasks and need professionals with specific skills’. It is therefore the first instance, among those considered, of a direct juxtaposition of the two categories within the same sentence, as well as the first to openly mention the proofreader’s role in ‘rewording sentences’: it may be done only if ‘they have been specifically briefed to do so as extra paid tasks’. This clearly indicates that the balance between copyediting and proofreading has shifted in favour of the latter in this sense. In the practice of academic publications, however, proofreaders may act as copyeditors when they are part of an editorial board and are called on at a much earlier stage to make borderline or rejected manuscripts acceptable, which requires more work than rewording occasional sentences or completing a final quality check. As a result, even the definitions that are diffused within the professional community are not exempt from the overlaps that were identified in the terminology cards. In a purely academic context, such overlaps are due to the fact that both copyeditors and proofreaders, along with translators and other English language specialists, are part of the ‘language professionals’ category of ‘literacy brokers’, who focus on ‘sentence-​level revisions and direct translations’ (Lillis and Curry 2006: 14). Interestingly, Lillis and Curry observe that all corrections, content and language-​based alike, are framed in linguistic terms, thus implying that a change in language leads –​or could potentially lead –​to a change in content. This has been the main reason why proofreaders generally do not intervene in the text, but nowadays the increase in publications in English by non-​native academics has made it necessary for them to be

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more proactive in pointing out not only indisputable grammar mistakes but also turns of phrases that may be ‘correct’ but deviate from the expected schemata of the academic community. Academic English, in fact, is a language in its own right that must be learned by both non-​native and native authors, especially those with limited experience in academic writing (Hyland 2000 and 2009; Flowerdew 2002; Swales 2004; Englander and Cocoran 2019).26 This specialisation causes proofreaders who are not versed or confident in academic English to feel uncomfortable or unable to intervene in the style of the text they are working on, as this lies in a grey area between grammar, syntax and pragmatics and is supported by an intuitive idea of what is ‘correct’. This is particularly difficult for both authors (regardless of them being native or non-​native) and language professionals working in the field of academic publishing, considering that there is little or no formal training or material available on academic style or ERPP.27 Academics and professionals can only learn by trial and error 26

27

Swales goes as far as claiming that the most important distinction in today’s research world and its discourse community is ‘no longer that between NSs and NNSs of English but between experienced or “senior” researcher/​scholars and less experienced or “junior” ones’ (Swales 2004: 56). Such an assertion suggests that good academic style is something that comes more naturally to the native speaker but may also be acquired with time, attention and experience of writing and receiving feedback from reviewers and proofreaders. This is even more true when considering that style is not something that is commonly taught in academic writing courses, even at a PhD or postdoctoral level. The term ‘English for Research Publication Purposes’, or ERPP, was coined by Cargill and Burgess in the introduction to a special 2008 issue of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes: ‘English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) can be thought of as a branch of EAP addressing the concerns of professional researchers and post-​graduate students who need to publish in peer-​reviewed international journals’ (2008: 75). This field and its findings are therefore of interest in many academic and professional categories connected with academic publishing: university students who aspire to work in academia, academics throughout their entire career, instructors of academic English at all levels, and language professionals including translators, revisors, editors, copyeditors and proofreaders. Englander and Cocoran, while acknowledging that many find the term ERPP ‘problematic as it potentially privileges English over other languages in knowledge production, thus reifying the hegemonic global position English holds’, also admit

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which stylistic forms of writing are acceptable within the international academic community.28 This makes even more sense when considering that ‘membership in global communities tends to be regulated exclusively by discourse-​governed criteria (writing style, publication in certain journals, presentations at national conventions, professional correspondence, and so forth)’ (Killingsworth and Gilbertson 1992: 169). While acknowledging that the intervention in academic style that non-​native academics have to perform, or request other professionals to perform, on their work for it to be published lies between copyediting and proofreading, the latter term will be adopted and used throughout the rest of this study. As the terminology cards and the analysis of the definitions have highlighted, copyediting is more closely associated with the stylistic standards and requirements of the individual publishing house rather than the entire academic community. In addition, while proofreading is usually the final phase, in general it is the task that makes an academic text acceptable immediately both before submitting and before publishing, although proofreading may involve extensive revision, depending on the author’s level of competence. It is clear that ‘correctness’ is essential in preventing a text from being rejected, but the notion of style’s importance is more recent and has met resistance within the academic community both from proofreaders, who cannot or dare not change more than what is indisputable, and from authors, who may be defensive or hostile towards proposed changes due to their ‘intellectual and emotional investment’ (Mackiewicz and Riley 2003: 83). It is therefore necessary to clarify, for the benefit of all involved, how a non-​native academic’s style can influence his or her chances of being published in an international journal and consequently enhance his or her career.

that it ‘most accurately reflects research and writing activities conducted with the express intent of fostering English language publication’ (2019: 3). 28 The realisation that publication is regulated by overarching and unspoken ‘rules’ that are both discursive and non-​discursive led to the expansion of the field and scope of ERPP to all professional researchers and postgraduates, both native and non-​native, to find ways to assist them in understanding and navigating the rules of the ‘publication game’ (Casanave 2002).

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2.3. Summary This chapter introduced this study of ‘academic style proofreading’ by starting from the last word –​‘proofreading’ –​which consists of the specialised and understudied form and skill that represents the fil rouge of this entire book. To do so, the initial discursive exploration introduced the concept of ‘RA (research article) mediators’ (Luo 2017) and ‘literacy brokers’ (Lillis and Curry 2010), who provide linguistic and editorial services to academics and others who wish to publish their work. It then pointed out that knowledge of and intervention in academic style are recent and increasing requirements due to the higher linguistic standards that are being enforced in the international academic community. This led to the first of many issues to be disentangled, concerning the ongoing confusion about which language professional is supposed to correct the academic style of submitted papers. In particular, the overview narrowed the focus down to three professional profiles: revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders. Although the non-​expert public has a vague idea of what each of these professionals does, their identification becomes more complicated when juxtaposing them and attempting to clearly define the distinct roles and responsibilities of each profession, especially when one of these figures has to cover for another. In an attempt to resolve this ambiguity and gain a better understanding of each profile by answering the first research question presented at the opening of the ­chapter –​

1) What are the differences (or similarities) between often confused roles like revisors, copyeditors and proofreaders?

–​a brief but detailed terminological study of these three language professionals was carried out. The findings were consolidated in three terminology cards that were compiled and commented by the author for English, Italian, German, French and Spanish. The investigation used the IATE terminological database as a reliable source and examined the relevant terms in the various languages to verify whether there was a case

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of linguistic or conceptual ambiguity. The terminology cards referred to both online dictionaries, in order to provide a denotative definition, and to professional or easily accessible websites for further context to exemplify the information that a non-​expert would find when searching for information. Some noteworthy observations were already possible at this point, starting from ‘revisor’ and ‘reviser’, which seem to be closely related even if they indicate different roles (a revisor compares a translated text with its source text while a reviser only rereads a translated text to ensure its readability), with the term ‘reviser’ consistently used in the other languages and in other professions that are completely unrelated to language. The term ‘copyeditor’, which is also more recent, initially seemed to be the figure who has to adjust academic style because he or she is explicitly instructed to check and correct the ‘style’ of the text. On closer inspection, however, it was clear that the style being referred to here is ‘house style’, which consists of the established rules on writing and symbols that are enforced by the journal or publishing house. Finally, the proofreader is commonly associated with the final ‘proofs’, which are prepared after the intervention of the reviewers and copyeditor and represent the final phase before publication. However, this is not the case for proofreaders of texts written by non-​native academics, who check the entire text before the author’s submission, and therefore at the beginning of the editorial process. For this reason, and because a copyeditor may not be used, it often falls to the proofreader to also check and correct academic style. Therefore, although the proofreader has the most stable term and is most often included in the process, the position of this role is ironically the most flexible of the three. This leads to the conclusion that this professional is the one who is in the best position to assist authors in adjusting the academic style of their work before presenting it to the academic community.

2) What does it mean to ‘proofread’ and have there been any changes in the definitions and tasks connected to proofreading?

Having determined the literacy broker who would most probably intervene in academic style, and therefore both assist and benefit from this

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study, the second question was explored in further depth by seeking more information on proofreaders of academic style from online general and professional definitions of ‘proofreaders’ and ‘proofreading’, and professional websites comparing copyeditors and proofreaders. This confirmed proofreaders’ association with correctness rather than style and with minimal changes, especially in the more traditional dictionary definitions and the earlier wording of the definitions on such websites. There was, however, one case in which proofreaders had to mark corrections and another in which there was a repositioning of the order with copyeditors and a shift from the nouns ‘proofreader’ and ‘copy-​editor’ to the gerund verbs ‘copy-​editing’ and ‘proofreading’. This signals dynamicity in the field and in the roles and could therefore suggest an expansion in the proofreader’s tasks. Another reason for focusing on the proofreader is the fact that he or she is active immediately before submission and publication, making him or her a gatekeeper, or preferably a mediator, between the academic and the ‘outside’ international academic discourse community. Having addressed and identified the ‘proofreading’ (and the proofreader) involved in ‘academic style proofreading’, the next chapter will focus on the rest of this key term: ‘academic style’. In fact, as outlined in the introduction, it is no longer enough for a proofreader to be highly competent in English or even a native speaker, nor is it enough for a proofreader to have studied academic English in a traditional sense. The international academic discourse community communicates through academic English but also through academic style, a manner of phrasing and conveying thoughts that reflects the international Anglophone ‘mind style’, with its unspoken and selective rules.

Chapter 3

Publishing in academia is a matter of ‘style’

The previous chapter demonstrated that in the field of publishing in general, the proofreader’s final intervention is supposed to be a guarantee of the quality of the text. Indeed, proofreading in English is an essential practice in academic publishing, because ‘reading the proofs is a routine procedure, a process of giving a final dusting down […] before an article or chapter is published’ (Scott and Turner 2008: 1). This is even more important when publications in English by non-​ native authors employ the same proofreader to work on the manuscript at different stages (e.g. before the author’s submission, after the author has received the reviews and adjusted the manuscript accordingly, after the author has received the proofs, and before the publication of the text) or different proofreaders (e.g. one before the author’s submission and another after the peer reviews and adjustment of the manuscript) depending on the author’s satisfaction with the proofreading, the proofreader’s availability and/​or the possibility of employing the services of the journal or publisher’s in-​house proofreaders). In recent years, however, high-​level and high-​stakes linguistic contexts, like academic writing, have increasingly presented more challenges for non-​ natives compared to the past. It has been proven, in fact, that it is 24% more difficult for non-​native academics to write and present their research in English (Englander and Cocoran 2019: 27), taking into account their other institutional duties and the pressure to publish in English (Belcher 2007; Bortolis 2012; Moreno et al. 2012; Curry and Lillis 2013; Bennett 2014; Huttner-​Koros 2015). These difficulties are further compounded by two trends: the increasing speed with which papers have to be submitted, reviewed and adjusted before publication thanks to the new affordances of online academic publishing (as

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will be viewed in further detail in Section 3.3.), and publishers’ pressing demand that papers are written in a satisfactory ‘style’, as well as form. This means that papers must now undergo a form of proofreading that goes beyond the correction of grammar and basic language that was required in the past and that therefore may go beyond the competence or confidence of many native proofreaders who are not familiar with the author’s discipline or with academic English. Improving the style and readability of texts is necessary to avoid requests for major revisions or even rejections of submissions (Clavero 2010 and 2011; Chovanec 2012; Hartse and Kubota 2014). Based on these observations, the time has come to delve into what the ‘academic style’ in ‘academic style proofreading’ consists of. This will remain in the realm of academic publishing in this chapter but viewed from the perspective of the academics rather than the language professionals covered in Chapter 2. Academic proofreaders of style and non-​native academics are thus positioned within the current international scene and must adapt to the new requirements of an increasingly multilingual and diverse discourse community. The terms ‘style’ and ‘stylistics’ will be expounded on in detail in Chapter 4. However, in order to clearly understand what is intended here by the word ‘style’, the following preliminary set of definitions is provided: ‘style may be seen as a particular way of writing or speaking’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 155); ‘Style […] is not a discretionary extra in linguistic exchanges; rather, it is part of the essence of communication itself ’ (Burke 2014: 43). These definitions already hint at the complexity and vagueness of the concept itself: style is ‘particular’ and ‘part of the essence’, but there are no measurable definitions or standards of what is considered acceptable in terms of style in international academic publishing. The lack of clarity in publishing gatekeepers’ requests would be amusing if it did not have such a strong impact on the chances of publication and careers of non-​native authors, as well as their relationships with proofreaders. This chapter will explain the forms and extent of the influence of style on non-​native academics by illustrating the role of academic style in the international academic discourse community and its impact on non-​ native academics from an institutional standpoint. It will then consider

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the implications of this on academic proofreading practices. Finally, it will seek to explore online academic publishing and, more specifically, an example of an alternative and/​or integrated online genre: academic blogs. They are still in a relatively early phase of development but, if appropriately handled, they have the potential to at least partially mitigate the current unbalance in know-​how regarding academic writing, and empower non-​ native academics through knowledge dissemination. The following research questions will help to focus the excursus of the chapter:

1) What impact does style and its proofreading (or lack thereof ) have on publishing in the international academic community? 2) Could the introduction of new and more open genres of knowledge dissemination result in the relaxing of linguistic and stylistic standards for non-​native academics?

Given the spread of English as the main international academic language for research and publication purposes, this chapter will conclude its reflection on academic style from an institutional standpoint and lead into Chapter 4, where ‘style’ and ‘stylistics’ –​both in general and in academic discourse –​will be defined in detail in an attempt to dispel common misconceptions and misunderstandings about these two terms.

3.1. Style in academic publishing Academic research articles are a genre where clear writing instructions are crucial to facilitate access to and acceptance into the international discourse community (Swales 1990 and 2004; Giannoni 2005; Siepmann 2006; Molino 2010; Flowerdew 2013). In these texts, in fact, an academic’s chances of being published and read on an international level, thus boosting his or her career, depend not only on the quality of the content, but also on the ‘correctness’ and appropriateness of his or her writing on all levels. This is due to the growing internationalisation of academic

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publishing,1 as well as the fact that ‘there is increasing pressure on scholars to publish in English […] and that English-​medium publications are often accorded higher status than publications in other languages’ (Lillis and Curry 2006: 4). This has reached the point where many national journals that originally published in the language of their home nation have begun to publish in English in the search for more prestige and visibility (Martín et al. 2014; McDowell and Liardét 2019; Stockemer and Wigginton 2019).2 This widespread choice of language is due to reasons of both historical and current geopolitical power (being internationally active has a positive effect on the academic, the institution he or she represents and even the country in which the institution is located) and the widespread (mistaken) belief that ‘English is an easy language to learn (it has a simple grammar, etc.), that is clear and concise and that is why it has been adopted as the language of research and publication’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 12; see also Englander and Cocoran 2019: 18). The use of English within the international community therefore promotes the communication and dissemination of new findings among members who are trained to convey and receive information in a particular manner: No new discovery, insight, invention or understanding has any significance until it is made available to others and no university or individual will receive credit for it until it has seen the light of day through publication. This involves a long process of convincing editors, reviewers and peers to accept a claim as interesting or valid, drawing on approved and familiar discourses to do so. A view must be framed within 1 2

As evidence of this, Vice President James Testa of Thomson Reuters claimed that ‘Going forward, it is clear that the journals most important to the international research community will publish full text in English’ (Thomson Reuters 2014: 12). This attitude in academic publishing reflects the world outside of academia, where English is the acknowledged global language of interaction, as part of attempts to communicate efficiently across geographical spaces and socio-​economic categories. An obvious example of this may be found in the world of business, which has much in common with academia, as can be seen by comparing the international academic community with the multinational corporations that are the object of Zanola’s (2012: 14) study on global English: ‘Functional language is determined by the corporation’s international strategy, organizational structure, and transnationality, and it is mainly English. Aligning language choices with organizational strategy improves business communication and knowledge-​sharing.’

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a context of what is already accepted and using an argument carefully crafted for a particular audience. Ultimately a theory prevails because it is presented in a way which academics recognize as persuasive: knowledge, in other words, is what people can be persuaded to accept (e.g. Rorty 1979) (Hyland 2009: 2).

In such a scenario, academic journals’ decisional power is connected to their heightened expectations for language competence and use, and can have a strong impact on the careers of academics (Curry and Lillis 2004). This affects both non-​native and native authors: for instance, a study by Kapp et al. (2011) found that the following factors, unrelated to grammar but connected to text presentation, were the main reasons for a paper’s rejection: style and language, lack of focus, poor contextualisation, non-​compliance with journal submission guidelines, research design, and inappropriate content.3 The fact that ‘style’ is the first reason to be listed, even though it is often not openly mentioned in ERPP studies, is of great interest because it is given the same importance as ‘language’. Accordingly, from a linguistic viewpoint, the sheer volume of submissions to international journals has led to the gradual shift in demands from readability to fluency, which was generally considered to be quasi-​exclusive to native speakers, and a rise in standards so that a properly written academic text must be not only accurate in content and correct in grammar, but also appropriate in style and register according to the ‘globally dominant Anglo-​American system’ (Chovanec 2012: 6). As a result, an acceptable text is perceived as ‘smooth’ and ‘readable’ (Mossop 2014) by an English native speaker or a highly competent international audience, while writing that reflects non-​English sentence structures or discourse flow may not be considered suitable for publication as they 3

Gosden (1992: 115) previously studied this matter and claimed that ‘The broad term “isolation” covers many causes, for example: not carefully reading “Instructions to Authors”; unfamiliarity with the journal and its academic level; not previewing previous literature well and relating to others’ work, possibly due to a lack of literature/​library facilities; a lack of awareness of what constitutes publishable research; and unfamiliarity with the broad (and unwritten) “rules of the game”.’ The fact that such rules are ‘unwritten’ further confirms the lack of formal training and the need to learn through hands-​on experience and inference from other successful publications.

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are harder to read and immediately understand (Hyland 2009; Hartse and Kubota 2014; Luo and Hyland 2019). This decidedly Anglophone-​ centric approach has both linguistic and epistemic consequences. In the former case, international journals may be wary about accepting papers that contain clear markers of the discursive norms of other cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and therefore reject linguistic idiosyncrasies or non-​standard English variations (Ammon 2000; de Swaan 2001a). In the latter case, which truly limits the creativity and variety of academic and critical thinking, the exclusive adoption of an Anglophone ‘mind style’4 may lead to ‘a general impoverishment of thinking and creativity due to the domination of the Anglophone world’s epistemological patterns, with the concomitant loss of specialized terminology, or domain loss, in languages other than English’ (Bennett 2015: 2). From this perspective, ‘English is not an innocent, neutral, all-​beneficial medium of interaction. It is a language with specific socio-​political, economic, and cultural agendas, and extensive and growing hegemonic power’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 36; see also Pennycook 1994; Swales 1997; Ives 2006; Phillipson 2008). This may be most prominently seen in language policies and the massive conversions of journals, and national papers concerning certain disciplines, to English. This conversion has even led to the loss of professional registers and domains in many national cultures and languages (Swales 2000; Ammon 2001; Bennett 2007 and 2015; Ferguson 2007; Bordet 2016). In accordance with these reflections, style is a factor in acceptance, rejection or requests for minor or major revisions, and this verdict depends on how much ‘unacceptable’ wording of sentences and arguments diverges from the expectations of the Anglophone-​oriented academic discourse community. Based on the journal or editor’s protocol, this decision may be made by a desk editor and/​or during the initial peer review phase and, in the former case, the content of the paper is not duly evaluated. A paper with non-​native style may be accepted and modified when and where necessary by the proofreader and/​or copyeditor, or sent back to the author with a recommendation to have a professional (and preferably a ‘native speaker’) 4

The concept of ‘mind style’ will be further explored in Chapter 4.

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correct or review it. The common use of the reference to a ‘native speaker’ here, however, is misleading because, as has been previously pointed out, not all native speakers are competent in or comfortable with academic language and style. Moreover, in these cases, the style will need to be adjusted according to the expectations of a highly specialised academic community, which may differ from those of other English native speaking academics. In fact, as Kapp et al. (2011) observed, even a native academic’s style may be corrected and commented on by proofreaders, as demonstrated by the existence of manuals on proper academic writing for native speakers (e.g. Sword 2012; Hayot 2014; Hopkins and Reid 2018; Tusting et al. 2019). Therefore, while English native speakers have an indisputable linguistic advantage, they must still come to grips with the unspoken rules of proper expression that are enforced within the academic community. Nevertheless, studies in the field of ERPP have revealed that reviewers’ comments on the language of their papers has led to a conviction among many non-​native authors that they are at a disadvantage, or even discriminated against, compared to their native speaker counterparts (Flowerdew 1999; Jenkins 2011; Mauranen 2016).5 While this idea may be widespread, it is hard to pinpoint or confirm such claims for various reasons: the degree of tolerance of typically non-​native language and style varies according to journals’ language policies (McKinley and Rose 2018); the need to publish quickly in certain research fields and in relation to top-​priority and innovative topics may supersede the necessity to uphold strict linguistic and stylistic standards (Barroso et al. 2006; Vines et al. 2014; Welsh et al. 2018); the author’s perception of the presence, or lack, of discrimination is connected 5

In this regard, Bennett (2009) mentions the emergence of ‘Critical EAP’, which is a subfield of EAP that criticises the practice of following the standardised dominant norms that have been established by English-​speaking authorities and institutions without questioning the values underlying such norms but does not provide any sort of alternative to the problematic approach, as opposed to ERPP. Perhaps the key to solving the problem of enabling non-​native academics to be more readily published does not lie in finding alternatives, which would imply too much relativity and deprive these academics of the opportunity and tools to write in conformity with the academic community, but rather in clarifying the hitherto implicit aspects of academic writing by means of descriptive, rather than prescriptive, rules.

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to his or her geographical and linguistic background (Canagarajah 1996 and 2002; Flowerdew 2001; Li 2006, 2007 and 2014; Jenkins 2009; Lillis and Curry 2010; Seidlhofer 2011); the author may expressly oppose any changes beyond grammar and ‘correctness’ that are proposed by a proofreader before submission; the studies that have investigated this matter are contradictory on whether such discrimination and bias exist (Ammon 2000; Garzone and Catenaccio 2008; Primack and Marrs 2008; Hyland 2016 and 2020; Pronskikh 2018) and the extent to which such decisions are based on grammar versus style. For instance, highly scientific and technological fields of research feature much more standardised disciplinary genre structures and technical vocabulary that is understood throughout the relevant academic community. As a result, in contrast to the social and ‘soft’ sciences, the journals in these fields commonly accept and are accustomed to lengthy and complicated noun phrases, the extensive use of passive verb forms, and nominalisation from both native and non-​native academics, even if this means forgoing a more readable style. The confusion of non-​native academics on receiving reviews and comments on their writing is even more understandable when considering the similarity in form but differences in meaning of commonly used terms like ‘style’, ‘style sheet/​g uide/​manual’ and ‘house style’. The first of these terms, as will be explored further in Chapter 4, stems from literary studies and refers to the highly individual and idiosyncratic manner in which an author presents and disseminates findings of and reflections on his or her research. It is the product of the author’s personal, educational, cultural and academic/​professional background. In contrast, a journal or publisher’s ‘style sheet/​g uide/​manual’, as already observed in the commentary on the ‘copyeditor’ terminology card in Subsection 2.1.2.2., is a written set of rules on specific aspects of language, such as spelling, typography, formatting and punctuation (but not ‘style’), defining the ‘house style’, or preferred style of writing to be implemented in all published texts and monitored by copyeditors. In this sense, the juxtaposition of ‘style’, ‘style sheet/​g uide/​ manual’ and ‘house style’ recreates the division between individual and collective writing (Gotti 2009 and 2012; Molino 2010) and represents the publishing counterpart of the scholar/​academic community dichotomy.

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3.2. Style in academic (self )proofreading In their study of journal submission guidelines in various disciplines, McKinley and Rose observed that: Findings indicate that most of the journal guidelines are inflexible in their acceptance of variant uses of English. Some guidelines state a requirement of meeting an unclear standard of good English, sometimes described as American or British English. Many guidelines specifically position L2 writers as deficient of native standards, which raises ethical considerations of access to publication in top journals. (2018: 1)

In light of what has been observed so far, the proposed term ‘academic style proofreading’ will be used throughout this book to refer to the practice of intervening not only in the vocabulary and grammar, but also the style of texts by non-​native academics. These three separate words have been assembled to distinguish this form of proofreading both from that of non-​ academic texts, with their different uses and standards of English, and from traditional academic proofreading (especially that carried out at the very end of the publishing process), which is more focused on minimal and indisputable mistakes. Proofreading one’s style entails extra work by both the author and the proofreader. The former, in fact, must acquire the perception of appropriateness and legibility that is often based on subtle and specialised syntactic structures, word order and the quality/​quantity ratio of provided information. The latter, on the other hand, generally has an intuitive grasp of the flow of language but may not feel comfortable about intervening in anything more than indisputable grammar and spelling errors. Such hesitancy is often due to the proofreader’s profound self-​awareness of his or her lack of experience in reading academic writing or of understanding the content of the article. Another reason lies in the proofreader’s real or feigned sense of obligation to his or her official role which, as was observed in Chapter 2, has often been limited to correcting obvious mistakes and errors. From this perspective, a readable text is acceptable enough, and modifying the style is both time-​consuming and potentially risky if the author is particularly sensitive when it comes to receiving heavily

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marked revised proofs.6 In the current context, however, refraining from giving potentially useful suggestions that could improve the style of a text is actually a disservice, in that it prevents the author from learning how to improve his or her writing and results in a text that remains perceived as ‘imperfect’ or ‘underdeveloped’ when read by editors and reviewers: Breaking grammatical rules has different consequences from breaking textual or rhetorical rules originating in a national culture: by breaking grammatical and lexical rules, a writer conveys the impression of not knowing the language, which may in mild cases be forgiven and in serious cases cause breakdown of comprehension; by breaking rules of a text-​linguistic type, a writer may appear incoherent or logical; finally, by breaking culture-​specific rhetorical rules a writer may seem exotic and command low credibility. (Mauranen 1993: 263)

As a result, there is an urgent need to define this enhanced proofreading practice with a term that combines elements of revising, correcting and mediating, and underlines the newly added component represented by the observance of unspoken conventions and expectations relating to the style of international academic English. The terminological study in Chapter 2 has already demonstrated that traditional definitions of proofreading are limited and unrepresentative of the new tasks and degree of intervention that proofreaders must exercise in academic publishing. This increasingly important phase of proofreading academic style must be planned as part of normal publication procedures and take into account the unique position of the proofreading professionals at the crossroads between correcting errors in proofs and copyediting the flow and style of the text beyond a particular house style. Doing so will confirm for proofreaders of academic texts that they can –​and indeed must –​do much more than simply correct indisputable errors and be capable of explaining their suggestions on the basis of more than an instinctive ‘sense’. In fact, while EAP and ERPP studies have extensively covered the work of editors and reviews (Flowerdew and Dudley-​Evans 2002; Leki 6

This is confirmed by the fact that ‘It has been shown that in order to achieve their communicative goals and comply with contextual constraints, authors modulate their stylistic choices, adopting a variable formal or informal tone, narrative or argumentative style, subjective or objective viewpoint, personal or impersonal involvement and direct or indirect argumentative line’ (Gotti 2012: 34).

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2003; Ware and Mabe 2012; Habibie 2015; Lillis and Curry 2015; Paltridge 2017 and 2019; Starfield and Paltridge 2019; Hyland 2020; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022), that of proofreaders remains understudied despite their fundamental role as collaborators and enablers of knowledge dissemination for academics who reside outside the centres of linguistic and discourse power (Catenaccio 2003). Thus redefining this emerging and highly specialised branch of the proofreading profession could contribute to the conception and implementation of editorial protocols that would enable proofreaders to work to their fullest potential and more appropriately value their skills when discussing prospective contractual agreements or job descriptions. Moreover, introducing style into the training and preparation of academic proofreaders and copyeditors would provide the change necessary to address a common concern that was framed by Hartse and Kubota: ‘I am not sure whether my change actually improved the text in terms of readability, legitimacy, or acceptability for publication, or if it merely reflected my own individual preference as an editor and a reader’ (2014: 72). Academics must also become self-​proofreaders in order to ensure that their submitted proposal will not be refused on grounds of ‘sounding non-​ native’ or sorely ‘needing the revision of a native speaker’. In fact, as it has been proven that publishing in English has an impact on an academic’s career (Hyland 2009; Lillis and Curry 2010; Gotti 2012; Englander and Cocoran 2019; Luo and Hyland 2019), as well as funding and prestige for his or her institution, non-​native authors must acquire a sense of academic style, along with academic writing skills to promote their work, and EAP and ERPP course instructors (Li et al. 2018; Li and Flowerdew 2020) should integrate these into their writing courses and exercises. This entails becoming aware of the unfamiliar and uncomfortable gap where academic style should be in seemingly complete academic writing courses, starting from the mindset and expectations behind English academic writing and presentation in terms of quantity, order and clarity of information. Such awareness would benefit a number of different professionals who are invested in intervening in and providing valuable feedback on academic style: the previously mentioned instructors; peer reviewers, who need to understand the importance of integrating exhaustive comments into their corrections; proofreaders and/​or copyeditors, based on the stage at

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which they are intervening in the text; and academics themselves, who may become critics of their own writing and know where to start in making their writing more ‘stylish’ for the target journal or publisher (Flowerdew and Dudley-​Evans 2002; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022). This is the case for both experienced academics, who need to publish in English to increase their prestige and to disseminate their studies on an international level, and for novices at the beginning of their academic career. In fact, following Swales’ (2004) theory that the difference between experts and novices is even more important than that between native and non-​native English speakers, it would be in the best interests of novice scholars to become familiar with the discourse of academic publishing and hone their academic style, as well as their academic language skills in general, from the very start. This would not only prevent them from making avoidable mistakes and receiving unfavourable comments on their language, but it would speed up the process of approaching and being accepted by the international academic community. A further reflection on ‘academic style proofreading’ involves explaining why ‘proofreading’ is used instead of ‘copyediting’ which, as seen in its terminology card, is usually the activity concerned with correcting the style of a text. This will involve focusing on the ‘now’ and the ‘future’ of proofreading in international academic writing. In the current context, proofreaders, and especially native speaking proofreaders, are expected to ensure that the language of the submitted paper will be acceptable to the reviewers and, although it is not openly mentioned or even fully and consciously understood by the non-​native author, this includes style as part of making the language ‘clear and concise’, whatever that might take. As far as the future of academic proofreading is concerned, the ongoing changes in online academic publishing, in both private and public arenas, have led to shifts in who to turn to for professional help. In fact, the increased ‘speed’ and ‘remoteness’ of publishing and sharing online academic discourse, as will be seen in the following section, have reduced the time available for proofreading in a rapid editorial process, and developing genres like academic blogs present the proofreader as the literacy broker who is responsible for correcting style as well as mistakes. Because these trends are likely to continue in the future, it is also probable that online academic genres

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and publications will contribute to further changes in the roles and tasks that are entrusted to academic proofreaders.

3.3. Academic style and academic blogs The expanding arena in academic English writing and (self )proofreading of academic blogs deserves some consideration at this point. One of the sources of the geopolitical importance of English as the global language (Crystal 2003) of publication lies in its having been chosen as the language in which a substantial proportion of online academic publications and knowledge exchanges are constantly published and posted. The flourishing role of computer-​mediated communication and its texts in professional and academic discourse communities has resulted in the globalisation, dematerialisation and mobilisation of academic production, as well as in the development of new disciplines, methodologies, services and media (Wouters et al. 2013; Doerr 2017 and 2018). In such a context, today’s highly digitalised and communicative world yields information that is no longer being produced and presented as a finished product to be merely consumed. On the contrary, knowledge is increasingly taking the form of a negotiated flow whose speed, position and direction is adjusted according to the needs of a determined professional ‘community of practice’, in this case the academic and scientific community. In their study, Bruns and Jacobs (2007) point out that the current age is one in which individuation, personalisation and customisation are leading to interaction, interactivity and intercreativity (see also Lave and Wenger 1991; Crystal 2002 and 2006). Moreover, the phenomenon of the ‘domestication of technology’ (Barton and Lee 2013), which involves the adoption of media technology in everyday life and domestic contexts, has affected the introduction of ubiquitousness (Mautner 2005) into online professional and academic communication. This, in turn, has led to important consequences for academic communication: the use (and therefore increase) of online communication and publication from home as well as at work (Bucy 2004; Barton and Lee 2013), a growing online discourse

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community that changes based on its attitude and target audience, and the tendency to discuss academic matters through more ‘personal’ genres and channels like social media and blogs. Myers, in fact, observed that ‘If we want to find what is specific to these genres, we are going to have to look not only at the style but also at the technology and what people do with it’ (2010: 19).7 Online academic journals and official forums have steadily gained ground thanks to enhanced technical affordances in many (but not all) areas of the world and allowed research findings to become rapidly and widely accessible. Blogs, both in general and in academic discourse, have gradually become widely accessible points of reference and knowledge dissemination (Bondi 2019 and 2022) for other experts and for non-​experts ‘by highlighting articles that may easily be passed over by the typical web user […], by searching out articles from lesser-​known sources, and by providing additional facts, alternative views, and thoughtful commentary’ (Blood 2000). Using open access online journals and blogs has benefited many emerging, hybrid disciplines (Priem and Hemminger 2010; Mehler et al. 2010; Bukvova 2011; Garzone 2014; Doerr 2017 and 2019b) by becoming a way for academics and experts to present their work and debunk common myths about their activities among their peers and any other auditors or overhearers8 who might come across their websites or blogs. Another consequence of this dramatic increase in the quantity and speed of circulation of knowledge, as well as the number of non-​native

7 8

This is in line with the definition of genre as ‘a class of communicative events, the members of which are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse communities’ (Swales 1990: 58). While there may be no specific or direct reaction to a professional blogger’s post (e.g. comment, share), there is still an ‘audience’ that is watching and judging the exchange or content. Seargeant and Tagg (2014: 163–​64) outline Bell’s (1984) ‘audience design’ framework in which the speaker is at the centre and formulates utterances based on the four main types of audience: participants, who apparently are the main receivers of the utterance and from whom a response may be expected; auditors, who are not directly addressed but may nevertheless take part in the exchange; overhearers, who are the least involved or expected but still compel the speaker/​writer (and in this case the blogger) to anticipate and worry about their

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academics9 who publish in English using online publishing channels, is the divergence in standards of ‘tolerance’ of non-​native lexico-​grammatical and stylistic variations and ‘errors’ in certain disciplines that are considered to be a ‘priority’, such as medicine and the ‘hard’ sciences, as opposed to the social sciences and humanities, where authors can ‘afford’ to wait and undergo more time-​consuming review and editing processes. In many time-​ sensitive disciplines –​especially medicine and the sciences –​academics are spurred to publish their results as soon as possible due to the urgency of ‘timeliness’ in order to prevent their data and findings from becoming outdated (Barroso et al. 2006; Vines et al. 2014; Welsh et al. 2018). As a result, the reviewing, editing and proofreading phases of the academic publishing process must be performed remotely and quickly while ensuring that the manuscript undergoes the necessary quality and data control and revision. This intensity runs parallel with all academics’ need to ‘publish or perish’ (Li 2014; Rawat and Meena 2014; Moosa 2018) as much and as soon as possible. It has become even more evident over recent years, when the physical limits imposed by the Covid emergency –​like other emergencies in the past (Glik 2007) –​led to the transference of all academic knowledge exchange to online platforms. The growth in online exchanges

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assumptions and hypotheses; and eavesdroppers, of whose presence the speaker is not aware. In order to convey the presence and importance of non-​native academics today, Flowerdew and Habibie first cite Eberhard, Simons and Fennig (2020) when maintaining that ‘Today there are somewhere between 350 and 400 million native speakers of English spread across different countries that have adopted English as their first language, but there are also some 900 million people in other countries who are familiar with English as an additional language (EAL)’ and then estimating that ‘Given a world population of about 7.8 billion, this means that between approximately 4.5% and 5% of the world’s population have English as their first language, about 11.5% have English as an additional language, and about 16.5% have English as either their first or additional language. These are very rough estimates and they do not tell us anything about the proficiency level of those who know English as an additional language. Nevertheless, they do tell us two important things: first, that English is widely spoken across the world, and second that Anglophones are very much outnumbered by those who have English as an additional language’ (2022: 11–​12).

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has also raised new issues in communication, such as the attenuation of physical distance and the need for greater control over the time and pace of interaction (McKenna and Bargh 2000 in Guadagno et al. 2008). Blogs represent a hybrid (Giltrow and Stein 2009; Garzone 2012) and idiosyncratic solution and language that make the processes of writing, sharing and informing more dynamic and tailored compared to traditional academic writing as they reflect the interests of the bloggers (who have now become ‘producers’) and the ‘blogees’ without having to submit to the degree of control of a journal (Park et al. 2011). They also provide a potentially unlimited space for information, discussion and details that are not allowed in traditional (or even online) journals and publications. They can be instantly updated when necessary, while manuscripts and proofs cannot be released before they are officially published (Bondi 2018a, 2018c, 2022). Furthermore, in the case of academic blogs written by one person, bloggers can tread Goffman’s fine and blurred line between ‘the frontstage’, or a person’s ‘front region’, ‘where a particular performance is or may be in progress’ and ‘backstage’ (or ‘back regions’) ‘where action occurs that is related to the performance but inconsistent with the appearance fostered by the performance’ division (1959, in Koester 2010: 128). Blogs blend the two ‘regions’ and foster the use of an equally hybrid register by experts and professionals when writing in their blogs.10 This means that the style of blogs, albeit academic in authorship, intent and content, follows 10

In Blood’s well-​known and pioneering division of blogs into two main categories –​ ‘filter-​style’ blogs, where the blogger acts as an editor and link annotator, and ‘blog-​ style’ where bloggers express themselves –​academic blogs generally come under the second category. However, thanks to the development of affordances in blogs, there is a range of hybrid forms between these two extremes where the content of the blog is presented and authored by the blogger in a more or less ‘official’ or ‘personal’ manner based on the blogger’s established role (as a professional or an expert in a certain field or association, or simply a member of the category as in personal blogs), intent of writing (to inform, to share, to express, to provide alternative information or content) and content (official documents, videos, other groups and blogs that are more or less official) (Blood 2000; Granieri 2005). Content, in turn, ‘represents their freedom of selection and presentation’ and may allow them to ‘combine the immediately real and the genuinely personal’ (Di Fraia 2007: 116–​22; see also Miller and Shepherd 2004).

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different standards to those of institutional online and in-​print publishing. The format of blogs may also be seen as a fluid continuum; for instance, Granieri (2005) represented the blogosphere as a pyramid, with personal blogs devoted to autobiographical or interpersonal issues at the bottom and a gradual upward decrease in the number of blogs as their specificity and professionalism increases. This allows the blogger to maintain the prestige and credibility of an academic while revealing personal sides of his or her identity, provided he or she consents to do so (Kirkup 2010). Such a union of personal and academic ‘selves’ is not encouraged, and is even frowned upon, in traditional academic genres and contexts. Indeed, even the academic’s personal ‘biosketch’ must be focused on professional and/​or academic achievements. In terms of content, an academic blogger may extend the topics that are covered by the blog to include subjects that he or she considers useful to other academics and/​or newcomers (e.g. academic writing, work-​life balance in academia, values of academia vs. personal values, dos and don’ts, and application of academic skills in the job market) or that he or she is passionate about but do not pertain to his or her official research areas. In this sense, academic blogs represent an informal but accessible means to inform and ‘train’ newcomers to the academic community on how to prepare, write and perform in academic contexts in order to avoid the most common pitfalls. Blog writing, and therefore the kind of academic identity or set of identities that emerges, is influenced by the perceived mixture of potential audiences that may be simultaneously present, and by the segment that the blogger is most interested in targeting (e.g. non-​experts, novice academics or experienced academics), as well as the nature and novelty of the content that the blogger is trying to convey (Garzone and Catenaccio 2009; Seargeant and Tagg 2014). Blogs are ‘one of the newest forms of online self-​presentation and self-​expression’ (Guadagno et al. 2008: 1994) and therefore a sort of bulletin board which addresses one type of audience but actually reaches a much larger one composed of ‘overhearers’ and perhaps even ‘eavesdroppers’. This requires an academic to rework his or her schedule, manner of presenting him or herself and his or her work, and even develop new skills:

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chapter 3 Many of the genres associated with these online platforms (the tweet, the blog post, the personal webpage) address different publics from the traditional academic genres of the journal article and monograph, are networked in different ways, and operate on very different timescales. Many of these genres of online self-​representation entail elements of self-​promotion, in addition to enabling public representations of knowledge work. While such genres have some continuities with the kind of promotional work that has always gone on through traditional media like newspapers and TV interviews, the academics we spoke to regarded them differently and felt that they required new skills. (Tusting et al. 2019: 93)

This leads to adjustment of posts’ content, language and format in an attempt to gain readership and consensus, which are signals of value within a culture of ‘upward mobility’ (Clark 2002 in Miller and Shepherd 2004) where a blogger’s activity is substantially based on his or her desire for recognition and approval. In the case of academic blogs, such recognition and approval may translate into extra reads, downloads and citations of the author’s work (if it has already been published), discussions and debates with the audience, which may include other experts or academics who feel more at ease with commenting on a post than on a paper presentation at a conference, and expressions of appreciation and gratitude from those who have benefited from the resources and advice. In fact, blogs may come to represent a place where one reads about other professional situations and events and finds an intangible but ever-​present reservoir of security and empathy, as well as a means for those in need of assistance on highly specialised matters to find easily accessible and comprehensible sources of information and resources (Koester 2010; Doerr 2021). Interestingly, language and style also come into play when considering the ‘audience design’, or ‘audience targeting’, and ‘customization’ ( Jucker 2003: 137), of an academic blog. Bloggers’ audience design reinforces the online community’s solidarity and activity by implicitly or explicitly presenting the bloggers themselves (in the blog’s introductory blurb or throughout the posts) as helpful and friendly experts who provide useful know-​how and skills (Nardi et al. 2004; Solly 2016). To enhance such an impression, bloggers must adapt their discourse through different strategies compared to those used in academic writing to those typical of an online context:

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1. Direct address strategies (@ sign, tagging in photos or posts, groups or lists); 2. Other structural affordances (e.g. dividing messages into separate posts); 3. Style (level of formality; degree of vagueness and explicitation) and language choice (language, script, dialect, style-​shifting or codeswitching); 4. Content of post (topic and degree of being public or private). (Seargeant and Tagg 2014: 167)

The third point is of particular interest for the purposes of this study and may be confirmed by scrolling through a series of online blogs written by academics: because they often address novices (students and aspiring academics) as well as non-​experts, the writing in academic blogs is much less formal in register and interaction than would ever be accepted in a research article or even a less formal textual genre like editorials. Moreover, there is a significant degree of explanation, popularisation and use of images, infographics and links to other sources and social media that varies according to the individual academic’s preference and the specificity of the topic. It has been proven, in fact, that the new power of an online audience lies in their enhanced level of information seeking and distribution (Bucher 2005; Chamberlain and Hodgetts 2008). The diversity of the blog genre also mirrors bloggers’ idiosyncratic linguistic and discursive styles through different kinds of texts (descriptive, narrative, argumentative), linguistic strategies and rhetorical devices. Therefore, an academic blog is an alternative space to express oneself using an individual academic style that would presumably not be considered suitable for the international academic discourse community. In stark contrast to the formal and conventional academic style that is presented in traditional printed and online knowledge dissemination of texts in academia (including websites, editorials and house style guides), the discourse of academic blogs is characterised by a more ‘conversational’ phatic and personable mix of written and spoken language that nevertheless does not undermine the bloggers’ competence and professionalism. This occurs because the cultivation of one’s online voice through consistent and

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frequent posting on a blog ‘enables a reader to identify the characteristic x across a blogger’s multiple posts over time’ (Tan 2008: 151). It is even more obvious when considering that the informality of the blog’s register does not match the level usually expected from a professional informing his or her selected audience about ongoing research trends in his or her field. As a result, readership and interactivity are encouraged and bring benefits including ‘increased acceptance, satisfaction, learning and mastery; enhanced thoughtfulness, cooperation and responsibility; and heightened performance, motivation, and sociability’ (Bucy 2004: 374). Therefore, this ongoing development in online academic discourse enacts important community and identity-​related changes on a personal and collective level. With regard to the former, knowledge and findings that are usually only accessible to academics positioned within the academic discourse community and already participating in the conventional practices of the academic community may be presented to anyone who is interested. This constitutes a means of increased self-​awareness, individualism and empowerment for the user of academic blogs, who becomes aware of emerging problems, methods and solutions that are usually too specific to be considered of interest to the general public. Expert users, on the other hand, ‘are able to contribute to common purposes by dealing productively with constantly new cultural, semiotic and social problems by designing, representing and communicating their suggested solutions to them’ (Kress 2010: 18). At the collective level, the potential sense of group identity can more directly link a novice academic in need or a professional expert who has the skills to assist academic researchers with an alternative online discourse community in addition to, or as a substitute for, the traditional community (Powell et al. 2012). Another change that has been brought about by the expansion of online discourse in general, and blogs more specifically, is the ongoing democratising change in power of and over discourse because in new and social media, there are fewer limits on the numbers of authorised members and degrees of seniority (Koester 2006; Guadagno et al. 2008; Baker et al. 2011; Polito 2011; Derks and Bakker 2013). Indeed, the empowerment of this form of professional discourse (Turnbull 2013) is mirrored in blogs’ ‘simultaneity of action and reaction, widespread access, an emphasis on

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feeling over analysis, and a weakening of centralized authority’ (Meyrowitz in Miller and Shepherd 2009: 282). This has led many academics to hope for a more democratic attitude in the extremely hierarchical academic community and its geopolitical balance of power over knowledge, discourse and language. Therefore, just as professional blogs have represented a promising tool for newcomers, professionals and hitherto marginalised professional figures (Garzone and Catenaccio 2009; Doerr 2017 and 2019a), online aca­­­ demic publishing and alternative outlets for information, such as academic blogs, have been viewed with interest in relation to a variety of potential ‘democraticising’ solutions (Walker 2006). For instance, such alternative forms of academic (self )expression could benefit, among others, those who would like to give more space to academics working in linguistically peripheral countries, those who wish to be independent of restrictive academic publishing institutions and practices, those who are active in niche disciplines with limited channels of publication and would like their research to reach a wider audience in order to attract stakeholders, and those who conduct research in hybrid disciplines that are not widely recognised and who have difficulty both in promoting collaborations with researchers from adjacent fields (Zou and Hyland 2020) and in being published in journals because of their unaligned research interests. With the aim of understanding if there is currently any foundation to such a hope, the author conducted a cursory search of the most popular non-​disciplinary academic blogs at the time of writing (using the search words ‘academic blogs’ and ‘blogs by academics’). It yielded a series of blogs and individual posts on academic writing that were mostly aimed at students and academics at the beginning or in the middle of their career. Most of the blogs were related to academic and research writing and language (and therefore focused on academic metalanguage), as well as their implications for teaching and learning academic writing, and providing practical and moral support and motivation for those interested in academic writing and publishing. Other blogs informed roughly the same type of audience about promoting their work and using social media to showcase research; ‘surviving’ in academia; teaching and education in general; honing academic skills; using technology and digital media in academia and education; highlighting the real and potential impact of academics and their

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contribution to society; explaining higher institution regulations; and exploring intellectual culture. This demonstrates that while the ‘democratic’ nature of non-​disciplinary academic blogs is strong, the dissemination and popularisation of knowledge is more often connected with the correct use of language and the tools for publishing and teaching, rather than sharing the researcher’s content and data or providing theories or research on academic discourse (unless the user specifically searches for a particular discipline). This is understandable when considering that academic blogs are quite a recent genre and have no official status and therefore suffer from practical and career-​shaping concerns such as the lack of recognition within the official academic discourse community, the protection of intellectual rights, and the need for the blogger to spend time breaking down specialised information into blog-​friendly content and forms. Moreover, the bloggers who sought to assist with academic writing could be divided into two broad categories: individual bloggers who use their stories, teaching and acquired knowledge to give hints and tips, and professional agencies that specialise in teaching academic English and writing or publishing textbooks, and often provide extra services like assisting with dissertation and essay writing. Interestingly, in both categories, almost all of the bloggers are from English-​speaking countries and do not seem to distinguish between assisting native and non-​native aspiring or novice academics. This confirms the Anglophone-​oriented mentality found in the available textbooks on academic writing and style, which does not consider the needs of non-​native academics. Upon extending the search to ‘blogs on academic proofreading’ and ‘blogs on academic style proofreading’ (as well as its variations), the results continued to be vague and diverse. In both cases, the resulting blogs provided general common-​sense advice on how to navigate proofreading and publishing in general, the main academic style guidelines, proofreading services and proofreading in general, or proposed proofreading services for those in need of them (without specifying whether these services are aimed at native or non-​native academics). When substituting ‘proofreading’ with ‘copyediting’, there were numerous results on copyediting services (in general) and on defining copyediting in relation to proofreading and editing. The ‘style’ that was mentioned either referred to ‘house style’ or

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to the same vague instructions on academic style that may be found in academic English textbooks. Surprisingly, though, the term ‘proofreader’ was much more defined and prevalent than ‘copyediting’, even in relation to information on publishing in print, which suggests that checking style in online contexts is part of the proofreading process, and that such a process should be carried out by the blogger or a paid language professional. In all searches, the most noticeable differences were predictably between individual bloggers and agency bloggers. The language and style of individual bloggers’ posts followed the same patterns as professional blogging in non-​academic settings (Doerr 2019a), while in the blogs managed by agencies, the register was clearly promotional, and the content sometimes consisted of single, commented video or audio lessons. The material therefore represented a ‘sample’ of the lessons or assistance that could be provided to the user on payment. In conclusion, while it is true that online journals are providing a faster and more relaxed outlet for emerging disciplines and enabling users (including non-​experts) to access and read academic publications (Phillips 2010), for the moment they seem to maintain the same standards and rules, when it comes to academic writing and style, as their printed counterparts. This is probably based on a specific conscious choice to implicitly reassure members of the academic community that the quality standards, in terms of content and discourse, are maintained. As far as academic blogs are concerned, they are generally used to popularise and disseminate information and research on specific issues and disciplines and to explain the content of previous publications in detail. They are currently in a nascent phase and therefore represent more of a support to than a substitute for official channels. This is clearly due to practical reasons related to the fact that the international academic community does not recognise blogs, as there is little or no quality control, and they are associated with individual academics (who are solely responsible for the form and content of posts). In the academic community, blogs are still limited to being sources of information and resources, and have not reached the stage of being proactive contributors to knowledge sharing and development. From a linguistic point of view, academic blogs are more approachable in register and content, and therefore tolerant towards more relaxed forms of interaction,

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but this is not considered acceptable by their official counterparts. Such blogs are mostly managed by native speakers and provide guidance and support on writing, lifestyle and studying to those who intend to enter the international academic community, and are aimed equally at native and non-​native writers. As far as academic style is concerned, the information is the same as that found in EAP textbooks. This addresses an issue that has been previously mentioned in this chapter: the need to consider the difficulties of Anglophones (and in this case Anglophone novices or students) when writing. This provides further confirmation that academic English is a language of its own that may elude even native speakers and is acquired through constant practice, error and feedback. In conclusion, the online search of academic blogs demonstrated that the transference of academic writing to online channels has not lessened the ongoing confusion over the roles of proofreaders and copyeditors by providing clear definitions, much less solved the issue altogether. However, a comparison of these two figures within this innovative genre shows the balance of responsibility for and familiarity with writing and style has shifted towards proofreaders rather than copyeditors, as in more traditional genres. This confirms the overall need to redefine the role of proofreaders rather than copyeditors, as in more traditional genres in academic discourse, and validates the decision to focus on ‘academic style proofreading’ in this book.

3.4. Summary This third chapter has aimed to unpack the institutional and professional impact that academic style has on an academic’s career and the consequent need for non-​native academics to ensure that their papers are suitably proofread in terms of style as well as ‘correctness’. Therefore, in response to the first research question,

1) What impact does style and its proofreading (or lack thereof ) have on publishing in the international academic community?

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there are many aspects to take into consideration, starting with the most immediate and practical benefits of writing in accordance with the conventional language and style. These include higher chances of being accepted and published, bringing financial benefits and prestige for the non-​native author’s career and affiliated institution. Interestingly, style has been identified as a reason for the rejection of papers by native academics, as well as non-​natives, proving that academic English has become a variant that may follow Anglophone discursive patterns but can still elude native speakers who are unaware of the conventions of the international discourse community. This still leaves many non-​native academics feeling that they are at a disadvantage and confused, at least in part, about the use of the term ‘style’ in relation to house style and style guides, and the lack of guidance on academic style. An academic must acquire knowledge of academic style through closer communication and interaction with academic proofreaders who are willing and able to intervene in and comment on academic style as well as language. This positions these proofreaders as highly specialised professionals and allows non-​native academics to learn and perform self-​proofreading. The final part of the chapter has focused on online academic publishing and blogs, and the influence they could have on academic style and on proofreading in academic contexts. Online publishing has sped up the submission, peer review and publication processes and –​when open access –​ made academic publications and materials available to non-​experts who would not usually be able to read these materials. The guidelines of online journals lay down the same standards as their in-​print counterparts in terms of language and style. Academic blogs, on the other hand, represent a genre that fosters the free flow of online writing on academic topics that can be shared with fellow academics and non-​experts who are interested in learning about academic research and publications. They provide the popularised dissemination and personal identity that is not allowed within the official academic community, as well as resources and guidance for novice academics. As far as academic language is concerned, the advice provided in academic blogs consists of common-​sense suggestions or, in the case of blogs from professional agencies, offers of language courses and materials,

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but there is nothing on style other than what is already available in textbooks. Therefore, to answer the second research question,

2) Could the introduction of new and more open genres of knowledge dissemination result in the relaxing of linguistic and stylistic standards for non-​native academics?

the rise of online academic journals has brought no change in linguistic and stylistic standards for non-​native academics. In contrast, the register and language of academic blogs is more informal and free-​flowing, and therefore reflects a more relaxed and personalised approach to knowledge communication and exchange. If more extensively and properly used, academic blogs could be a promising means for academics and language professionals to disseminate know-​how, materials and information on the latest findings about academic language and style training and insight. It is important to observe that, when discussing language, academic blogs focus almost exclusively on proofreaders. Having explored academic style from an institutional perspective up to this point, the next chapter will set out in more depth the connection between academic style and non-​native academics’ identity, or rather identities, based on their use of languages and academic language. This more comprehensive understanding of style will then lead to a definition of ‘stylistics’ –​a methodological framework that is often confused with style –​that will later be applied to carry out the main empirical study of academic style and its proofreading in real research articles.

Chapter 4

Style and stylistics in academic English and proofreading

The previous chapter further defined the increasingly relevant issue of ‘academic style proofreading’ and observed the importance of ‘academic style’ in papers written by non-​native academics. In fact, it has been proven that the mounting complexities and pressure from the international academic discourse community that non-​native academics face today, which have been highlighted by ERPP studies, require means and skills that will help, if not fully enable, non-​native academics to close the gap between their own publication activity and that of their English native speaking counterparts, allowing them to contribute more equally to the ongoing academic knowledge exchange and dissemination process. The term ‘gap’ is fundamental in general (Partington 2014; Duguid and Partington 2018) and especially when focusing on style because ‘style’ represents the knowledge gap that ERPP studies generally address only in a passing manner as part of the ‘language and style’ binomial, if at all. On the contrary, style must be included –​and even emphasised –​in the assessment of reasons why non-​native academics are required to rework their proposals even if their papers are correct from a lexico-​grammatical point of view. Furthermore, ‘style’ is also a partial ‘gap’ or ‘absentee’ in studies, manuals and courses on EAP, which tend to focus on more ‘tangible’ or ‘assessable’ aspects. They therefore do not make any distinction between native and non-​native readers in their common-​sense advice on style and therefore continue to focus on the discursive without considering linguistic solutions.1 In 1

One valid guide that still focuses on psychology (and therefore ‘mind style’) and discursive academic writing advice that is destined for native students but takes a

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these research areas, and their materials and courses, style is in fact mentioned, but it is often either addressed through common-​sense guidelines or presented as a method of studying academic phraseology. Therefore, having highlighted the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the concepts of ‘proofreading’ and ‘academic style’ within the editorial community and in academia from an institutional perspective in the previous chapter, this chapter will further develop the definition of ‘academic style’ and connect it to practice. To this end, the chapter will provide a more concise definition of ‘style’ in general and in academic writing but related to the personal level. Academic style, like writing and self-​expression in general, stems from the individual’s ‘mind style’, which represents the unconscious epistemological and communicative framework that is a composite product of one’s cultural and linguistic background, professional terminology and specialised language, and personal preferences. While non-​native academics may be aware of the existence of this ‘mind style’, it is generally not explained to them, which means they are not taught the accepted and expected ‘template’ that is the basis of critical and academic thinking in the international academic discourse community. This will lead to important considerations on the impact of academic language and style on a non-​native academic’s identification and self-​identification, as well as in relation to publication gatekeeping practices. After defining ‘style’, the chapter will shift its focus to the methodology that was conceived with the specific intent of studying and understanding style and its complexity, that is ‘stylistics’. This is especially necessary because stylistics’ literary and rhetorical origins and its eclectic and adaptable nature has resulted in a degree of ambiguity, certain misconceptions and a significant number of sub-​disciplines within the academic community. In fact, in stylistics, the object of study (i.e. style) is often confused with the methodology (i.e. stylistics), as will be explained. In any case, stylistics has the undeniable merit of attempting to observe, measure and evaluate large step in the right direction by dedicating an entire section to discourse (called ‘strategy’) and one to more specific linguistic devices (entitled ‘tactics’) is Hayot (2014). It goes as far as commenting on examples of sentences that could be improved and explaining why, but does not approach the matter from a linguistic perspective.

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something that has always been considered ‘slippery’. The chapter will thus demonstrate stylistics’ connection with and potential contribution to linguistics and EAP, and then use this as a means to lead into the main empirical study of this book and its reliance on the corpus stylistics and error analysis methodology that will be presented in Chapter 5. For the moment and in this chapter, the two main matters presented above will be translated into these two questions to be discussed in further detail:

1) What constitutes an academic’s ‘style’ and what impact does it have on a non-​native academic’s identity? 2) What is the meaning of ‘stylistics’ and how has it developed from an epistemological perspective?

Accordingly, Section 4.1. will tackle the first question by unpacking the relationship between an academic and his or her community’s ‘mind style’ and the fact that the international academic community’s adoption of English as a lingua franca (Durand 2006; Salager-​Meyer 2014) has resulted in the current Anglophone academic style representing the standard for international publications. Therefore, writing with ‘proper’ academic style means understanding and acquiring the academic ‘mind style’ and consequently assuming an international ‘academic style’ along with a national identity. The second research question will be dealt with in Section 4.2., which presents the hybrid branch of applied linguistics that deals with style and will therefore be the basis of this book’s empirical study: stylistics. This chapter will introduce stylistics and justify its use from a theoretical point of view, with its possible applications in research and practice explored in relation to both ‘academic style’ and ‘academic proofreading’.

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4.1. Style in academic English and academic identity As observed in the Introduction, ‘style’ is much more elusive than other aspects of language production, and this leads to its being frequently ignored or glossed over. In academic English, style is perceived as highly subjective and non-​univocal and therefore presents challenges for those who engage with it (Ammon 2000; de Swaan 2001a and 2001b; Soler 2021). For those conducting research on academic language and discourse, studying academic style entails making substantial adjustments to methodological and didactic frameworks and a detailed observation of the data based on the research genre (e.g. abstract, research article, conference presentation, research grant proposal, book review),2 type of writer, aspect to be investigated and standard against which the material will be compared (native speaker, expert in the field, academics in the same or different fields, etc.). Studying academic style with the intention of teaching it in courses will require extensive research based on experiential and personalised approaches, in terms of time and setting, involving different disciplines, levels of competence, research genres and first languages (L1). Moreover, in order to apply the findings of such studies in the classroom or editorial process, this section of EAP and ERPP courses (for students and teachers) and training (for proofreaders and copyeditors) will have to interact and be at least partially adapted to the target’s L1, discipline or text genre, and supplemented with many exercises and examples for practice. For both novice and experienced authors, studying academic style requires significant and constant metalinguistic awareness, observation, practice and mastery. This is especially hard for non-​natives to achieve because academic style is only mentioned at the end of EAP and ERPP courses and vaguely in publishing house style guides or instructions to authors (when it is mentioned at all). As a result, non-​native academics are currently only equipped with a very general and standardised starting point, which roughly corresponds to the advice that is provided online in academic forums and blogs. A further point of complication 2

For more on this, see Swales (1990); Flowerdew (2002).

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for non-​native authors is the fact that, as previously mentioned, a paper’s style may be reworked by different literacy brokers and to varying extents throughout its evolution from proposal to publication. Any proposed change is based on the language broker or reviewer’s own experience with the language and ‘sense’ of how a sentence should ideally flow, as well as his or her idea of how much influence a writer’s native language may and should have on the article in the balance between idiosyncrasy and legibility. In general, the word ‘style’ refers to the pattern of choices that stem from, and may be associated with, an individual writer or character’s (in the case of literature) ‘mind style’, or with periods, genres or literary movements, that is the surrounding environment. Even this cursory definition allows the dual nature of style to emerge: ‘mind style’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010)3 refers to an individual’s idiosyncratic expression of his or her thoughts, while ‘periods, genres, or literary movements’ (Stockwell 2006: 746)4 are linked to the collective and socially determined dimension of communication. This is in line with Leech and Short’s definition of style as that which ‘refers to the way in which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a given purpose, and so on’ (1981 in Pillière 2018: 226). In fact, the same concept expressed by different people will inevitably take on a different form, reflecting the writer or speaker’s individual lexico-​grammatical 3 4

For more on mind style in relation to stylistics, see the entry on ‘mind style’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 111–​13). Lecercle makes a similar claim: ‘Le style ainsi entendu marque l’appartenance à un groupe, à un milieu ou à une époque […] Cette situation combine l’objectif […] et le subjectif. […] Mais le style, bien entendu, c’est aussi, et dans notre modernité d’abord, la marque caractéristique de l’individualité, en particulier de l’individualité langagière.’ [‘Style thus understood marks one’s membership of a group, of a milieu or of an era […] This situation combines the objective […] and the subjective […] But style is also, of course, and in our modernity first of all, the characteristic feature of individuality, especially linguistic individuality.’] (2018: 46, my translation), as does Sorlin: ‘La bidimensionalité du style entre singulier et collectif permet de prendre en compte le style individual au prisme de son context (social).’ [‘Style’s two-​dimensionality between singular and collective allows one to take the individual style in the prism of its (social) context into account.’] (2018: 15, my translation).

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habits in everyday and professional communication, preference for or animosity towards certain words and phrases, level and type of self-​and institutional education, and socio-​cultural background. In communication in general, such expression may be aligned or misaligned with the collective ‘mind style’ which underlies common values, aspirations, and associations of thought, members of society and/​or specific communities. As a result, regardless of the field and type of communication, an individual’s mind style and thought will be (more) readily accepted when they are phrased in accordance with the approved collective filter of thought and expression because this makes the message easier to receive and understand. In turn, when the message is understood and accepted, it may be disseminated and transformed into an object of reflection and debate. As will be expounded on in this chapter, language is the means by which a style is externalised, so it must follow the collective’s conventional rules and standards in order to convey the content of the individual’s ‘mind style’. When this does not occur, there is an intentional or unintentional clash between the individual and collective ‘mind styles’, and the message must be reformulated or it will be misunderstood or refused (Stockwell 2006: 746; Sorlin 2018: 15). This happens constantly but becomes of fundamental importance when dealing with the academic community, where the refusal of an academic’s knowledge and voice may result in a loss of his or her knowledge and contribution to the international academic and scientific community. In accordance with this consideration on style in general, the resulting definition of academic style may be the flow of individual writing that is produced and changed by many subjects (e.g. the author(s), the copyeditor, the proofreader and the revisor if necessary, based on the process that was outlined in Chapters 2 and 3) according to the conventions and standards of international journals and the international academic community. ‘Individual writing’ that is accepted therefore combines the elements of knowledge, idiosyncrasy and adherence to communicative expectations: a mix that involves research and practice on many levels, as well as experience and know-​how. The ‘conventions and standards’ of the international community, on the other hand, are focused on cohesion, uniformity and appropriateness in order to ensure that the information is properly conveyed and understood. International journals’ conventions and standards are

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determined by the house style. In the case of the scientific community, they depend on unspoken rules upheld by the community that generally follow Anglophone conventions; therefore ‘those who wish to be part of that particular ecosystem are expected to conform to the norms of the community in order to be accepted as part of the community’ (Solly 2016: 4). There are also expectations that a publication will present the correct amount of information, that the order of the information and structure of the sentences will be linear and clear, and that the use of modality, hedging and linguistic patterns indicating conviction will be appropriate to the context. Accordingly, academic style (as well as stylistics), as will be illustrated later on, developed so as to become ‘rigorous, systematic, transparent and open to falsifiability’ (Stockwell 2006: 755). These qualities, on the contrary, are the very ones that form the basis of what is considered to be good academic writing and are precisely those that enable the author to be published and have the opportunity to share his or her knowledge in the first place. Such sharing, in turn, has become increasingly necessary in light of the current undeniable increase in academic publishing activity due to the advent and proliferation of online journals, the increasing activity of academics from emerging economies and universities, and the presence of national or international English-​medium journals that are managed by smaller firms and institutions and deal with niche disciplines and issues. The importance of English in scientific knowledge dissemination has resulted in local or national journals’ decision to publish in English and a subsequent perceived need for them to maintain the same linguistic standards as the main international publishers (Henshall 2018; Englander and Cocoran 2019; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022). On a basic level, ‘academic style’ can be further defined as a way of communicating in an academic setting where it is considered necessary to thoroughly convey complex ideas in manner that will make them clearly understandable and less likely to be challenged on the fundamental principles and purposes at their core (although these may be commented on or expanded).5 Therefore, like academic English in general, academic 5

One of many examples of this may be found in Academic Writing: Expert Guidance from Study Advice at the University of Reading, , accessed 21 March 2022.

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style is perceived but not explicitly or fully acknowledged, although it is supposedly founded on honourable values such as formality, precision, a clear and predictable structure, and appropriateness in form and tone. Such requirements reflect the prestige of the academic community and the precision and specialisation with which its findings are to be communicated. While these rules may seem –​and are –​quite vague and loose (Gotti 2012: 32), they represent a form of application of Grice’s maxims6 embodying the academic community’s expectations of the manner in which knowledge is conveyed. Therefore, any lack of precision or structure makes understanding more difficult, even if this is for linguistic reasons, and disregarding formality and appropriateness standards may discredit the author within the discourse community. Academic English is, after all, a form of international specialised language, so not using the linguistic and discursive tools that it provides is considered to be equivalent to being unable to use the specialised terminology of one’s own field of study. This is further confirmed by the fact that even native speakers –​while favoured from a phonetic and grammatical perspective –​are also expected to acquire and assimilate competence on lexical, syntactic, phraseological and stylistic levels when communicating in an academic context, especially when writing. This conviction has led to a counter-​discourse claiming that academic language has taken on a life of its own, is actually ‘no one’s mother tongue’ (Bourdieu et al. 1994), and involves ‘arguing that all scholars have to deal with the challenges of writing for publication and that more attention should be given to Anglophones’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 5; see also Hyland 2016). On the other hand, ‘junior’ or novice native speakers, for instance, receive advice rather than specific instructions on proper academic writing in the same way as their non-​native counterparts 6

Grice conceived the ‘Cooperative Principle’, which he defined as follows: ‘a rough general principle which participants will be expected […] to observe, namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged’ (1975: 45). He then divided the Cooperative Principle into four maxims related to the information that is conveyed: quantity, quality, relation and manner. It is easy to see how moving from one ‘mind style’ to another could contravene these principles.

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(e.g. not to be too informal in register or obscure in sentence structure) unless they attend specific writing laboratories. They must therefore learn by observing the work of others or through trial and error but without benefiting from the experience of their seniors. In contrast, not only are non-​native authors obligated to read and write in English, but they must face other challenges when writing (and often rewriting), such as more difficulty in relation to expression and time to write, a more limited vocabulary, difficulty making claims with the appropriate amount of force and conviction, the influence of their L1 when organising their thoughts and arguments, and a feeling of being restricted to a simple style (Canagarajah 1996; Flowerdew 1999; Zanola 2012; Hartse and Kubota 2014). This impression is probably confirmed by the introduction and implementation of hybrid forms of discourse that ‘result in the simplification of discourse strategies, the recontextualisation of actor-​space-​time relations, the enactment of processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, and the rise of cultural hybridity’ (Fairclough 2006 in Gotti 2012: 24–​25). However, if the author has his or her paper translated or revised in an attempt to avoid using such ‘watered down’ forms of English to express his or her thoughts with more clarity, the translator or revisor may not adjust the style in line with the expectations of the international academic audience either because he or she is not sufficiently acquainted with the subject matter and/​or stylistic expectations of academic English, or because he or she feels entitled and/​or compelled to deliver a text that is as near as possible to the original, even if that means maintaining the thought pattern of the author’s L1. While this choice on the part of the translator may be traced back to a matter of professional ethics, it often results in the translated and submitted text being rejected or sent back with the instruction to ‘have a native speaker revise it’. This leads to an extra, time-​consuming stage and monetary expense as the author must find and entrust his or her manuscript to another native speaker to improve the sentence structure and overall coherence of the text (Ryazanova et al. 2017; McKinley and Rose 2018). Moreover, as the terminological comparison in Chapter 2 revealed, there may be confusion as to who must intervene in the style of an academic text. Although it was clearly indicated as one of the roles of the copyeditor in the course of the preparation of the text for publication, it

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increasingly falls to the proofreader (Schneegurt 2017). This may occur for a variety of reasons: because a copyeditor is not always involved, because the copyeditor may be limited by publisher policies to formatting the text, or because the paper will not make it to (in the case of a desk rejection) or beyond the stage when the copyeditor is to intervene if the non-​native author’s style is not considered up to standard. In any case, the practice of ‘academic style proofreading’ requires specific linguistic competence in relation to a textual genre that a non-​expert native speaker may not be completely familiar with, because realisations of academic discourse are ‘at the intersection of numerous factors such as local culture, disciplinary field, generic conventions, community membership, language competence, professional expertise and even gender’ (Gotti in Chovanec 2012: 9). Accordingly, in the context of academic writing and English for publishing purposes, ‘style’ is at the intersection of the individual academic’s expression of knowledge and collective (i.e. pertaining to the academic community and related journals and publishing institutions) expectations on how such knowledge is to be conveyed. Flowerdew and Habibie (2022) go as far as claiming that non-​native academics’ need to publish internationally, and therefore in English or their native language, leads to distinct but overlapping identities (Casanave 1998; Shi 2003). The choice of language in which an academic publishes –​his or her native language for national publications or English for international publications –​thus divides his or her professional identity into local/​national or international respectively, and entails an internal schism when approaching the academic discourse community. On the one hand, this could be considered to be an advantage, as publications concerning local matters and written in the language of the author’s university and surrounding area appeal to the local institutions, businesses and stakeholders that academics often have to turn to for funding or support (Flowerdew and Li 2009; López-​Navarro et al. 2015; Englander and Cocoran 2019). On the other hand, there are: considerable challenges and opportunities that confront scholars seeking to balance the delicate relationship between their willingness to adhere to the common norms and conventions of their professional community, and the desire to express their own individual values and identity traits. This phenomenon is made more complex by the process of globalisation, which offers a topical illustration of the interaction

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between linguistic and cultural factors in the construction of specialized discourse. (Gotti 2012: 13)

Furthermore, non-​native authors feel the need to publish in English to disseminate universally relevant findings and to gain wider recognition from an international audience, not only for themselves, but also for their national institution (Lillis 2012; Sheridan 2015). The resulting style choices reflect an implicit demand for research articles that linguistically follow the thought patterns of the English language, and may therefore present a problem for academics who are not English native speakers even though they are well versed in the specialised language of their field and in academic discourse in general, thanks to their practice in recursiveness (Hyland 2009; Munoz-​ Luna 2015; Luo and Hyland 2019). Academic writing and publishing represent an academic’s only means of entering and contributing to the overarching knowledge sharing and disseminating network whose communication is governed by what Hyland refers to as ‘academic discourse’: But academic discourse does more than enable universities to get on with the business of teaching and research. It simultaneously constructs the social roles and relationships which create academics and students and which sustain the universities, the disciplines, and the creation of knowledge itself. Individuals use language to write, frame problems and understand issues in ways specific to particular social groups and in doing these things they form social realities, personal identities and professional institutions. (2009: 1)

Nevertheless, the debate on tolerance towards non-​ native authors’ writing and style continues because ‘more and more non-​native writers who agree to adopt an internationally used language such as English want to retain a personal style in their additional language’ (Gotti 2012: 29). Academic style, after all, is essentially still the expressive ‘flow’ of an individual academic’s thought even if it has been formulated (or an attempt has been made to formulate it) so as to conform to the conventions of the international discourse community.7 Style is therefore at the heart 7

Style is therefore different from, and more difficult to comprehend in a stand­ ardised manner than, other areas of linguistics such as morphology, syntax and lexis, where not following precise rules often leads to mistakes and a breakdown

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of an ‘interpretative process’ (Pillière 2018: 244) that involves different professions and competences according to the stage of preparation of the manuscript. As a result, the success of the non-​native academic’s published product proves that, in transitioning from one language to another, he or she has mastered the form, communicative filter and mindset not only of the Anglo-​Saxon academic style, but also of the international academic discourse community (Baicchi and Pinelli 2017; Baicchi and della Putta 2019). In fact, an academic’s style may either take on an initial form in the text’s original language (if it was written in the author’s L1) and change when the text is translated into English by a translator and revised by a revisor, or substantially differ if the academic directly writes in English before submitting to the journal or publishing house. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that not all non-​native authors experience this process in the same manner because ‘the apparent difficulty of a language depends upon how close the language is to one’s first language’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 12). As a case in point, Galtung’s (1981) study on the four main academic community approaches to style outlines divergences in the intellectual styles of these different cultures. These influence the linguistic and discursive practices of the members of such communities and may be observed through four dimensions: paradigm analysis, generation of hypothesis, theory construction and peer reviews. He divides the stylistic approaches into Gallic, Saxonic, Teutonic and Nipponic. The ‘Saxonic’ style –​that of the UK and USA –​is focused on an avid organisation and collection of data which is often achieved through a team effort. This indicates the need to collaborate in both research and writing, as will be confirmed in communication. In fact, errors in style do not necessarily lead to complete misunderstanding, although they might confuse or irritate the reader. Ohmann has suggested that ‘the idea of style implies that words on a page might have been different, or differently arranged, without a corresponding difference in substance. Another writer would have said it another way’ (1970: 264). Although this definition did not refer to the academic field, it may be applied to academic writing, where maintaining the (original or revised) content of the author is fundamental and therefore ‘only’ a matter of rephrasing the style to make it more similar to that of a native speaker, in the absence of indisputable mistakes.

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in the fourth point. The thought patterns and discursive organisation of information are based on strong hypothesis generation and weak theory formation, which indicates a focus on the empirical findings and their interpretation of the data, from a results-​oriented perspective, rather than on justifying the underlying theory, as is common in other academic cultures. Despite the generally individualistic mentality of native English-​speaking countries, the Saxonic academic approach to style encourages communication among members of the community and contemplates dialogue with peers in an attempt to smooth out divergences. Finally, the main question in these communities is ‘How do you…?’, thus directing attention towards the solution of the research question rather than the description and definition of the problem and relevant tools. Considering the Anglo-​Saxon community from this perspective sheds light on the type of discourse organisation and communication that would be most favoured in academic debate. It implicitly conveys the idea that academic English style must be direct, concrete and focused on answering questions and presenting results, and not further opening up the debate. It also favours confidence in illustrating results and subsequent reflections, as well as the appropriateness and negotiation that characterise networks and collaboration in knowledge sharing and dissemination.8 8

Kaplan (1980) also studied the influence of an individual’s L1 when communicating in an intercultural environment. He maintained that each world language is filtered through and influenced by a thought pattern that characterises the culture of those who speak it. This thought pattern determines the way in which a native speaker of that language orders and structures his or her arguments, and therefore the distinctive way in which sentences in a paragraph are written. Moreover, because these patterns influence how individuals speak, they are transferred into their written and oral texts even when they are using a language that is ‘foreign’ to them. Kaplan therefore classified these thought patterns, and their related languages, into the following categories: English, Semitic languages, Oriental languages, Latin Romance languages and Russian. While admittedly limited in certain aspects, the study has the merit of outlining some of the main features that set English (and therefore academic English) apart and are detected by native (and quasi-​native) speakers when reading work by non-​natives: direct and linear communication that does not go off topic (and therefore does not tolerate others going off topic or digressing) and that refers constantly to the main subject or topic of interest. This is also accomplished

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‘(Academic) style’ is therefore elusive due to its intent to reflect and express the writer’s ‘mind style’, which is highly individual and struggles when it is constrained by the mould of an imposed language like academic English. Understanding linguistic style therefore means exploring the mentality and related discourse of the target community; to better learn and master its manifestations, it is necessary for authors to perceive and comprehend the functionality of such manifestations (Wales 1989). Therefore, studying and proofreading academic style must be fuelled by experiential and personalised learning and the exchange between learning and training. All involved subjects learn from the treatment and errors that they and others make, and this builds up specific know-​how that must be gathered, shared and codified in order to create the theory that will then be made available to help non-​native academics avoid making the most common errors, which would permit them to save time and energy and be able to dedicate themselves to their publications with more satisfaction and empowerment. The data should therefore consist of examples and expressions containing errors that are accompanied by explanations of the language and the suggested changes, but also of the risk of misunderstandings or the perception of such errors by others. It would be best to present a practical and applicative means of analysing and commenting on style: that is stylistics, a methodology whose adaptable focus on expressions of individuality and their underlying functions within the specific and surrounding context makes it a suitable means to gather preliminary empirical data and findings on how non-​native academic mind style is translated into academic writing and how it can be aligned with the collective mind style. by arranging the main statement and supporting statements in a hierarchical structure throughout the text. Another interesting study from this intercultural perspective is by Clyne (1993), who outlined the differences in the style of academic texts in different cultures by means of specific dichotomies: linearity versus diversity; focus on form versus content; textual symmetry; abstractness versus concreteness of content; content structure; continuity in argumentation; integration of data; use of advance organisers; writer responsibility versus reader responsibility. Lecercle (2018) later pointed out that the style in which one writes and speaks marks both belonging to a certain group and linguistic individuality, and therefore objective and subjective expression where language reflects the author’s culture.

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Now that the need for academic style proofreading has been explained and the intent of this study outlined, it is time to propose how this could occur, starting from the overall methodological framework that provides the tools and examples to analyse elusive style and describe the resulting findings.

4.2. From style to stylistics: An applicative development Before illustrating the empirical study that constitutes the ‘heart’ of this book, and the specific methodological framework that was employed to carry it out, it is necessary to take a step back and focus on stylistics, the discipline that first focused on style, and still does so. To begin, the ‘slippery’ relation between the terms ‘style’ and ‘stylistics’, as well as their multifaceted meanings, needs to be duly unpacked. Indeed, the word ‘stylistic’ is also the adjectival form of the term ‘style’, which very easily leads to confusing the adjective of ‘style’ with the noun used to refer to the methodology of ‘stylistics’. Consequently, the object of study (style) is often assimilated to and/​or confused with its methodological framework (stylistics). Moreover, the meaning of these two words is assumed to correspond to their everyday use, including when referring to academic writing and the extent of an author and proofreader’s control over a text. ‘Style’ is the unique manner in which one expresses oneself, and stylistics starts from the principle that ‘meaning in language come about through the linguistic choices that a writer makes (either consciously or unconsciously)’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 4). The two therefore com­ plement one another and confirm what was illustrated in the previous section: an academic’s language reflects his or her ‘mind style’, thought process and (self )identification within the national and international academic community, so divergences in academic style may obscure the underlying thought process and clarity of meaning and have a significant impact on the publication’s acceptance or rejection by the academic discourse community.

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Stylistics, as a noun in its own right, constitutes ‘a subdiscipline of linguistics that is concerned with the systematic analysis of style and language and how this can vary according to such factors as, for example, genre, context, historical period and author’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 1).9 This definition is very similar to the concept of ‘style’ that was presented in Section 4.1., which explains the ‘blurred lines’ between the two terms and therefore the scepticism of many about the solidity of studies on style. In truth, while the field’s origins may be traced back to the 1960s with the school of Russian formalism and its focus on literary analysis, it has always been connected with classical rhetorics and elocutio, where style was seen as the means of achieving the greatest impact based on linguistic form and content. Such an effect was initially purely literary in nature, but the fact that it ‘can also include other more practical and/​or ideological effects’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: xiii) led to the question of whether stylistics is actually a science or an art (Stockwell 2006). Such (shared) indecisiveness about the nature of stylistics may also be motivated by the fact that its quest to study style from different perspectives based on the period, author, text and context led to its intersection with the disciplines of education and modern language study, as well as with pragmatics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis (Baker 2006; Partington and Marchi 2015). Furthermore, stylistics considers the constantly evolving dynamic relationship among authors, texts and readers, and develops new theories and models accordingly. This has led to stylistics’ transformation into an interdisciplinary and unruly discipline whose multifaceted nature is reflected in the various nuances that all these sub-​disciplines have brought to the evolving definition of the term (Simpson 2004). This also explains why the surprisingly few textbooks and university departments that focus on it are divided into numerous and diverse sections based on their approach to the field: The multivalent position of stylistics has its roots in the histories of language study and literary criticism, and the institutional make-​up of modern universities and 9

For more on the history and development of stylistics, see Crystal and Davy (1969); Leech (2008); Jeffries and McIntyre (2010); Solly (2016); McIntyre and Walker (2019).

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department divisions which fossilize particular disciplinary boundaries and configurations. Stylistics has therefore come to be regarded as an essentially interdisciplinary field, drawing on the different sub-​disciplines within linguistics to varying degrees, as well as on fields recognizable to literary critics, such as philosophy, cultural theory, sociology, history and psychology. (Stockwell 2006: 742)

One of the most important and productive schisms in stylistics is the often contrastive one between ‘literary stylistics’ and ‘linguistic stylistics’: here the term literary stylistics is used in contrast to linguistic stylistics, the distinction is not between the kinds of texts studied, but between the objectives behind such analysis. Literary stylistics in this case is concerned with using linguistic techniques to assist in the interpretation of texts, whereas linguistic stylistics is about doing stylistic analysis in order to test or refine a linguistic model (Wales 1989: 438) –​in effect, to contribute to linguistic theory. Most stylisticians would argue that what they do is a combination of both of these things. ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 2, original emphasis)

As a result, many active branches of stylistics have stemmed from attempts to integrate stylistics into linguistics, with varying results.10 Initially, the non-​literary branches distanced themselves from their literary11 counter­ parts due to certain points of contact between stylistics and linguistics, as opposed to literature: ‘The connection between stylistics and linguistics 10 Upon identifying the principles of stylistics, Jeffries and McIntyre underline that ‘it [stylistics] has developed so many strands and sub-​fields that the sheer variety and exuberance of the discipline as a whole is hard to pin down to a set of procedures, theories or methodologies. Some fields of linguistics have developed a very clear and agreed set of standard practices, based on a consensus about current theories and models’ (2010: 21). The fact that stylistics has alternated –​and still does –​between being used in literary and in linguistic research results in its never being completely appropriated by or associated with either of the two. Accordingly, each defines stylistics as being ‘eclectic’ and ‘open’ but posits that this has allowed the explosion of new theories. For more on stylistics in general, see Burke (2014); Stockwell and Whiteley (2014); Sotirova (2015). 11 According to Jeffries and McIntyre: ‘the value of a stylistic approach, whether from a literary or a non-​literary viewpoint, is the precision and detail with which we can describe the textural effects of literature, whether our focus is the text itself, the reader’s contribution or even some notion of authorial meaning’ (2010: 3).

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is that stylistics uses models of language, analytical techniques and methodologies from linguistics to facilitate the study of style in its widest sense’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 1). These hybridised methodologies include stylistics’ blending with recognisable disciplines such as critical linguistics, critical discourse analysis and text linguistics. Although they diversified their focus by studying style in relation to specific texts, authors and non-​literary genres,12 these disciplines maintained an overall qualitative approach because of their interest in idiosyncratic occurrences and close reading and analysis. Later on, however, thanks to the development of corpus analysis software, the disciplines of corpus linguistics (Partington 2011) and corpus stylistics emerged and flourished, bringing functionalism back to the fore: ‘Both stylistics and its offshoot corpus stylistics focus on the interdependence between form and meaning/​function. It is only possible to establish marked deviation and parallelism if we are able to identify –​with the help of the analysis of large amounts of data –​what the norms and conventions are’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 9). These frameworks employed quantitative or combined analyses, as they were prompted by the desire to develop stylistics into a more ‘scientific’ methodology that could also be ‘rigorous, systematic, transparent, and open to falsifiability’ (Stockwell 2006: 755).13 12 Some examples of such approaches may be found in Crystal and Davy (1969); Enkvist (1973); McIntyre et al. (2004); Jeffries (2007). 13 Jeffries and McIntyre, on the other hand, single out the following require­ ments: ‘rigour’, which ‘refers to the way that research is carried out and written up so that, whilst they may not share the same conclusions, other scholars can easily see the consistency and clarity in the work that has been done’ (2010: 22); ‘objectivity’, which is more difficult to define, but they ultimately quote Short and van Peer (1999: 273) in stating that it means ‘one tries to be (a) clear, detailed and open (so that one’s position is unambiguous) and (b) ready to change one’s mind if the evidence or subsequent counter argument demands it’; ‘replicability’, which is ‘the replicating of research by other analysts, and this can be built into projects so that more than one researcher applies the analytical tools to any single piece of data’; ‘empiricism’, where ‘all claims should be based on observation or experience’; and ‘falsifiability’, meaning that ‘any claims must be clear enough to be able to be challenged by other researchers, either by replication of the original work, or by the application of the findings to new data’ (2010: 22–​23). For an in-​depth analysis of linguistic stylistics, see Znamenskay (2008).

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This shift in approach may be traced back to two needs: that of gathering and testing hypotheses based on more extensive data compared to the past, and that of benefiting from the empirical confirmation and impression of objectivity that are typical of quantitative methods. Stylistics’ combination with linguistics and quantitative approaches, along with its more definite and verifiable research questions, partially exempted it from the common accusation of its being too subjective, biased, or unmeasurable.14 Therefore, in this book, the methodology of stylistics will be applied to academic writing, combining aspects of EAP and ERPP, within a discursive context that is of the utmost importance for academic research articles because it seeks to define and highlight the nuances of a genre that is seemingly ‘rigidly standardized and rule-​bound, monolithic even’ (Bennett 2009: 43), but certainly recognisable. As evidence of this, one of the most remarkable findings in Bennett’s survey of EAP manuals is their overall consistency and consensus on general principles, methods of textual construction, and grammatical and lexical features across fields and disciplines. Academics and language professionals, however, are all too aware of the fact that academic language and style differ greatly based on the research area and discipline. Consequently, there is an ongoing conflict between stylistics and English academic writing. On the one hand: the more specialized the field of study becomes (politics, law, economy, medicine, etc.), the more normative the textual structure is, the further away it goes from the interest of stylistics. The singularity of stylistics may thus lie in its strong interest in the creativity of language and discourse of any nature (literary, political, journalistic, commercial, everyday conversation, etc.). (Sorlin 2014: 12)15

14 See also Sorlin (2018). Another point of criticism that distances literary stylistics from linguistics stylistics is that: ‘no stylistic analysis can be totally objective, but it will always be influenced by a myriad of factors, such as the stylistician’s individual preferences and foci, as well as the linguistic paradigm employed for analysis or the chosen methodology. Notwithstanding this reservation, stylistics has proved itself to provide useful tools and methods which allow its practitioners to conduct informed analyses of the ways in which meaning is created in texts by linguistic means’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 2). For more early studies of style and linguistics, see Sebeok (1960); Fowler (1966); Freeman (1970). 15 See also Gotti (2005).

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On the other hand, academic writing is undergoing a change in its evaluation due to the gradual, albeit largely unconscious, increase in interest in the style of academics’ writing, to the point that even Bennett observes that ‘the impression of homogeneity has been largely undermined by the large body of scholarship that has been undertaken by descriptive linguists into the way in which academics actually do write in real life’ (2009: 43). The study of stylistics in relation to academic style and discourse is currently in its nascent phase, and it remains true to its nature by eluding and discouraging univocal academic inquiry. In fact, as previously pointed out, there are no specific textbooks on academic stylistics, and the material on academic style is limited to either advice on the style in which native and non-​native academics should write (Bennett 2009; Sword 2012) or advanced EAP manuals containing a brief section dedicated to style (Hopkins and Reid 2018). Here, as in all other fields, stylistics is nowhere and everywhere at the same time, but it has the quality of exploiting: discursive space that could be seen as the prerogative of other disciplines […] But it applies to it tools that it borrows from another discipline –​linguistics and its various branches (systemic functional linguistics, pragmatics, cognitive grammar, corpus linguistics, to name but a few), and social and cultural theories. (Sorlin 2014: 10)

Nevertheless, stylistics’ interdisciplinary and empirical approaches, as well as the ability to adapt its methods to the research and not vice versa, make it a promising starting point and contributor to the study of academic style. For instance, stylistics could contribute to EAP studies, which are lacking in terms of studies on style, by investigating the practical effect of adjusting one’s style when understanding and processing highly innovative and specialised information among a variety of target audiences based on expertise, discipline and L1. This could be done in reference to both written and spoken academic English and could have important pragmatic and sociolinguistic implications. It could focus on different academic research genres and study the style of leading academics in various fields to gather insight on possible shared points that could be presented in guides and manuals. Or it could focus on widely published and cited papers and collect information on efficient stylistic linguistic strategies to be integrated into academic writing courses. From

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a diachronic perspective, stylistics could detect changes in the style of accepted papers (from either native or non-​native academics) to verify whether there have been any specific changes in preference to be considered when writing.16 Employing the various methods at linguists’ and stylisticians’ disposal will allow the more subtle communicative points that are usually not noticed to be highlighted with great flexibility. In fact, ‘what makes stylistics specific as opposed to disciplinary linguistics is its refusal to define its tools a priori. The resort to particular linguistic tools and theories depends on the nature of the text under study and the questions that the researcher wants her research to answer’ (Sorlin 2014: 11). All of the findings that such studies could yield would be of great help in understanding and improving academic writing, proofreading and reviewing, as well as providing extra material and practical examples to use in EAP and ERPP materials and courses.17 The second reason for selecting stylistics, and more precisely corpus stylistics, as will be explained in depth in the section on methodology in Chapter 5, lies in its potential to help with the ongoing and increasing 16 Hyland and Jiang, for instance, are optimistic and believe that ‘It [today’s inclu­ sive scientific English] has evolved conventions designed to structure arguments and communicate information in tight word limits while being as accessible to the reading and writing capabilities of non-​English-​speaking researchers as possible’ (2019: 3). 17 Many universities currently offer courses in academic writing and courses in styl­ istics, which has led to a special branch of stylistics known as ‘pedagogical stylistics’: ‘In Britain as well as in other European countries such as Germany, Spain and Denmark, stylistics has found a place in the educational system as a discipline that bridges the traditional gap between literature and linguistics in different language degree programmes. In this context, courses in stylistics are typically implemented to increase students’ awareness of different features of language and the ways in which they are employed in various types of text with different effects. In addition to improving students’ analytical skills at a linguistic level, stylistics is also utilized with the aim of increasing students’ own general linguistic performance or in specific courses on creative writing, for instance’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 5). For more on stylistics and teaching, see Montini (2020). What is missing, at this point, are courses uniting the two (i.e. academic style), which would give students and academics the necessary tools to assess the efficiency of their knowledge communication and its impact on their target audience.

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demands of and in academic proofreading, and further sustain the introduction of the term ‘academic style proofreading’. As mentioned in Chapter 3, in fact, English maintains its special status as the global language of the academic and scientific community, and the fact that proofreaders are increasingly expected to check and correct the style, as well as lexico-​grammatical accuracy, of academic texts written in English by non-​native speakers (especially in the pre-​submission phase) has made the need to redefine their role and specialised training a pressing one.18 Various studies have pointed out that journal language policies ‘present the institutional face of the journal’ (Henshall 2018: 27) and that this expectation reflects an Anglocentric position (Chovanec 2012; Hartse and Kubota 2014; McKinley and Rose 2018; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022) within the international academic scientific community. It is also important, however, to keep in mind that language professionals mediate between individual academics and academic institutions and therefore have to deal with style on a regular basis without really being instructed on what that means. These journals’ demands for submissions to be written in a form of English that ranges from being ‘good’ to being ‘letter-​perfect’ (Burrough-​Boenisch 2006 in Henshall 2018) may also represent a necessary requirement to be included in the ‘shibboleth of academic writing’ (Scott and Turner 2008: 2). In the case of native speaking academics, this means making the same corrections as a teacher or eliminating forms of colloquialism and excessive informality and disorganisation of thought that may be attributed to inexperience. However, with first-​hand experience and guidance that is already provided by books (Sword 2012; Hayot 2014; Hopkins and Reid 2018; Tusting et al. 2019) or writing courses, this can be solved and is actually part of the novice academic’s growth. In contrast, non-​native speaking academics must submit work that reflects the proper style of English academic writing, but this is vaguely defined, if at all, and disconnected from any explanation of the specific ‘mind style’ that they have to understand, if not adopt, to ensure their writing 18

Stylistics has actually assisted the academic discourse community through its in­ tegration of quantitative approaches: for instance, stylometrics, which studies a writer’s style to determine authorship attribution. For more on this, see Hoover (2008) and Hoover and Hess (2009).

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conforms to the required method for framing their ideas and thoughts. In fact, as Hartse and Kubota point out, journal guidelines are quite vague and based on the ‘idiosyncratic decisions of editors and reviewers’ (2014: 76), and fail to provide any indication of what would be considered acceptable language. This lack of instructions is even more relevant when considering that each journal and publishing house has its own idea of ‘acceptable’ style. Henshall maintains that policies for grammatical (and, for the purposes of this study, stylistic) correctness ‘determine the journal’s underlying attitude towards infelicities in the grammar of the manuscript or traces of NNS [non-​native speakers] usage of English’ and ‘reflect the extent to which the journal facilitates participation by NNS authors’ (2018: 29).19 This may even cause alarm when style becomes a means for journals to promote their in-​house proofreading and revision services to non-​native academics whose papers have been harshly evaluated due to their language and style (McKinley and Rose 2018). Research in stylistics may therefore be of assistance in bringing clarity on both the issue and possible solutions. It started from the style of individual or small groups of writers, so it is well suited to investigating the unique style of individual academics or that of a specific field or discipline in relation to the style that prevails in the larger discourse community with which it must interact. From this perspective, studies on academic style could shed light on possible areas of flexibility or negotiation between the individual’s need to do justice to his or her thoughts when writing and the editorial and academic collective’s communicative conventions and needs. Another factor that must be considered in changing the attitude towards non-​native academics lies in the recognition that non-​native authors are often very proficient in English (academic) writing, and that it is necessary to officially distinguish between ‘differences’ from standard English that may be accepted to a certain extent and signs of ‘deficiency’ 19 Henshall’s study of the author guidelines of international journals also questions whether the frequent use of the term ‘English’ without any specification of the variety of English (e.g. British, American, Canadian, Australian) is to be considered an implicit assumption of the prescriptive correctness of the British and/​or American varieties, or a sign of journals’ opening up to an international and standardised English as a lingua franca variety.

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that is typical of ‘interlanguage’ or ‘learner language’ ( Jenkins 2011) and must therefore be corrected. From this perspective, and that of Cogo and Dewey (2012): the lexico-​grammatical features of English as a lingua franca are characterized by three criteria: systematicity (they appear in quantitative and qualitative data), frequency and extensivity (produced on numerous occasions by speakers of many L1 backgrounds), and effective communication. Consequently, these three criteria together can allow us to consider English as a lingua franca to be a variant of English and not simply errors in relation to standard English. (Englander and Cocoran 2019: 37)

This previously mentioned adoption of academic English as a lingua franca certainly goes a long way to making comprehensible variations of English acceptable, and viewing unfamiliar structures as ‘errors’ to be ‘treated’ rather than as ‘mistakes’ to be ‘corrected’. At the moment, these studies are still focused on a basic lexico-​grammatical level, far from considering aspects like style; being in a developing phase, they have been both embraced and resisted by international journals. As the intersection between stylistics and EAP/​ERPP is understudied to date, this study devised an ad hoc hybrid framework. This framework (in the same way as all frameworks in stylistics) has been adapted as necessary to the research aims and will draw on the analyses and overall experience in order to reflect on future directions to take to fill the knowledge gap that is represented by the lack of manuals on academic style for non-​native English-​ speaking academics. In terms of the contribution of language professionals, translation and proofreading in particular change a publication’s textual and syntactic organisation for an international audience so they can clearly recognise and understand the author’s message (Chovanec 2012; Pillière 2018). In fact, a language and its style reflect the culture and forma mentis of the author and his or her linguistic, cultural, professional and ideological background, and academic writing, despite its claim to be standardised, is no exception. Accordingly, comparing two languages ‘permet de mieux faire ressortir les caractères et le comportement de chacune’ [allows the features and the behaviour of each to be better highlighted] (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958: 23, my translation). Where the author lacks stylistic self-​proofreading skills,

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language professionals serve as mediators who integrate the non-​native academic’s content with the community’s form and therefore enact the above-​mentioned negotiation that will allow the author’s ideas to be spread. Mossop, for instance, maintains that revising consists of ‘the process of reading a draft translation to spot errors, and making appropriate amendments’ 2014: 227, original emphasis), but it has already been observed that this is the very same task proofreaders carry out. As a result: Revision then becomes a quasi-​literary writing exercise in language and style improvement. Revisers working under this concept of quality will not limit themselves to changes required to please the client or make the translation fit for purpose. Rather, all texts will be revised until they fit a certain ideal of authentic and excellent writing in the target language, regardless of the time that takes, and thus regardless of the added cost. (Mossop 2014: 23–​24)

In this sense, stylistics harks back to its textual and literary roots by considering the target audience’s and journals’ ‘readership constraints’ (Henshall 2018). This form of ‘stylistic editing’ could thus be defined as ‘checking and improving a text to ensure it reads smoothly and is tailored to its readers’ (Mossop 2014: 228–​229). The target audience of academic texts in international journals encompasses students at various levels of higher education, colleagues and peers, non-​academic experts, professionals attending conferences and reading academic literature, journal editors and language professionals. The readership’s expected level of content knowledge determines the extent of use of specific jargon and terminology, the presence of definitions and explanations (Gotti 2005; Garzone 2006), and the level of linguistic and discursive interpersonal ‘proximity’ (Hyland 2010). As Sorlin points out: La stylistique est la discipline qui se donne les moyens d’expliquer comment les choix linguistiques d’un écrivain ou d’un orateur peuvent produire des effets spécifiques sur une grande variété de lecteurs/​auditeurs dans un contexte de production et de réception toujours particulier. [Stylistics is the discipline that gives itself the means to explain how the linguistic choices of a writer or speaker can produce specific effects on a wide variety of readers/​ listeners in a context of production and reception that is always particular.] (2018: 14, my translation)

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From a more applicative perspective, therefore, stylistics involves the linguistic analysis of the style that is used in academic texts and unites it with the study of their interpretative and social dimension, as well as the requirements and obstacles of the context in which such texts occur. Here, the term ‘linguistic analysis’ encompasses not only the description of formal features, commonly thought of as descriptive analyses, but also the demonstration of their functional significance, ‘their study of linguistic features being subordinated to the communicative and functional purposes of the Text’ (Sorlin 2014: 12).20 This is accomplished in order to raise awareness of the text’s convergences and divergences in relation to the dominant pattern or style of the discourse community. Such convergences and divergences will concern style and explore an elusive research area that lies between ‘mistake’ and ‘error’21 by finding,

2 0 See also Wales (1989) and Jeffries and McIntyre (2010). 21 The distinction between these two words merits a brief explanation: in general, and even in the terminology cards in Chapter 2 that were compiled using widely recognised and accessible sources of information, the word ‘error’ is used to refer to any sort of divergence from accepted standard language, including those in spelling and grammar that cannot be disputed at any level because their presence represents a lack of ‘correctness’. It is therefore used as a more formal, ‘technical’ and socially acceptable synonym of ‘mistake’. In contrast, in linguistics and language learning, the semantic boundary between the two terms is clearly established and relevant to the debate at hand. In fact, a ‘mistake’ consists of a divergence in written or spoken performance compared to the grammatical norm that is due to a random choice or an intentional slip. Mistakes may be made by both native and non-​native academics who are familiar with the rule they have inadvertently broken, and therefore they may be recognised and corrected as a temporary lapse in word formulation and/​ or production. In contrast, an ‘error’ consists of a written or spoken deviation or inaccuracy resulting from not being aware of the presence of a specific rule in the system of the target language. Errors are a common part of the learning process that are systematically made by writers/​speakers who have not acquired awareness of or competence in a certain area of the language system; errors therefore indicate a gap in a specific portion of the target language. This implies that learners may fill such a gap when they become aware of the presence of the rule and further improve their competence in increasingly sophisticated areas of language production and learning. For more on mistakes and errors, see Trudgill (1976); Ellis (1994); Auroux (1998); James (1998); Brown (2000); Gass and Selinker (2001).

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explaining and treating them while providing insight on the perception of the error, which is based on more or less flexible standards of linguistic hegemony and power over discourse (Hyland 2009; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022). In fact, deviations in style may be conceived by those working in the academic and editorial discourse community as an author’s ‘mistake’, while it could be an ‘error’ from the author’s perspective because he or she has not been informed of or trained in this area of linguistic competence because, as previously mentioned, it is absent from EAP courses and materials. From this perspective, errors are not mistaken uses of language: rather they are simply different from the ‘mind style’ in which native speakers spontaneously (and often instinctively) express themselves. Critical applied linguists have already started to question the traditional concept of error, as it is developing as a construct of language. Examples include the current increase in tolerance of the use of regular spellings of originally irregular verbs (e.g. ‘burned’, ‘spelled’, ‘learned’ alongside the more prescriptively accepted ‘burnt’, ‘spelt’, ‘learnt’) and expressions such as ‘if I was you’ instead of the undisputed ‘if I were you’. Canagarajah (2015) goes as far as distinguishing between ‘error correction’ and ‘error treatment’. The former is what is currently practised within the academic discourse community but should be reconsidered, while the latter is more descriptive and refers to discussions of error in L2 writing. This is the approach used in this study because treating errors entails understanding the underlying function of the accepted form within the academic discourse community’s conventions without judging the error. In the case of style, which, as previously mentioned, is especially subjective, this stance is particularly fitting considering the steady increase in non-​native academic authors who are active on a worldwide level. Interestingly though, considering that editors, proofreaders and reviewers correct or comment on an author’s style, often without being able to explain why or how they arrived at their conclusion, proves that even they are not aware –​or are only unconsciously aware –​of the presence and impact of style in academic writing. From this perspective, one could even suggest that stylistic corrections are errors by native speakers as well. Stylistics, and more precisely corpus stylistics, as will be demonstrated further on, may contribute to defining these standards on a general

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level and sharing practical insight on them and the main stylistic errors to avoid for non-​native academics who wish to publish their work. This could be done, as will be attempted in this study, by starting from the concept of ‘defamiliarisation’, which is one of the foundations of stylistics. ‘Defamiliarisation’ comes from the Russian ostranenie, meaning ‘making strange’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 1) and consists of paying attention to the (linguistic, rhetorical and discursive) elements that diverge in one’s writing from the standard language or expectations of the text or genre used as a starting point.22 Collecting and analysing the stylistic divergences found in the writing of non-​native academics may represent a starting point for an error analysis that will highlight common ‘errors’ and ‘critical areas’ of interest that could be detected and criticised by a native speaking editor, proofreader or reviewer. What therefore initially emerged as a discipline on the margins of literary studies and encompasses as many approaches as the methods and tools that it has appropriated has gradually and subtly taken on a fundamental role, to the point that it has been considered ‘le coeur de l’anglistique. C’est dans la stylistique que s’articulent les disciplines qui ensemble constituent l’anglistique: la linguistique (sans oublier l’étude des registres et dialectes spécialisés), la critique littéraire, la critique culturelle et la traduction’ [the heart of anglistics. It is in stylistics that the disciplines that constitute anglistics are articulated: linguistics (without forgetting the study of specialised registers and dialects), literary criticism, cultural criticism and translation] 22 While the term ‘style’ may be traced back to classical rhetoric and poetics, ‘styl­ istics’ originated in the Russian formalist school of literary criticism in the early 20th century. Its purpose was ‘to isolate the properties and characteristics of literary language […] and explore how the concept of defamiliarisation in both art and literature was at the root of the intrinsic aesthetic value of the work in question’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 1, original bolding). This also implies that divergence and defamiliarisation are seen as unique and sources of added value rather than as defects, as would be the case in a standardised, prescriptive system. However, in the field of academic writing, the situation is different, in that (standard or non-​standard) language must be clear and concise in order to communicate the researcher’s findings. This means that divergences of a certain type and to a certain degree may be tolerated and accepted, as long as they do not compromise the comprehensibility of the paper’s content.

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(Lecercle 2018: 52, my translation). Stylistics, and more precisely corpus stylistics –​one of its main linguistic sub-​branches–will be employed as the main methodological framework and starting point of this study. Corpus stylistics will be presented and explained extensively in Chapter 5, along with the manner in which it will be adapted and specifically applied to academic texts. Such a decision was based on this approach’s unique attention to style within a substantial corpus of texts and its combination of qualitative and quantitative research. Due to the diversity in research questions and the necessity of connecting findings on different levels, the quantitative inquiry will be described in Chapter 5, while the more in-​ depth qualitative analysis will be covered in Chapter 6. The data resulting from both investigations will then be commented on and integrated to reflect constructively on the reasons for the most common highlighted ‘errors’ (from a potential editor’s perspective) or rather ‘divergences’, and how they may be perceived by a reader. These errors will then be treated, with accompanying explanations of how such changes better respond to the expectations of the international academic discourse community. By proceeding in this way, the study will fulfil not only a descriptive but also a functional purpose that benefits both non-​native authors and proofreaders by pointing out specific areas where they can improve and intervene before submitting or publishing.

4.3. Summary The aim of this chapter was to connect the theoretical part of the book with the empirical study and analysis that will be the focus of the rest of the study. In order to do so, it was necessary to cover some of the last, missing issues associated with ‘academic style proofreading’ and its possible implications. While the previous chapter dealt with ‘academic style’ from an institutional perspective, this chapter went into further detail and explored it on an identified and related level. This was accomplished by defining ‘academic style’ as the academic counterpart of ‘mind style’ and arguing that its current form and flow is the result of the international

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academic discourse community’s decision to adopt English –​and therefore the style of the English language –​as its official vehicle for communicating knowledge and content. Due to the complexity of these two issues, the overarching research questions have yielded many considerations that deserve more detailed scrutiny in future research. As far as the first question is concerned,

1) What constitutes an academic’s ‘style’ and what impact does it have on a non-​native academic’s identity?

in its simplest sense, ‘academic style’ could be considered to be the combination of the general style of a language with the requirements of the academic community. On closer inspection, however, an internal contradiction between what academic style theoretically should be and what it truly is emerged. The former conceives it, like academic English, as a ‘no man’s style’ that simply consists of a neutral means of making knowledge easier to understand and share within a very diverse community. In truth, it has often become a filter that, if excessively enforced, runs the risk of keeping out those who are uninformed about the presence and necessity of mastering it along with the language itself. Moreover, in the case of languages and cultures whose mind style is more complicated or indirect, a non-​native academic may feel that he or she is not able to do justice to his or her work because this form of English is too simple. It is therefore necessary to study and raise awareness of mind style in order for non-​native academics to better understand and respond to the mindset behind the language and style they are attempting to use. This is all the more urgent because writing in different languages is necessary to appeal to diverse subjects in order to attain diverse support, and this leads to non-​native academics having more than one academic identity and therefore writing their work according to different mind and academic styles. The second research question sets the stage for the methodological phase of the study, which will be the centre of Chapter 5, by shifting attention towards the branch of applied linguistics that will represent the starting point of the analysis: stylistics or the study of style (and therefore

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of academic style and its proofreading in this book). Therefore, to answer the second question,

2) What is the meaning of ‘stylistics’ and how has it developed from an epistemological perspective?

stylistics, as a methodological approach, originated in the school of Russian formalism in order to study literary style and better understand writers as well as literary movements and periods. In time, it blended with linguistics, creating a series of hybrid methodological approaches and frameworks. One of these, corpus stylistics, which will be expounded on in the next chapter and integrated with terms and evaluation criteria from the field of error analysis, studies style within a corpus of texts using corpus linguistics software. More specifically, the application of stylistics to academic style proofreading will provide both quantitative and qualitative data, and a more complete overview of academic style in the two academic macro areas that will be investigated: economics and the humanities. The intent of this procedure is to observe common word choices and errors in style by analysing the proofreading adjustments that have been made by the author of this book over years of experience. Stylistics can assist the study of academic style in a number of ways: in this case, because it is an introduction, this study aims to use practical data to identify the most common categories and reasons for errors in academic style by non-​native academics and demonstrate how they may be treated. In addition to this specific aim, this chapter has demonstrated just some of the potential directions that research in stylistics could take in enhancing academic style and non-​native academics’ knowledge and use of it. These include performing a diachronic excursus into the origins and evolution of genres, patterns and expressions pertaining to academic style that have developed into commonly used forms; investigating the effect of academic style on conventional and unconventional academic style patterns and strategies; looking into different research genres, disciplines and key academic areas, and drawing out successful and unsuccessful academic styles. In any case, it will fundamentally change perspectives and view non-​native academics for what they often are: proficient users who are in

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need of instructions and guidance on the more subtle levels of communication. There is also the need to distinguish ‘different’ from ‘deficient’, as is implicitly reflected in the diverse attitudes towards non-​native academics, and –​when it comes to academic style –​make the effort to refer to ‘error’ and not ‘mistake’, based on the distinction that was outlined in this chapter. Pursuing research that applies stylistics to academic style, and to academic English in general, has much to offer to academics, instructors and language professionals. In conclusion, after the initial theoretical considerations on academic proofreading, style and stylistics, this study will carry out a stylistic analysis on a corpus of research articles from different macro areas to verify whether it is true that ‘the more complete and context-​sensitive the description of language, then the fuller the stylistic analysis that accrues’ (Simpson 2014: 3) by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. This will raise general awareness (Swales and Feak 2000) about the importance of style in academic writing and help academics avoid some of the most common errors in style, through practical examples and proofreading comments. Therefore, while it is true that ‘there is the unconscious transfer of certain forms and patterns from their [non-​native writers’] native (i.e., non-​English) cultural traditions that a sufficiently detailed linguistic analysis might bring to light’ (Chovanec 2012: 12), it is also true that bringing certain stylistic tendencies and corrections in English academic writing to light could reduce non-​ academics’ natural transference of L1 linguistic forms and patterns, and improve their studies’ chances of publication and dissemination.

Chapter 5

Methodology, dataset and areas of interest

The previous chapters of this book had the preliminary aim of covering all the main elements surrounding ‘academic style proofreading’ that will be viewed through the lens of stylistics in the main study. These elements, simply put, consist of the author, the context and the text. In this case, there is more than one ‘author’, although many of them do not ‘sign’ the publication, including the academic who is responsible for writing the text, the language professional(s), the reviewer who suggests changes in content and language, and the international academic discourse community. More specifically, the first of these conceives and formulates the idea, the accompanying reflections and empirical study/​ studies (when present), with the intent of illustrating and disseminating it within one or more communities. This target community almost always includes the academic discourse community, which is composed of the author’s peers, experts and novices, especially when referring to traditional academic discourse, which therefore enforces communicative conventions. Nevertheless, there are cases in which the target community may be ‘mixed’, as in the case of articles or textbooks that are written for both experts and non-​experts, in online journals that are accessible –​both in communication and in content –​or in new genres that may even be almost exclusively dedicated to non-​experts, such as academic blogs, which seem to preferentially aim to inform those who are interested in academic research and life and/​or in need of help, rather than other experts of the field, for the moment at least. Chapter 2 started by introducing proofreaders as a professional category that is undergoing development in terms of professional responsibilities and required skills due to the growing importance of style in the academic context. Proofreaders, like other literacy brokers, are intermediate and

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mediating professionals who enable non-​native authors to publish, and editors and reviewers to focus more on the content and less on the form. The term ‘proofreader’ is gaining even more influence in the online context, as opposed to copyeditors, with whom proofreaders often share the role of correctors of style. As far as the ’context’ is concerned, Chapter 3 provided an overview of the current standing of ERPP in the academic discourse community and its mounting interest in and requirement for proper style in international publications. In fact, the ever-​present ‘publish or perish’ rule that originated about a century ago (Coolidge 1932) has evolved and should be updated to ‘publish in English or perish’. This is not only a matter of importance for the individual academic, but also for higher education institutions and their position in international university rankings because it involves concrete consequences such as the allocation of resources and funding. This has resulted in the academic community’s insistence that non-​natives adopt the academic style, and therefore the ‘mind style’, of native academics, which could change the thought patterns, and even the identification and self-​identification, of the non-​native author. This preliminary excursus on style among academics led to the exploration of ‘style’ and ‘stylistics’ in Chapter 4, where the former indicates the unique manner in which one expresses oneself, while the latter consists of the applicative field of studies that positions style at the centre of its eclectic and adaptable approach in order to somehow grasp and measure its ‘slipperiness’. Style and stylistics constitute the ‘text’ of this epistemic triangulation, along with the analysed texts and corpora, and the passage to the analysis that will follow. The previous chapter also emphasised the multifaceted variety of research in stylistics, a trait that was often considered detrimental to the field but which will actually enable this study to draw insight from empirical data. For this study’s purposes, a corpus stylistics methodological framework was chosen and integrated with an adapted version of the error categories of error analysis. In fact, because the data had been personally handled and proofread by the author, to better support the findings, both quantitative and qualitative inquiries were carried out. This procedure had the aim of attaining a more accurate and objective perspective, as is typical of corpus stylistics:

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corpus linguistics methods are increasingly acknowledged in stylistics today as a practical tool for handling large amounts of text and identifying the style of particular texts, authors or genres –​a tool which can qualify the analysts’ intuitions about the text and perhaps even make them aware of lexical and grammatical features and patterns which may not otherwise have come to their attention. (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 4)

This data will be elaborated as a solid starting point for academic style proofreading while shedding light on what could be done in the future to further improve the stylistic production of non-​native academics and the proofreading and revising activity of the professionals who mediate between the academic author and the target community.1 Now that the main issues for the many ‘authors’, the professional and academic ‘contexts’ and the approach to the ‘texts’ have been illustrated, an empirical analysis of academic style proofreading will be introduced in this chapter and carried out in Chapters 5 and 6. To better distinguish and integrate the two studies, the quantitative study will be carried out and commented on in this chapter, while Chapter 6 will be dedicated to the (main) qualitative analysis. The phases in which the study will unfold may be best described using the overall ‘error analysis’ procedure suggested by Corder (Allen and Corder 1974) and divided into the following steps:

1. Collection of a sample of learner language; 2. Identification of errors; 3. Description of errors; 4. Explanation of errors; 5. Evaluation of errors.

The first two steps will be carried out in this chapter: in fact, Section 5.1. will introduce the specific stylistic methodological framework 1

This is also the main goal of ERPP studies: ‘In its simplest terms, ERPP is clearly torn between two mediating forces: a need for linguistic clarity in journal publications so that research can be understood with unambiguity; and a need to be inclusive of a global academic community, many of whom are L2 writers. Much of the problem emanating from this context is due to an ideology that linguistic clarity is achieved through error-​free writing, as benchmarked by “native-​speaker” standards’ (McKinley and Rose 2018: 9–​10).

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implemented in the study –​corpus stylistics in combination with error analysis –​and the reasoning behind the choice of this specific branch of stylistics. Section 5.2. will outline the procedures that led to the construction of the ACASTYLE corpus and its division into two separate subcorpora (ECO and HUM) collecting proofread papers in the fields of economics and the humanities. The section following that, Section 5.3., will list and explain the ‘areas of interest’, which are the errors that were singled out and considered because they were rather common and due to lack of awareness of the existence of a stylistic preference. Afterwards, the final three steps of Corder’s procedure –​the description, explanation and evaluation of errors –​will be carried out in Chapter 6. In this case, however, the errors will not be ‘evaluated’ (which implies judgement) but ‘assessed’ and ‘treated’ in order to provide academics with alternatives to these potentially problematic areas, and proofreaders with tools to remedy and explain the meaning behind their proposed solutions to the non-​native author.

5.1. Methodology The methodological framework that will be implemented is that of ‘corpus stylistics’,2 a cross-​cutting tool that unites quantitative and quali­ tative research but, like stylistics in general, does not define its means a priori or maintain the same format for all research, but rather depends on the nature of the text(s) and research questions at hand:

2

In their seminal study on corpus stylistics, McIntyre and Walker point out some of the main issues that remain in defining corpus stylistics: ‘the tendency to define it rather narrowly as the analysis of literary texts using corpus linguistics techniques’, ‘an implicit assumption that traditional (i.e. non-​corpus-​based) stylistics lacks rigour’ and ‘the definition of the discipline as the study of the language of literature’ (2019: 14–​15). They therefore try to remedy the situation by providing a more all-​embracing definition: ‘the application of theories, models and frameworks from stylistics in corpus analysis’ (2019: 15).

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Corpus stylistics focuses on interpretation and on answering the question of how a text means, which is appropriated from stylistics. This will then advance corpus linguistic procedures by not only describing achieved results, but also by interpreting them and answering the question of ‘So what?’. (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 10)

By proceeding in this way, corpus stylistics purposefully distances itself from more traditional and established methodologies because it starts from the premise that the more specialised an approach is, the more normative its textual structure, and the further it is from stylistics because it does not allow individual style to be analysed and interpreted as it should be. In contrast, ‘stylistics draws upon theories and models from other fields more frequently than it develops its own unique theories’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 3). In view of the fact that ‘ultimately it is not necessarily the case that stylistic research is only either data driven or theory driven […] it is very often the case that both impulses are served by a single piece of research’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 14), the corpus stylistics methodology is well suited to this type of research. The ‘theory-​ driven’ study of academic style proofreading has been extensively dealt with in Chapters 3 and 4 of this book, especially given the fact that proofreading and style are understudied areas that need further research, although the problems stemming from this knowledge gap have been acknowledged. On the other hand, the ‘data-​driven’ part of the research, which will be illustrated in the following chapters, provides the necessary insight on the basis of a corpus, referred to as the ACASTYLE corpus, divided into the ECO and HUM subcorpora. It therefore uses empirical data and real examples to focus on areas in which style needs to be treated in order not to be perceived by reviewers and editors as incomprehensible or unreadable. While its resulting flexibility often makes the derived corpus stylistics methodology hard to grasp, it also reflects the variety that characterises style, and enables the methodological framework and dataset to be adjusted as needed. This enables one to reflect on why such divergences from standardised expectations may have occurred and on the impression that they can convey to the target reader. The word ‘adjustment’ refers here to the balance between qualitative and quantitative analysis, the particular aspects that will be investigated, and the genres and texts that will be considered

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in the dataset. However, it is important to point out that the balance between qualitative and quantitative will tilt more towards the former, as the examples and the texts they are drawn from must remain the unavoidable basis of the study. The qualitative analyses will permit focus to be placed on the linguistic choices that have been made by the non-​native author to arrive at a particular form of words, even (and especially) when they are unconscious or filtered by the author’s L1 and culture. A quantitative analysis is performed first as a means to, as far as possible, avoid the bias and inaccuracy that may arise when carrying out close readings and observations on a large number of lengthy texts. In this study, the qualitative approach will enable the analysis and detection of relevant examples, as well as a detailed error analysis assessment based on the four ‘areas of interest’ that will be outlined in Section 5.3. This is in line with the data-​based inquiry that is typical of studies in economics and can provide valuable insight on what to do and not do, and enables the observation, perception and understanding of an error. The word ‘error’,3 instead of ‘mistake’, will be adopted from the paradigm of error analysis, another branch of applied linguistics that consists of ‘the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccessful language’ ( James 1998: 1). An ‘error’ is therefore the use of a linguistic item (e.g. a word, a grammatical item, a speech act, etc.) in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning. A distinction is sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge, and a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspect of performance. […] In the study of second and foreign language learning, errors have been studied to discover the processes learners make use of in learning and using a language. (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 201)

Although this definition expresses the traditional understanding of the term in the field of language acquisition, it can be adjusted for the purposes of this study to describe errors in academic style. In fact, the 3

Mistakes are deviations in the learner’s language that are due to his or her failure to perform according to competence (and therefore to standards that have supposedly been achieved).

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‘learner’ subject in this case –​the non-​native academic –​is not the same or on the same level as in studies on language acquisition, but rather an expert (or aspiring expert in the case of novice academics) in content who has learned the English language to an acceptable extent and is using it to communicate within an especially demanding discourse and professional community. Furthermore, this ‘area’ consists of academic style, which has often not been completely mastered by non-​native academics due to a widespread lack of awareness of the existence of certain specific rules that are not explicitly indicated in EAP courses or materials or in journal style guidelines because they are based on individual occurrences and therefore pointed out case by case when they occur. The resulting divergences are consequently detected by editors and reviewers but remain unnoticed by non-​native authors if they are not duly commented on, and because they are ‘inaccuracies’ or ‘divergences’ rather than ‘indisputable mistakes’, they may not be pointed out by native speaking proofreaders who adhere to a strict policy of only minimal correction or who are not acquainted with academic writing. There is therefore more to ‘good’ academic writing than accuracy, as is becoming clear. According to the CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition), Learner language can be described in terms of 3 dimensions: accuracy, complexity, and fluency. Learner language is accurate when it conforms to target language norms; it is complex when it contains a range of vocabulary and grammatical structures; it is fluent when it is produced quickly and with few pauses. These three dimensions affect each other: for example, too much focus on accuracy can reduce fluency or complexity. Too much focus on complexity can reduce accuracy or fluency.4

The three dimensions that are referred to here –​accuracy, complexity and fluency –​are all somewhat associated with divergences from ‘proper’ academic writing and style. Lack of accuracy leads to mistakes in content and/​or form based on what rules the mistake breaks. Complexity in style differs from the discipline and its conventions in terms of sentence and paragraph articulation. Finally, fluency concerns the flow of thought and 4 CARLA, Overview of Error Analysis, , accessed 12 April 2022.

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language, which is often closely associated with style in general and in reference to academic language. As the qualitative investigation into the ‘areas of interest’ in Chapter 6 will underline, the misuse of style in academic writing, while maintaining the accuracy of the content of the article, may still create problems for the target readership. The sentences, for instance, may be perceived as excessively intricate and require more than one reading to fully understand the message that is being conveyed and its relation to previous or later pieces of information; or the information may be present and apparently clear but unpleasant to read and therefore hard to keep in mind. What follows is an updated classification of categories of errors based on the error analysis that will be implemented: A basic distinction was drawn between intralingual [based on the faulty or impartial learning of the target language] and interlingual errors [resulting from language transfer] […]. Intralingual errors were classified as overgeneralizations (errors caused by extension of target language rules to inappropriate contexts), simplifications (errors resulting from learners producing simpler linguistic rules than those found in the target language), developmental errors (those reflecting natural stages of development), communication-​based errors (errors resulting from strategies of communication), induced errors (those resulting from transfer of training), errors of avoidance (resulting from failure to use certain target language structures because they were thought to be too difficult), or errors of overproduction (structures being used too frequently). (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 201–​2)

In the attempt to combine corpus stylistics and error analysis, these categories of intralingual errors will be adapted to style rather than to grammar, syntax and morphology, and applied to the areas of interest that will be outlined in Section 5.3. Such an application of the insight stemming from studies on intralingual errors to stylistic analysis could provide reasons for the ‘understandable yet unfamiliar’ turns of phrases and sentence flow that elude the common register referred to as ‘English academic discourse’5 (Bennett 2009) that underlies academic discourse 5

Interestingly, this shared register allows translators who are not familiar with the author’s discipline to translate manuscripts competently and meaningfully, as long as they are equipped with the metalanguage of the target genre (Luo and Hyland 2019).

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in a sort of continuum between the humanities and sciences. In truth, academic disciplines and sub-​disciplines can be positioned along a range when it comes to what is accepted in terms of non-​native academic writing. This explains why certain non-​native divergences in academic style appear and are accepted in certain fields, but not others. Moreover, Bennett believes that the current English academic discourse framework seems impersonal and intent on ironing out individual quirks. This is problematic because, as has already been pointed out in Chapter 3, the author’s individuality and identity are always visible to some extent (Gotti 2012). Fortunately, however, research in EAP and ERPP has helped to emphasise this matter because the impression of homogeneity has been largely undermined by the large body of scholarship that has been undertaken by descriptive linguists into the way in which academics actually do write in real life. Their work, which includes corpus-​based studies, genre analysis, disciplinary comparisons and contrastive rhetoric, suggests a wealth of variation between different academic genres […] and disciplines […] and even between different approaches within a single discipline. (Bennett 2009: 44–​45)

This emerging heterogeneity is quite significant and will, at least to a certain extent, be considered because the ACASTYLE corpus that was created for the present study will focus on two macro areas: economics and the humanities. This decision was made for both practical and conceptual reasons. The first is related to the quantity and availability of the material that could be used in the corpus, while the second is to focus on two macro areas whose disciplines are undergoing a phase of discursive development (in the case of economics) or whose style is more varied and less regulated (in the case of the humanities) compared to other, more elaborate EAP disciplines such as science, medicine or technology. In these areas, in fact, the literature is more homogeneous and focused on precision in content and standardisation in form, rather than ‘stylish writing’ (e.g. mathematical formulas, chemistry, Latinate vocabulary and fixed, formulaic phrases). Moreover, as mentioned in Chapter 3, the need in these fields to publish findings quickly results in more tolerance towards standardised and even repetitive writing, and the subtle changes that are typical of non-​native academic style.

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In contrast, the requirements of what constitutes ‘good’ writing in economics (Bondi 2018b; Bondi and Vitali 2020) lie between form and content, thus involving style and a ‘proper and readable’ flow of the sentence. From a linguistic perspective, economics falls under the category of social sciences, which are positioned between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences and may make use of an array of combinations of methodologies drawn from both. Accordingly, ‘writing in the social sciences contains features of both science and humanities, turning an initial abstract construal of experience into something more technical’ (Hyland 2009: 8).6 This has been confirmed by the findings of the qualitative analysis, in which it was demonstrated that publications in economics are characterised by a marked nominalisation and use of concrete verbs. ‘The pressures to publish research in English have grown with changing economic ideologies that prize the globalization of knowledge and the so-​called knowledge economy’ (Englander and Cocoran 2019: 3, original emphasis) and economics is the field that probably most clearly embodies and understands the growing market-​ oriented mentality of academia and its laissez faire liberalism in publication policies (Burton-​Jones 1999; de Swaan 2001a and 2001b; Crystal 2003; Englander and Cocoran 2019; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022). Moreover, the highest-​ranking business schools are located in English-​speaking countries, and the main journals and publications in the field of economics are either already in English or are converting from other national languages to English (Flowerdew 1999; Hyland 2009).7 A further connection may be found in the number of commonly used terms in academia that derive

6

7

Hyland also points out that the social sciences have increased their prestige ‘largely by engaging in policy-​oriented research or by developing general laws of human understanding. Fields such as social work, business studies, marketing, and education have been extremely susceptible to commercial and political influences and even applied linguistics has become increasingly implicated in political and military objectives’ (2009: 176). From the perspective of non-​Anglophone countries, ‘English proficiency stands as a critical resource which, when lacking, may further aggravate this [resource dependency] economic disadvantage […] the criticality of English proficiency probably partly explains the U.K.’s emergence as the epicenter of IB [International Business] research in Europe’ (Aïssaoui et al. 2021: 862).

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from the language of economics.8 As a result, scholars who are active in economics and wish to conduct research in that discipline are required to make not only their studies, but also their writing, more appealing to potential supporters. This has even led to decisions concerning international publications and the composition of multi-​authored papers being made on the basis of the linguistic competence of the authors and/​or the presence of a native speaker (Huttner-​Koros 2015; Flowerdew and Habibie 2022). Ammon suggests that Anglophones produce ‘linguistically more refined texts’ that have a ‘superior impact on the recipients’ (2007: 124–​5) and therefore receive more international proposals and economic benefits simply based on their having English as a first language. Therefore, these academics seek to promote their methodological frameworks and findings to an international audience to present innovations on local, national and institutional levels in order to attract potential international stakeholders and collaborators. The case of writing in the humanities is quite different (Hayot 2014) because they ‘employ abstraction rather than technicality, moving from instances to generalizations by gradually shifting away from particular contexts’ (Hyland 2009: 8) even more than economics. Abstraction and generalisations are characterised by vagueness and could induce reviewers and editors to believe that the non-​native style in submitted papers is a product of not knowing academic language and style well enough to achieve the conciseness and clarity that is sought in publishing. This is ironic, considering that, as mentioned in Chapter 4, the field of linguistics studying style originated from literature (and therefore the humanities), where the unique expressive qualities of individual style are exalted in terms of content but not in terms of the form in which they are written. Nevertheless, McKinley and Rose found that ‘journals in Arts and Humanities (including language and linguistics journals) […] had no rigid guidelines’ (2018: 6). In their study, it also emerged that

8

Some examples of these, according to Flowerdew and Habibie, include ‘com­ modity’, ‘currency’, ‘capitals’, ‘prestige’, ‘development’ and ‘prosperity’ (2022: 35), while Englander and Cocoran mention ‘performance’, ‘quality’, ‘production’ and ‘accountability’ (2019: 13).

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chapter 5 the term style, was also used in similar space as readership, such as the following guideline: ‘Authors are asked to make their manuscripts suitable for a heterogeneous readership —​please use a clear style and avoid jargon’ [emphasis added]. Style was also used in place of benchmarks, such as requesting authors improve ‘the standard and style of their writing’ or adhere to the ‘journal style’. (2018: 8)9

This leads to a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, the flexibility that characterises the guidelines that regulate journals in the humanities seems to signal more tolerance. From this perspective, the non-​native author’s style is considered to be, at least to a certain extent, as subjective as the object of his or her research, and therefore less objectionable. On the other hand, however, certain journals posit that studying topics such as linguistics and literature implies that the author must also be capable of using what they consider to be appropriate style and register when writing, although there is no standard reference in terms of what form this would take. This is partially due to the fact that publications in the humanities tend to be theoretical and discursive, and therefore feature great variation in the specialised language and structure of research articles, as well as in ideas about an author’s personal and/​or academic style. The AntConc 3.5.9 corpus linguistics software (Anthony 2019) enables a quantitative inquiry seeking out any measurable similarities or differences in linguistic lexical and textual choices in academic style. Such preferences will translate into tracing common patterns (Partington et al. 2013) and traits within each subcorpus, as well as common and diverging trends across the two subcorpora. Moreover, the study and interpretation of empirical data partially compensate for the lack of stable stylistic points of reference in the humanities by providing instructions that are usually not openly explained in courses or style guidelines. In turn, this will enable academics and academic proofreaders to detect and understand common and different academic style writing and proofreading practices. Such comprehension 9

These more flexible standards are the ones that McKinley and Rose believe should become an example for other journal guidelines: ‘journals can discuss language requirements in terms of clarity and conciseness, rather than in terms of correctness and error. Benchmarks in flexible guidelines can refer to a need to adhere to specific publishing styles, rather than abstract native forms’ (2018: 9, original emphasis). For more on this, see also Galloway and Rose (2015).

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will boost awareness of the ‘grey areas’ where non-​native academic style is most frequently identified in relation to the expectations of the discourse community and –​recalling defamiliarisation in stylistics –​how these unfamiliar outcomes are perceived and evaluated.

5.2. Construction of the ACASTYLE corpus A corpus of research articles (and their abstracts), referred to as the ‘ACASTYLE corpus’, was constructed. The corpus was composed of 120 individual and multi-​authored research articles that had been written in English by non-​native scholars and proofread by the author of this book (a native English speaker and linguist with experience in translating into English, revising, copyediting and proofreading in various disciplines who will be referred to here as ‘the proofreader’) between January 2013 and December 2021. To better focus on academic writing for publication, all other genres (issue introductions and editor’s notes, calls for papers, texts for websites, rejection and acceptance letters, and translations of reviewer comments) were excluded. The word ‘corpus’ is used here in its traditional linguistic sense: a collection of texts in an electronic format that are gathered and searched through corpus linguistics software in order to identify and highlight common and recurring linguistic patterns among the texts.10 The ACASTYLE corpus was then divided into two separate subcorpora. The first one, which will be referred to as the ‘ECO subcorpus’, was composed of 60 research articles in the field of economics, and more precisely management, corporate governance and sustainable development. They were written by authors from various European 10

This was done because ‘intuition and data work together to offer fresh insights on familiar, but perhaps unnoticed, features of language use. This assists to reduce any bias introduced by looking at just one text, enables analysts to depict what is usual, rather than what is simply grammatically possible, and helps to suggest explanations for why language is used as it is in academic domains and genres’ (Hyland 2009: 28).

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countries and published in journals with an international readership. The second subcorpus, which will be referred to as the ‘HUM subcorpus’, was composed of 60 research articles in diverse fields of the humanities: linguistics, literature (both classical and of various world languages) and education. These articles were published in international journals or as chapters in collections of essays. This collection procedure had the intent of respecting a necessary requirement for studying academic writing for publishing: ‘the corpus should be made up of RAs in the appropriate discipline(s) and of sufficient number to afford reliable linguistic and rhetorical generalisations’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 103). This ensures the ‘representativeness’ of the corpus, which ‘allows for generalisations to be made about the particular language under investigation’ (McIntyre and Walker 2019: 3). European journals and authors were chosen due to their strong connections to English as the international language of publication, but also for the fact that the authors involved were all equally competent and motivated in their endeavour to publish in English. The 2013–​21 timeframe was established so as to guarantee a sufficiently large corpus and attain a balanced number of articles from the two macro areas under investigation. The proofreader, in fact, had been entrusted with the articles based on the author or journal’s need, and not necessarily on a regular basis. Each macro area included papers from different branches of the same discipline to provide a more holistic perspective on non-​native academics’ writing in their macro area. In the case of the articles in the ECO subcorpus, almost all of the articles had been sent to be proofread after their editing and formatting, and therefore towards the end of the editorial process. The articles in the HUM subcorpus, on the other hand, were sent for proofreading before submission to the journal/​collected volume or after peer review, which had sometimes invited the author(s) of the paper to ‘have a native speaker’ revise the paper. The authors, despite being non-​native academics, were highly competent and had extensive experience in conducting research and publishing in English, so their level of language proficiency was certainly the same as, if not even higher than, that required by the journal or editor. In fact, as has been pointed out, ‘EAL writers may be as equally proficient in English as their Anglophone counterparts, or even better’ (Flowerdew and Habibie

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2022: 18). After ensuring that the authors were non-​native academics, their names and contact information were deleted from the articles to guarantee anonymity. The bibliography and appendixes (when they consisted of numerical tables) of the research articles were also deleted to allow a better focus on the text itself. Each subcorpus was then divided into two further subcorpora (referred to as ‘ECO/​HUM with corrections’ and ‘ECO/​HUM without corrections’) in order to compare the research articles before and after they had been proofread. The two subcorpora will now be presented in further quantitative detail in an attempt to draw out preliminary findings of interest on language (and therefore style) in these two macro areas that may be integrated with the findings that will emerge during the qualitative analysis of the data in Chapter 6. To better focus the quantitative inquiry on language and style and later integrate it with the findings of the qualitative analysis, the following research questions were formulated and will be answered in the comments on each subcorpus and on the subsequent comparison between the two subcorpora:

1) What are the most common content words and verbs in each subcorpus and, in the first case, what are the prevailing content-​ oriented word categories? 2) How are these preferences related to the typical practices and textual conventions of the macro area?

The most frequent words in the ECO and HUM subcorpora and their ‘without corrections’ and ‘with corrections’ subcorpora were found using the AntConc 3.5.9 corpus linguistics software (Anthony 2019). More specifically, the software’s ‘wordlist’, ‘concordance’ and ‘clusters n-​grams’ functions were used to verify the number of hits, word category and collocation of the most frequent content words and verbs, as well as of specific metadiscursive terms, when necessary. The answers to these questions, which will be provided in the course of the respective analyses of the subcorpora and then their comparison, may yield objective insight into why and how academic style differs in research articles in economics and the humanities. These observations, in turn, could be supported or

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adjusted by the qualitative analysis and help explain the reasons for the stylistic errors that are most typical in these two research areas. 5.2.1. The ECO subcorpus The ECO (economics) subcorpus was composed of 60 research articles11 written by 1 or more (between 1 and 7, with an average of 2–​3 au­ thors per paper) non-​native academics. The papers were analysed in two phases, which led to two subcorpora composed of the same papers: the papers before proofreading (‘without corrections’ subcorpus: 15,631 word types; 379,728 word tokens) and after proofreading (‘with corrections’ subcorpus: 15,640 word types; 381,645 word tokens). The length of the articles ranged between the shortest article of 3,488 words (with corrections) and 3,473 words (without corrections) and the longest article of 10,115 words (with corrections) and 10,046 words (without corrections). The average number of words amounted to 6,500 (with corrections) and 6,483 (without corrections). In 43 out of the 60 papers, there was an increase in words after the proofreading; in 1 case, there was no difference in the number of words; while in 16 cases there was a decrease in the number of words. The maximum increase in the number of words was 262, while the maximum decrease was an exceptionally significant 905 words; therefore, the average increase in number of words was 112.66 and the average decrease was 144.80 words. This demonstrates that the difference in the number of words is not particularly significant, although many authors fear having to remain within a word limit. The table and data enable similarities and differences between the non-​native academic’s writing and the proofreader’s intervention to be drawn out, from a quantitative perspective. In this manner, it is possible to highlight some trends in non-​native academic writing and proofreading in economics and therefore make suggestions to improve non-​native authors’ 11

The author of this book wishes to thank the director of Sinergie –​Italian Journal of Management, Prof. Marta Ugolini, for granting permission to use and quote from the journal’s pre-​and post-​proofreading papers.

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Methodology, dataset and areas of interest Table 4.  Most common content words and verbs in ECO subcorpus N.

Content (w/​o)

Hits

Verbs (w/​o)

Hits

Content Hits (with)

Verbs (with)

Hits 979

1

innovation 1,270

can

1,049

innovation

1,273

can

2

research

1,181

may

445

research

1,115

may

509

3

social

1,103

use

428

social

1,102

use

424

4

business

1,030

should

353

business

999

could

372

5

new

963

could

351

new

959

should

348

6

more

947

do

288

more

938

do

272

7

firms

899

change 259

firms

896

change

252

8

value

868

need

224

study

872

need

219

9

family

857

increase

219

family

858

increase

218

10

management

844

create

194

value

855

create

180

11

study

772

support 193

management

843

would

178

12

other

728

understand

170

analysis

714

understand

170

13

analysis

724

would

170

other

709

provide

167

14

model

693

show

169

model

689

share

164

15

brand

623

develop 166

develop

162

company 643

Source: Author’s elaboration

writing and training. As is typical of academic writing in general, nominalisation is present in both subcorpora, including in words that may be used as both nouns and verbs (e.g. research, value, process, impact, experience, control, change, work, study, focus). Nominalisation is relevant in that it not only refers to a specific entity, but also confers a sense of comforting solidity and familiarity, as well as being part of fixed formulas and phrasal verbs that are typical of academic English, as has been verified in studies on stylistics:

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chapter 5 Condensing discourse via nominalization would indicate some sort of expectancy as to what receivers would need to be familiar with, that is, not only the topics being discussed but also the prototypical structural traits of that particular discourse variety. Consequently, this kind of grammatical metaphor is typically associated with the discourse of experts. Furthermore, it often has the effect of leaving out the identity of the ‘doer’ of a process. (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 97)

However, there are noticeable differences when comparing the most common content words,12 starting from number 8: the word ‘value’ (which, out of 868 occurrences in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus, is found in its verbal form only 14 times) is number 10 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus because its place has been taken by the word ‘study’. The increase in use of this word, from 772 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus to 872 hits in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus, is due to the preferred use of the word ‘study’ by native speakers to indicate the specific paper or analysis that is being presented, as opposed to the words ‘research(es)’ and ‘work’, which are often used by non-​native authors and disputed by reviewers and editors as incorrect. Such a preference is due to similarity to other languages that more readily accept ‘research’ for single projects or surveys, rather than as referring to a scholar’s overall academic activity. This, in itself, is already a common usage that is avoided by native and quasi-​native academics with extensive experience in academic English. Another relevant difference, and an indicator of great awareness of and training in the subtleties of academic writing and style among non-​native authors, is the variety of modal verbs used in the subcorpora (Facchinetti and Palmer 2004; Tsangalidis and Facchinetti 2009). In the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus, in fact, there is a decisively more consistent presence of the verb ‘can’ (with 1,049 hits) as opposed to the corrected versions of the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus (with 979 hits). In contrast, the latter subcorpus displays an increased use of other modal verbs, such as ‘may’ (with 509 hits, i.e. 64 more occurrences compared to the pre-​proofread versions) 12 The importance of carrying out a quantitative inquiry is confirmed by the fact that ‘Collocations can be identified for content words (like adjectives, adverbs and nouns) and function words (like articles, pronouns and so on) alike, even though the latter are usually more frequent than the former’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 58).

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or ‘could’ (with 372 hits, versus 351 in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus). Modal verbs are especially important in stylistics because ‘modality can be defined as the potential of language to project the speaker’s or writer’s attitude about the proposition expressed’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 113). In this case, the modal verb ‘can’ encompasses more than one meaning (e.g. general and specific ability, opportunity, possibility and impossibility, and permission) and is therefore easily and solidly integrated into the learner’s ‘comfort zone’. While it is true that non-​native academics are working within the same category of modality –​that is epistemic possibility, so there is not a collapse in understanding –​these modal verbs present different degrees of formality and probability. Excessive use of ‘can’ makes academic writing rather concrete and defined, as opposed to accepted academic style, which needs hypotheses and abstractness to allow generalisation and application. 5.2.2. The HUM subcorpus The HUM (humanities) subcorpus was composed of 60 research articles written by 1 or more (between 1 and 4, with 57 papers written by 1 author, 2 by 2 authors, and 1 by 4 authors) non-​native academics for international journals or collected volumes of essays. As in the ECO corpus, the papers were analysed in two phases, corresponding to two subcorpora composed of the same papers: the papers before proofreading (‘without corrections’ subcorpus: 25,602 word types; 379,728 word tokens) and after proofreading (‘with corrections’ subcorpus: 15,640 word types; 376,794 word tokens). The length of the articles ranged between the shortest article of 2,840 words (with corrections) and 2,832 words (without corrections) and the longest article of 12,969 words (with corrections) and 12,946 words (without corrections). The average number of words amounted to 6,410 (with corrections) and 6,400 (without corrections). In 47 out of the 60 papers, there was an increase in words after proofreading; in 2 cases, there was no difference in the number of words; while in 11 cases, there was a decrease in the number of words. The maximum increase in the number of words was 133, while the maximum decrease was 409 words; therefore, the average increase in number of words was 172.49 and the average decrease

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was 44.88 words. Once again, the quantitative data thus demonstrates that the difference in the number of words before and after proofreading is not as substantial as might be anticipated. This is especially interesting because papers in the humanities are generally less constrained by word limits compared to those in the ‘hard’ and ‘social’ sciences (e.g. the IMRaD –​ Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion –​framework). The fields in the humanities that were involved in this study may be divided as follows: English language (linguistics): 28; Other modern literatures: 15; English literature: 8; Education: 2; Classical literature: 2; Others: 5. The fact that many of the authors were active in the field of English language and literature will certainly have a bearing on the level of competence of these non-​native authors and perhaps on the nature of the stylistic errors. As in the ECO subcorpus, the names, contact information and bibliographies were excluded from the analysis. Footnotes, on the other hand, which almost never appeared in the ECO subcorpus, were included in the word count and analysis because they also consisted of text (rather than bibliographical information) that integrated with the article and were corrected by the proofreader. The first peculiarity that emerges from the data is the marked preference for adjectives rather than nouns, as well as for ‘vague’ words (e.g. other, more, all) that support the more specific words used by the authors in the articles. Another pattern is the frequent hits for words pertaining to impersonal expressions, such as ‘one’, ‘people’ and ‘some’, that are used in argumentative expressions and about those reporting information, with an increase in the first term from 795 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus to 825 hits in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus (thus ranking in first place in this subcorpus) due to the proofreader’s introduction of ‘one’ as an impersonal third person singular subject. As observed in relation to the ECO subcorpus, the use of modals changed substantially before and after proofreading: the oft-​used verb ‘can’ decreased from 867 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus (where it was the most common verb) to 806 hits in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus because it was substituted, when necessary, with ‘may’ (which jumped from 378 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus to 437 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus), with the aim of better expressing possibility rather than ability, or with ‘could’ (which also registered an increase from

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Methodology, dataset and areas of interest Table 5.  Most common content words and verbs in HUM subcorpus N.

Content Hits (w/​o)

Verbs (w/​o)

Hits

Content Hits (with)

Verbs (with)

Hits

1

also

833

can

867

one

825

can

806

2

one

795

see

395

also

810

see

395

3

data

749

use

379

data

749

use

379

4

other

736

may

378

other

732

may

378

5

more

676

would

275

more

709

would

275

6

new

656

should

263

new

653

should

263

7

language 624

could

260

language 628

could

260

8

social

624

do

236

social

624

do

236

9

all

587

make

192

all

569

make

192

10

city

566

become

175

city

564

become

175

11

cultural

547

seem

161

people

549

seem

161

12

people

544

take

156

cultural

543

take

156

491

13

heritage

set

145

heritage

491

set

145

14

different 479

find

135

time

463

find

135

15

first

must

135

different

461

must

135

476

Source: Author’s elaboration

260 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus to 277 hits in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus). The hits for the modal verb ‘should’ also fell from 263 in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus to 254 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus because it was removed when it was felt to be an excessively ‘strong’ presumption compared to the surrounding context. Moreover, metadiscursive words referring to research itself are not present in this table and, as will be seen in Chapter 6, do not appear in the texts when the authors believe it can be avoided. In fact, the noun ‘study’ scored 260 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 283 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus (presumably due to the fact that the proofreader often used it in substitution for the countable version of ‘research’); while ‘studies’ scored 160 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 167 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus;

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‘work’ scored 242 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 241 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus (‘works’ scored 168 and 187 hits respectively); finally, ‘research’ scored 205 hits in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 192 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus (thus confirming its substitution in favour of ‘study’). Although these papers were all written with an academic audience of experts in mind, the choice of (non-​modal) verbs also reflects the ‘mind style’ of the field of research: some of the most frequently used verbs are associated with the senses, existence or transformation (e.g. ‘see’, ‘seem’, ‘make’, ‘become’) rather than concrete, distinguishable actions. This is in line with the descriptive and reflective intent of these scientific papers and their pursuit of alternative solutions to complicated issues (Gotti and Guinda 2013). 5.2.3. Quantitative comparison between the ECO and HUM subcorpora As far as the preferred variety of English in the research articles is concerned, there was an interesting difference between the two macro areas. The authors in the ECO subcorpus almost always preferred to write in American English, with some occasional instances of British English spelling and lexical choice. These cases, however, can often be attributed to the author’s acquaintance with both varieties and lack of awareness of the differences between American and British English because they were passively picked up. The preference could be explained by the fact that many journals in economics are more oriented towards an American market and draw on American studies and research. In the case of the HUM articles, in contrast, there was a marked preference for British English spelling and word choice, presumably because most of the publications were destined for publication in British or European journals and volumes. In most cases, there were no specific instructions from the journal or volume editor regarding the variety to use. Therefore, the preference for a language variety of an academic discipline may be traced back to its target audience and academic community (especially in case of the ECO subcorpus, where many of authors followed American communicative models and wished to disseminate their findings among

Methodology, dataset and areas of interest

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multinational companies or industries), or to the author’s desire to convey ‘proper’ writing within a more discerning academic discourse community (which was often the case for the authors in the HUM corpus, where ‘good’ writing is expected). The quantitative analysis and comparison between the ECO and HUM subcorpora has provided a series of thought-​provoking starting points that are essential to present and future reflections on academic writing and style in different disciplines. The first, practical factor that must be considered in relation to an academic’s ‘freedom’ to write –​and therefore to his or her discursive organisation and choice of strategies –​is the number of authors who are contributing to a publication. In the ECO subcorpus, it was uncommon for an academic to write alone, and the average number of authors per publication was between 2 and 3. Consequently, the authors tended to make their style as concise as possible in order to express the content of their part without infringing on the word limit of their colleagues. Sharing a publication also leads to an enhanced sense of ‘self-​awareness’, as each author knows that the content and language of his or her part will be somewhat evaluated by a fellow author even before the article’s submission. In contrast, the publications in the HUM subcorpus were almost all written by 1 author, who therefore had the entire word limit at his or her disposal, and could indulge his or her individual idiosyncrasy and ‘mind style’, knowing that that the first, true evaluation would take place after submission. The variety of language that is used in academic English (and therefore in academic style) represents another instance of disciplinary divergence that may be noticed through quantitative inquiry. The ECO and HUM subcorpora are both composed of 60 articles and a roughly comparable number of word tokens (the ECO subcorpus counts 379,728 tokens in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 381,645 tokens in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus, while the HUM subcorpus contains 376,794 tokens in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 377,698 in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus). In contrast, the difference in word types is remarkable (the ECO subcorpus counts 15,631 types in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 15,640 types in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus; the HUM subcorpus contains 25,602 types in the ‘without corrections’ subcorpus and 25,147

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types in the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus). This results in a type/​token ratio13 of 4.12% for ECO ‘without corrections’ and 4.10% for ECO ‘with corrections’, but 6.79% for HUM ‘without corrections’ and 6.66% for HUM ‘with corrections’. These numbers confirm that that there is more lexical variety in the HUM subcorpus, which may be attributed to the variety of its topics, but also its textual structure. While journals in economics follow an IMRaD structure to encourage comparability and conformity in their presentation of information, there is no such rigidity in the humanities. This finding is supported by comparing the word categories of the most common content words in Tables 4 and 5: the ECO subcorpus features the strong tendency towards nominalisation that characterises the ‘hard’ and ‘social’ sciences in their pursuit of objectivity and factuality. Moreover, the verbs that are used are also more concrete and results-​oriented (e.g. create, support) and focus on ability, potential and necessity (e.g. can, may, need). Further proof of this is provided by the numerous references and explicit metadiscursive references to the work at hand, which may be viewed by observing the number of occurrences of terms like ‘research’, ‘study’, ‘paper’ and ‘work’. As mentioned in Subsection 5.2.2., on the other hand, nouns occur much less frequently, leaving space for verbs and adjectives (semantically implying change and development), and terms alluding to metadiscourse (Bondi and Alvarez-​Gil 2021) are less frequent (not even appearing in the first 15 content words) and implicit in the stylistic composition of the papers, as will be observed in further detail in the course of the qualitative investigation in Chapter 6. The fact that the most common verbs in the HUM corpus are semantically based on cognition, perception and reflection (e.g. see, seem, find), along with the greater confidence that is expressed in the modal verbs (Facchinetti and Adami 2008), lead to the conclusion that there is more reliance on argumentation, description and narration. These are typical traits of the epistemological pursuits of the 13

In corpus linguistics, ‘word tokens’ refer to the number of individual words in the text while ‘word types’ indicate the number of unique word forms. The type/​token ratio is calculated by dividing the number of word types by the number of word tokens and then multiplying the resulting number by 100 to obtain a percentage; its purpose is to indicate how lexically rich the vocabulary in the text is. In this case, the percentages were rounded to 2 decimal places.

Methodology, dataset and areas of interest

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humanities but also convey a discursive and stylistic desire for openness and growth. To help the authors understand the changes that had been made, the corrections and proposals resulting from the proofreading were clearly indicated using the ‘tracking’ mode in the Word document that was sent back to the author(s). In this manner, the author could directly ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ every change, or contact the proofreader with any questions or doubts about the changes. For observations by the proofreader (e.g. on spelling, changes in the title or corrections that would be applied throughout the article) and in cases in which the proofreader was unable to give a precise correction because the sentence was unclear or could be interpreted in more than one way, questions and suggestions were added to the text using the ‘comment’ function. The term ‘correction’, as it is used here, does not concern the ‘unmistakable grammar mistakes’ that proofreaders often focus on, as mentioned in Chapter 2, but rather some of the most common occurrences of ‘treatable errors’ in academic style. Indeed, they are not mistakes in grammar or syntax that could compromise the understanding of the text, but rather subjective preferences in expression that make the text more difficult to understand immediately due to these unfamiliar structures. As demonstrated in Section 4.1., cases like these represent moments in which individual and collective academic expressions of identity and ‘mind style’ clash (Gotti 2012; Englander and Cocoran 2019). As a result, to be understood, these ‘errors’ require the reader to make an effort to fully grasp the message that the author is trying to convey. This is most probably a result of the non-​native author’s linguistic and cultural background, but it is counterproductive in a linguistic and discursive environment in which speed and clarity of information are of the utmost importance. Therefore, these ‘errors’ require ‘correction’, or an adjustment of the style, by the proofreader to align the text with the international academic discourse community’s expectations. Consequently, the approach of ‘error analysis’, which is typical of language learning and applied linguistics, is integrated in order to understand how these divergences from the standard could and would be perceived by native speakers and editors who are acquainted with the native speaker’s level of linguistic competence. In fact:

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chapter 5 Error analysis is a method used to document the errors that appear in learner language, determine whether those errors are systematic, and (if possible) explain what caused them. Native speakers of the target language (TL) who listen to the learner language probably find learners’ errors very noticeable. […] While native speakers make unsystematic 'performance' errors (like slips of the tongue) from time to time, second language learners make more errors, and often ones that no native speaker ever makes. An error analysis should focus on errors that are systematic violations of patterns in the input to which the learners have been exposed. Such errors tell us something about the learner's interlanguage, or underlying knowledge of the rules of the language being learned (Corder 1981: 10).14

The research articles in the ACASTYLE corpus present much-​needed empirical data that was gathered over a number of years and is analysed in detail from qualitative and quantitative perspectives in order to focus on specific cases and changes in academic style. While academics’ writing has been observed and explored in previous studies (Swales 1990; Casanave 2002; Gotti 2012; Thomas and Reinertsen 2019; Leavy 2022) in attempts to explore academics’ relations to identity and author voice, this study focuses on academic style in terms of its function of presenting knowledge and information in the clearest and most appropriate way in view of the requirements of the international journal to which the paper is being submitted and of the academic community in general. This will be accomplished both by drawing and observing data from the ECO and HUM subcorpora separately and by comparing to see if, how and why the macro areas differ in type of treatment. As previously mentioned, all the bibliographical information in the papers was deleted, so the research papers were anonymised, and identified throughout the analysis by means of a number. For this reason, a consent form to use these examples was completed by the journals and authors before the proofreader’s analysis of the material began. Any reference or sensitive piece of information that might be traced back to the original paper has been deleted or modified. Moreover, because the research articles were sent back to the authors after the proofreading and before the

14 CARLA, Overview of Error Analysis, , accessed 12 April 2022.

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publication phase, the final, published papers may be very different from their form on submission for proofreading.

5.3. Areas of interest As opposed to ‘mistakes’, which may be clearly recognised as specific lexico-​grammatical digressions in performance compared to standard rules, errors in style are difficult to pinpoint and connected to individual lapses. They cannot be traced back to textbook rules but are mostly identified through the ‘perception’ and sense of ‘defamiliarisation’ that the error triggers. ‘Defamiliarisation’ is one of the processes that are at the heart of literary stylistics, especially in the case of poetic style, but it can be applied to academic style as well.15 It is defined as ‘impeding normal processing by showing the world in an unusual, unexpected or abnormal manner’ (Douthwaite 2000: 178). This is precisely what happens when a non-​native academic manifests his or her reality –​or knowledge in this case –​using an academic style, and therefore a ‘mind style’, that differs from the conventional one. Although it may not be serious enough to be considered a ‘mistake’, or to completely break down the communication, it certainly is disorienting for those who do not already know the ‘style’, and it therefore impedes normal processing. An experienced proofreader, however, may be well versed enough to decodify the error and, with the correct tools, guide the academic back to an expected pattern. For this reason, the professional and personal experiences of both academics

15

Jeffries and McIntyre confirm this by pointing out that, thanks to stylisticians’ increasing interest in other models and methods, including cognition, computer analysis and contextually based discourse, ‘Such an approach [illustrating the effects in poetry as the most distinct from everyday language] has been challenged from the later part of the twentieth century onwards when it began to be recognised that there was not, or perhaps no longer, a language of literature distinct in kind from other types of language’ (2010: 61).

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and language professionals are the main sources of data and insight into their needs. It is not possible to cover all of the stylistic flaws that may occur in academic writing; however, on the basis of the most commonly corrected stylistic errors, the following descriptive areas of interest have been singled out as the focus of this analysis and interpretation:

16

1) necessity to add information that is obvious to the non-​native author but not to the reader (henceforth referred to as ‘addition of extra text); 2) deletion of redundant information and forms that represent instances of language transfer from the non-​native author’s L1 (henceforth referred to as ‘deletion of redundant text’); 3) shifting and repositioning of clauses and phrases in line with the audience’s expectations (henceforth referred to as ‘shifting and repositioning’); 4) misuse in appropriateness and register (henceforth referred to as ‘appropriateness and register’).16 Interestingly, this four-​item list of areas of interest almost perfectly coincides with the descriptive Surface Structure Taxonomy that was proposed by Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982) in the field of error analysis and which is ‘based on the ways in which the learner’s erroneous version is different from the presumed target version’ ( James 1998: 105). These are four ways in which learners modify target forms and in which the IL (interlanguage, or the version of the target language that is used or known by the learner) and TL (target language) diverge ‘in specific and systematic ways’ (Dulay et al. 1982: 150). For this reason, James maintains that ‘Target Modification Taxonomy’ would be a much more acceptable descriptive label (1998: 105). Although these categories are concerned with grammar, syntax and morphology, they overlap with this study’s categories. The Surface Structure Taxonomy categories are: omission (which corresponds to ‘addition of extra text’); addition (which –​a bit forcedly –​could be associated with ‘deletion of redundant text’ but is actually more similar to the ‘overgeneralisation’ category that was mentioned in 5.1. from Richards and Schmidt 2010); misinformation (which corresponds to ‘appropriateness and register’ because it concerns the use of a wrong structure or form); and misordering (which corresponds to ‘shifting and repositioning’). This leads to the hypothesis that analogous sorts of errors may exist at different language levels regardless of the learner’s competence. For more on these

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These specific areas of interest therefore gather common errors in relation to style (and consequently the idiosyncratic ‘flow’ of the author’s sentences) that were selected by the proofreader due to their frequency and importance, and based on a set of criteria: the fact that they are ‘errors’, not ‘mistakes’, and have therefore eluded earlier revisions and editing by previous revisors and proofreaders; their significant frequency of occurrence both within single publications and throughout the entire corpus, thereby confirming that they are ‘systematic deviations’ that would certainly be noticed by a discerning reviewer or editor; the potential misunderstanding or lack of appreciation of the information on the part of the reviewer or reader due to the presence of the error; and the fact that the presence of the ‘error’ was presumably due to a gap in intercultural and stylistic EAP training and practice. Interestingly, the identification of these four areas brings out another important factor that often explains the presence of these errors. In the case of disciplines that mostly deal with national case studies and circumstances or that have only recently begun to publish in English, it is common for authors to translate papers that they had already written and published in their national language because they want to reach an international academic audience. On the one hand, national publications appeal to local institutions and stakeholders, and therefore bring practical and financial benefits, particularly in the case of local projects. On the other hand, international publications confer prestige, visibility and opportunities to establish international collaborations. However, it is not enough to simply translate a research paper into English because the target audience is different, and so are its mind style, background knowledge and expectations. While this is acknowledged in translation studies, it is often not considered during copyediting and proofreading due to the lack of time and/​or competence. For each of the four areas of interest, the errors that will be analysed in the ECO and HUM subcorpora will be assigned to one or more of the categories of intralingual errors outlined by Richards and Schmidt categories of errors, see James (1998); Richards and Schmidt (2010); Heydari and Bagheri (2012); Sompong (2014).

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(2010: 201–​2) that were presented in Section 5.1. Due to the close reading that characterises the analysis, the commentary will reference sentence or phrase-​length examples identified during the proofreading. For the reader’s convenience, the categories are listed again but with adapted definitions related to style (and referring to ‘sentences’ instead of ‘texts’ due to the length of the proposed examples) supplied by the author of this book:





1) Overgeneralisations: errors in style based on the application of rules in sentences that appear analogous to the non-​native academic but actually differ in the reader’s perception; 2) Simplifications: errors in style based on the non-​native academic’s attempt to simplify the structure of the sentence; 3) Developmental errors: errors in style due to the non-​native author’s attempt to creatively use the language he or she has acquired; 4) Communication-​based errors: errors in style due to the non-​ native author’s attempt to use language strategically to carry out a certain metadiscursive function; 5) Induced errors: errors in style due to the non-​native academic’s misuse of structures and language he or she has either learned from native academics or learned and/​or misunderstood from other non-​native academics; 6) Errors of avoidance: errors in style due to the non-​ native academic’s reluctance to use certain structures because they were considered too difficult or could excessively complicate the sentence; 7) Errors of overproduction: errors in style that probably would not be noticed if presented in isolated occurrences but are noticed due to the non-​native academic’s excessive use of them.

The selection of the areas of interest and their investigation by means of the adapted categories of intralinguistic errors presented above, as well as the methodological approach that will be applied in this study, seek to open up the research field in EAP and ERPP. In fact, applied linguists have focused on the register aspect of style because it is much more

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complex compared to the other main elements of text variety –​register and genre (Biber and Conrad 2019) –​due to their interest in the communicative and functional purposes of the texts.17 However, considered in its entirety, this book explores all three of these main elements to some extent: register (by means of the qualitative study), genre (by exploring research articles and academic blogs) and style (throughout the entire book with the concept of ‘academic style’). Academic style may therefore become a manner of influencing text variety –​by either standardising it or gradually accepting variations –​and its proofreading, as a form of linguistic mediation may contribute to raising awareness among non-​native academics about what in academic style must conform to the demands of the academic discourse community and what may be negotiated, starting from the disciplines and journals that are willing to promote stylistically diverse knowledge communication.

17

In her study of English academic style manuals, Bennett outlines their ‘identifiable characteristics’ or sections: general principle; text structure; grammatical issues; lexical features; others (2009: 44–​45). Of these, the second, third and fourth may be of particular interest for this study, as they are connected to the areas of interest for the treatments of academic style that will be illustrated in detail in Chapter 6. Specifically, the second characteristic (text structure) is connected to the areas of ‘addition of extra text’ and ‘deletion of redundant text’; the third characteristic (grammatical issues) may be associated with ‘shifting and repositioning’; while the fourth trait (lexical features) may be associated with ‘appropriateness and register’ based on the author’s choice of words or expressions. It is important to underline that these divergences are linked to the structural and stylistic properties of the English language following the uses and mindset of native speakers, which, in light of the unspoken nature of ‘academic mind style’ that was explored in Section 4.1., explains why non-​native authors may not completely grasp any criticism of their language that is not given from a verifiable grammatical perspective.

Chapter 6

Qualitative analysis and main findings

After the illustration of the theory, as well as the methodology and materials of this study, the intent of this chapter is to present evidence of and comments on common stylistic errors that are often present in academic research articles written in English by non-​native academics and often detected by journal editors and reviewers. This part of the study is qualitative and follows the precepts of corpus stylistics and error analysis by closely observing the outcomes of and reasons for proofreading for errors and error treatment in the articles. This chapter will separately address and comment on four of the most common categories of divergences in academic style that are generally not perceived as true errors by non-​native academics in both subcorpora of the ACASTYLE corpus but are often noted by others. These detectable imperfections are mostly intralingual (due to lack of knowledge of and competence in academic style conventions) but are frequently influenced by the non-​ native author’s L1. As previously mentioned, the four most common stylistic errors, which will be dealt with in separate sections, are: addition of extra text, deletion of redundant text, shifting and repositioning, and appropriateness and register. Each issue will be introduced with an explanation of its function and perception by others, accompanied by real examples taken from the ‘with corrections’ subcorpus showing both the original texts and the modifications that were made to the original using the ‘tracking’ mode. In the examples, any information on the author or that could lead to the paper being identified has been substituted with ‘X’, ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ and an indication of what it referred to in square brackets. The (#number) indication at the end of every example corresponds to the number of the article in the ECO or HUM subcorpus (arranged in chronological order). In all of the examples, the text (or parts of words) with a single strikethrough were

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deleted by the proofreader (e.g. managements; had been being made clear), while the text in italics was added by the proofreader (e.g. the most import company in the country). After each general description, the relevant issue will be analysed in the ECO and HUM subcorpora. More specifically, the following three questions will form the basis of the analysis of each area of interest in each subcorpus:

1) What are the conscious or unconscious reasons for the wording that led to the error from the author’s point of view, and how may it be perceived by the reader? 2) How was the error treated in this case, and how could it be treated in general? 3) Which category of intralingual error does the error belong to, and what does this say about the non-​native’s current and potential use of academic style?

For each of the four areas (in reference to each subcorpus), the detected errors will also be assigned to one or more of the intralingual categories that were presented and adapted in Section 5.3. (i.e. overgeneralisations; simplifications; developmental; communication-​ based; induced; of avoidance; of overproduction). The chapter will close with an overall comparison of the ECO and HUM subcorpora and draw final conclusions on these findings and how they relate to studies on academic style proofreading.

6.1. Addition of extra text This area of interest, along with the one on ‘deletion of redundant text’ that will follow, is perhaps the most frequent among non-​native academics, and therefore requires significant attention. Different cultures and their related languages have different conceptions of how much information is ‘enough’ when conveying messages, and this impacts the density of the language and the possibility or impossibility of omitting

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certain word categories. For instance, when a non-​native author’s L1 is ‘content-​based’ or ‘non-​linear’, he or she will tend to express ideas in detail and with digressions, and compensate by eliding other markers of information or facts that may be considered unnecessary or implicit in the author’s L1 academic culture. This is the case, for instance, in languages that do not need to specify pronouns when the subject may be gleaned from the declension of the verbal tense that is being used. In English, however, this information must be explicitly indicated; otherwise the sentence will be considered grammatically incorrect, making these divergences real ‘mistakes’. Other cases are less extreme, and therefore not noted as mistakes, but still interfere in the conventional and expected style of the academic research article and single out the author as being non-​native because of his or her inattention to the international academic community’s need for specific facts.1 When such elisions occur too frequently, the text ranges from being hard or frustrating to read, to even being unclear and seemingly ‘incomplete’, thus leading to an invitation to have it re-​read by a native speaker. This necessity to provide more or less information may be explained by a recent branch of stylistics –​cognitive stylistics –​which focuses on the ‘cognitive aspects involved in the processing of those features by the reader’ (Nørgaard et al. 2010: 1).2 It could be particularly useful in under­ standing the perception of stylistic divergences from the reader’s perspective. Cognitive theory in stylistics has led to its rationalisation under two headings:

1

2

McKinley and Rose comment on such standardisation: ‘Conventions in academic writing are highly standardized and safeguarded by publishers, who are often resistant to change due to a long history of standardization and uniformity in commercial publishing’ (2018: 1). Cognitive stylistics originated from the application of literary and stylistic models and theories to cognitive-​oriented fields such as cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. Cognitive linguistics, in particular, studies the relationship between language and the mind, and therefore how meaning is constructed in the mind and how linguistic constructions and conceptualisations reflect cognitive processes. For more on this, see Croft and Cruse (2004); McIntyre and Walker (2019); Baicchi (2020a; 2020b).

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chapter 6 There is a tendency for quantitative research to be more inductive (bottom-​up) and for qualitative research to align with deductive (top-​down) approaches, but this is no more than a tendency and the researcher embarking on a project should consider carefully the particular combination of approaches that s/​he will take. ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 12)

Applying this perspective to texts in general, it is possible to observe that there is an ever-​changing negotiation between the knowledge production of the author and the construction of the message by the reader. In the case of academic texts (especially when the reader is not an expert in the field or subject), the reader must apply his or her own ‘bottom-​up’ and ‘top-​down’ approach. The former involves drawing meaning from textual cues (or ‘projection’), and the latter involves relying on background knowledge to aid understanding (or ‘construction’). Reading well requires both of these skills, so this unexpected divergence in style (i.e. not providing the correct amount of information) prevents the connection between projection and construction. This, in turn, leads to a sense of lack of clarity in the text and the audience’s perception3 that the author was lacking the linguistic and/​or discursive tools to formulate his or her thoughts in accordance with the requirements of the academic discourse community. As a result, the author’s inability to understand the degree of specificity that is needed within an international academic context is automatically attributed to negligence or lack of awareness, both of which lead to criticism and/​or the decision to request ‘major adjustments’ to the paper. While the unspoken divergence in what constitutes ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ information may depend on the author’s cultural background, the proofreader, being both ‘outside of the text’ and experienced in anticipating the readership’s demands, is in the best position to detect this

3

Stylistics can assist in this sense because ‘The explanatory power of stylistics can also help us to understand more in depth the ways in which the style of texts can help to influence the perceptions of readers in more everyday situations, such as listening to political speeches, responding to advertisements and so on’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 7). Solly confirms this, stating that ‘The study of stylistics therefore helps us understand how texts are received and how readers and listeners react to those texts’ (2016: 5).

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problem and remedy it before submission or publication by drawing the author’s attention to it. 6.1.1. Addition of extra text in the ECO subcorpus In research articles written by non-​native academics, one of the most common errors in relation to ‘missing’ text consists in the lack of relative clauses (either with ‘that’ or ‘which/​who/​where/​when’), here represented by ­examples 1 and 2. This error may be attributed to a mistaken perception, on the part of the non-​native academic, of what constitutes stylistically ‘complete’ sentences and how much can be elided in academic English. It is possible to elide relative clauses and make them into past participles because they can still be implicitly understood, especially by a readership of experts who are well versed in essential academic English. This is typical in the social sciences, where this pattern echoes that of the sciences and is therefore seen as less ‘florid’ and more ‘functional’.4 Making sentences drier and denser is therefore still considered a way of better focusing on content and condensing information. Moreover, it is believed that doing so saves on precious words that may be used to explain something else or stay within the word limit. However, knowing this makes many non-​ native academics turn to this tactic too frequently within the same paper and therefore err on the side of making their writing too ‘minimal’ to save words and avoid making unnecessary mistakes or seeming informal. In this case, the error is not considered one ‘of avoidance’ because there is no attempt to avoid a more difficult structure: on the contrary, the author believes he or she is actually doing the opposite. This self-​consciousness, however, will immediately be noticed by a reader, who may think the author is unacquainted with discursive and stylistic devices and strategies. This is the case in ­examples 1 and 2, which present deleted relative clauses to different extents: in 1, the past participle verb was still present; while in e­ xample 2, the clause was completely absent. In terms of error 4

For more on the historical development of this trend, see Flowerdew and Habibie (2022).

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analysis, they could be classified as ‘overgeneralisations’ and ‘simplifications’, in that there is the reproduction of ‘simpler’ linguistic rules (in terms of syntax in this case). At first glance, one might be tempted to advance the hypothesis that they are also ‘errors of avoidance’, but this theory is undermined by examining the rest of the paper (and the ECO corpus in general), which presents numerous instances of correct relative clauses. The authors are therefore fully capable of using relative clauses but chose not to do so in these cases because they actually considered the clauses redundant. In contrast, the proofreader determined that the ‘who’ relative clause in ­example 1 rounds the clause and better connects the subject (‘small retailers’) with the circumstantial information that follows. In ­example 2, an entire relative clause is inserted to express the usefulness of the ‘small details’, as well as the fact that they were not present before, but rather purposefully introduced in order to drive customer services. These additions connect pieces of information and enhance the ‘flow’ of the sentences, making them more immediately comprehensible to readers.

(1) small retailers who were affected affected by the 2012 X [geographical location] earthquake (ECO #48) (2) The small details that are introduced to co-​create value by driving customer experiences can be realized along three main dimensions (ECO #42)

Another common stylistic error involving addition may be found in ­example 3, where the verb ‘is’ was originally present but so direct by itself that it seemed disconnected from the rest of the sentence, giving the feeling that something was missing. Therefore, the addition of ‘represented by’ supports the bond between ‘example’ and ‘the way’ by specifying that the latter is just one example, not the only form, of ‘enhancement of products’. This solution is advisable when presenting definitions and relevant case studies because their importance within the sentence requires something extra to highlight and sustain them more than would be possible simply with the verb ‘to be’. An alternative solution would be to substitute the verb ‘to be’ with another, more formal collocation, such as ‘consist in’ or ‘lie in’, depending on the context of the sentence.

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(3) An example of this enhancement of products to incorporate services is represented by the way X [company] went from selling copiers to renting copiers (ECO #37)

Examples 4–​6 are very interesting, as they represent ‘induced errors’ that may be traced back to the author’s knowledge that words that are similar to his or her L1 exist and have been used by other non-​native academics for the same reason. More precisely, they consist of calques (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958) of words that are often used by themselves in the author’s native language but are integrated with fixed expressions or collocations in English. Because the author knows that a very similar word or expression exists in English, in cases like these, he or she tends to use the format from his or her native language when writing in English. In these examples, therefore, the authors believe that ‘for/​non-​profit’ (as a type of organisation), ‘gap’ (in knowledge or literature) and ‘cultures’ (as in accompanying everything concerning culture) could be used independently because the second part (i.e. ‘organizations’, ‘backgrounds’ and ‘in the literature’) is already implied. These examples all involve nouns, but the same may occur for other word categories: this is the case in ­example 7, where the verb ‘to allow’ does not require a complement in the author’s L1 but needs it in English. These errors are hard to identify because the difference in languages is subtle and often goes undetected by authors unless they are clearly informed of it, but this often does not occur because these errors are directly changed by proofreaders. While these omissions do not make the text impossible to understand, they certainly leave native and advanced speakers with a feeling that something is missing or unclear. This is especially the case when dealing with information that is obvious in the author’s culture but necessary for those who are not knowledgeable about it, for example when indicating that a geographical name refers to a region or city, specifying the main sector of a nationally known company, or explaining the profession or achievements of a person who is well known in the country but not on an international level. Because clarity and completion are fundamental for good academic writing, being aware of this need to consider different levels of completion enables non-​ native speakers to produce more acceptable articles.

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(4) X [company] has created a website that allows people to post solutions to challenges that are defined by X members, a mix of non-​profits organizations and companies. (ECO #39) (5) The results of this paper may have relevant implications for both theory and practice. As regards theory, they may contribute to close the gap in the literature about the influence of cultural blogs on readers’ behaviors. (ECO #25) (6) In the X [geographical location] area, opportunities will require the ability to move from a multinational demand to a multinational offer, facilitating the collaboration of people with different culturesal backgrounds and working styles, thus supporting an international working environment. (ECO #37) (7) Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients allowed the researchers to delve into the relationship (ECO #44)

The last examples requiring the addition of text by the proofreader involve the quantity or degree of a factor in relation to trends and changes, which is a type of information that depends on a particular culture’s sense of measurement and amount, as well as the intensity and connotation of words referring to change (Baicchi 2009). For instance, in English (both general and business-​related), the word ‘dramatic’ means related to drama and performance, or something sudden, unexpected, impressive, exciting or dangerous. In the latter case, it may therefore be used in both a negative and positive sense, but always in reference to something remarkable, depending on the context in English; in other languages, in contrast, it is used only to refer to something very negative or even disastrous. Non-​ native authors will therefore refrain from using the word ‘dramatic’ to refer to a positive but very surprising increase when describing economic trends, and they will be confused when someone else uses the word in that sense unless they are instructed on this difference. Such a tendency to avoid using these structures, either in the attempt to ‘be clear’ or the desire not to discursively commit to a degree or nuance could lead to these errors being considered examples of ‘avoidance’. This situation may be observed in the next two examples: they are both cases in which the non-​native author simply refers to the presence

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of something but seems unable to express the extent to which the subject is present. This is especially important in economics, where quantitative data is reported through numbers and graphs, but also through words. Precision and commitment to the information being conveyed are of paramount importance in language as well as in data, and therefore a lack of precision is one of the main reasons why reviewers and editors invite authors to revise their texts. In ­example 8, the original text simply refers to an upward trend in general, regardless of the amount. In this context, however, it is important to stress the relevance of the presence of ‘X’ per se in determining and influencing knowledge circulation, but this could be conveyed in different ways in English. Therefore, two alternative additions were proposed by the proofreader in order to enable the author to reflect on how to best express this point without having to change the rest of the text. The option of ‘An’ is more neutral but more ‘solid’, thus leading the reader to the understanding that the increase will have to be a relevant, or at least detectable, one. ‘Any’, on the other hand, implies that even a minimum increase would be sufficient, and therefore lowers the threshold for the expressed condition to be fulfilled. Finally, in ­example 9, the intent is to explain that a ‘substitution effect’ is based on the fact that a certain factor will determine the ‘higher market dynamism’ that leads to ‘lower levels of innovation’, but this does not always occur. The degree of probability is therefore decreased and dependent on a condition that must be clearly expressed so as to avoid objections from the reviewer of the paper, but without obstructing the flow of a sentence that is already so attentively structured. The addition of the implicit conditional clause ‘in the presence of a given level of X’, which corresponds to ‘provided there is a given level of X’, accomplishes this task. (8) An/​Any Increase in these X [factor] encourages the circulation of knowledge (ECO #19) (9) a substitution effect between […], so that, in the presence of a given level of ‘X’ [factor], higher market dynamism will lead to lower levels of innovation. (ECO #51)

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There are many other instances of such treatments in the ECO corpus that are motivated by the texts’ contingent requirements in terms of explicitness and fluidity of sentence structure. Such a need to ‘fill in’ noun phrases and sentences is often contrasted, in the author’s mind, with his or her unconsciously culturally biased, and therefore inaccurate, perception of the completion and precision of terminology associated with minimal, ‘functional’ language and therefore not requiring ‘extra’ text. This could be traced back to a misunderstanding of what precision is in the academic English ‘mind style’ and how it is to be expressed. The fact that these errors fall under various intralingual categories (e.g. ‘simplifications’, ‘induced’ and possibly ‘overproduction’) highlight the need to address these possible stylistic criticisms explicitly based on the academic’s personal writing and reading background in academic English. Appropriate training would improve awareness and self-​proofreading of these sorts of errors, as well as their opposites, which will be analysed in Section 6.2., and significantly reduce the number of stylistic corrections while enhancing linguistic clarity and readability. 6.1.2. Addition of extra text in the HUM subcorpus The HUM corpus provided examples of the treatment of sentences that were perceived as ‘incomplete’ by the proofreader and, with them, insight on multiple reasons that may lead non-​native authors to omit certain pieces of information. Firstly, there were occasional instances of ‘simplification’ errors stemming from clauses, as in ­example 10, that were introduced by past participles being used as the opening of a sentence, which also appeared in the ECO corpus. As a result, these may be classed as ‘overgeneralisations’ because they apply a usually possible solution in an unsuccessful position to which something must be added, but also ‘communication-​based’ errors because they aim to provide extra, circumstantial information before focusing on the subject. Here, however, the clause must be complemented by a subjectival reference of its own, to make it easy to understand, as in e­ xample 10. In this case, it was deemed

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necessary to add an opening clause with a discourse marker, subject and verb before the past participle ‘particularly isolated’: (10) Because they were particularly Particularly isolated due to social distancing, artists from all fields took advantage of communication technologies (HUM #55) In other cases, such as ­example 11, the author intended to illustrate the data collection process, including a survey, and then focus on specific cases. Although this survey had been mentioned a few sentences previously, it was assumed that it was not necessary to mention it again when discussing an exception. Not doing so, however, evokes a sense of missing information in the reader and undermines the text’s cohesion, which is something that often draws a reviewer’s attention. Therefore, the treatment simply involves adding a reference to the survey, thus enabling the reader to compare this situation with the previously mentioned ones.

(11) Although X is not a European country, the subject was born from an X speaking family and therefore was included in the survey (HUM #35)

In the example that follows, information may simply be added to ensure the continued flow of a sentence or clause even if the meaning is clear. In ­example 12, the parenthetical clause contains a list of three. The reader will instantly notice that the first and second elements start with a gerund verb, but this is interrupted by the third element, which consists simply of a noun. Therefore, an -​ing verb and adjective were added by the proofreader to properly round off the list. As with the other errors, not doing so does not make the sentence grammatically incorrect, but the omission gives the impression that the author forgot something or was not attentive enough to complete his or her thought.

(12) becoming Japanese (drinking the ritual tea, learning the language, wearing traditional clothing) (HUM #46)

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Another reason for an author’s decision to omit text lies in the interference of the author’s L1, especially when it comes to discussing innovative topics whose specific terminology may still be unfamiliar. This is not a case of ‘avoidance’, although the structure may be considered ‘difficult’, because the author does express it. The topic of e­ xample 13 is the Covid pandemic, which drew on language from epidemiology that non-​ native authors who are not versed in medical English may not be entirely acquainted or comfortable with. As such, they are ‘induced’ to adopt expressions that are similar to their L1 or that resemble what they have remembered having read or heard in the news in English.

(13) during the pandemic […] the positive rates of people who tested positive were twice as higher in the X [type] communities than elsewhere (HUM #60)

The specific error that emerged from this subcorpus and may be of particular interest is the frequent omission of metadiscursive clauses and phrases. In research articles on language and literature in particular, the non-​native authors occasionally refrain from explicitly mentioning or referring to parts of discourse or its analysis. Judging from the authors’ linguistic competence and the complexity of the rest of the texts, this seems to have been done deliberately and is not therefore a ‘simplification’. The authors, in writing about language or literature for an audience of academics, presuppose that the readers will already know what they are referring to and find the ‘extra repetition’ tedious or redundant. However, ‘communication-​based’ errors like these go against the inherent principle of clarity that academic English strongly upholds. In ­examples 14, 15 and 16, therefore, the choice to specify that the author is referring to, respectively, ‘topics’, ‘speeches’ and the ‘object of study’ was based on the need to use these words as a bridge between the ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’ of the sentence. Moreover, precisely because the text is destined for an audience of experts, it is important to make sure that all specific terms are included, and the flow is maintained.

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(14) The complexity of the collection lies in its miscellaneous nature: and its topics range from history and culture to politics and economics (HUM #50) (15) the frequent occurrence of X [nationality] gestures, calques and presuppositions in his speeches may have been a symptom of his deliberate intention of […], but also a failure to normalise an intercultural message (HUM #38) (16) to the author’s knowledge -​trials have not been the object of much scrutiny on the part of discourse scholars (HUM #47)

The focus on the addition of extra text in the HUM subcorpus has demonstrated that there is much more to ‘missing information’ than a lack of linguistic competence or the interference of the author’s L1 in academic writing in the humanities, although these certainly factor into it in many cases. Here, the issue seems to lie in a disconnect between the academic discourse community’s expectations of the author and the author’s perception of the level of expertise and desired amount and detail of information among his or her audience. This results in a variety of stylistic errors of ‘simplification/​avoidance’ (not due to the difficulty of using complete sentences but rather because the author believes they would make the sentence too complicated for the reader) and ‘induced’, as well as ‘communication-​based’ errors. The ‘simplification’, in fact, is reflected in the omission of information with the intent of focusing the reader’s attention on the ‘less obvious’ facts that are being presented. The ‘communication-​based’ type of error may be seen in the metadiscursive gap caused by an overarching assumption about the audience’s comprehension; the ‘induced’ error was found in more specific cases of emerging topics on which the non-​native author may not have written much (or anything). Such unfamiliarity leads the non-​native author to rely either on the linguistic forms that are most similar to those in his or her background, or on what he or she remembers hearing or reading from other academics or sources. It is important to keep in mind, however, that academics reading the author’s paper may work in an adjacent, or even a very distant, field of research, meaning that the author cannot take too much for granted when assessing the clarity-​conciseness balance of his or

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her work. Fortunately, the language professionals working in academia are often required to read, revise, proofread and edit work in a variety of fields and subfields: this enables them to acquire a good sense of how much information is necessary for the target audience. Therefore, academic proofreaders are in the best position to point out potential critical areas where the author should expand, as filling in these ‘gaps’ is also a fundamental part of ‘academic style’ that improves the flow of information, as well as of the text itself.

6.2. Deletion of redundant text Another area of interest in which non-​native academics often unconsciously allow their original linguistic and cultural forma mentis to filter into their English research articles involves the use of very wordy expressions that are perceived as eloquent in their L1, but translate into excessively complicated and redundant sentences in academic English. Manuals on academic writing often insist that lexical choices must be associated with standards of ‘appropriateness’ (which is not the same appropriateness that will be considered in Section 6.4.) that are often confused with, but do not correspond to, technicality. Nowadays, in fact, the excessive use of ‘jargon or pompous diction’ is not as tolerated as it used to be in the past (Bennett 2009: 50), as has been observed, for instance, in emerging academic fields and their journals (Doerr 2019b). This demonstrates that there has been a gradual development in the perception of what is considered ‘acceptable’ even in a very formal form of specialised English. Manuals and guidelines also repeatedly encourage authors and university students to avoid circumlocution and verbosity to adhere to the English language’s requirements for clarity and precision.5 In fact, one of the most 5

In their excursus on the history of scientific publications and their requirements, Flowerdew and Habibie trace the origins of scientific discourse and its style in English back to Robert Boyle, a famous member of the Royal Society who wrote extensively on communication and advocated many important innovations in

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frequently advocated principles of good academic writing involves the concise and considered use of words (Hopkins and Reid 2018), be they specialised terms or discursive strategies like signpost language, discourse markers and argumentation, all of which are typical of academic writing. The disregard for this rule in non-​native academic texts, which underlies and is detected in prolific introductions, complex sentence structure, and verbose expressions that are used in other academic languages may be traced back to the author’s native language and cultural transfer. In fact, in many ‘non-​linear’ and ‘high-​context’ cultures, it is not only acceptable, but even desirable, to use eloquent formulas and intricate structures and words indicating the author’s level of education in order to properly frame an argument. Moreover, an author’s cultural and linguistic background may determine the order in and extent to which principles and applications are presented and balanced.6 The direct transposition of the author’s

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research, including the witnessing of experiments by peers and the reporting of their results (including failures) in publications. As far as language and style are concerned, he maintained that ‘modesty of speech was required, to further establish the writer as a reliable witness and that what was reported was an unclouded mirror of nature. A functional, as opposed to a florid, style was to be adopted with the same goal in mind. While for “matters of fact”, assertive language was to be used, where conjecture and speculation were concerned, hesitation was required’ (2022: 24, original emphasis). This mentality reflects the aspiration towards clarity, conciseness and assertiveness that is encouraged in research papers. Further studies on linguistic and discursive features in research articles include Brown and Levinson (1987); Myers (1989); Hyland (1998 and 2009); Halliday (2004). In her study on the influence of culture in the workplace and education, Meyer argues that there are two styles of reasoning: principles-​first and applications-​first. The former is also referred to as ‘deductive reasoning’, and in the cultures and languages that adopt such an approach, conclusions or facts are derived from general principles or concepts. This implies that lexical, stylistic and textual choices will be very theoretical and rich in premises before the data and main points to demonstrate the solidity of that data are presented. Italian, French, Spanish, Russian and German are examples of ‘principles-​first reasoning’. In contrast, ‘applications-​ first reasoning’, also known as ‘inductive reasoning’, is based on the belief that general conclusions must be reached on the basis of a pattern of factual observations that have been identified and verified in the real world. This generally results in more concrete lexical, stylistic and textual choices, and in a more results-​driven approach to research findings. Examples of countries with mainly ‘applications-​first

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original thought into equivalent words in English may not convey the corresponding idea; on the contrary, if the concept is more direct in the target language, then this directness will be expected by the target audience. This is especially noticeable in research papers that were originally written and published in the author’s L1, and then translated into English (by the author or a translator) but not adjusted or aligned to the target audience’s expectations. The extra words thus become a form of ‘distracting noise’ that frustrates readers who are not familiar with the author’s L1, and hinders the stylistic flow of the text, which is precisely what academic English seeks to avoid. As in the case of added text that was analysed in Section 6.1., these are ‘induced’ errors, which may become errors ‘of overproduction’ that could lead to requests for ‘major revisions’ if they appear too frequently. Another factor that heavily influences the degree to which a ‘redundant’ style is accepted is the author’s field of research. In fact, there is a common agreement in scientific and medical fields that is sanctioned by studies, guidelines, textbooks and courses –​in addition to the previously mentioned urgency to make findings available –​that the writing must be characterised by ‘clarity, conciseness, economy’ (Sword 2012: 7–​8); there is no such consistency in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, because rapid publication is not considered to be a priority in these fields, and due to their preference for qualitative and descriptive methodology and explanation, academics in the social sciences and humanities are more likely to follow the textual and sentence structure of their L1, which may be perceived as excessive or even incomprehensible if directly converted into English.

reasoning’ include the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. The style of reasoning that is preferred is reflected in the ‘mind style’ and has an impact on the manner in and language with which information is produced, as well as the basis of the main questions that are being asked both in the professional world and in academia. In fact, in ‘applications-​first reasoning’ in Anglo-​Saxon cultures, the focus is on the ‘why’, and therefore on concrete reasons and practical implications, while ‘principles-​first reasoning’ cultures tend to focus on the ‘how’ and the verification of feasibility and method (Meyer 2014: 93–​97).

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6.2.1. Deletion of redundant text in the ECO subcorpus While redundant text is one of the most common errors found in non-​ native academic writing, an author’s ability to notice it not only sheds light on his or her knowledge of academic English, but also a certain ability to detach from his or her L1. Academics who can demonstrate this ability can therefore decide when to assume their ‘international’ academic identity and style for the international academic community. In ­example 17, for instance, the deletion of the modal expression ‘are able to’ lightens the sentence and allows a more direct connection between the subject and verb, because the fact that the identification ‘highlights the emergence’ already suggests that it is capable of doing so. While this addition is probably frequent in the author’s L1, where it has the effect of argumentatively reinforcing the subject’s position or potential to do something, in English it simply refers to possessing the ability to do something but is commonly used when the execution of that ability is not being implemented. An international audience would therefore find this implicit repetition redundant, as it does not add anything to the meaning or content of the sentence. In ­example 18, two redundant lexical choices have been deleted: one involving an entire clause ‘faced by the X sector’; and one consisting of the substitution of a ‘verb +​adjective’ passive collocation with a simple adjective to maintain the agile and active style of the rest of the sentence. In the first case, ‘changes and challenges’ and the sector (which was a central element of the paper) had already been introduced and repeated; the deleted part was just an unnecessarily long way of making the sentence more eloquent. Furthermore, to better connect this sentence with the previous one, ‘the ongoing’ was changed to ‘these ongoing’ to create a stronger sense of cohesion with the previous sentence(s). The second elision of ‘felt useful’ was most probably a calque from the author’s L1; however, it not only added an extra word to a passive collocation that made it even more complicated, but it also attributed an excessively emotional component to a common and rational phase of the research planning process that was being explained. In themselves, these examples do not represent a serious error, and would probably pass unobserved: however, if there were many instances within the same paper, they

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could become obvious and make their sentences (and the text overall) more cognitively burdened than necessary. This would make these errors not only ‘induced’, but also errors ‘of overproduction’ caused by multiple ‘induced’ errors.



(17) The identification of relevant institutions and institutional arrangements within the X concept are able to highlights the emergence of the X concept as an ecosystem from the service perspective. (ECO #46) (18) Given these ongoing changes and challenges faced by the X sector, it was felt useful necessary to explore the concept of brand authenticity through digital age lens and an organizational perspective. (ECO #56)

While ­examples 17 and 18 involved parts of a verbal clause, the deletions in ­examples 19, 20 and 21 are of a lexical nature and motivated by the amount of semantic information that single words may possess in English in comparison to other languages. In fact, one of the reasons why the English language was chosen to be a lingua franca in general, and in academia more specifically, is because its most common words already contain explanations of their meaning. In contrast, in these specific cases, the ‘forecasts’ in ­example 19 already imply that the information they convey will concern the future, ‘stressing something’ (or ‘putting stress on something’) in ­example 20 naturally suggests drawing attention to something, and something ‘new’ that is being introduced, as in ­example 21, is already incoming. Deleting this excessive information therefore allows readers’ attention to remain focused on the main points, and frees extra words from the word count that could be used to explain other concepts in further detail.

(19) the actors’ new roles in the ecosystem could also be explained through the interpretation of forecasts concerning the future. (ECO #46)

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(20) relatively little is known about how customers engage in co-​ creation and stress the attention upon the need to develop a conceptual framework for value co-​creation. (ECO #42) (21) big companies (i.e. X and Y) that introduced immersive technologies to adapt their business to this incoming new type of shopping experience. (ECO #57)

Examples 22 and 23 are particularly important in that they consist of indirect definitions. In contrast to ­example 2 (see Subsection 6.1.1.), where the verb ‘to be’ is too direct and therefore lacks the necessary support for such an important part of the text, the noun phrase ‘imitative start-​ ups’ in ­example 22 already signals that the author is referring to a form of start-​up, so the defining phrase ‘are those that’ implicitly repeats ‘start-​ ups’ (as if the author were writing ‘imitative start-​ups are (those) start-​ups that…’) without adding any relevant information. Moreover, the lexical verb following this implicit definition –​‘implement’ –​is already focused on actions and capable of connecting the subject with the rest of the sentence, so it does not need any auxiliary expressions recalling the nature of these start-​ups. In e­ xample 23, the deleted phrase ‘was intended to’ corresponds to fixed formulas that are typical of the author’s native academic language but carries no semantic information in English. Furthermore, ‘the occurrence of ’ is presumably a transfer from the author’s L1 but neither exists nor makes sense in English in the presence of ‘response’, which requires ‘to’ as part of a fixed collocation. The existence of a response also implies that the ‘specific threats and/​or specific impacts’ have already taken place, making ‘the occurrence of ’ even more distracting. In ­example 24, there is a combination of a repositioning of the clause (this will be dealt with in detail in Subsection 6.3.1.) ‘first part’ and the deletion of the relative clause ‘which are’. In fact, as in ­example 22, the verb ‘highlights’ is already capable of sustaining the complement ‘the areas of natural capital’. Furthermore, eliminating this relative clause prevents a repetition with the other preposition +​relative clause ‘in which it is necessary’ that would certainly slow the flow of the sentence and require more effort on the reader’s part to reconstruct its meaning.

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(22) imitative start-​ups are those that implement only incremental innovations: for these reasons they have low innovative performances. (ECO #31) (23) However, the concept has been gradually linked to the ability of societies to be reactive or proactive, and their capacity to enhance their response was intended in respect to the occurrence of specific threats and/​or specific impacts. (ECO #28) (24) The first part of the UNEP report highlights in the first part which are the areas of natural capital in which it is necessary to invest (agriculture, fishing, water, forests) (ECO # 26)

The final example of deletion reflects a common tendency in texts written by non-​native academics who are influenced by both their L1 and their own expectations of what makes a sentence sufficiently ‘formal’ in academic English. In fact, in English, one must choose between ‘such as/​ like’ and ‘for example/​instance’ because they mean the same thing, while in other languages they reinforce one another and draw further attention to the list that follows. The obligation in English to choose between the two is also based on practical stylistic grounds: ‘such as’ and ‘like’ are the best option when the author wishes to integrate the example into the rest of the sentence and not interrupt the flow, even if this lowers the level of formality of the sentence. On the other hand, ‘for example’ or ‘for instance’ has the added function of isolating and better highlighting the list because they are easily visible within a sentence or paragraph while maintaining the same level of formality. As a result, either ‘like’ or ‘for example’ would be acceptable by itself, but not together.

(25) phenomenon, like, for example, V, W, X, Y, and Z, as well as maternity, or even death tourism. (ECO # 21)

Such deletions of redundant text and remnants of L1 transfer from the formal register of an academic’s native language therefore serve the purpose of reducing the word count and enabling the reader to better pinpoint and focus on the main points and lexical content of the paper without being unnecessarily distracted by potentially deviating information. At

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the same time, it lightens the text and aligns it with the linear stylistic flow of academic English writing that is expected and accepted in the international scientific community. 6.2.2. Deletion of redundant text in the HUM subcorpus As mentioned in the introduction to the HUM subcorpus in Section 5.2.2., most of the non-​native authors whose papers were included in the HUM subcorpus are active in the fields of English language and literature, and are therefore less prone to making errors related to the amount of information that is provided by single words. Nevertheless, because of the discursive nature of their discipline of choice, they may often feel compelled to use acquired structures and fixed phrases from their academic English courses and materials to better ‘frame’ their reasoning for their discourse-​oriented audience. This is compounded by the humanities’ previously mentioned tendency to favour single-​authored publications, which leaves them with an abundant word limit at their disposal. Their misunderstanding or lack of acquisition of complicated subordinate clauses, or desire to appropriately ‘package’ important information, results in the use of intricate phrases. Here, the essential information –​‘in the present or in the future’ in ­example 26, and ‘visuospatial abilities’ in ­example 27 –​is couched between ‘extra’ words that were intended to cushion it but actually block the stylistic flow and are therefore eliminated.

(26) But ‘X’’s aim is not to describe something whether it is in the present or in the future it does not matter, but to present an ideal model (HUM #22) (27) abilities based on perceiving, imagining and mentally transforming objects or shapes, […] are called small-​scale spatial abilities (called hereinafter referred to as visuospatial abilities throughout the chapter). (HUM #53)

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Such a tendency is also found in ­examples 28 and 29, in which the unfolding of the author’s thought process is clearly translated into words that follow the original reasoning and are acceptable in his or her L1 (making it an ‘induced’ error) but excessively intricate for the receiver. The errors here are based on the mistaken belief that these clauses may be inserted anywhere, making them ‘overgeneralisations’. In truth, while this practice is acceptable at the beginning or the end (as in signpost language), it is distracting when it occurs in the middle of a sentence. The solution in these cases was to elaborate the thoughts in a linear manner:

(28) The body of the ‘king’, sacred in itself, is offered to the divinity so as to reach a better advantage, which is the strengthening of strengthen sovereignty itself. (HUM #4) (29) by making X [category of subjects], their voices, and their viewpoints progressively obvious inside their networks, X [category of subjects] themselves will increase more in they will acquire prominent agency and authority over their own lives. (HUM #54)

Examples 30 and 31 conclude this section by providing a subcategory of the previous error, that is verbal phrases that are burdened by surrounding clauses and are more easily classifiable as ‘induced’ errors. While this may give the author more ‘space’ to reveal the main action, along with the impression that the message is better ‘packaged’, these structures actually burden the verb and make it harder for the reader to get to the main point. If there are multiple instances throughout a paper, these errors lead reviewers to think (and comment) that the text –​and therefore the thought behind it –​is confused.

(30) Therefore exceptional moments like this […] are precious for scholars, because they create the conditions to enable an explicit reflection on (HUM #23) (31) X’s [name] opening statement is immediately presented, as it is the part which necessarily needed to be reproduced, thus confirming its prominent role in news articles (HUM #48)

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The classification of these errors is more difficult: one may argue that errors of producing excessive text where it is not necessary may be categorised as ‘developmental’, in that they represent attempts to make use of more elaborate –​and therefore more ‘eloquent’ –​linguistic patterns based on what the non-​native author has learned. This may be due to his or her desire to express him or herself in accordance with a more formal academic context (often following the example of prestigious native speakers), or due to examples and models provided in the field itself. In fact, because academic language in the humanities is highly subjective, regulated by common-​ sense guidelines, and closely connected to language and communication itself, it is often assumed that these academics will automatically know how to express themselves without following a framework like the one in the sciences. There is therefore an implicit obligation for these scholars to express themselves not only clearly, but also pleasingly, and apply their style not only to content but also to form. However, these are probably also ‘induced’ errors, in that the freedom (and excess) of the text does not follow English conventions, so its words take on a digressing, circular flow that interrupts, rather than complements, the parts before and after the sentence.

6.3. Shifting and repositioning Repositioning embedded clauses and phrases is another common linguistic and discursive strategy that is often employed in proofreading academic style to ensure that the text is comprehensible and readable while maintaining the author’s content and exact words. It is especially important in the pre-​submission proofreading phase, when lack of readability brings a greater risk of ‘major revisions’ or even a desk rejection. Although non-​native academics are taught that academic English tolerates, and even welcomes, syntactic structures with multiple coordinated and subordinate clauses, if the position of these clauses divides the sentence into too many ‘chunks’, the flow of the sentence is interrupted. A further complication lies in the fact that non-​native academics are often

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not aware of this effect because they tend to follow the syntactic structure, which reflects the thought organisation, of their L1 and of other non-​native academics. In addition, when they are aware of their limits in academic writing, rather than simplifying their sentences, non-​native writers will often maintain an articulate subdivision and build on what they believe is a solid syntactic ‘core’. Because the non-​native academic is not trying to use a simpler option, but rather avoiding it in favour of one that is more complex and therefore, in his or her mind, more formal and similar to academic English, this is not a case of an ‘avoidance’ error. Such articulation entails positioning certain clauses at the beginning of the sentence in order to ‘free’ the most difficult parts of the sentence, or committing hypercorrection errors, which may be classified as ‘overgeneralisation’ errors. Hypercorrection, in fact, consists in an error resulting from the over-​application of a perceived prescriptive rule of language use, and the desire to be as ‘proper’ and ‘uncontestable’ as possible. This may occur for two reasons: because authors are afraid that dividing or simplifying their writing would make it unprofessional or not convey their thought process with sufficient clarity and eloquence, and/​or because their L1’s ‘mind style’ and academic writing and thinking are particularly elaborate. Both involve the perception of what is ‘professional’ and ‘appropriate’; therefore, following the error analysis perspective, the former reason leads to errors of ‘overgeneralisation’, while the latter results in ‘induced’ errors. In some languages, in fact, certain connecting elements and verbal declensions allow the reader to infer what each clause refers to regardless of its position, so this is actually seen as a way of refining the discursive process. However, if this is done too often in English, where it is not common because the language follows more structured clause-​order rules, it reduces the text’s conciseness and frustrates readers who are unacquainted with these elaborate patterns and compelled to read the sentences multiple times in order to disentangle their meanings and clarifying elements.

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6.3.1. Shifting and repositioning in the ECO subcorpus As far as academic style, as opposed to grammar, is concerned, the proofreader’s priority is to maintain the coherence and logical flow of the sentence. One way of accomplishing this is by keeping phrases and clauses that relate to each other as close to an SVO (subject-​verb-​object) structure as possible, as this is the English structure that is known and expected in the community. The fact that this is strongly maintained even in more articulate language variations like academic English confirms that this community is still not ready to accept deviations in syntactic structure, which are perceived as errors to be remedied in the same way as they would be by a non-​academic English-​speaking audience: In English, the major ways in which effect can be achieved are through the manipulation of noun phrase and clause structure. In the English clause, it is the norm to expect shorter units of given information in the early part of the clause, which means that the verb element will be reached relatively quickly, and then the longer units containing new information are normally placed towards the end of the clause. Variations on this format are possible, of course, with the addition of optional adverbials at the start of the clause, delaying not only the subject element, but also the verb. Another variation is to extend the subject beyond the normal short noun phrase, with extra modification before and after the head noun. What these effects have in common is the discomfort that English speakers feel when the arrival at the verbal element is delayed ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 53).

Hence the case of ­examples 32 and 33, where extensive sections that were initially located in the middle of the sentences were repositioned at the end. This decision was motivated by the fact that they add extra information about the main concept and therefore are easier to understand when this concept has already been clearly expressed. In fact, the phrase ‘to better understand the difficulties encountered and the capabilities activated during the earthquake and in the recovery phase’ in ­example 32 explains the purpose of the questionnaire on which the study is based, so it was positioned after the mention of it as a further justification. In ­example 33, two long clauses are repositioned because the first –​‘due to a reduction of the natural recharge of aquifers, mainly as a consequence of climate change and the steep growth of population’ –​provides an

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explanation about the decrease of water availability, but separates the subject ‘continuous decrease’ and the verb ‘superimposes’; the second –​ ‘to the ‘X-​ian’ [country] arid and semi-​arid climate’ –​on the other hand separates the verb ‘superimposes’ from the object it refers to: ‘an array of well acknowledged and severe consequences’. These two shifts produce an SVO structure with further information on the object and reasons towards the end, where the reader will better grasp it, having some essential context.



(32) After an initial exploratory phase based on focus groups, which involved both retailers affected by the earthquake and […], to better understand the difficulties encountered and the capabilities activated during the earthquake and in the recovery phase, a questionnaire was defined, tested and administered to better understand the difficulties encountered and the capabilities activated during the earthquake and in the recovery phase. (ECO #48) (33) As illustrated in table 1, in X [country], the continuous decrease of water availability recorded over the last decade, due to a reduction of the natural recharge of aquifers, mainly as a consequence of climate change and the steep growth of population, superposes to the ‘X-​ian’ [country] arid and semi-​arid climate, an array of well acknowledged and severe consequences on the ‘X-​ian’ [country] arid and semi-​arid climate due to a reduction in the aquifers’ natural recharge, mainly as a consequence of climate change and the steep growth of the population. (ECO #28)

In contrast, a case of hypercorrection may be seen in ­example 34, where the non-​native author wanted to keep the subject ‘X strategy’ and corresponding verbal phrase ‘has emerged’ together to maintain the SVO sequence. However, this is not productive in this case, because the sentence’s relation to the relative clause that follows (as a citation) is not clear when the verbal phrase separates them. In cases like this, the non-​ native author must counterintuitively separate subject and verb, and it

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takes practice and corrections in order to make a non-​native author comfortable with this.

(34) Accordingly, the idea of ‘X strategy’ has emerged, which ‘embraces the benefits of openness as a means of expanding Y [factor] for organizations’ [citation], has emerged. (ECO #47)

A very similar case involving the repositioning of extensive portions of a sentence consists of ‘induced’ errors that are influenced by the non-​ native author’s preconceptions about (in)directness and whether it is a formal way of framing academic language or a distraction. As mentioned in Section 4.1., an academic’s idiosyncratic presentation of information is a product of his or her cultural background and its preference for linear or content-​based discourse. In ­examples 35 and 36, the insertion of a past participle or preposition-​initiated phrase that is supposed to introduce or present the setting of the topic phrase is typical of many European languages but very perplexing for the Anglophone reader. Another interesting reason for this error lies in the author’s precise intent to anticipate and highlight information that he or she believes will make the main point even more worthy of appreciation. In this sense, the positioning is also an instance of foregrounding (Douthwaite 2000), and therefore a ‘communication-​based’ error, but also a highly interdisciplinary strategy that is typical of stylistics: Foregrounding in language […] refers to the features of the text which in some sense ‘stand out’ from their surroundings. The term itself is a metaphorical extension of the concept of foregrounding in the visual arts (e.g. painting and photography). Essentially, foregrounding theory suggests that in any text some sounds, words, phrases and/​or clauses may be so different from some perceived ‘norm’ in the language generally, that they are set into relief by this difference and made more prominent as a result. Furthermore, the foregrounded features of a text are often seen as both memorable and highly interpretable. Foregrounding is achieved by either linguistic deviation or linguistic parallelism. ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 31, original bolding)

Foregrounding is thus applied in the discourse of economics in these cases, as it is seen as a discursively pleasing device that does not impact on the word limit by adding extra phrases. If it is not done properly, however,

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it may backfire by highlighting the author’s diverging sense of priority and cohesion of information. At the same time, as mentioned previously, it is an ‘induced’ error because it actually follows non-​native expectations. Nevertheless, if the author is aware of this risk, then it is an easy type of error to notice and treat because it simply requires the initial phrase, which is introduced with a grammatically appropriate form of the verb ‘to be’ in the case of past participles (as in e­ xample 35), to be moved after the SVO of the sentence (as in ­example 36). By doing so, the expected SVO is restored, and what was the initial piece of information, which provides further detail, is given after the reader has fully understood the main content of the sentence. (35) Linked to the X [factor] of messages by the consumer and the need to have immediate results by the client is The increased frequency in the request for communication campaigns by advertisers is linked to the X [ factor] of messages by the consumer and the need to have immediate results by the client. (ECO #53) (36) With the view of contributing to the extension of the scientific debate on X [issue], The present study adopts a qualitative approach with the view of contributing to the extension of the scientific debate on X [issue]. (ECO #57) A more specific, but less serious, category of stylistic errors compared to the preceding ones shifts circumstantial information (such as time and place deixis)7 to the margins of the sentence as it is considered ‘extra’. This keeps the solidity of the ‘core’ –​or the ‘deictic centre’, as it is called in stylistics ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010) –​of the message intact and allows the sentence to flow smoothly and in accordance with the ideal academic English style. These clauses are easy to find, as may be seen in ­example 37, where ‘over the past years’ was moved to the beginning of the sentence to 7

Deixis encodes information on the spatial and temporal relations that are estab­ lished between objects and entities and was divided by Levinson (1983) into five types: place deixis, temporal deixis, person deixis, social deixis and empathetic deixis. For more on this, see also Duchan et al (1995); McIntyre (2006 and 2007); Jeffries (2008).

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set the temporal context of the rest of the sentence and allow the subject ‘approach’ to be united with its verbal phrase ‘has affected’. An alternative to this may be seen in ­example 38, where the temporal clause ‘at the moment of the X change’ is moved to the end: while it would have been possible to reposition it at the beginning, as in e­ xample 37, the decision to move it to the end was justified by its already being closer to the end of the sentence and its stronger semantic connection with ‘significant differences’. Once again, the shift restores the flow of the sentence and lightens the cognitive burden on the reader by linking the verbal expression ‘shows that’ with its corresponding object ‘there are no significant differences’. (37) Over the past years, the ‘X’-​Logic approach over the past years has affected many applications and perspectives (ECO #46) (38) The comparison between the performance of the main group and that of the control group (table 8) shows that at the moment of the ‘X’ change (T) there are no significant differences between the two groups at the moment of the ‘X’ change (T). (ECO #14) The final, and most common and frequently applicable, form of shifting and repositioning entails a conversion in word category that compacts the conveyed information without impeding the fluidity of the sentence. In ­examples 39 and 40, this simply means converting adjectival phrases (e.g. ‘national and international’ in ­example 39) and fragmented past participles (e.g. ‘already institutionalized’ in ­example 40) into prenominal adjectives. In this way, it is also possible to avoid inserting extra parenthetical and compartmentalised phrases that will then have to be integrated by the reader.



(39) To our knowledge, this is the first national and international scientific study (both national and international) to empirically test the effects of X [source of information] on readers’ behaviour. (ECO #25) (40) In choosing between alternative actions, subjects select those that conform most to already institutionalized ‘standards’ of

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conduct already institutionalized, regardless of their convenience [citation]. (ECO #21) Gaining confidence to shift clauses, phrases and single words is quite important and presents two advantages for non-​native academics. Firstly, it makes it easier for them to cleanly and clearly structure long sentences when it is not possible or advisable to shorten or divide them. Secondly, it makes it easier for readers to find and focus on the main content and then integrate it with the additional information that is provided at the beginning and/​or end. If the author is aware of the impression that these errors convey, it is also easy for them to notice and treat upon re-​reading their papers. Such repositioning, like awareness of appropriateness and register, which will be dealt with in Section 6.4., is one of the most unconscious kinds of stylistic errors due to the powerful influence of the author’s L1, but it is also easily detected and pointed out by editors and reviewers. 6.3.2. Shifting and repositioning in the HUM subcorpus Despite the linguistic competence of the non-​native authors included in the HUM subcorpus, the ‘error’ requiring the proofreader to shift clauses and phrases revealed itself to be the most common area of interest. Moreover, as in the ECO subcorpus, the reason for this divergence from the audience’s expectations lays in the author’s desire to get certain ‘minor but necessary’ thoughts or pieces of information that cannot be positioned at the beginning of the sentence out of the way in order to discursively focus on the fact or concept that interests him or her more. This point of interest is often elaborated in the following examples, where the author felt compelled to position clauses and phrases towards the end of a sentence to make them into bridges leading to the next sentence. The author therefore either positions the extra information directly after the subject or embeds it in a clause within the sentence that is separated by two commas. Such a ‘strategy’ leads to the conclusion that these particular errors come under the ‘communication-​based’ category of errors, because

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the author purposefully deviates from more comfortable or secure solutions in the attempt to enhance the cohesion of the text. One case in which the information is positioned after the subject may be seen in e­ xample 41, where the passive verbal phrase ‘is then created’ refers to ‘thesaurus’ and is quickly inserted by the author in order to dedicate more space and attention to the association of said thesaurus’ words with concepts. Moreover, where many would find ‘thesaurus of words’ redundant because it is known that a thesaurus is made up of words, the author decided to keep both to emphasise both the numerous individual words and the thesaurus as a whole. However, this position clashes because it is singular and positioned directly before the relative clause ‘that are associated’, which is plural but follows the singular verb ‘is’ which is, in turn, positioned directly after the plural ‘words’. This could actually be pointed out as a ‘mistake’ rather than an error by reviewers, and in any case it could lead to confusion in the reader because it disrupts the flow by alternating between singular and plural forms. It is therefore a case of hypercorrection (and consequently an ‘overgeneralisation’). The solution here, and in similar cases, is fortunately quite straightforward: to avoid the direct contrast of these two verbal clauses, it is best to maintain the number concordance between the noun and its related verb. In this specific case, ‘is then created’ should be positioned after the further defining clause ‘showing its semantic or definitional content’ which cannot be separated from ‘each concept’, to which it refers. Doing so will distance ‘a thesaurus’ from its ‘is then created’ and disrupt the overall SVO structure of the entire sentence, which is something many non-​native (and native) academics understandably feel uncomfortable with. Nevertheless, it makes the concept clear and is tolerated when it clarifies that ‘is then created’ refers to ‘a thesaurus’.

(41) A thesaurus of words is then created that are associated with each concept, showing its semantic or definitional content, is then created. (HUM #24)

Other acceptable, albeit less elegant, solutions include dividing this sentence into two (with some insertions indicated here in italics, where necessary, to fill in any resulting stylistic ‘gaps’) as seen in 41a, or in repeating

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the second noun ‘words’ to link it to its relative clause, as in 41b (possible alternatives within the sentence are indicated using the ‘/​’ symbol):

(41a) A thesaurus of words is thus created; its words are associated with each concept, showing its semantic or definitional content. (41b) A thesaurus of words is created, and/​where its/​these words are associated with each concept, showing its semantic or definitional content.

In ­examples 42 and 43, the author decided to embed the ‘less urgent’ pieces of information in a clause within the sentence that is separated by two commas in order to anticipate other discursive ‘asides’ or avoid distancing it too much. In e­ xample 42, the author attempted to anticipate ‘words and graphic effects’, which are considered ‘obvious’ and focus on the more novel ‘sounds and graphic effects’ aspect of ‘cybertexts’. Doing this, however, interrupts the flow between ‘because’ and the related reason ‘they exploit other multimedia’. Moreover, because ‘words and graphic effects’ is positioned before its verbal phrase ‘they exploit’, which explains its relation to the subject, this order creates an SOV sequence that eludes the reader’s expectations. Therefore, the solution that restores the SVO structure and maintains the discursive addition ‘as well as’ to enforce the usefulness of ‘cybertexts’ entails shifting this ‘obvious’ aspect as an entire clause (separated by commas) after the new one to support it. A similar situation occurs in ­example 43, where the temporal clause ‘since Z’s [leader] time’ could not be inserted at the beginning of the sentence because it refers to an example of a subject (i.e. ‘regimes and rulers’) that has not been introduced yet. Despite this, placing it between ‘X congregations’ and ‘have critically supported’ divides the English SVO sequence. In contrast, positioning it afterwards enables the clause to complete the concept while providing extra context.

(42) Students also read examples of what are called ‘cybertexts’ because, as well as using words and graphic effects, they exploit other multimedia, such as sounds and videos, as well as words

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and graphic effects, and provide tools which can be controlled by the user (HUM #26) (43) X [religion] was able to maintain good relations throughout the country’s changes in regimes and rulers as in the case of Y [country], where the X congregations, since Z’s [name] time, have critically supported the policies of the governing authorities since Z’s [name] time (HUM #33)

As in the ECO subcorpus, another strategy that could lighten the flow of the text and is frequently applied to treat errors involving misplaced clauses and phrases consists in converting a past participle or relative clause into an adjective. This is particularly useful when dealing with multiple clauses because it can not only save on the word count but also strengthen the noun phrase and free up space for other clauses. Therefore, in ­example 44, ‘upset due to remorse’ is summarised as ‘remorseful’, thus better describing the conflicted state of ‘the X’. In ­example 45, an entire relative clause –​‘who would be real or alleged’ –​is made into a modifier serving as an adjective –​‘real or alleged’ –​that describes ‘spiritual entities and revenants’ while avoiding pronouns or words like ‘who’ that are ill suited for such elusive subjects.

(44) The X [role] is happy and remorseful at the same time upset due to remorse (HUM #41) (45) This essay investigates the multifaceted nature and the complex functions of real or alleged spiritual entities and revenants, who could be real or alleged, in the field of popular literature (HUM #52)

The final shifts of interest that were encountered in the HUM subcorpus concern more extensive stretches of text similar to the non-​native author’s L1, to frame the content of the sentence before providing it. In many languages, this is considered appropriate for formal communicative contexts, and recalls the strategies used in oral signpost language to create a sense of anticipation. As mentioned in the previous subsection, this could be considered a case of ‘foregrounding through linguistic deviation’, which

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is typical of stylistics inquiry. Such deviation may occur at any linguistic level and ‘is essentially the occurrence of unexpected irregularity in language and results in foregrounding on the basis that the irregularity is surprising to the reader’ ( Jeffries and McIntyre 2010: 31). Evidence of this may be seen in the lexical choice of connotative words like ‘unexpected’ in ­example 46, and ‘possible’ in e­ xample 47 at the beginning of the sentence and in combination with an impersonal phrase that the author instinctively associated with academic English. The intent is therefore to make reading the text pleasing, but it actually distracts the reader by presenting the effect before the content and making the sentence unnecessarily convoluted. The solution is therefore simply to specify the ‘unexpected’ or ‘possible’ quality of the information when or slightly before presenting it, so as to more closely associate this in the reader’s mind within an SVO sequence. (46) It was somehow unexpected for the The […] media somehow did not expect that X artists […] would draw vignettes (HUM #57) (47) What makes it possible to speak about alternative history is tThe conception that alternative history is not merely an oscillation between different histories makes speaking about alternative history possible. (HUM #36) The need to shift clauses and phrases is the most common stylistic error in the HUM subcorpus, and may be classified under different error categories based on the author’s reasoning and/​or strategy. In fact, the position of the information was often the result of a precise intention on the author’s part to either create anticipation or dispense with the known parts of the argument and focus on the new and interesting ones. Such positioning may lead to ‘errors’ because they diverge from the expectations of the international discourse community and require cognitive effort to reconstruct the intended meaning. At the same time, this flexible use of word and clause order signals the linguistic and discursive creative strategy that is often the object of studies in the humanities although it was also found in the ECO subcorpus, proving that it is spreading to the intermediate social sciences. It also tips the scale of errors from the

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more traditional, ‘induced’ traces of the author’s L1 influence in favour of an attempt to develop his or her language and means of self-​expression. This particular area of interest was also clearly associated with the field of stylistics itself due to its application of the theory of foregrounding. Accordingly, it relies on discourse and description more than mere adherence to academic English rules that are often imposed in the ‘hard’ sciences.

6.4. Appropriateness and register The issue of register is well known in academic English in general, to the point that it is one of the commonly covered topics of ‘academic style’ found in textbooks that include a section on style. ‘Appropriateness’ and ‘register’ are therefore perhaps the first associations that come to mind when considering style, presumably due to its entangled connection with both register in a linguistic sense and with stylistics: The style perspective is similar to the register perspective in its linguistic focus, analyzing the use of linguistic features that are common in the text. But the key difference from the register perspective is that the use of these linguistic features is not functionally motivated; rather, style features reflect aesthetic preferences, associated with particular authors or historical periods. (Biber and Conrad 2019)

However, register differs from the areas of interest that have been dealt with so far because it is not necessarily caused by the author’s lack of linguistic competence, but rather by having acquired knowledge of a word or phrase without realising the effect that it may have on the international academic readership. These errors may be classified as ‘induced’ or ‘developmental’ because they are learned by listening to or reading the work of native speakers and members of the academic community in a variety of both academic and non-​academic contexts (e.g. lectures, conferences, popular sources of information). Academic publishing is based on formal discourse, which recalls scientific discourse in accordance with its pursuit

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of upholding the prestige of the international community. However, these errors stand out compared to the other areas of interest for two reasons. The first is the fact that there is no sure-​fire underlying official rule as to what is sufficiently formal, so textbooks understandably list the most common examples and categories. Therefore, the non-​native academic usually learns what is appropriate by following the instructions of this material, imitating other academics who he or she judges as ‘easy to understand’ or ‘linguistically competent’, and through hands-​on experience by receiving feedback when he or she breaks the rules. Academic writing is a highly conventional and generally formal genre that prevails in a particular national or international community whose members are distinguished by certain linguistic and discursive marks. Authors, and especially novices, may not be aware of this because there is ‘a tendency for non-​native speakers not to think of English immediately in terms of varieties’ but rather to focus ‘on the function of communication rather than identity’ (Henshall 2018: 31). For them, it is important to convey their message clearly, which may lead them to make the opposite error compared to the previous areas of interest and overly simplify their language, thus incurring ‘simplification’ errors. In these cases, while the author is certainly linguistically competent in English, his or her writing is perceived as lacking in knowledge of appropriately formal vocabulary or syntax, and may therefore be prevented from progressing in the editing process. Moreover, non-​native academics may often turn to ‘false friends’ in terms of register: words and phrases that take a similar form in English and are accepted in their L1 but are not perceived in the same manner in English. The second difference, surprisingly, is that register, alongside familiarity with journal procedures and critical thinking, is an issue that native and non-​native authors share (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 43). As a result, this is perhaps the scenario in which the influence and importance of stylistics and academic style proofreading are strongest: in the examples that follow, in fact, the author’s sentences are grammatically correct and easy to read. For this reason, these divergences are often not detected and corrected by pre-​submission proofreaders who are not knowledgeable in academic writing and register, which leads to academics receiving negative feedback even if their work has been proofread by a native speaker. This,

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and the fact that these are errors and not mistakes, makes the feedback perplexing for authors who are not acquainted with the ‘rules’ of what is expected and accepted in the international academic community. The situation is further complicated by the acceptance of informal register within the academic community in certain contexts (such as conferences and lectures) and in journals’ arbitrary decisions to tolerate a limited measure of informality. The academic proofreader therefore has the responsibility of stepping outside the realm of ‘indisputable mistakes’ and taking the liberty of treating these errors as well, regardless of whether the author is a native or non-​native academic. 6.4.1. Appropriateness and register in the ECO subcorpus In addition to what was outlined in the introduction to this section, a fundamental and complicating factor to consider when dealing with errors in register is that they may involve different levels of linguistic and discursive choices as register is one of the omnipresent ‘common-​sense’ rules that appear in the limited instructions on academic style. The examples of misuse of register are numerous and highly personal in the ECO subcorpus, but this also highlights the importance of corpus stylistics and the gathering of material based on experiential learning and teaching to compensate for this undeniable gap. The most common level concerns lexis, as may be observed in e­ xamples 48, 49 and 50. As with all other errors, these may be ‘induced’, ‘of avoidance’ or ‘simplifications’ based on whether the error was due to the author having heard or read the expression (e.g. ‘pretty’ in ­example 48 or ‘too’ in ­example 50) ‘induced’ or if he or she is certainly aware of the existence of other, more formal options but chose not to use them because he or she did not really know them (‘simplifications’) or did not feel comfortable using them (‘avoidance’). These lexical choices are not grammatically incorrect and do not interfere with the understanding of the text, but they are informal variations that are not in line with the required academic register. This is even more evident in the ‘hard’ and ‘social’ sciences, where objectivity and impersonality, along with formality, are of paramount importance.

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Nevertheless, in the ECO subcorpus, in ­example 48, the adverb ‘pretty’, which is common in spoken language, has been substituted with the corresponding formal term ‘rather’. The same strategy is applied to verbs in ­examples 49 and 50, so the very generic verb ‘getting’ (which could even be perceived as a sign of carelessness by editors and critical reviewers) has been replaced with ‘obtaining’ in e­ xample 49. Example 50 presents two substitutions: the first of the verbs ‘joins’ with ‘unites’ because it is more suitable for ‘strategy’, and the discourse marker ‘as well’ instead of the excessively informal ‘too’.

(48) the values of R2 are pretty rather high, with the exception of the first model, in which only the control variables were considered. (ECO #1) (49) in sharing information with external innovation communities [citation] and in getting obtaining technology from other firms. (ECO #2) (50) X strategy joins unites opinions, ideas, and interpretations on a wide range of social issues as well too. (ECO #2)

Another common lexical area that presents errors in formality by both native and non-​native authors is phrasal verbs, which are commonly used in informal written (e.g. emails) and spoken English, including in academic contexts, but are not considered appropriate in research articles. For this reason, ‘looking at’ in e­ xample 51 and ‘turning out’ in e­ xample 52 were substituted with their more precise verbal counterparts ‘observing’ and ‘revealing (themselves)’.



(51) This study explains how it is possible to use the ‘X’ framework to understand relations and interactions (as well as future perspectives) in the modern retail concept by observing looking at the institutional arrangements shaped by (ECO #3) (52) patients are likely to perceive low self-​efficacy and inadequate awareness of health-​related issues, revealing themselves turning out to be unwilling to be involved (ECO #5)

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In the final set of examples, even discourse markers and signpost language, which are usually memorised as fixed expressions and therefore perceived as being ‘simple to use’, were present in their informal variations: ‘sticking to’ in ­example 53, and ‘That’s the reason why’ and ‘This is the reason why’ in ­examples 54 and 55 respectively. These are clearly expressions deriving from oral academic contexts such as informal conferences and lectures (Gotti 2012; Baicchi and Erviti 2018), and were therefore probably ‘in­­ duced’ errors that the non-​native authors picked up through interacting with or listening to native academics. As a result, they must be substituted with formal written versions that have the same meaning. Due to the fact that these are fixed phrases that are more informal, but not necessarily lexically or syntactically simpler than their formal counterparts, these particular examples are not ‘simplifications’. Rather, the error here lies in the lack of awareness of what is perceived as formal and informal in the international academic community, which follows stricter rules compared to the everyday academic activity that these academics are engaged in on a regular basis. (53) Sticking to In accordance with these arguments, this paper investigates the role of X [document] (ECO #5) (54) That’s the reason why This would explain why governments in X and Y [geographical locations] have expressed their interest in supporting the industry. (ECO #21) (55) For this reason, This is the reason why surrogate motherhood is illegal in X, but allowed in Y and Z [geographical locations]. (ECO #21) Of the four issues that have been analysed in this study, the intersection between style and register is the most under-​researched, especially in relation to EAP and ERPP. It is also the issue that most non-​native authors have only a vague awareness of due to the great variety and extent of use by native academics. This leads to puzzling criticism and requests for revision upon submission. Here, not only the form, but also the context and channel of communication come into play, and separate academic English

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into linguistic and discursive varieties that both non-​native scholars and academic proofreaders should be more aware of. 6.4.2. Appropriateness and register in the HUM subcorpus The analysis of the HUM subcorpus, in terms of appropriateness and register, is in line with observations on the previous areas of interest in proving that non-​native academics in the humanities are more aware of the effect of language and the risk of false friends. The ‘induced’ errors that have been found are often due to the influence of oral or informal academic English that they have come across when reading or listening to native academics in more relaxed contexts than those established by international journals. This is the case of e­ xamples 56–​63, which all share the use of expressions that do exist in English and are actually found in some academic contexts but are not appropriate for the purposes of written text in this context. The extent to which this occurs, and therefore the possibility that the error will be pointed out by a reviewer, varies greatly, so in this subsection, the examples will be divided according to their ‘obviousness’ and ‘treatment’. The first three examples, 56, 57 and 58, consist of errors motivated by the author’s acquaintance with fixed phrases in academic English and awareness of the importance of introducing new information by means of formal expressions. The ‘defamiliarising’ element therefore lies in the mismatch between the context and the opening expression. While this may be subtle, and therefore not immediately visible to non-​native academics, it is also easy for academic proofreaders to adjust the error and notify the author. In the first example, ‘regarding which’ is more commonly used when speaking, and more precisely when adding something that just came to mind as a second thought, or as a means of opening a digression that is indirectly related to the topic. It was therefore substituted with a variation that is typical of written communication: ‘in this sense’ (because it continues a debate that had been introduced in the previous sentence). Other possible variations include commonly known expressions such as ‘as regards’ and ‘as far as … is concerned’.

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(56) In this sense Regarding which, X [title], the comic by Y [name], certainly stands out amid other satiric publications. (HUM #13) In ­example 57, the elegant ‘at one’ opening has a poetic effect that is appreciated in the humanities but confusing in a linear, academic context. The expectation of the international discourse community is that even if the object of the study is expressive and noteworthy in terms of its own ‘style’, the style with which it is to be analysed must be clear, concise and objective. Such a rule is fundamental, in that both the humanities and stylistics have been accused of being too ‘subjective’ in their methodological approach. It was therefore necessary to use a more ‘familiar’ expression that would not be detected as ‘unfamiliar’ –​or rather ‘defamiliarised’, to use the term in stylistics –​by those reading and assessing the text. This is especially the case because it is a functional, and not a content-​based, part of the sentence. In this sense, these three may also be considered ‘developmental’ errors because the author is aware of the existence of these expressions but still incapable of mastering their use completely, although certainly not to the extent of considering this a ‘mistake’. There are a series of possible solutions, such as substituting the ‘obscure’ expression for a common one like ‘in accordance (with)’, which was the one the proofreader opted for in ­example 57. Otherwise, it would have been possible to reposition ‘at one’ and reformulate the sentence around it, thus making it into a relative clause, as in ­example 57a. However, this is the more difficult of the two solutions and does not connect the main idea of this sentence with the previous one, where the meaning of ‘these ideas’ has evidently already been explained. (57) In accordance At one with these ideas, writers, artists, intellectuals and young members of civil society have used written and oral words, art and music (HUM #18) (57a) The writers, artists, intellectuals and young members of civil society that are at one with these ideas have used written and oral words, art and music. (HUM #18)

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Finally, in the case of e­ xample 58, the opening is grammatically correct, but it is both too long, being a combination of two distinct openings (i.e. ‘when that happens’ and ‘like in the X-​an [nationality] case’), and informal compared to the rest of the sentence. To avoid this, the introductory clause was reduced to a combination of the overlapping concepts mentioning happening ‘cases’ and ‘the case of X [country]’. (58) When that happens, like in the X-​an [nationality] case In cases like X [country], many asylum seekers are bound to be pushed towards informal and illegal work. (HUM #42) The next three examples are similar to the ones that had been encountered in the ECO subcorpus, in that they present grammatically correct but informal lexical choices compared to the requirements of academic writing, either at the beginning (as in ­example 59) or in verbal tenses. This may be due to the choice of phrasal verbs that are more formal than their lexical counterparts, as in ­example 60, or in excessively simple verbs, or even auxiliary verbs, like in ­example 61. Once again, these errors are easy to treat and often caused by the author’s desire to concentrate on the nouns and structure of the sentence. (59) Before When presented with the choice between violating his mission as a doctor and respecting his patient’s rights, he eventually turns against the system. (HUM #19) (60) While getting drawing inspiration from a number of recent cultural artefacts on migration to ‘X’ [city] (HUM #20) (61) the issue of the use of language in literature in the period from the end of the XIX to the middle of the XX century is often has characterised by very ideologised connotations that have little to do with the principles (HUM #58) The last two examples presented in this section draw the most attention and, if there are too many instances, could represent errors of  ‘overproduction’ errors, and lead editors and reviewers to comment on the author’s linguistic competence. These are examples of some of the most obvious

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‘induced’ errors, although for different reasons. In fact, ­example 62 presents an expression which is also a literal translation from the author’s L1 but could seem ambiguous in English because ‘X’ and ‘Y’ are alter egos that shift and blend into one another, while ­example 63 is much too informal (and certainly more informal than e­ xample 56), and typical of spoken general English.

(62) both ‘X’ and ‘Y’ tell their story in the first person their own words (HUM #14) (63) Today it is possible to you can watch these documents without any previous warnings by the website, as this is what we can read in specified in its latest official policy. (HUM #16)

Although all of these errors were part of the same area of interest –​appropriateness and use of register –​their observation within the HUM subcorpus has revealed that this area in itself is not as simple or unified as is usually believed. Indeed, there are often chapters in academic English textbooks on this specific topic referred to as ‘style’, but they are usually concerned with obvious cases of interference from oral communication. Moreover, the most subtle types of errors that have been pointed out, such as ‘developmental’ and ‘communication-​based’ errors, indicate that there is an underlying improvement in this sense, proving that non-​native academics are tackling increasingly subtle and difficult areas of linguistic competence, possibly thanks to their ongoing presence in and contribution to the international academic publishing context. Such growth is certainly worth monitoring and considering in the ongoing development of EAP and ERPP, as is attention to academic style production and proofreading in the humanities. The humanities are a good starting point in this sense because the field is less regulated compared to the ‘hard’ and ‘social’ sciences, and therefore seems to have followed its own natural inclinations in style. Moreover, non-​native academics in the humanities have already started to strategise in their use of academic English to make it more efficient, as opposed to other fields that are constrained by the patterns of their disciplines. This makes ‘academic style’ both an object and a communicative vehicle within the academic discourse community,

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as well as a model of how academic English style might develop, were journals to enact more flexible style guidelines.

6.5. Qualitative comparison between the areas of interest in the ECO and HUM subcorpora Having dealt with the two subcorpora of the ACASTYLE corpus separately, it will be instructive to outline some of the main differences that emerged in terms of errors, their types and their treatment. The examples prove that there are specific areas that are taken for granted but are actually those in which the flow of academic style may be noticed, and therefore encouraged or impeded, more easily. Exploring these areas could highlight possible differences in discipline-​based approaches to writing and style that could be useful in training academics, instructors in academic English, and language professionals. It would provide insight that could be useful in teaching instructors and editors how to proofread texts by non-​native academics (as well as the latter on how to proofread their own work) by underlining what sort of errors to expect, the linguistic and practical reasons why they may have occurred, and how to best revise work throughout the publication process. The comparison of the two subcorpora will follow the same areas of interest in the same order in which they were considered earlier in this chapter. A few brief observations may be made upon comparing examples of addition of extra text in the ECO and HUM subcorpora. The first concerns the level of language on which the author’s L1 is interfering, thus leading to ‘induced’ errors: in the ECO subcorpus, it was academic English in its literal and formulaic sense; while in the HUM subcorpus, the divergence was found on a more profound, metadiscursive level of the text due to the assumption that these references would be redundant. This entails ‘simplification’ errors due to omissions in the ECO subcorpus that were caused by the author’s need to ‘save’ on the word count while applying the academic phrases they know the academic discourse community will accept

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and maintaining the content of his or her paper intact. This is in line with the quantitative analysis of Chapter 5, which revealed that the language in the ECO subcorpus is dense and highly nominalised so as to convey the author’s message concisely. The fact that this leads to ‘simplifications’ and errors of ‘overproduction’ proves that such ‘economising’ on words is not always the most productive solution, even if it gives the impression of being very efficient. In contrast, the authors of the HUM subcorpus seem to have re-​elaborated the content on a deeper level in order to explain ‘new’ concepts more freely and in more detail. This is due to the fact that these academics tend to be less restricted by their word limits (hence, for instance, their tendency to use past participle verbal phrases less frequently). However, they are compelled to ‘save’ elsewhere, such as discourse-​related terms and expressions that the authors believe are already obvious, to invest more in lexical ‘richness’, as may be verified by comparing the type/​token ratios of the two subcorpora. In fact, the non-​ native academics of the HUM subcorpus, as pointed out in the quantitative analysis, can afford to use more descriptive words like adjectives and adverbs. This also translates into more ‘communication-​based’ errors on their part. In both cases, not specifying this information goes against the conventions of the academic discourse community, as well as the best interests of knowledge exchange. As far as errors requiring the deletion of redundant text are concerned, a difference between the ECO and HUM subcorpora emerges only on closer inspection. In fact, in both subcorpora, these ‘induced’ errors could seemingly be traced back to the influence of the author’s L1 and his or her consequent direct externalisation of his or her thought process. However, in the ECO subcorpus, these redundancies were usually the result of the ‘overproduction’ of acquired structures that added a cognitive burden on the reader. In the HUM subcorpus, on the other hand, the errors were often ‘overgeneralisations’ due to the positioning of significant language in the middle of a sentence that created a distraction. At the same time, this leads to the conclusion that they represent ‘developmental’ errors caused by the author’s desire to ‘step up’ to the challenge of communicating elegantly with a prestigious and formal discourse community as an equal. Therefore, these errors persist for opposite reasons, that is adhering to

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the rules in the ECO subcorpus, and wanting to stand out in the HUM subcorpus. Nevertheless, both too little and too much information impact on academic style and require academic style proofreading because they undermine the text’s clarity and conciseness. Indeed, they interrupt the flow of the text and diverge from the direct style that has been adopted and is expected on an international level. The third area of interest –​shifting and repositioning clauses and phrases –​was also revealed to be insightful in highlighting disciplinary differences in academic style proofreading, as well as in academic writing. In both subcorpora, these errors were classified as ‘induced’, ‘overgeneralisations’, due to hypercorrection, and ‘communication-​based’, but once again this could be traced back to different reasons and approaches to language. In the ECO subcorpus, the errors in positioning information seemed to be connected to authors’ self-​awareness and desire to be very careful in structuring the sentence. This entailed linguistic choices based on insecurity that led the authors to position ‘uncomfortable’ clauses (such as more extensive ones or those containing circumstantial information) in various positions within the first half of the sentence to avoid having to worry about them or to separate subjects from their verbs. In the HUM subcorpus, on the other hand, the categories of errors were almost the same because there were no particular cases of ‘induced’ errors. Nevertheless, the authors’ knowledge of word and clause positioning was the very reason for the errors. This happened when the information that was considered less interesting or more difficult to deal with was purposefully positioned at the beginning in order to free the rest of the sentence and dedicate it to the ideas that the author wanted to focus on. From this perspective, it was a strategic attempt on the author’s part to make the most of his or her space and create a sense of anticipation in the reader. Therefore, these clauses had to be integrated into the sentence so the SVO structure could be reinstated, which proves that flexibility in academic style may seem to be a promising and creative solution, but it must not compromise the clarity and conciseness that is upheld within the international academic and publishing community. Moreover, this anticipation of information that was found in both subcorpora is an example of the principle of foregrounding that is typical of stylistics. This was performed for practical reasons in the

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ECO subcorpus (i.e. maintaining a more solid sentence structure), while in the HUM subcorpus, it was purposefully done to create a determined effect in the reader. Finally, the errors in appropriateness and register that are commonly found and were noted in the ACASTYLE corpus presented interesting peculiarities in the comparison of the macro areas. In the ECO subcorpus, the errors consisted of a mistaken use of fixed phrases that were either too informal or were typical of spoken academic contexts. This leads to the conclusion that the authors were not only linguistically competent but also well versed in reading and listening to general and academic English; however, they had passively picked up these structures without having been instructed on how to use them, leading to ‘induced’ errors. The presence of ‘false friends’, along with ‘simplification’ and ‘avoidance’ errors, was also quite common, especially when it came to dealing with unfamiliar semantic fields. In contrast, there was greater variety in the range and reason for errors in word choice in the HUM subcorpus, especially when they involved connecting expressions and discursive strategies. As a result, in their attempts to improve their writing, these non-​native academics either used academic expressions that were too complicated and ‘literary’ compared to the conventions of the international publishing community or they spontaneously used structures they had passively acquired. In conclusion, the qualitative analysis has outlined similarities and differences, as well as interesting areas of creative ‘communication-​based’ and ‘developmental’ errors that may become the benchmark for testing new ways to negotiate and reconcile the expressive needs of individual academics and those of the collective academic community.

6.6. Summary This chapter has detailed the qualitative analysis of the papers in the ACASTYLE corpus’ two separate subcorpora –​ECO (economics) and HUM (humanities) –​according to four main areas of errors in style that are detected and contested but often not explained by reviewers and

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editors when reading papers, due to their being ‘errors’ and not ‘mistakes’, and whose treatment is entrusted to copyeditors and proofreaders. These areas of interest were addition of extra text; deletion of redundant text; shifting and repositioning; and appropriateness and register. Each area was associated with one or more categories of ‘error’ that had been adapted from the field of error analysis: overgeneralisations; simplifications; developmental errors; communication-​ based errors; induced errors; errors of avoidance; and errors of overproduction. A set of the most indicative errors for each area of interest in each subcorpus was analysed qualitatively, given detailed commentary, classified under one or more of the categories of errors, and presented with the proposed proofreading treatments. It is important to keep in mind that these are not ‘indisputable mistakes’ but rather ‘errors’ based on style that needed to be ‘treated’ and not ‘corrected’. The proofreader’s intent was to make the academic style of the sentence (and therefore of the text) flow in accordance with the perception and expectations of those who would receive and evaluate the publication and its language, that is editors, peer reviewers and members of the international academic discourse community. The current lack of awareness surrounding academic style and its adjustment is in fact based on a mistaken assumption on the part of the authors, and partially resulting from traditional proofreading practices, that in the publication process, a national paper’s quality and quantity of content must be maintained when reasoning, translating or proofreading in English, and that only mistakes, and not errors, are to be addressed during the proofreading phase. In many cases, the detected errors could be attributed to the interference of the author’s L1 and lack of experience in English stylistic preferences (in the case of novice academics), or to the receiver’s perceptions of defamiliarised, or ‘unfamiliar’, academic style choices, a concept that is at the foundations of stylistics. However, the category of errors and the reasons for their occurrence were often influenced by disciplinary conventions and expectations. In fact, upon comparing the ECO and HUM subcorpora, various differences in academic style and common stylistic errors emerged and could be traced back to a series of practical factors that were typical of publishing in the two macro areas. These include the

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number of authors and their linguistic competence, the word limit at each author’s disposal and the degree of flexibility of the journal style guidelines they have to adhere to (McKinley and Rose 2018), as well as the international academic discourse community they are addressing. As a result, the errors in the ECO subcorpus were connected to the limited words at the author’s disposal and to his or her desire to conform to the conventional structure of research articles in the field and its principles of clarity and conciseness. This led them to make errors related to the avoidance of structures that were considered too long, complicated or distant from the SVO order, and to the passive application of academic English phrases that they perceived as accepted and acceptable but which were unconsciously influenced by the author’s L1 or to be used in different circumstances. Such stylistic choices reveal a sense of subconscious stylistic self-​awareness and attention towards other authors and peers in the academic community. In the HUM subcorpus, by contrast, the authors were generally more used to writing in academic English because many of them worked in the field of literature and linguistics, and therefore committed fewer ‘induced’ errors; rather, they attempted to write in a more stylistically attractive and impactful manner. As a result, the language and style of their writing was much more varied, as was the range of errors that were encountered and manifested, including a greater tendency to make ‘developmental’ and ‘communication-​based’ errors. Interestingly though, while the academics writing ECO papers felt the need to make everything explicit to be clear, those of the HUM subcorpus often omitted metadiscursive references and information, as if these were unnecessary given their perception of the expertise of the audience. Doing so made them commit errors linked to lack of clarity and entailed the need to integrate missing information and restore the traditional SVO sentence structure. Nevertheless, the academic style and framing of knowledge of the humanities is unconsciously based on the desire to write more creatively and naturally. In both subcorpora, it was possible to find many of the fundamental concepts of stylistics being applied, such as foregrounding, defamiliarisation and deixis (Levinson 1983; Douthwaite 2000; Jeffries and McIntyre 2010). All of the considerations above have proven that there are substantial differences between disciplines in terms of academic style and its

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proofreading that are worth investigating in greater detail. It is important to study and monitor such differences in order to verify the effects of more or less stylistic freedom and accordingly reflect on the balance between individual and collective communicative needs. The peculiarities of academic disciplines and their ideas of accepted academic style are also likely to develop in the future based on the ongoing development of academic style and its proofreading in these disciplines and the consequent requirements that are and will be established by the international academic discourse community. In light of the findings and observations that have been collected in the course of this book, the final chapter will endeavour to draw conclusions on what has been done and what still remains to be done. Due to the breadth of the field and the topics that have been dealt with, these concluding remarks will be divided into three main areas: academic proofreading, academic style in English, and future research and discussions on all of these areas.

Chapter 7

Concluding remarks and considerations

This book has introduced and explored ‘academic style proofreading’ in an attempt to understand and tackle what has become a widespread problem for non-​native academics all over the world: the need to become aware of and master academic style, as well as language, when writing. The first matter that emerged in this study was the need to more thoroughly (re)define various terms that have been taken for granted because they are used in general English with vague connotations and because their development in practice has not always corresponded with development in definition. These include native and non-​native author, proofreading/​proofreader, (academic) style, ‘correct’ (both as a verb and a noun), ‘good’ or ‘appropriate’ style and error. There is an urgent need to address academic style proofreading as the combination of all of these terms and from a holistic ‘language treatment’ approach, consisting of: any kind of action which people take about language problems. This includes language planning by governments and government appointed agencies, but also includes such things as: language requirements for employment in a private company, company policy on style in business letters, trade-​name spelling, publishers’ style sheets, and the treatment of language in dictionaries and usage guides. (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 232)

This would be preferable to the current prescriptive selection of publications based on linguistic and stylistic criteria. The first aim of this book was therefore to ‘clear the air’ of common misconceptions by identifying points of inconsistency in relation to academic style and its proofreading within the international academic discourse community, and proposing alternative definitions or considerations to be implemented within language professions and academic communities.

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To better round up the findings of the inquiries that have been undertaken in this book, this concluding chapter has been divided into three subsections, each of which addresses one of the three broad areas that compose these inquiries into ‘academic style proofreading’: academic proofreading as a professional practice (Catenaccio et al. 2017), academic style in relation to stylistics, and possible paths for future research and debates based on the findings that emerged during the quantitative and qualitative analysis of academic style proofreading. The importance of academic style and its more productive and inclusive proofreading lies not only in its potential to greatly improve linguistic and discursive production, but also in the epistemological implications of expanding or limiting the access of non-​native academics to the ongoing dialogue within the academic community. English, as the lingua franca of international publishing, is the undisputed vehicle of specialised knowledge, so ‘scholars who are not able to publish in English are excluded from the global conversation. This may not only be considered to be unfair on them, but also is a loss to the global community’ (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 14; see also Ammon 2007; Anderson 2013; Hyland 2016), to the point that Gibbs (1995) has referred to this phenomenon as ‘lost science’. This is not to imply that ‘anything goes’ when writing in academic English, but it does raise questions about where and how linguistic barriers or gatekeeping are enforced, how much the bar can and should be raised so as to support both authors and the community, and how to provide non-​native authors with the necessary tools to do justice to their work by expressing themselves in a way that will allow it to be appreciated by their peers. Therefore, because it is naturally in the scientific community’s best interests for all academics to write clearly and concisely, thus efficiently transmitting and disseminating their findings and reflections, international journals and publishers must be assessed and guided in their role as promoters of knowledge dissemination and exchange. Journal language policies should be reviewed and monitored so as to filter out only articles that could ‘cloud’ the academic debate with faulty ideas or indisputably unclear, ambiguous discourse. This also entails considering the increasingly multifaceted linguistic and cultural background of the community’s members and scholars and adjusting its standards accordingly. A possible solution is

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to adopt and enforce ‘flexible’ guidelines (McKinley and Rose 2018) that suggest further proofreading and revisions but do not exclude papers on the basis of language. Even this, however, is not enough if it is not supplemented by more focused education for academics, and specialised training for academic proofreaders (and copyeditors) who can become ‘mediators’ between non-​native academics and the mechanisms of academic publishing.

7.1. Considerations on academic proofreading The initial inquiry into definitions and the compilation of terminology cards, in the first part of this book, underlined the need to clearly and appropriately distinguish and value emerging and developing hybridised professions in the fields of translating, revising and publishing. This study focused on three professions, but it may be extended to other language professionals (e.g. (desk) editors, revisers and translators). Doing so would contribute to adapting the fossilised standard definitions that are in force and highlighting cases in which such definitions should be updated or modified. It would also help professionals understand how much is expected of them when accepting work so they can better negotiate tasks and prices when dealing with projects that require them to go beyond the tasks that generally pertain to each professional’s standard description or agreement. Moreover, as the terminology card for ‘copyediting’ highlighted, there are certain professional figures whose circumstances are clearer in one language and culture than in others, and not being aware of this may lead to misunderstandings and imbalances between professionals and clients when dealing with international publishing due to different expectations and customs. These divergences therefore represent starting points for future terminological studies aimed at dispelling such doubts and better defining, changing or creating words, if and when necessary, to refer to these evolving professional profiles. In this manner, it becomes possible to do justice to the increasingly complicated roles and responsibilities that active and future language professionals will have to take on as a consequence of the increasing speed and mobility of academic

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publishing institutions and practices. Such a trend is in line with those in ERPP and language in general: Mobility is the great challenge: it is the dislocation of language and language events from the fixed position in time and space attributed to them by a more traditional linguistics and sociolinguistics (the Saussurean synchrony) that will cause the paradigm shift we are currently witnessing to achieve success. It is the insertion of language in a spectrum of human action which is not defined purely in relation to temporal and spatial location, but in terms of temporal and spatial trajectories that is the main objective here. In order to get there, the notion of ‘mobility’ itself must be examined, and an improved notion of ‘locality’ needs to be developed as well. (Zanola 2012: 16)

‘Mobility’ and ‘locality’ (or rather ‘dis-​locality’) are at the heart of the ever-​increasing intensity of the ‘publish or perish (in English)’ mentality that has pervaded the international academic discourse and professional community. The situation has been further exacerbated by the pressures associated with managing online academic publishing and its reduced time for revisions and other aspects of the publication process. It is therefore necessary to raise awareness, among academic authors and all those involved in the editorial process, of the practical, linguistic and psychological factors and practices that impede publication, as well as those that could expedite it. These productive practices involve a change in attitude among both proofreaders and academics. The former need to be more mindful of the influence of culture on academic style and therefore provide not only minimal adjustments, but also propose constructive comments, explanations and treatment in terms of style. Doing so requires proofreaders to be more proactive and attentive in their interactions with non-​native authors and their work, and willing to spend more time ensuring that the text is satisfactory. A more specific solution has been proposed by Englander and Cocoran (2019) and involves ensuring that there is at least one EAL1 reviewer on the board of international journals. Non-​native academics, on the other hand, have to accept that mastering academic writing also involves learning the international academic style of their discipline (even if this is still ERPP, which is to remain ‘no one’s language’). Furthermore, their stylistic errors, 1

For more on EAL, see the explanation in footnote 2 of Chapter 2.

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which may be traced back to their lack of awareness of the subtle conventions and expectations of international academic publishing, should be treated and accompanied by instructions and explanations. This could be done at an early stage of their career (e.g. academic writing courses for PhD students) so that novice academics are better prepared to submit and react to comments and reviews, thanks to support from appropriate materials and courses. Personalised preparation and feedback based on the academic’s needs could also be an empowering means of preparing him or her for future submissions. This book’s focus on proofreaders and proofreading has hopefully shed some light on the language proofreading and revision process from an intercultural and stylistic perspective. Knowing this allows academics to better understand the reasoning behind the revisions and comments they receive, and better collaborate with the language professionals that they will encounter while preparing their work for publication. In order for this to happen though, it is necessary to include academic style in (self ) proofreading, as it constitutes a relevant knowledge gap that is delaying or preventing non-​native academics from publishing and disseminating their findings. By the same token, addressing and exploring this matter from a theoretical, empirical and practical perspective would empower non-​native academics and start them on the path of negotiating ways to communicate their individual ideas in a manner that respects both their cultural background and the needs of the international academic discourse community. Among the many directions that future research in academic English and ERPP may take, studies into the developing roles and responsibilities of proofreaders in light of the skills and experience that are necessary to efficiently manage academic texts are fundamental. Many of these could have both knowledge-​based and practical implications for the academic and publishing community. A terminological approach, such as the one that was adopted in Chapter 2, could be a good starting point in identifying any potential areas of growth where research could lead to improvements in training for proofreaders (as well as copyeditors and revisors). Such an approach could also be useful in verifying if academic proofreading practices are the same, where they exist at all, in different journals and countries,

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and if any terminological gaps or ambiguities could have repercussions for professional and contractual agreements. Finally, the increased impact of an interest in academic style proofreading must necessarily lead to interprofessional research and endeavours based on the combination of academic production and proofreading experience and practices, as well as their exchange and development through publications, conferences and workshops. An important means of informing and updating the academic and publishing community on research, frameworks, events and materials may be found in academic blogs, which were dealt with in Section 3.3. As mentioned, in fact, these blogs could be accessed by a large number of academics and language professionals, but are currently limited to much the same suggestions and guidelines that may be found in EAP textbooks. Moreover, blogs may benefit from the previously mentioned ‘mobility’ of online academic publishing and provide a multimodal channel promoting knowledge sharing and exchange that could, in turn, lead to more ‘mobility’ and tolerance in relation to the expression of such knowledge.

7.2. Considerations on style in academic English The second part of this study focused on a field that is still largely unexplored but essential in view of the ongoing evolution of EAP and ERPP: that is stylistics, a discipline that has hitherto been more often concerned with literature, cognitive psychology and cultural studies than academic language. In fact, linguistic stylistics is fairly recent compared to other subfields of stylistics but represents a promising interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Academic style has still not been clearly defined or taught (Hyland 2009), and therefore remains under the control of a small group of native and quasi-​native speakers who are acquainted with both general and academic English. There are many challenging paths that may be taken in the attempt to address this gap, the first of which involves going to the heart of intercultural communication in academic discourse and outlining –​if not comprehensively defining –​what a model of good

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academic ‘style’ could consist of within both national and international contexts. This could be done by considering, among other factors, amount and explicitness of information, mobility of word clauses and phrases, and presence or absence of introductory fixed phrases. While some of this has been partially covered in relation to English, extending such studies to other languages and cultures would enable a direct comparison between the academic style (and not language) of the source and target languages, and an assessment of overlapping and diverging areas. This, in turn, would provide non-​native academics with valuable insight into how much they should adjust their academic style and discourse. Indeed, such work implies a form of translation from a non-​native forma mentis to an English one in terms of disseminating knowledge and results. ERPP has had the merit of debating specific materials in academic English and publishing, as well as discursive and non-​discursive issues. What is missing at this point is more research on and insight from language professionals, who often have the material experience but lack the theory, which is mostly under the academic community’s control. For the moment, although ‘The establishment of error-​free writing as the goal of teaching academic writing is widespread’, it is also true that in most academic textbooks, and from the perspective of publishers, ‘getting the writing “right” matters’ (McKinley and Rose 2018: 3) In light of this, more intersectional study on writing stylistics and academic English is necessary to create a solid theoretical framework that could convey the need for and usefulness of academic style in EAP and ERPP research and teaching. Stylistics and its many approaches have the potential to contribute to the codification of used and accepted patterns in discipline-​specific academic style. It also has the merit of providing conceptual tools (e.g. foregrounding, defamiliarisation, deixis) that highlight errors and permit the researcher and proofreader to find alternative solutions. The combination of corpus stylistics and error analysis, and its observations on academic style, on which this study hopes to have been a useful –​but by no means exhaustive –​introduction, could encourage universities and other academic institutions to expand the content and specialisation of their

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academic writing courses for students and faculty members. As Flowerdew and Habibie have pointed out, in fact: expertise in teaching disciplinary subjects or even being a published scholar does not guarantee expertise in teaching academic writing and publishing and the ability to share the expertise that comes with it. That is, often, established published scholars do not have the meta-​language needed to explain how they do what they are doing. (2022: 115)

Such expertise would constitute a fundamental step in creating and enhancing what Bhatia (2004) referred to as a generic competence that is sensitive to the beliefs, values, and assumptions of the academic discourse community and authors’ target audience and journals, while not denying their individuality. Because non-​native authors outnumber native authors and are gaining importance in EAP and ERPP through the gradual acceptance of the varieties of linguistic and discursive patterns they introduce, being aware of proper academic style allows non-​native authors to negotiate their right to a certain degree of idiosyncrasy by submitting texts that reflect their thought patterns while maintaining an acceptable stylistic ‘flow’. A further solution for the improvement of EAP and ERPP courses could be to integrate them with workshops teaching academic style through specific error analysis and treatment practice by means of experiential and personalised teaching approaches. These workshops, which could develop in time into separate courses for advanced learners, could be open to mixed classes of non-​native academics and language professionals in training or in need of a training update, and establish collaborations between these two categories. To date, error analysis has been applied only to studies, not courses, on academic writing, most of which do not include style and are focused on undergraduate and postgraduate students (Marina and Snuviškiene 2005; Wu and Garza 2014; Amiri and Puteh 2017). Moreover, while there have been studies on the experience and insights of proofreaders, copyeditors and other literacy brokers when explaining their work in academic publishing (Schneegurt 2017), to date there seems to be a research gap on courses and experiences entailing knowledge sharing and a direct and experiential exchange of needs and perspectives on the basis of real texts, because ‘in both the register perspective and the style perspective, the focus

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is on the pervasive linguistic characteristics of representative text excerpts from the variety’ (Biber and Conrad 2019: 15, original emphasis). Such an exchange would be useful for both categories: academics could inform language professionals about their communicative needs and practices in relation to their research and discipline; while language professionals could provide insight and materials based on work they have completed in the past and the most common errors they have encountered. It could therefore represent a means of promoting hybrid and emerging forms of specialised and academic languages, such as ESPP (English for Scientific and Professional Purposes). This branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is based on needs analysis, as well as the collection and analysis of empirical material in order to create experiential courses and materials that respond to the needs of a specific class (Zanola 2023). Further study on academic style proofreading may also contribute to ongoing discussions on the amount and degree of changes that may be accepted in the text in the course of revisions and proofreading, as well as possible authorship and intellectual property issues that could ensue in cases of excessive and/​or negative or positive changes in the text. Stylistics could assist in understanding how much one could or should change a text when carrying out this sort of proofreading to maintain the original communicative intent and idiosyncratic traits (Scott and Turner 2008; Luo and Hyland 2019). This also means finding an academic style that can balance the author’s expressive needs with the communicative and stylistic restrictions that have been implicitly imposed by the internationally adopted academic English, a matter that this book has touched on but which requires further research.

7.3. Considerations on future research on academic style proofreading The collection and analysis of more data on the common errors in academic style that have been outlined in the third part of this study is of the utmost importance. In fact, while stylistic errors do not compromise

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the grammatical and lexical solidity of an academic text, they may single it out for its having been written by a non-​native academic. As was demonstrated by the examples from the ACASTYLE corpus, unfamiliar sentence structures, word and clause order and lexical/​discursive choices make it harder for a native speaker and international readership to immediately comprehend the text. This book has investigated four of the areas where errors in academic style are quite common, but further investigation would enable a more overt description and categorisation of the stylistic peculiarities of academic English that non-​native speakers should especially keep in mind when writing and revising their work. By doing so, they could avoid at least some of the common stylistic errors that lead reviewers to recommend extensive (and time-​consuming) revision, or even the rejection, of papers. Such research could be refined in the future by adopting and integrating diverse methodological frameworks based on each study’s aim and material. For instance, while qualitative analysis is essential in re-​reading and detecting relevant errors and their personalised treatments, quantitative analysis can be employed to verify whether there are particular trends or key words that are particularly involved in stylistic treatments. These findings could then be used in the design of checklists and manuals for both non-​native authors and professional proofreaders and language professionals in general to further speed up the revision and proofreading phases. The introduction and study of stylistics in academic style has many implications for academic language, starting from established fields like EAP, ERPP and even the previously mentioned ESPP. For instance, stylistics may be implemented in EAP research by investigating the effects of academic style and divergences from it on a variety of target audiences (e.g. native speaking academics, non-​native academics, editors and reviewers, non-​experts) when understanding and processing information. These investigations could consider relevant factors such as the expertise of the academic; the expertise of the audience; the discipline; the author’s L1; the genre (e.g. research article, conference, abstract, thesis) and traditional or innovative channels (e.g. written, oral). The insights gleaned from the findings of such research could then be integrated into textbooks and manuals with the aim of reflecting, in relation to ERPP, on the extent –​or indeed

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absence –​of unconscious editorial bias based on academic style, and requesting journal editors to be mindful of such tendencies. ERPP could benefit from dedicated studies in corpus stylistics because it makes use of quantitative and qualitative methodologies and is problem-​driven in the way it addresses the concrete concerns of students, scholars and literacy brokers (Flowerdew and Habibie 2022: 2). As previously mentioned, the findings that have been presented in this book may be a starting point for planning courses and materials that could adopt an experiential learning and teaching approach. As a result, general didactic frameworks could be elaborated and implemented to address common issues and areas of interest in the classroom. The subjective and intercultural nature of academic writing that comes into play, as mentioned in Section 4.1., may also be addressed by integrating such courses with personalised one-​on-​one sessions between instructors and students or academics to focus on adjustments to style based on personal idiosyncrasies. In fact, it is often difficult for academics to ‘expose’ their writing or ask very specific questions that are linked to their individual stylistic preferences when working in a class or group. For these sorts of changes to work though, there must be a shift in course and syllabus organisation, as well as in the attitude of academics who believe that they must only produce grammatically ‘mistake-​free’ texts to show to others. Understanding academic style therefore means grasping the discursive mindset behind the international academic discourse community and being willing to share one’s knowledge within a discursive framing that may be received and appreciated by said community. Two further issues remain unanswered and must be addressed, or at least considered, in future research. The first involves exploring scientific journals’ practice of justifying reviews and rejections based on language and stylistic –​rather than content-​related –​deficiencies. From a linguistic standpoint, this could surely yield insight on the –​perhaps questionable –​ logic underlying journal decisions, or on the negotiation between authors and editors that takes place when the former believes that his or her submission has been unjustly rejected on linguistic grounds. The main difficulty of this approach lies in the delicacy of the topic and the ‘personal’ and ‘confidential’ experience that accompanies the publishing process and

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that can have a great psychological impact on the individual academic. The second issue involves journals’ varying degrees of tolerance of stylistic divergences, according to their discipline. The –​admittedly limited –​comparison between economics and the humanities in this study has in fact already demonstrated that the kinds of and reasons for stylistic errors depend on the author’s word limit and perception of how much discursive freedom he or she has. Here, the errors were substantially motivated by the desire to adhere to standard conventions in economics, and by the need to present individual and original reflections in the humanities. Therefore, any future exploration of style guidelines and academic style will have to consider the linguistic contexts and expectations of the authors and communities within specific disciplines in deciding what constitutes ‘correct’ or ‘good’ English and how ‘flexible’ and ‘tolerant’ international journals in each field can and should be. Accomplishing this requires integrating the existing literature on academic language with specific studies on academic styles and errors in different academic disciplines. Such research could tackle this issue from a diachronic perspective, to verify the historical reasons and developments that could have led to the adoption of certain stylistic practices among native or non-​native academics, or from a synchronic perspective, to assess trends and developments across diverse disciplines and cultures to find common and characteristic errors and treatments in style that could be integrated into research or teaching. Finally, it is important to underline that the research that has been conducted in this study is hybrid, both in relation to the issue it has explored –​with its union of academics, language professionals and publishing institutions –​and its methodological approach. A combination of frameworks –​terminology, corpus stylistics and error analysis –​was implemented to obtain different kinds of input from different sources. Each method and research question led to the revelation of areas to be explored and issues to be addressed, but also to the alignment of misunderstood terms with their real purpose and the highlighting of promising findings and resources. However, there is still much to discover, and future research and knowledge exchange on academic style proofreading and adjacent fields of inquiry will have to continue employing new and improved multifaceted methodological approaches integrating the insights that can and will be

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provided by various categories of specialised scholars and professionals. Due to the novelty of the object of research, it will also have to make use of emerging tools and resources to share such knowledge and better enable lifelong learning. Although this book does not expect to be exhaustive, it will hopefully prove to be a thought-​provoking provider of promising ‘bridging’ hybrid methods and areas of research. From this starting point, academic style proofreading can become a field that promotes awareness and improvements in academic writing and editing, knowledge dissemination and exchange, and higher education teaching and learning for students, scholars and related language professionals.

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Index

academic blogs  73–​84, 85–​6, 206 academic english  1, 55, 59, 84–​5, 90, 94–​ 5, 99, 173–​4, 194, 202, 205–​9 academic style  2–​6, 55–​6, 62–​3, 69–​73, 84–​6, 88–​90, 92–​3, 97–​8, 100, 115–​8, 149, 198–​200, 201–​2, 204–​8, 210–​2 academic style proofreading 3–​5, 15, 69, 121–​3, 201–​2, 206, 209, 212–​ 3  see also academic style and proofreading ACASTYLE corpus 8, 13, 131–​4, 194, 197, 210  see also ECO subcorpus and HUM subcorpus addition of text 146, 149, 152–​64, 194–​5  see also areas of interest appropriateness and register 146, 149, 185–​94, 197  see also areas of interest areas of interest  145–​9, 194–​9 avoidance, errors of  126, 148, 155, 156, 162, 163, 174, 187, 197, 199 communication-​based errors  126, 148, 152, 160, 162, 163, 177, 180, 193, 195, 196, 197, 199 copyediting  31–​2, 43, 46–​56, 82–​3, 203 copy editing  30, 32 copyeditor, copy-​editor, copy editor  5–​6, 29–​37, 43, 48–​54, 58–​9, 95–​6 corpus stylistics  12, 104, 107–​8, 117, 120–​ 3, 126, 207, 211–​2 defamiliarisation  13, 114, 145, 199, 207 deixis  178, 199, 207

deletion of text 146, 149, 164–​73, 195–​6,  see also areas of interest developmental errors  126, 148, 173, 185, 191, 193, 195, 197, 199 EAL (English as an Additional Language),  75, 132, 204 ECO subcorpus 131–​2, 134–​7, 140–​5, 155–​60, 167–​71, 175–​80, 187–​90,  see also ACASTYLE corpus EAP (English for Academic Purposes),  1, 67, 87, 90, 105, 127, 206–​8, 210 economics  127–​9, 140–​2, 159, 177, 212 editorial style 36–​7, 48,  see also house style error  8, 9, 13, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 98, 110–​5, 121, 124–​6, 130, 146–​7, 148, 198–​9, 212 error analysis  9, 13, 121–​2, 124–​6, 143–​4, 146, 208 ERPP (English for Research Publication Purposes),  2, 55, 56, 67, 121, 204, 205, 206–​8, 210 ESPP (English for Scientific and Professional Purposes),  209, 210 foregrounding  177, 183–​4, 196, 199, 207 house style  36, 43, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 58, 68, 93 Humanities  75, 127–​30, 137, 138, 142–​3, 163, 166, 173, 193, 199, 212 HUM subcorpus 132, 137–​45, 160–​4, 171–​3, 180–​5, 190–​9  see also ACASTYLE corpus

236 Index induced errors  126, 148, 157, 160, 162, 163, 166, 168, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178, 185, 187, 189, 190, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199 intralingual error  9, 13, 126, 147–​8, 151

proofreading  2, 6, 16, 20, 37, 43–​4, 44–​ 54, 56–​7, 61–​2, 69–​70, 72, 82–​3, 198, 201–​3, 205–​6 reviser  23–​8, 43, 58, 111 revisor  22–​9, 37, 58

knowledge dissemination  17, 19, 71, 74, 79, 93, 202

overgeneralisation errors  126, 148, 156, 160, 172, 195, 196 overproduction, errors of  126, 148, 160, 166, 168, 192, 195

shifting and re-​positioning  146, 149, 173–​85, 196,  see also areas of interest simplification errors  126, 148, 156, 160, 162, 163, 186, 187, 189, 194, 195, 197 style  see academic style stylistics  2, 62, 84, 88–​9, 100, 101–​9, 111–​ 5, 117, 120–​1, 122–​3, 154, 191, 199, 206–​7, 209–​10

proofreader  4–​5, 37–​44, 45, 49–​53, 58–​ 9, 69, 72, 154

terminology card  11, 18, 20–​42, 54, 58, 203

mind style  66, 88, 91–​92, 100, 115–​6, 145, 147 mistake  4, 8, 112, 124, 145



CONTEMPORARY STUDIES IN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

237

Edited by PROFESSOR GRAEME DAVIS, School of Humanities, University of Buckingham. KARL A. BERNHARDT, Research Fellow in the Department of English, University of Buckingham, UK, and English Language Consultant with Trinity College, London. This series provides an outlet for academic monographs which offer a recent and original contribution to linguistics and which are within the descriptive tradition. While the monographs demonstrate their debt to contemporary linguistic thought, the series does not impose limitations in terms of methodology or genre, and does not support a particular linguistic school. Rather the series welcomes new and innovative research that contributes to furthering the understanding of the description of language. The topics of the monographs are scholarly and represent the cutting edge for their particular fields, but are also accessible to researchers outside the specific disciplines. Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics is based at the Department of English, University of Buckingham.

Vol. 1

Mark Garner: Language: An Ecological View. 260 pages, 2004. ISBN 3-03910-054-8 / US-ISBN 0-8204-6295-0

Vol. 2

T. Nyan: Meanings at the Text Level: A Co-Evolutionary Approach. 194 pages, 2004. ISBN 3-03910-250-8 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7179-8

238 Index Breffni O’Rourke and Lorna Carson (eds): Language Learner Autonomy:

Vol. 3

Policy, Curriculum, Classroom. 439 pages, 2010. ISBN 978-3-03911-980-6

Vol. 4

Dimitra Koutsantoni: Developing Academic Literacies: Understanding Disciplinary Communities’ Culture and Rhetoric. 302 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03910-575-5

Vol. 5

Emmanuelle Labeau: Beyond the Aspect Hypothesis: Tense-Aspect Development in Advanced L2 French. 259 pages, 2005. ISBN 3-03910-281-8 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7208-5

Vol. 6

Maria Stambolieva: Building Up Aspect. A Study of Aspect and Related Categories in Bulgarian, with Parallels in English and French. 243 pages, 2008. ISBN 978-3-03910-558-8

Vol. 7

Stavroula Varella: Language Contact and the Lexicon in the History of Cypriot Greek. 283 pages, 2006. ISBN 3-03910-526-4 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7531-9

Vol. 8

Alan J. E. Wolf: Subjectivity in a Second Language: Conveying the Expression of Self. 246 pages. 2006. ISBN 3-03910-518-3 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7524-6

Vol. 9

Bettina Braun: Production and Perception of Thematic Contrast in German. 280 pages, 2005. ISBN 3-03910-566-3 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7593-9

Vol. 10

Jean-Paul Kouega: A Dictionary of Cameroon English Usage. 202 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03911-027-8

Vol. 11

Sebastian M. Rasinger: Bengali-English in East London. A Study in Urban Multilingualism. 270 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03911-036-0

 Vol.12

Emmanuelle Labeau and Florence Myles (eds): The Advanced Learner Variety: The Case of French. 298 pages, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-072-8

239

Vol.13

Miyoko Kobayashi: Hitting the Mark: How Can Text Organisation and Response Format Affect Reading Test Performance? 322 pages, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-083-4

Vol.14

Dingfang Shu and Ken Turner (eds): Contrasting Meaning in Languages of the East and West. 634 pages, 2010. ISBN 978-3-03911-886-1

Vol.15

Ana Rojo: Step by Step: A Course in Contrastive Linguistics and Translation. 418 pages, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-133-6

Vol.16

Jinan Fedhil Al-Hajaj and Graeme Davis (eds): University of Basrah Studies in English. 304 pages, 2008. ISBN 978-3-03911-325-5

Vol.17

Paolo Coluzzi: Minority Language Planning and Micronationalism in Italy. 348 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03911-041-4

Vol.18

Iwan Wmffre: Breton Orthographies and Dialects: The Twentieth- Century Orthography War in Brittany. Vol 1. 499 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03911-364-4

Vol.19

Iwan Wmffre: Breton Orthographies and Dialects: The Twentieth- Century Orthography War in Brittany. Vol 2. 281 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-3-03911-365-1

Vol.20

Fanny Forsberg: Le langage préfabriqué: Formes, fonctions et fréquences en français parlé L2 et L1. 293 pages, 2008. ISBN 978-3-03911-369-9

240 Index Vol.21 Kathy Pitt: Sourcing the Self: Debating the Relations between Language and Consciousness. 220 pages, 2008. ISBN 978-3-03911-398-9

Vol.22

Peiling Xing: Chinese Learners and the Lexis Learning Rainbow. 273 pages, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-407-8

Vol.23

Yufang Qian: Discursive Constructions around Terrorism in the People’s Daily (China) and The Sun (UK) Before and After 9.11: A Corpus-based Contrastive Critical Discourse Analysis. 284 pages, 2010. ISBN 978-3-0343-0186-2

Vol.24

Ian Walkinshaw: Learning Politeness: Disagreement in a Second Language. 297 pages, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-527-3

Vol.25

Stephen Bax: Researching Intertextual Reading. 371 pages, 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-0769-7

Vol.26

Shahela Hamid: Language Use and Identity: The Sylheti Bangladeshis in Leeds. 225 pages, 2011. ISBN 978-3-03911-559-4

Vol.27

Magdalena Karolak: The Past Tense in Polish and French: A Semantic Approach to Translation. 217 pages, 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-0968-4

Vol.28

Iwan Wmffre: Dynamic Linguistics: Labov, Martinet, Jakobson and Other Precursors of the Dynamic Approach to Language Description. 615 pages, 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-1705-4

Vol.29

Razaul Karim Faquire: Modality and Its Learner Variety in Japanese. 237 pages, 2012. ISBN 978-3-0343-0103-9

 Vol.30

Francisca Suau-Jiménez and Barry Pennock-Speck (eds): Interdisciplinarity and Languages: Current Issues in Research, Teaching, Professional Applications and ICT. 234 pages, 2011. ISBN 978-3-0343-0283-8

241

Vol.31

Ahmad Al-Issa and Laila S. Dahan (eds): Global English and Arabic: Issues of Language, Culture, and Identity. 379 pages, 2011. ISBN 978-3-0343-0293-7

Vol.32

Xosé Rosales Sequeiros: Linguistic Meaning and Non-Truth-Conditionality. 266 pages, 2012. ISBN 978-3-0343-0705-5

Vol.33

Yu Hou: A Corpus-Based Study of Nominalization in Translations of Chinese Literary Prose: Three Versions of Dream of the Red Chamber. 230 pages. 2014. ISBN 978-3-0343-1815-0

Vol.34

Christopher Beedham, Warwick Danks and Ether Soselia (eds): Rules and Exceptions: Using Exceptions for Empirical Research in Theoretical Linguistics. 289 pages, 2014. ISBN 978-3-0343-0782-6

Vol.35

Bettina Beinhoff: Perceiving Identity through Accent: Attitudes towards Non-Native Speakers and their Accents in English. 292 pages, 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-0819-9

Vol.36

Tahir Wood: Elements of Hermeneutic Pragmatics: Agency and Interpretation. 219 pages, 2015. ISBN 978-3-0343-1883-9

Vol.37

Stephen Pax Leonard: Some Ethnolinguistic Notes on Polar Eskimo. 292 pages, 2015. ISBN 978-3-0343-1947-8

242 Index Vol.38 Chiara Semplicini: One Word, Two Genders: Categorization and Agreement in Dutch Double Gender Nouns. 409 pages, 2016. ISBN 978-3-0343-0927-1

Vol.39

Raffaella Antinucci and Maria Giovanna Petrillo (eds): Navigating Maritime Languages and Narratives: New Perspectives in English and French. 320 pages, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78707-387-6

Vol.40

Ali Almanna: Semantics for Translation Students: Arabic–English–Arabic. 226 pages, 2016. ISBN 978-1-906165-58-1

Vol.41

Pablo Kirtchuk: A Unified and Integrative Theory of Language. 262 pages, 2016. ISBN 978-3-0343-2250-8

Vol.42

Prafulla Basumatary: Verbal Semantics in a Tibeto-Burman Language: The Bodo Verb. 290 pages, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78707-339-5

Vol.43

Claudio Grimaldi: Discours et terminologie dans la presse scientifique française (1699–1740). 234 pages, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78707-925-0

Vol.44

Wojciech Wachowski: Towards a Better Understanding of Metonymy. 196 pages, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78874-345-7

Vol.45

Martin Travers: The Writing of Aletheia: Martin Heidegger. In Language 252 pages, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78874-671-7

Vol.46

Rod E. Case, Gwendolyn M. Williams and Peter Cobin: Cognitive Linguistic Explorations of Writing in the Classroom. 182 pages, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78707-344-9

Vol.47

Sender Dovchin (ed.): Digital Communication, Linguistic Diversity and Education. 224 pages, 2020. ISBN 978-1-78997-454-6

 Vol.48

Mostafa Rechad: Syntaxe des pronoms clitiques en arabe : étude comparative. 288 pages, 2020. ISBN 978-1-80079-017-9

243

Vol.49

Zhaohong Wu: Methodological Considerations in Morphological Processing Research. 272 pages, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80079-634-8

Vol.50

Beverliey Braune: Historical Lacunae and Poetic Space: A Creative Approach to Old Norse Poetry and Poetics. 626 pages, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80079-544-0

Vol.51

Samirah Aljohani: How adjectival can a participle be? Subsective Gradience in English 2nd Participles. 438 pages, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80079-524-2

Vol.52

Michelle Leese: Form, Meaning and Aspect in the German Impersonal Passive. 324 pages, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80079-849-6

Vol.53

Hang Joanna Zou: Interactions in New Academic Discourses: Genre and Discipline. 194 pages, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80079-348-4

Vol.54

Roxanne Barbara Doerr: Academic Style Proofreading: An Introduction. 258 pages, 2023. ISBN 978-1-80079-730-7

244 Index