Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures [1 ed.] 9780857247209, 9780857247193

Citation preview

VOICES, IDENTITIES, NEGOTIATIONS, AND CONFLICTS: WRITING ACADEMIC ENGLISH ACROSS CULTURES

STUDIES IN WRITING Series Editor: Gert Rijlaarsdam Recent titles in this series: VAN WAES, LEIJTEN AND NEUWIRTH Writing and Digital Media SULLIVAN AND LINDGREN Computer Key-Stroke Logging and Writing HIDI AND BOSCOLO Writing and Motivation TORRANCE Writing and Cognition ALAMARGOT, TERRIER AND CELLIER Written Documents in the Workplace Related journals: Learning and Instruction Educational Research Review Assessing Writing Computers and Composition Journal of Second Language Writing

VOICES, IDENTITIES, NEGOTIATIONS, AND CONFLICTS: WRITING ACADEMIC ENGLISH ACROSS CULTURES

EDITED BY

PHAN LE HA Monash University, Australia

BRADLEY BAURAIN University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA

United Kingdom  North America  Japan India  Malaysia  China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2011 Copyright r 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-85724-719-3 ISSN: 1572-6304 (Series)

Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Howard House, Environmental Management System has been certified by ISOQAR to ISO 14001:2004 standards Awarded in recognition of Emerald’s production department’s adherence to quality systems and processes when preparing scholarly journals for print

Contents

Notes on Contributors

vii

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English: An Introduction Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

xi

PART I: PEDAGOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL JOURNEYS 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self: The Ethics of Teaching Creative Writing in EFL Rosemary Viete

3

The Writing and Culture Nexus: Writers’ Comparisons of Vietnamese and English Academic Writing Phan Le Ha

23

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English: Toward an Understanding of L2 Academic Writing Meihui Wang

41

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations: Critical Thinking in Academic Writing Ly Thi Tran

59

Staff Perceptions about the Role of Writing in Developing Critical Thinking in Business Students Duong Bich Hang

75

‘‘I Pain, I Gain’’: Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course Paul McPherron

99

vi

Contents PART II: MORAL AND POLITICAL EXPLORATIONS

7.

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism Bradley Baurain

123

8.

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

139

9.

Plagiarism, Intertextuality and the Politics of Knowledge, Identity and Textual Ownership in Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing Celia Thompson

10.

157

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations: Differentiating Realities from Fantasies Jayakaran Mukundan

179

Walking the Tightrope: An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes Matthew Piscioneri

195

Afterword Crossing Cultures in an Unequal Global Order: Voicing and Agency in Academic Writing in English T. Ruanni F. Tupas

213

List of Volumes

221

11.

Notes on Contributors

Bradley Baurain Bradley Baurain is currently a PhD education student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. He has taught ESOL and teacher education courses for more than 15 years in China, the United States, and Vietnam. He is coeditor of Multilevel and Diverse Classrooms, a volume in TESOL’s Classroom Practice series. His research interests include moral, spiritual, and religious beliefs in teacher identity and practice; teacher training, education, and development; and imaginative literature in language teaching and learning. [email protected] Celia Thompson Celia Thompson is a lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She teaches English for academic purposes and intercultural communication at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Celia has published widely on plagiarism, intertextuality, and the politics of textual ownership in university student academic writing. She is currently a coinvestigator of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded project that is investigating the use of Web 2.0 authoring tools for assessment in higher education. Celia is a member of the British Association of Applied Linguistics and their Special Interest Group in Intercultural Communication and a reviewer for several international teaching and learning scholarly journals. Duong Bich Hang Duong Bich Hang has been working as a lecturer of English at Hanoi Foreign Trade University, Vietnam, for the past 10 years. Her publications include ‘‘Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking: Do Students Lack or Are They Not Taught?’’ in Vietnamese Education and Time, Issue 40 (Sunday), 02/10/2005; ‘‘English as an International Language and Vietnamese Business Students,’’ Teachers Edition, Issue 18, 2005; and ‘‘A Review of Bachelor Business English Curriculum at FTU,’’ External Economic Review, No. 35, 2007, Labor Publishing House, Hanoi. She has also presented papers at conferences. A. Jane Brooks Jane Brooks is currently In-sessional English Language Support Service Co-ordinator at the University of St Andrews, UK. She has been an EAP practitioner for more than 25 years. Her research interests include intercultural education and

viii

Notes on Contributors

technology-enhanced language learning. She has contributed to the Garnet course book series, Transferable Academic Skills Kit. At the time the data were collected for her chapter, she was a tutorial fellow at the University of Sussex, UK. Jayakaran Mukundan Jayakaran Mukundan teaches at the Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia. His main research areas are in the teaching of writing and English language teaching materials. He is visiting fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, and a director of the Extensive Reading Foundation Board. Ly Thi Tran Ly Thi Tran is a lecturer and an ARC research fellow in the School of Education at RMIT University, Australia. Her research focuses on international students’ needs, learning practices, institutional responses, and cross-cultural pedagogies. Ly has a number of refereed publications and awards for her research on international students’ learning experiences. She is currently working on an ARC-funded project on the association between international students’ purposes for undertaking their courses, their learning practices, and institutional responses in the Australian vocational education and training sector. Matthew Piscioneri Matthew Piscioneri lectures in the Arts Academic Language and Learning Unit at Monash University, Australia. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy in 2004 from the University of Queensland, Australia, where his dissertation developed a critical reading of Jurgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action. His research examines the internationalization of universities, ethical issues in student care, and the delivery of teaching and learning resources at university and tertiary reading requirements. In a more philosophical vein, he is also interested in the critique of the ethical bases for globalizing democracy. Matthew recently has been part of a major ALTC-funded project evaluating student preferences for modes of teaching and learning resource delivery (www.teachanddelivery.net). Meihui Wang Meihui Wang is from China and currently a PhD student in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. She is interested in the teaching and learning of ESL writing. Her master’s thesis explored Chinese students’ academic writing experiences. Her current project focuses on studying the English writing experiences of diverse groups of ESL students who specialize in different majors or have different language proficiency levels. Paul McPherron Paul McPherron is an assistant professor of linguistics and TESOL at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he teaches courses in TESOL methods and materials, cross-cultural communication, and language assessment. He has extensive experience teaching English at universities and secondary schools in China, Romania, and the United States. In addition to interests in writing pedagogy and

Notes on Contributors

ix

cross-cultural exchanges in the classroom, his research interests include communicative language teaching reforms, teacher and learner identity processes, and the use of digital stories in the English classroom. He is currently working on several classroom research projects with teachers and learners of English in China. Phan Le Ha Phan Le Ha is a senior lecturer (culture and pedagogy) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia, and holds honorary lecturing positions at universities in Vietnam. Her teaching and research interests include English as an international language, identity, TESOL, pedagogy, writing, and international education. Her recent book Teaching English as an International Language: Identity, Resistance and Negotiation (Multilingual Matters, 2008) examines how Westerntrained English language teachers see themselves as professionals and individuals in relation to their work practices and reveals tensions, compromises, negotiations, and resistance in their enactment of different roles and selves, especially when they are exposed to values often associated with the English-speaking West. She is also coeditor of Multilevel and Diverse Classrooms (TESOL, 2010) and has published in international refereed journals including Journal of Multicultural Discourses; Journal of Language, Culture and Curriculum; ELT Journal; Asia Pacific Journal of Education; Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication; and Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Qing Gu Qing Gu is a lecturer in the School of Education, University of Nottingham, UK. She is a member of the executive committee of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE), a member of the Compare editorial board, and review editor of the International Journal of Educational Development. Her research interests are teacher professional development, school leadership and improvement, and intercultural learning. She is author of Teacher Development: Knowledge and Context (Continuum, 2007) and coauthor of Teachers Matter (Open University Press, 2007), a forthcoming book entitled New Lives of Teachers (Routledge), and an original paper on mixed-methods research published in Educational Researcher in 2008. She was guest editor for a special issue of Language and Intercultural Communication on ‘‘The Role of Culture in English as an International Language’’ (2009). Rosemary Viete Rosemary Viete has taught learners of all ages to use English creatively and productively as an additional language of communication and education. She taught English in partial immersion and full immersion programs at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in Venezuela for 12 years and has supported students in their development of academic literacy in English at an Australian university for over 20 years. Her research interests lie in the fields of language testing (particularly its ethical conduct), the ethics of teaching and learning interactions in the field of academic literacy, and of international education with a particular focus on international students. She enjoys writing poetry for student readers. Throughout her career, she has learnt far more from her students than they from her.

x

Notes on Contributors

T. Ruanni F. Tupas T. Ruanni F. Tupas is senior lecturer, Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore; the 2009 Andrew Gonzalez Distinguished Professorial Chair Holder in Linguistics and Language Education (Linguistic Society of the Philippines); 2008 National Book Award Finalist for the edited volume, (Re)making Society: The Politics of Language, Discourse and Identity in the Philippines (University of the Philippines Press, 2007); and Project Director (with KC Lee), ‘‘Capability-Building of English Language Curriculum Developers for Professional Communication for University Faculty in ASEAN Universities,’’ a S$458,344 grant from Temasek Foundation Singapore (2009–2012). His forthcoming publications include invited papers on language and development in the Philippines (AILA Review); language, class, and ethnicity in Singapore (English Language in Education and Societies across Greater China, Multilingual Matters); and the politics of norms in ELT (The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes).

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English: An Introduction Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

I eat writing, walk writing, rest writing, and sleep writing. I write writing, compose writing, and craft writing. I do not do the same things. I conceptualise writing, think writing, and communicate writing. I cross borders writing, fly writing, and teach writing. I do different things. I write English, think English, and create English. Yet, there is more than one English I speak But why can I only write in one? I write my tongue(s), think my tongues(s), and create the most. English and my tongue(s), I enrich both. Crossing cultures, crossing borders, surpassing hopes I make my writing journey foremost! – Phan Le Ha –

Overview To begin, we would like to make it clear that we use the terms ESL, EFL, EIL, and EAL more or less interchangeably, as in many ways these terms and associated practices and pedagogies are overlapping. In A Geopolitics of Academic Writing, Canagarajah (2002a) documents in devastating terms the hegemonic nature of the academic writing discipline and subculture. Western publishing engines effectively exclude — for both material and discursive reasons — the vast majority of academics in the developing world, ghettoizing them in the supposedly global process of knowledge construction. This is because knowledge and discourse, and evaluations of others’ knowledge and discourse, are ideologically influenced within communities that largely serve their own interests (see also Braine, 2005, 2010). At the same time, the field of contrastive rhetoric has been growing (Connor, 1996; Leki, 1991; Silva, 2007). Writing and discourse communities have become objects of study in ways that vary from condescending stereotyping to genuine attempts to understand to utilitarian advice on ‘‘changing the Other.’’ Published work in this area ranges from Kaplan’s (1966) often reproduced line drawings of

xii

Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

cultural thought patterns to Hofstede’s (1986, 1998) workplace-based empirical research into cultural characteristics, to more recent cross-cultural psychological investigations (Kwang, 2001; Nisbett, 2004), to more layered attempts to investigate culture-based writing differences (Li, 1996), to attempts by Western academics to define and interpret their overseas sabbaticals (Matalene, 1985), and to the experiences of international students in English-speaking universities struggling to master new writing conventions while pondering issues of language and identity (Connor, 1999; Kubota, 2003; Li, 1999; Matsuda, 2003; Shen, 1989). Contrastive rhetoric often simply offers insights and advice for adaptation. Even critical contrastive rhetoric (Kubota & Lehner, 2004) tends to focus on relatively passive activities such as recognizing problems and affirming personal identities. Meanwhile, ‘‘business as usual’’ continues for Western publishers, and the pressures to publish in English continue to mount (Curry & Lillis, 2004, 2006; Lillis & Curry, 2010). Whatever insights contrastive rhetoric may or may not have to offer, the hegemony described by Canagarajah (1999, 2002a, 2002b) and others (Holliday, 2005; Pennycook, 1994, 1998; Phillipson, 1992) remains largely intact at a systemic level. Non-Western academics are admitted to the sacred halls of international publishing only if they learn to play by Western rules. This de facto imposition of Western values in English writing should be evaluated as a colonizing force (McKay, 2004). Such a judgment can be additionally supported by examining current discussions of complex ethical issues such as plagiarism (Leask, 2006; Liu, 2005; Phan Le Ha, 2006; Scollon, 1995; Sowden, 2005a, 2005b). Nonetheless, relatively uncritical how-to manuals and textbooks for ESL/EFL and academic English writing are legion, while volumes demonstrating an awareness of these issues are few (e.g., Casanave, 2002; Casanave & Vandrick, 2003; Hinkel, 1999, 2002; Hyland, 2003; Kroll, 2003). This volume aims to add to the burgeoning literature in this area by bringing together the voices of both young and wellestablished teachers and scholars from a variety of cultures and contexts, who speak powerfully from their insider perspectives. Moreover, this volume further treats and consolidates perspectives on the process of knowledge construction addressed in Matsuda and Silva (2005), who deal with the process of knowledge construction as specifically related to methodological issues adopted in second language writing research. In particular, this volume aims to provide insights into the process of knowledge construction in EFL writing — from classrooms to research sites, from the dilemmas and risks NNEST student writers experience in the pursuit of true agency to the confusions and conflicts academics experience in their own practices of teaching writing (Lee, 2010). Knowledge construction is discussed in this volume from individualist, collectivist, cross-cultural, methodological, pedagogical, educational, sociocultural, and political perspectives. Drawing primarily from the field of TESOL — as a particularly revealing crossroads of modern discursive phenomena — Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures features contributors who employ a variety of perspectives and methodologies to reexamine both the skill or discipline of writing and academics’ experiences within the discipline. Chapters explore education from macro- to micro-level perspectives, that is, from sociocultural

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English

xiii

influences to specific classroom contexts. By sifting, problematizing, interrogating, and challenging current practice and prevailing writing and publishing subcultures, the present volume intends to break new ground and open up fresh avenues for exploration, reflection, and knowledge construction. The book’s scope is thus necessarily wide, and includes rhetorical forms and conventions, issues of identity and voice, sociocultural issues, practical classroom perspectives, and moral or ethical questioning. In summary, this volume goes beyond recognizing problems and affirming personal identities in English writing. Covering both ESL and EFL contexts, it includes a spectrum of cross-cultural issues at stake in writing, focusing especially on the lack of literature from EFL/EIL settings. In addition, it attempts to respond to the concerns raised by Canagarajah (2002a) about the hegemonic nature of academic writing disciplines, subcultures, and publishing, by bringing together the voices of a variety of teachers and scholars whose work deals with issues that have not always been widely discussed in the field. Some chapter contributors may be relatively unknown to Western scholars, perhaps because they do not know the rules of the ‘‘publishing game’’ or perhaps because they consider publishing in the West to be like ‘‘entering a sacred hall.’’ Nonetheless, they have many years of teaching and research experience and their work deserves to be more widely known. This book also features a diverse array of methodologies and perspectives that sift, problematize, interrogate, and challenge current practice and prevailing writing and publishing subcultures. In a spirit of openness, this volume wishes to break new ground and open up fresh avenues for exploration, reflection, knowledge construction, and evolving voices. It is diverse in terms of topics, contributors, methodologies, and epistemologies. What we as the co-editors see as the main unifying factor is the need to broaden conceptions of academic writing in English. These concerns permeate the chapters collected in this volume. Contributions have been grouped under two main headings: Pedagogical and Psychological Journeys and Moral and Political Explorations. These headings signify permeable boundaries or perhaps not so much boundaries as crossing places. Given the scope of the volume and acknowledging that the various chapters interrelate, debate, and circle back on one another, it nonetheless seemed best to us to employ these headings so as to more clearly present the nature of the ‘‘conversation.’’

Pedagogical and Psychological Journeys Writing academic English brings to the fore issues of identity and voice, as it involves processes of negotiation, adaptation, appropriation, and resistance that can occur during the acts of conceptualization, drafting, and writing. Such writing also signifies stages of dilemma and ambivalence that can result in conflicts, which are often made sense of by notions such as intertextuality (Chandrasoma, Thompson, & Pennycook, 2004); hybridity and heteroglossia or multivoicedness (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986); and Third Space (Kramsch, 1993; Pennycook, 2001; Phan Le Ha, 2009, p. 136).

xiv

Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

Section 1 deals with the notions of voice and writer identity and associated negotiations and conflicts in writing, particularly in academic discourse communities. Within an academic discourse community, writers need to be ‘‘people like us [who] use language, think, value, and talk in these ways, with these objects at these times and in these places’’ (Gee, 1992, p. 123). According to Ivanicˇ (1997, p. 82), Academic discourse communities are constituted by a range of values, assumptions and practices. Individuals have to negotiate an identity within the range of possibilities for selfhood which are supported or at least tolerated by a community and inscribed in that community’s communicative practices. Writing in academic discourse communities brings to the fore issues of writer identity and voice, as while ‘‘attempting to establish their identity within such communities, [writers bring with them] complex identities from their social life outside the academic community’’ (Ivanicˇ, 1997, p. 82), and in many cases their other identities and voices established in other academic communities in which they are also members (Hirvela & Belcher, 2001). Every act of writing ‘‘conveys a representation of the self of the writer [and] in this sense, ‘voice’ is not an optional extra y’’ (Ivanicˇ & Camps, 2001, p. 3). Writing reflects writer identity and necessitates self as writer to relocate (Kamler, 2001) and create meaningful space. Defining ‘‘voice’’ seems to be a mission impossible. As Atkinson (2001, p. 110) notes, ‘‘voice is devilishly difficult to define, so any attempt to do so is both risky and commendable.’’ Scholars approach voice from various directions, ranging from voice being associated with the values of individualism (Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999), voice as self-representation (Ivanicˇ & Camps, 2001), to voice as being both personal and social (Prior, 1998, 2001). We are therefore not trying to give a ‘‘definition’’ of voice; instead, we participate in the ‘‘voice’’ discussions ( Phan Le Ha, 2005). The notion of ‘‘voice,’’ although controversial and ‘‘debatable’’ (McPherron, 2005, p. 10) due to ‘‘lacking definition or only defined by the societal context (Ramanathan & Kaplan, 1996) and not an indicator of strong writing (Helms-Park & Stapleton, 2003)’’ (cited in McPherron, 2005, p. 10), remains a useful term, especially in understanding ESL/EFL writing where issues of power are involved. This volume, while acknowledging the ‘‘debatable’’ nature of ‘‘voice,’’ extends the notion of voice as writer identity and self-representation offered by Ivanicˇ and Camps (2001) who see voice as an ‘‘inherent feature of all writing’’ and differentiate their view from voice as ‘‘having something to say,’’ which they do not adopt. Prior’s (2001) view on voice also informs our understanding of voice. Not seeing voice as being represented expressively either as ‘‘personal and individualistic or socially as a discourse system,’’ Prior (2001, p. 55) proposes an alternative understanding of voice that crosses over these two arenas. Developing Bakhtin and other sociohistoric perspectives on discourse, he sees voice as ‘‘simultaneously personal and social’’ (p. 55). Specifically, he identifies three key ways that shape his argument on voice. These are ‘‘voice as a typification linked to social identities; voice as the reenvoicing of others’ words in texts (oral and written) through processes of repetition and

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English

xv

presupposition; and finally voice as it is linked to the situated production of persons and social formations’’ (p. 55). However, instead of placing an emphasis on just the ‘‘becoming’’ nature of voice suggested by Prior (2001), we argue for the important role of ‘‘being’’ in ‘‘voice’’ as well. The ‘‘being’’ does not suggest a fixed stage or status of voice; rather it signifies the sense of continuity when writers search for a voice that is both personal and socially situated and interweave their multiple coexisting discourses in ways that inherently assert their sense of belonging and symbolize their wholeness as writers. What also seems important here are the ways in which writing is generative, dynamic and evolving, and ‘‘always interdiscursive, and reverberates for both writer and readers with multiple voices’’ (Viete & Phan Le Ha, 2007, p. 42). Section 1 consists of six chapters. Considerations range from how academics and researchers conceptualize EFL/EIL writers’ positionings to students’ understanding of their critical thinking in essay writing; to academics’ perceptions of how to develop critical thinking through academic writing; to how student writers talk about their writing in light of their prior knowledge and valued practices shaped by their culture, exposure, and educational experiences; and to struggles to find a ‘‘legitimate,’’ aware, and ‘‘authenticated’’ voice in English writing. In chapter 1, Rosemary Viete argues for the ethics of teaching creative writing in EFL and how it may offer ways to craft new possibilities for self. She discusses how being creative in language through creative writing can help us learn to develop our communication in ways that are ethical. Creativity does not belong to just native speakers, and as Viete demonstrates, creative writing in EFL teaching does offer space for creative voice to be nurtured and blossom. Taking into account the reality of English as an International Language (EIL), Viete asks strongly for genuine and ethical responsibility to be taken in understanding texts that are not created in the same way as their own. Throughout her chapter, Viete exemplifies how employing creative writing in academic writing might serve as a basis on which to argue against the pressure of having to follow ‘‘alien’’ norms which stifle creativity. In chapter 2, documenting the writing experiences of Vietnamese postgraduate students in Australian universities, Phan Le Ha demonstrates the dynamic and intertwined relationship between culture and writing while acknowledging that culture is not the only factor and should never be seen as the dominant element in making sense of one’s writing. She also argues that recognizing the influence of culture on students’ writing does not equal making stereotypes about how students coming from a culture write, and neither does this qualify commonly held assumptions of ‘‘inferior’’ Asian writing that lacks critical thinking and analytical ability as has often been claimed in Western academia (Samuelowicz, 1987). In connecting writing to learning how to live on the borders among cultures and investigating writing through the lenses of new literacy theories (Green, 1988, 1999, 2002), Meihui Wang, in chapter 3, showcases the kinds of negotiations Chinese postgraduate student writers experience in the process of learning how to write academic English, making meaning and asserting dynamic and multiple identities. By exploring the writing journeys of these ESL/EFL writers, Phan Le Ha and Meihui Wang both make it clear that these students’ work cannot be simply understood by

xvi

Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

focusing on constructed binary oppositions between Western and Oriental ways of writing, yet adopting a creative approach to the culture-writing relationship could offer a valuable means to appreciate students’ writing too. Both investigating the concept of critical thinking, Ly Thi Tran in chapter 4 and Duong Bich Hang in chapter 5 sophisticatedly unpack the ‘‘myth’’ of what critical thinking actually is. While Ly Thi Tran discusses how international student writers in Australia define, appropriate, and practice critical thinking in their writing, Duong Bich Hang provocatively documents the perceptions of critical thinking held by academics working in the area of economics and business in an Australian university and how students’ critical thinking skills could be developed through written tasks set by academics. Moving away from Australia, Paul McPherron in chapter 6 takes us to his writing class in China. Based at a university in the People’s Republic of China, he examines the use of portfolio assessment and student self-assessment writing in an academic writing class. Arguing that few studies have previously examined student reflection essays in EFL, particularly in East Asian university settings, McPherron offers perspectives from Chinese university students and a practicing EFL teacher in relation to what types of comments students include in writing reflection statements and what these comments reveal about English language learning in a Chinese university context. In addition to offering information on how portfolio assessments are used in EFL classrooms, the chapter presents extended segments of student writing reflections in order to illustrate the cross-cultural dialogues and local appropriations of English language teaching. The chapter also reveals the writing teacher’s internal negotiations of what role he should play in teaching his students when they project him to be their moral guide, role model, and yet confidential friend. These negotiations of local and global cultures embedded in this academic writing course, as demonstrated by McPherron, are central to a dynamic understanding of writing pedagogy.

Moral and Political Explorations Presented in this section are five chapters that respond to moral and political concerns in academic writing and varied types of negotiations and conflicts within and beyond academic writing that occur in both the theory and the practice of ESL/ EFL writing situations. To problematize, explore, and engage in current debates on plagiarism, Bradley Baurain (chapter 7), Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks (chapter 8), and Celia Thompson (chapter 9) offer fresh discussions and analyses. Baurain critically evaluates the current discourse on plagiarism, interrogating it from several angles. The difficulty of taking a meaningful moral stance on this issue, however, does not release us from doing so, and therefore, he offers several suggestions built around the moral quality of trust. Exemplifying Baurain’s stance and drawing on Chinese students’ writing experiences in UK universities, Gu and Brooks propose to understand plagiarism

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English

xvii

within specific academic contexts and conventions. The often arrogant accusation of plagiarism should not be made in ignorance of what is going on behind and beyond the scenes. By themselves, teaching students ‘‘universal’’ notions of academic honesty and referencing and citations skills are inadequate responses. Going a step further, Celia Thompson locates her arguments in the context of what most universities have done to prevent plagiarism. While opposing typical academic policies concerning plagiarism, she urges a dialogic approach in recognition of factors of writer identity and the politics of textual ownership that have confused or been imposed on students. Such an approach offers spaces and opportunities for students and their lecturers to truly negotiate textual ownership and authority. Jayakaran Mukundan (chapter 10) demonstrates the mismatch between writing approaches adopted from the English-speaking West and real needs and learning preferences in Asian contexts. In particular, Mukundan argues that although the process writing approach advocated in the ‘‘developed’’ world has been proved effective in first language instruction and in some preparatory programs for overseas students, a complete adoption of the process writing model in EFL settings appears to be inappropriate to a great extent. Contextual realities, consequently, challenge these ‘‘fantasies’’ (his word) and Mukundan explains and discusses why. While all the previous chapters, from different angles and perspectives, challenge the dominance, hegemony, and power underlying the taken-for-granted superiority and discriminatory nature of ‘‘Western’’ knowledge, norms, and practices arguing for alternative channels to understand the complexity, multilayeredness, and valueladen act of writing, Matthew Piscioneri (chapter 11) alerts us to the practicality of knowing ‘‘the rules of the game’’ and being well-informed about English-speaking universities’ discourses. Informed by his rich experience working closely with international students in the field of social sciences and humanities and being critical of critical pedagogy and critical English for Academic Purposes (EAP), he quite convincingly argues for the need to equip international students and those who do not do their undergraduate studies in English-speaking countries with knowledge necessary for their effective participation in universities in these countries. His view suggests that it is more beneficial for these students to be well introduced to Western knowledge and philosophies than to reject or ignore them. He thus developed an EAP program to familiarize his students with these ideas and philosophies while setting tasks that allowed students to critique, challenge, and appropriate what they had learnt in the program. Very clearly, Piscioneri shows his stance toward the ‘‘limits’’ of critical pedagogy and critical EAP, asking for a more urgent need and practical exercise that works for students’ interest, at least from where he stands in relation to the academic writing debate and as someone who deals with students’ questions all the time about issues such as ‘‘what is feminism’’ and ‘‘who is Habermas,’’ for example. Introductions, like intentions, are relatively easy. We hope we have whetted your appetite for the essays that follow. We are also thankful that we need not attempt to tie everything together at the end — a task that has been ably and kindly undertaken in the afterword by T. Ruanni F. Tupas. But of course, the afterword will not be the last word, for above all, what we hope is that the food for thought provided here will

xviii

Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

spur further thinking and research and open up hitherto unseen avenues for exploration and action. Our last words carry our deepest gratitude to all the contributors and those who have supported this editing journey. Having the opportunity to coedit this volume, we have also experienced the kinds of negotiations, conflicts, and eye-opening moments when we have also felt the need to respond ethically, responsibly, constructively, and collegially to different ways of writing, various ways of constructing knowledge, and a wide range of writing stories that are told in different ‘‘languages’’ and norms that are not always readily and ‘‘naturally’’ shared by us. We have also been entertained and encouraged by the passion and love for writing evident in every chapter. Importantly, we have learnt to negotiate difference and facilitate diversity and become more aware of the intersection of English and the globalization of academic writing in different settings and contexts. We would like to leave you with a poem that Rosemary Viete (Viete & Phan Le Ha, 2007) has crafted to illustrate ESL/EFL writers’ desire for voice and identity, their determination and struggles to meaningfully negotiate dilemmas emerging in their writing journeys, and their sophisticated and creative cross-border/cross-culture writing. Word Quilt No artifice is this It is a true design from here and there, within without, woven (never joined by stitches) till the patches and their borders till the voices and their histories dance joyously together

References Atkinson, D. (2001). Reflections and refractions on the JSLW special issue on voice. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1–2), 107–124, doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(01)00035-2. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In: M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays (pp. 259–434). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In: C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds), Speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Braine, G. (2005). The challenge of academic publishing: A Hong Kong perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 707–716.

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English

xix

Braine, G. (2010). Nonnative speaker English teachers: Research, pedagogy, and professional growth. New York: Routledge. Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002a). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002b). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Casanave, C. P. (2002). Writing games: Multicultural case studies of academic literacy practices in higher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Casanave, C. P., & Vandrick, S. (Eds). (2003). Writing for scholarly publication: Behind the scenes in language education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Chandrasoma, R., Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2004). Beyond plagiarism: Transgressive and non-transgressive intertextuality. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 3, 171–193. Connor, U. N. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connor, U. N. (1999). Learning to write academic prose in a second language: A literacy autobiography. In: G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native educators in English language teaching (pp. 29–42). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. (2004). Multilingual scholars and the imperative to publish in English: Negotiating interests, demands, and rewards. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 663–688. Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. (2006). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: Interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English-medium texts. Written Communication, 23, 3–35. Gee, J. P. (1992). The social mind: Language, ideology and social practice. New York: Bergin and Garvey. Green, B. (1988). Subject-specific literacy and school learning: A focus on writing. Australian Journal of Education, 32, 156–179. Green, B. (1999). The new literacy challenge? Literacy Learning: Secondary Thoughts, 7, 36–46. Green, B. (2002). A literacy project of our own? English in Australia, 134, 25–32. Hinkel, E. (Ed.) (1999). Culture in second language teaching and learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hinkel, E. (2002). Second language writers’ text: Linguistic and rhetorical features. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hirvela, A., & Belcher, D. (2001). Coming back to voice: The multiple voices and identities of mature multilingual writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 83–106. Hofstede, G. (1986). Cultural differences in teaching and learning. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, 301–320. Hofstede, G. (1998). A case for comparing apples with oranges: International differences in values. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 39, 16–31. Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ivanicˇ, R. (1997). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Ivanicˇ, R., & Camps, D. (2001). I am how I sound: Voice as self-representation in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 3–33.

xx

Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain

Kamler, B. (2001). Relocating the personal. A critical writing pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education. Language Learning, 16, 1–20. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kroll, B. (Ed.) (2003). Exploring the dynamics of second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kubota, R. (2003). Striving for original voice in publication? A critical reflection. In: C. P. Casanave & S. Vandrick (Eds), Writing for scholarly publication: Behind the scenes in language education (pp. 61–69). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kubota, R., & Lehner, A. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 7–27. Kwang, N. A. (2001). Why Asians are less creative than Westerners. Singapore: Prentice Hall. Leask, B. (2006). Plagiarism, cultural diversity and metaphor — implications for academic staff development. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31, 183–199. Lee, I. (2010). Writing teacher education and teacher learning: Testimonies of four EFL teachers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 19, 143–157. Leki, I. (1991). Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing pedagogies. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 123–143. Li, X. (1996). ‘‘Good writing’’ in cross-cultural context. Albany: State University of New York Press. Li, X. (1999). Writing from the vantage point of an outsider/insider. In: G. Braine (Ed.), Nonnative educators in English language teaching (pp. 43–56). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lillis, T., & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. New York: Routledge. Liu, D. (2005). Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit? ELT Journal, 59, 234–241. Matalene, C. (1985). Contrastive rhetoric: An American writing teacher in China. College English, 47, 789–808. Matsuda, P. K. (2003). Coming to voice: Publishing as a graduate student. In: C. P. Casanave & S. Vandrick (Eds), Writing for scholarly publication: Behind the scenes in language education (pp. 39–51). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Matsuda, P. K., & Silva, T. (Eds). (2005). Second language writing research: Perspectives on the process of knowledge construction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. McKay, S. (2004). Teaching English as an international language: The role of culture in Asian contexts. Journal of Asia TEFL, 1, 1–22. McPherron, P. (2005). Assumptions in assessment: The role of the teacher in evaluating ESL students. CATESOL Journal, 17, 1–17. Nisbett, R. (2004). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently y and why. Detroit: Free Press. Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. Longman: London. Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the discourses of colonialism. London: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Problematizing and Enriching Writing Academic English

xxi

Phan Le Ha (2005). Towards a critical notion of appropriation of English as an international language. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3), 30–42, http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/September_05_ plh.php Phan Le Ha (2006). Plagiarism and overseas students: Stereotypes again? ELT Journal, 60, 76–78. Phan Le Ha (2009). Strategic, passionate but academic: Am I allowed in my writing? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8, 134–146. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Prior, P. (1998). Writing disciplinary: A sociohistoric account of literate activity in the academy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Prior, P. (2001). Voices in text, mind, and society: Sociohistoric accounts of discourse acquisition and use. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 55–81. Ramanathan, V., & Atkinson, D. (1999). Individualism, academic writing and ESL writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 45–75. Samuelowicz, K. (1987). Learning problems of overseas students: Two sides of a story. Higher Education Research and Development, 6, 121–132. Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and ideology: Identity in intercultural discourse. Language in Society, 24, 1–28. Shen, F. (1989). The classroom and the wider culture: Identity as a key to learning English composition. College Composition and Communication, 40, 459–466. Silva, T. (2007). A genealogy of second language writing studies, March 23. Presentation at 41st Annual TESOL Convention, Seattle, WA. Sowden, C. (2005a). Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad. ELT Journal, 59, 226–233. Sowden, C. (2005b). Reply to Dilin Liu. ELT Journal, 59, 242–243. Viete, R., & Ha, P. L. (2007). The growth of voice: Expanding possibilities for representing self in research writing. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6(2), 39–57.

PART I PEDAGOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL JOURNEYS

Chapter 1

Crafting New Possibilities for Self: The Ethics of Teaching Creative Writing in EFL Rosemary Viete

We all play with language until we learn not to. Playing with words helps us shape who we are and who we want to be. We experiment with the words of others until we make these our own in our own particular way and are thus interconnected in this chain of meaning, as Bakhtin (1986) shows. Through such play we learn to perceive, understand, use and shape new patterns of words, new possibilities for self. Nevertheless, when we learn new languages our play may be more tentative, for we often feel that creativity is the province of that chimera (Davies, 1991), the native speaker. Yet English is the language of international communication, enhanced as it is with colourations from myriad cultures, languages, hearts and minds. It belongs to us all (McKay, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2001), and it is our responsibility to use it, to expand it, to enrich it, and to have our voices heard. Drawing on the research of Kramsch (2001, 2003) and the experiences of Maley and Mukundan (forthcoming), this chapter argues that it is up to language educators to encourage language learners to take joy in play with words, for it is thus that we reinvigorate language, learn more about ourselves and teach the world about each other. On Writing Words hold their breath. Trembling for release They tumble out, unruly Then settle Compliant or Clatter about

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 3–21 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022004

4

Rosemary Viete Vying for approval or Simply Slip Away. They are the children of my mind, Voices of my heart, Yours to share Rosemary Viete

Introduction We live in a noisy world. Words from many languages clatter about us all the time. Yet some of these words accord us greater power over our own lives than do others. At this point in our global histories, many of these ‘words of power’ are uttered in English. Often they signify that someone — an English-speaking someone — has hegemonic power over those whose English-speaking history does not match his/her own. This is true of the academic writing field in particular (see Canagarajah, 2002), where voices that do not express themselves in the expected discourse patterns, draw on particular conventions of attribution and argument or enshrine their contentions in the expected lexicon and grammar, have run the risk of being excluded from published academic ‘conversations’. It would seem, however, that things are beginning to change in the English academy, although some scholars and editors of some academic journals may disagree. I believe that the ‘narrative turn’ is partly responsible for this change, and the evidence for it is the increase in published articles that use metaphor throughout, that include poetry and narrative or other more literary, less expository forms to communicate and focus their meaning, and not exclusively as data or content. Thus those who write ‘differently’ in some degree to the dominant order are nonetheless having their voices heard. This chapter does not explore academic writing; that task is taken up in many other chapters in this book. Rather, it focuses on the ways in which learners of English in situations where English as a second language (ESL contexts) or a foreign language (EFL contexts) can be encouraged — indeed, I argue, should be encouraged — to notice patterns in language and manipulate these for their own communicative ends. They may do so as Kramsch (2008, p. 40) explains she did, by becoming able to capitalize ‘on being out of the ordinary’. We all learn language(s) to communicate, to see the world through new ‘eyes’, to proclaim to the world who we are and to thus be more than we could otherwise be. From a very young age, we play with language — usually our first language. We do this until we learn to be cautious with how we speak or write, because we have to follow social rules in addressing others, or in writing to communicate our thoughts

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

5

and needs. We use the rules or conventions we have been taught, but we also break these conventions. We say what we do not mean in irony, or we use words metaphorically, or we take a pattern like a recipe and use its everyday words for a purpose far removed from cooking, producing a poem like this: Peace pudding Chop a fistful of Fear, Set Anger and Hatred aside Pound Envy till softened Pour Power away Simmer till tender Add five kind words, Shared moments of laughter Blended with dreams Warm the mixture with kindness And garnish with understanding Rosemary Viete (Written for classwork, Monash University, 2004) These are some ways we play with words. We can do this in any language of which we have a little understanding, and we can often be confident we will be understood, despite the barriers. One thing that helps us to communicate successfully when we use language creatively is our understanding of the ‘other’ person (or people) in the communication equation — our audience. In other words, to write creatively, we need to imagine not only what we want to convey but also what effects it might have on the person reading it, who might come from a different society from our own. Sandra McKay (2002) points out that this imagining might have a cultural dimension when communication occurs in English between native speakers and non-native speakers of English and between non-native speakers from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. However, she reminds us that the responsibility for making efforts to understand lies with all participants in the communication act. She advocates teaching that helps us to understand this intercultural dimension and that helps communicators be explicit about values and associated expectations of behaviour. This is as important in speaking and listening as it is in writing and reading. It is my contention in this chapter that creative writing plays an important role in helping us to imagine the other (our audience) and to teach each other about ourselves. It prompts us to unpack the many dimensions of words and to believe in our own right to take control of those words, to ‘own’ English. It gives us a voice of which we can be proud. In this chapter I focus on how being creative in language through creative writing can help us to learn to develop our communication in ways that are ethical because the communication is responsive to others and yet full of our own lives as well. I see ethical language learning as learning that helps us all to look closely and critically at language so that we can communicate more effectively with each other. Ethical communication is

6

Rosemary Viete

communication that connects people without making them all the same. It values and enjoys differences; it finds new ways of saying things and new ways of thinking them; it helps us change and grow. It stops us from following rules rigidly (even word order rules!), though it by no means eschews all rules — we must still be intelligible to each other. Indeed, playing with rules helps us understand the meaning and value of the rules. Being creative in our communication gives power to all users of language, yet it still adheres to the imperative to convey meanings in the most effective way possible. In the case of communicating in academic fields, this means negotiating an authoritative voice (Ivanicˇ, 2005), while communication for more personal purposes may require finding a more immediate, or humorous, or evocative voice. To better understand how learners develop communication in a second or foreign language by being supported and encouraged to use the language creatively, first of all I describe how our use of language marks our identity as individuals and members of society, which explains how each time we communicate, we are doing something generative, creative. Then I explore what creativity achieves for language learners and how it does it and finally show how this is important in our globalizing societies. The examples I use are all for English teaching and learning in ESL and EFL contexts. Unapologetically, I use mainly poetry examples to illustrate my points.

Voices, Hybridity, Intertextuality and Expanding Selves When we use language we try on other people’s clothes. We sing others’ tunes, but in our own particular way. When we write, we hear in our composing the voices and the words of others. Bakhtin (1981) calls this ‘polyphony’ or ‘heteroglossia’ (multivoicedness). He argues that every language user is oriented to responsive understanding, and thus ‘any utterance is a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances’ (1986, p. 69). This interconnectedness and use of the voices of others is given different names by different researchers. Bazerman (2004) argues that ‘we create our texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us, the sea of language we live in. And we understand the texts of others within that same sea. y The relation each text has to the texts surrounding it, we call intertextuality’ (pp. 83–84, bold in original). Ivanicˇ (2005) uses the term interdiscursivity and explains that ‘each actual use of language is likely to draw on more than one set of linguistic resources, mixing them in novel and motivated ways to suit the immediate purposes of participants’ (p. 396). Bazerman and Prior (2005), discussing the work of Bakhtin and others, point out that these theorists ‘emphasized the capacity of genres to embed and play off of other genres in many ways’ (p. 143), thus indicating that rather than constraining expression, genres are ‘boundless’ and endlessly varied in practice. Language with all its echoes is a marker of identity. When we use language, we communicate who we are to others in our society. Researchers like Kamberelis and Scott (1992) and James Paul Gee (1999) argue that the way we use language (among other behaviours, and irrespective of whether it is our first, second, third or Nth language)

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

7

shapes the way others see us and the ways we see ourselves. The way I am writing now, with its special words and its focus on language, will identify me as a teacher and an academic. Language marks us as belonging to particular communities (of teachers or mothers or tourists) or cultures (say Australian, Venezuelan or Vietnamese). But it also liberates us so that we can be Australian and Venezuelan, teacher and tourist, entertainer and mother, sojourner and friend. Language lends us many faces. What happens when the language one wants to use seems to ‘belong’ to others? When we learn new languages our play may be more tentative, for we may feel that creativity is the province of that chimera (Davies, 1991), the native speaker, who Davies (2003) points out is so often an unreal ideal, a myth. This feeling of being tentative is particularly pronounced when the language is one that seems to carry with it economic, social and political power, when we have an ‘investment’ in using the language (see Norton, 1997). Yet English is the language of international communication, enhanced as it is with colorations from myriad cultures, languages, hearts and minds. It belongs to us all (Seidlhofer, 2001; McKay, 2002), and it is our responsibility to own it on our own terms. Bonny Norton (1997) argues that what happens to one’s identity when one uses an additional language is never simple and often full of contradictions. English is frequently experienced and seen as imperialistic and hegemonic (e.g., Pennycook, 2001; Phillipson, 1992), yet Norton cites studies where English is liberating, allowing, for example, a young Japanese woman to be assertive, while she feels her first language constrains and tames her. Kramsch (2001, 2008) also sees language learning as generative of new ways of being and seeing the world. She, like Bazerman (2004) and Bazerman and Prior (2005), and before them Bakhtin (1986), believes that we borrow, echo and change patches of the language of others and our own and weave them together in our own texts. This is hybridity, which she also demonstrates in examples of truly hybrid texts where more than one language is present (Kramsch, 2003). She argues that second language users should exploit their different ways of putting text together, claiming that it is ‘our responsibility as language teachers y to help students not only become acceptable and listened to users of English by adopting the culturally sanctioned genres, styles, and rhetorical conventions of the English speaking world, but how to gain a profit of distinction by using English in ways that are unique to their multilingual and multicultural sensibilities’ (Kramsch, 2001, p. 7). Kramsch (2001) quotes from a 20-year-old student’s work (a Vietnamese American), who wrote for a class conducted by a teacher in an American university called Leanne Hinton. With his words she hoped to demonstrate how a writer with awareness of language and style could draw on the cadences and customs of more than one language to communicate his experience so poignantly: As for English, I do speak the language but I don’t think I’ll ever talk it. English is the language that flows from the mind to the tongue and then to the pages of books. It is like a box of Plato blocks which allows you to make anything. But a Plato house cannot shelter human lives and a Plato robot cannot feel!

8

Rosemary Viete I only talk Vietnamese. I talk it with all my senses. Vietnamese does not stop on my tongue, but it flows with the warm, soothing lotus tea down my throat like a river, giving life to the landscape in her path. It rises to my mind along with the vivid images of my grandmother’s house and of my grandmother. It enters my ears in the poetry of ‘‘The Tale of Kieu’’, singing in the voice of my Northern Vietnamese grandmother. It appears before my eyes in the faces of my aunt and cousins as they smile with such palpable joy. And it saturates my every nerve with healing warmth-like effect of a piece of sugared ginger in a cold night. And that is how I only talk Vietnamese. (Kramsch, 2001, pp. 7–8)

In fact, this writer does what he says he cannot do. He ‘talks’ with his heart, which flows into his words in that language of the mind.

Creativity and What It Can Do for Language Learners Creativity in writing is hard to define. I have suggested that all language use is creative, yet we tend to believe that some ways of writing (short stories, poetry) are more creative than others (essay writing, thesis writing). Many argue that the latter genres need to be creative too (e.g., Brophy, 2003; Nash, 2004). I have tried to show that creative writing always involves playing with words — often for quite serious purposes. In creative writing meaning bursts out of the words, and the meanings come as much from the heart as from the mind. So what can creative writing (and reading creative writing) do to support the process of second language learning? I believe that it does the following:

It Helps Us ‘Notice’ Language Harmer (2001) insists that ‘noticing’ the uses and meanings of words and patterns at the sentence and discourse levels is central to the acquisition of an additional language and that it helps learners become more independent in their learning. We cannot write creatively if we do not notice patterns. Much of what we teach in creative writing classes looks at the patterns others form and invites learners to try out these patterns (and change them!). Take for example the recipe poem above, which used the ‘patterns’ of instructions from the genre of recipes to convey attitudes and thoughts on life.

It Invites More Feedback about Our Language Use When we write creatively, we need to share it, not just to get a response, but to get a response that focuses on the way we put the words together — this we can do in writing workshops. This kind of feedback helps us to understand the effects of our words better and also expands our alternatives.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

9

It Makes Us Struggle with Who We Are Brophy (2003) argues that ‘when we run out of practical and abstract language — when we run out of facts and logic — it is poetry that points us further in towards the sense of living’ (p. 2). Creative writing, with its processes of constant recrafting, makes us make decisions about who we are and who we want to be in writing. We have to decide whether to be serious or funny, what role we are enacting (a teacher or a mother, etc.). It gives us voice to express ourselves. Some say this imposes an ideology of individuality (Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999) — but this argument suggests that individual expression and shared, more genre-based expression are binary opposites, and assumes that they are mutually exclusive.

In Sharing Our Emotions, Thoughts and Inner Life (Often through Metaphor), We Learn about Each Other Poetry, stories and other forms of creative writing aim to communicate ideas, feelings and values that are often not expressed in other forms of communication. One example is the young Vietnamese man’s writing I mentioned earlier. Another is from a student of mine in Venezuela, who turned the topic of ‘miracles’ to her own ends, using the sentence poem structure and e e cummings’ style: a miracle that today i am still functioning as i ought and smiling now and then (so you left yesterday) miracle that you were here and we touched, smiled in moonlit arms over the ecstasy of the sands. you watched me ironing out all those wrinkles even myself every so often (as i am the sun-worshipper) miracle that days blur into one another and that with so much of me gone i still stand (i am waiting) Diana Toral (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p.11)

10

Rosemary Viete

On a lighter note, another example of representing ourselves through creative writing is a patterned expression of what it means to be a teacher, using food as a metaphor. In a class with beginning EFL teachers who in most cases had also learnt English as a foreign language, we wrote a class poem on being a teacher. The pattern we used was a couplet I had written: Teaching is a bowl of noodles Full of endless twists and turns The teachers were to add their own thinking and ‘flavour’ to the topic in groups of four. They each had to think up different things (at least two each) that they thought teaching was like and write each feature in the couplet pattern, stating in the first line the simile (Teaching isy) and then in the second line describing what is done by the ‘thing’ with which they compared teaching — this gave them one metaphor. They then had to put all their metaphors together. This meant we wrote everything (all the couplets) on the board for each group of four students, and then we decided as a class how to arrange the couplets. If there was any overlap we deleted one of the couplets or modified one to include aspects of the other. In the poem below most of the metaphors and similes were about food, so we ended up grouping them together: Teaching is a wok of chow mian Greasy but spicy Teaching is a full buffet Lots of different courses Teaching is a dish of sweet and sour pork Full of excitement and frustration Teaching is a slice of lasagna With different layers of flavour Teaching is a durian It can be a darling or a devil to someone Teaching is a glass of water Add some ice and it will be COOL Teaching is a can of mixed fruit Full of laughter and tears Teaching is a cup of coffee Bitter but addictive Note the last line — we felt it had the most impact so we put it last. After this, we decided that we felt the ‘Teaching is’ was too repetitive, so this is what we did: Teaching is A wok of chow mian greasy but spicy, A full buffet lots of different courses, A dish of sweet and sour pork

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

11

full of excitement and frustration, A slice of lasagna With different layers of flavour, A durian a darling or a devil, A glass of water add some ice and it will be COOL, A can of mixed fruit full of laughter and tears. Teaching is a cup of coffee bitter but addictive. With this poem, these teachers produced their own ‘flavours’ of teaching, voicing their thinking in metaphors with which they could identify. They imbued the mixture with humour, happy with their representation of their experience. It Gives Us Ownership of Language Because we so often associate creative writing with ‘good’ writers and ‘good’ writers with the idealised ‘native-speaker’ concept, we often believe that we will never fully belong in the language. Writing creatively can help us to believe in ourselves as owners of the language, because we get feedback about our ‘good’ writing, about our ability to convey rich meaning. Even beginners can achieve this. They can write haiku, or same-first-letter poems based on verbs, adverbs and nouns describing an item in nature. For example, a class of young (7-year-old) learners in an English/ Spanish partial immersion class I once taught wrote a class poem on the sun and then later wrote poems individually and in pairs on other natural items we picked up on a walking excursion in the neighbourhood around our school. This is the class poem (the idea came from Powell, 1973) when we tried it out just using participles as adjectives. The word ‘scintillating’ was in fact a synonym in English for a Spanish word, children suggested, while sizzling and scorching came from their own vocabularies. ‘Sight-breaking’ was a coined word (how wonderful!) that came from a class member, who knew that we should not look directly at the sun. Scintillating Sight-breaking Sizzling Sun

It Expands What Others Can Do with Language, Thus Reinvigorating Language Kramsch (2003) has given examples of poems written by L2 learners of English in two or three languages (in the same poem), which are perfectly comprehensible to an

12

Rosemary Viete

audience that does not speak all these languages. This is one way of laying claim to multilingual selves as a norm. Phan Le Ha (2004) crafted the words of her research participants into a poem expressing their sense of identity and included this in her PhD thesis. This was in English, but sayings such as ‘daughter-in-law of a hundred families’ with their reference to a saying in Vietnamese culture are a hallmark of this poem. In my own case as a writer, I often write poetry in academic articles I have published to introduce or enhance the meaning I want to convey. These ‘innovations’ with genre are creatively expanding the possibilities for others. This is, I believe, a duty we have to future language users.

It Makes Learning Motivating and Fun Writers seeking words to make meaning are motivated to expand their vocabulary. Teachers who speak their L1 can often help them in this task, giving them alternatives to choose from. This makes learning exciting. Think how this teenager had fun making up a metaphor and playing with the lines to write this poem, even though the topic was ‘serious’. friendship, the delicate glass figure, treated with love and care, lasts. If not it can dis in te gra te

into tinylittlepieces

which don’t go

to ge ther.

Carolina Corada (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p. 24)

Models for Writing with Our Own (Fresh) Voices Canagarajah (2003) discusses hybridity in texts produced by writers who are literate in more than one language. This is multilingual multiliteracy. He says that nowadays

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

13

in academia we are ‘more willing to accept that texts are mediated by the beliefs, values, and subject positions of writers’ (p. 157). Although he focuses on academic multiliteracy, he provides a very useful model showing the various ways in which multilingual people can construct a fresh voice by melding our different emphases, perspectives and ways with words into a new text by using and changing dominant discourses and conventions. It should be noted that creative writers have been doing this for many years. He says: I distinguish each following strategy according to the way it engages with competing discourses to develop a creative mode of articulation (voice), resist dominant discourses and conventions to introduce new values into that genre of writing (ideology), and construct texts that achieve a rhetorical coherence that controls the discordance implicit in divergent discourses (textual realization). (Canagarajah, 2003, p. 158) The strategies in his model are: accommodation, transposition and appropriation (pp. 158–159). They can be described as follows: Accommodation is when a writer uses a form of text and form of expression in that text that would be expected by the particular group of people who seem to have set the rules for these texts. However, the writer does not consciously try to use ways of writing that were the rules in similar contexts in his/her first language as an act of resistance to the new (dominant) rules. This writing is similar to following a ‘pattern’ such as a cinquain (5 lines with 2, 4, 6, 8 and 2 syllables respectively — see Crapsey’s example below), a variation on which is the poem written by an ESL student of mine, Roxana. These be Three silent things The falling snow y the hour Before the dawn y the mouth of one Just dead Adelaide Crapsey (in Norton & Gretton, 1972, p. 117)

These be : Two hateful things A cold day y freeze away; The day’s end, weak and dead And again Roxana Mancito (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p. 22)

Roxana achieves her own voice, but adopts the pattern to do so, with slight variation on the syllable count. Transposition is when ‘writers draw from the rhetorical resources of both their first language (L1) and the learned language to construct a third discourse that is different from either’ (Canagarajah, 2003, p. 159). This could involve code-switching and genre modification. This happens frequently in academic writing, when people draw more on metaphor than is often expected in many academic settings, or when people use layered patterns in presenting an argument. In poetry, this would be achieved by

14

Rosemary Viete

bringing the lyrical rhythms, repetition of words and detailed descriptions of some traditional Spanish poetry into the English, but combining these with, say, the action/narrative focus of traditional English ballads. Appropriation is when writers consciously use dominant conventions to achieve something that the convention would not normally set out to achieve. In this, writers ‘draw from one background to infuse creative differences into the discourse of another background’ (Canagarajah, 2003, p. 159) Canagarajah sees this as ‘infusing the established conventions with one’s own discourses in a direct act of resistance’ (p. 159). An example of this is Phan Le Ha’s letter (see Appendix) at the end of her Master’s thesis, which she saw as an act of resistance (albeit with ‘gentle diplomacy’) to the imposition of anglophone norms on international students’ writing. She not only asks teachers’ understanding, but uses the unconventional means of a letter (not usual in a thesis conclusion) to do so.

(How) Can We Teach Creativity in Writing? Many examples of how we can teach and stimulate creative writing in L2 classrooms are available in texts, such as those by Maley and Mukundan (forthcoming) and Spiro (2007). Three useful principles in the teaching are that we should focus on metaphor, take a critical genre-based approach and provide a scaffolded experience for learners. These are elaborated below.

A Focus on Metaphor Fraser (2006) illustrates the importance of encouraging children to use metaphor to explore emotions, to play with ideas, to develop a unique voice and to revel in language. She sees creativity as being the uniqueness of the way we put words together, juxtaposing ideas, even though in doing so we are inevitably drawing on their echoes of others’ ideas and words. Fraser describes a class that focused on helping primary school children to develop metaphorical language. First the teacher read some personifications of human experiences such as ‘worry’ written by Gendler (1988, cited in Fraser, 2006, p. 97). These personifications were written as prose: ‘Worry has written the definitive work on nervous habits. She etches lines on people’s foreheads when they are not paying attentiony’ (pp. 97–98). The teacher then had the class suggest some human qualities and imagine what they might be like as people, using ‘wh’ questions (What sort of a place she lives in, who she is friends with, how she does things). The children then wrote poems using this as a starting point. Here is one of the poems, written by an eight-year-old boy named Richard (Fraser, 2006, p. 98). Madness He wears a bright red silk coat And lives in a world of anger.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

15

He eats chillies and wasabi And drinks wasabi water. His job is a rates collector. His nature is fire. He wants to kill Happiness. Watch out, he is slinky. Some other examples of the use of personification, simile and metaphors are given below in the colour poems written by my Venezuelan students (one of them is a native speaker and the other two are L2 users). Yellow is a sickened heart a newborn weed a sun after its glory Marie Giroux (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p. 32)

red blares her toy horn demurely waits with lowered lashes for an unsuspecting passerby then drops her gown exposed.

Grey Is the pit of the worst of all times cold and indifferent rain; hanging and clinging fog; Dreariness Depression Damnation and gray Liz Watson (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p. 14)

Diana Toral (Colegio Internacional de Caracas, 1978, p. 14)

Taking a Critical Genre-Based Approach It is clear from the examples and arguments in this chapter that teaching needs to help learners to become sensitive to the ways other people write, to identify patterns, and then to experiment with these. One way of ensuring that learners can accommodate, transpose and appropriate language is to encourage learners to read, link the reading with their own L1 oral communication or reading and then really engage with the reading by writing responsively. For example, discussing heroes, heroines and other characters in traditional tales or fairy tales can initiate a reading of a traditional tale from their own culture, a traditional English fairytale, and a variation on this (e.g., ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and a feminist fairytale from Mellor’s (1984) wonderful book, such as ‘The practical princess’ tale she includes by Jay Williams). Learners could identify the features of these tales’ ‘genre’ (orientation, complication, sequence of events, resolution, coda), and the linguistic features, discussing the values

16

Rosemary Viete

lying behind these. They could work out why the ‘feminist’ tale gains its feminist impact by ‘breaking the rules’ of the genre. They could then write a transposed tale as a response to a tale they know, breaking the ‘rules’ of values or character or action to make an entirely new story of their own. Or they could rewrite the tale from the perspective of one of the characters. They could do this in groups or in pairs or individually. Learners always have fun doing this. Reading critically is not difficult at all, it simply involves a conscious process of questioning, a creative way of thinking. It also requires that the teacher explicitly gives writers ‘permission’ to break the rules, but first helps them to identify the patterns that constitute the rules (e.g., the usual, ‘Long ago, in a land far awayy’ or the collocation ‘a handsome prince’) — we need to know them to break them.

Scaffolding the Experience for Learners The teaching and learning situation needs to be scaffolded (developed supportively, layer upon layer) for ESL and EFL learners. Two examples of such scaffolding are described below. 1. Participle-noun poems These poems have already been mentioned earlier and are useful for learners who know a little about ‘-ing’ words. The pattern I gave was the poem we wrote together on the sun. Scintillating Sight-breaking Sizzling Sun The next scaffolded stage is collecting objects in nature from the neighbourhood and thinking about their characteristics. In small groups or pairs and with teacher input, students think about the things that the object does (using the present participle form). When I did this in my primary 2 level class in a partial immersion program, students had seen a lot of dead leaves on the ground, so the words one small group came up with were ‘fall’, ‘dead’, ‘brown’, ‘food’. The task now in the third scaffolded stage was to convert those ideas into -ing words and to find several present participles of verbs that would describe the actions and nature of the leaf. This they did with my support. We decided we wanted to make the words begin with the same letter (as in the sun poem), but this was a little difficult to do, since most of the words the children could think of started with ‘f’. Since they had also learned in science about the cycle of leaves, they tended to think of the ‘stages’ of life of a leaf. So they wrote the poem as a process of a leaf’s life-cycle.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

17

Falling Fading Feeding Leaf They had all the ‘f’ words, but felt ending the poem with the noun ‘leaf’ after a whole lot of ‘f’ words seemed strange. So I suggested to put an ‘l’ word at the beginning, to balance the poem. They immediately liked the concept of balance and thought of what would happen before a leaf could fall. They related it to tying and loosening their shoelaces, which we had talked about as a process in English the previous day. I helped them with the irregular form. Loosening Falling Fading Feeding Leaf These words are quite sophisticated, and the participle form may not be familiar, so a variation on this could be adjective-noun poems, where the adjectives describe the senses (sight, sound, taste, touch and smell) and the letters could (but do not all have to) be the same. For example: Small Smooth Sour Sweet Strawberry (Sublime!) Another variation could be noun-verb-adverb poems (these were adapted from ideas from Powell, 1973, pp. 19–20). Spiders Spin Silently Frogs Frolic Frantically Cats Crawl Craftily

18

Rosemary Viete

2. Metaphor poems A second pattern that can be used in a scaffolded experience is that of a poem using an animal as metaphor for a feeling, such as the one below. One possible approach is to discuss dragons and their meanings for the learners then see how the dragon is characterized in this poem. Once they have discussed this, they could guess at the human feeling being expressed (the title of the poem would need to have been omitted). They could then identify the pattern of content in the poem and with the teacher’s help in confirming appropriate vocabulary, they could try this pattern out with another animal/feeling pair or another take on the dragon metaphor. Editing, publishing and eliciting responses to the written work constitute a further step in supporting the growth of students’ sense of voice.

Depression Clothed in bright scales Deep in his mountain cave The creature of darkness Broods Until all the treasure He once loved Gleams no more Rosemary Viete With these ways of enriching the teaching of English in EFL and ESL settings, our students, I argue, will experience English as a language of self expression and find greater confidence in using it, in their right to ‘own’ the language. I return now to the way in which this constitutes ethical teaching of English in ESL and EFL classrooms.

What is Ethical about Teaching Language through Creative Writing? We are in the business of language education. What are the ethics of teaching communication and how can teaching learners to write in English creatively contribute to a more ethical, fairer outcome for those who will eventually need to use English as a language of international communication? Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) demonstrate how linguistic capital, which particular groups within society acquire through privilege, in turn opens the doors to educational and cultural capital, and which preserve/reproduce the values and positions of the privileged by affording them wealth and social position. Linguistic capital is now a global issue, and the language of privilege, for the present, is English. Thus we teachers of English have a considerable responsibility to ensure that the English in which linguistic capital resides does not remain inflected only with voices of the privileged or the ‘native speakers’ but that it becomes multi-voiced and diverse and that everyone enjoys (and learns from) its variety.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

19

The philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas (2006), argues that ethical relationships are respectful and ‘respect is a relationship between equals’ (p. 31), in which we are responsive to each other. To be responsive in responsible ways, we need to learn to communicate with each other on terms of equality, but not with assumptions of sameness. As Burbules (1997), another educational philosopher, maintains, we need to be attentive to differences between us by exploring our own assumptions and values. Respectful relationships between people seem thus to require that there be an understanding that the rules of interaction are heterogeneous, that the terms of communication are not one-sided. This requires an acknowledgement of difference, but also, as I see it, a mutuality of attentiveness. This mutuality is the central concern of Sennett (2003), who argues that being respectful of others on their own (cultural) terms does not mean remaining distanced for ‘fear of offending’ (p. 21). Rather, it means forging a real ‘connection’ (p. 37). This notion of connectedness is important. I argue that writing creatively can help us (learners and teachers alike) feel more connected to others through language, because it helps us to understand that communication in another language is not simply a means of completing a transaction, but a way of understanding ourselves and others in our world. Creative writing can also give us a sense of achievement and confidence in communication and help us feel the ownership of English. This in turn shows us and others that all users of English are equal. It can help us appropriate English, using it in our own ways to gain what Kramsch (2001) calls a ‘profit of distinction’ (p. 7). It can help us to become aware of new dimensions of self as we live and express ourselves in more than one language. It reinvigorates language as we learn more about ourselves and teach the world about each other. With such experiences of having all our voices heard on our own terms, the hegemonic power of English may lose its edge, and we will focus on the connections we can forge through communication, rather than the divisions it would otherwise embody.

References Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In: M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (pp. 259–434). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In: C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds), Speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bazerman, C. (2004). Intertextuality: How texts rely on other texts. In: C. Bazerman & P. Prior (Eds), What writing does and how it does it (pp. 83–96). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bazerman, C., & Prior, P. (2005). Participating in emergent socioliterate worlds. In: R. Beach, J. Green, M. Kamil & T. Shanahan (Eds), Multidisciplinary perspectives on literacy research (pp. 133–178). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage Publications. Brophy, K. (2003). Explorations in creative writing. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Burbules, N. C. (1997). A grammar of difference: Some ways of rethinking difference and diversity as educational topics. Australian Educational Researcher, 24, 97–116.

20

Rosemary Viete

Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2003). Practicing multiliteracies. In: P. Matsuda, A. S. Canagarajah, L. Harklau, K. Hyland, & M. Warschauer (Eds), Changing currents in second language writing research: A colloquium. Journal of Second Language Writing 12, 151–179. Colegio Internacional de Caracas Creative Writing Class (1978). Miragicles. Caracas: Colegio Internacional de Caracas. Davies, A. (1991). The native speaker in applied linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Davies, A. (2003). The native speaker: Myth and reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fraser, D. (2006). The creative potential of metaphorical writing in the literacy classroom. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5(2), 93–108. Gee, J. P. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis. London: Routledge. Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Ivanicˇ, R. (2005). The discoursal construction of writer identity. In: R. Beach, J. Green, M. Kamil & T. Shanahan (Eds), Multidisciplinary perspectives on literacy research (pp. 391– 416). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Kamberelis, G., & Scott, K. D. (1992). Other people’s voices: The coarticulation of texts and subjectivities. Linguistics and Education, 4, 359–403. Kramsch, C. (2001). Language, culture, and voice in the teaching of English as a foreign language. NovELTy, 8, 4–21. Kramsch, C. (2003). The privilege of the nonnative speaker. In: S. S. Magnan (Ed.), The sociolinguistics of foreign-language classrooms: Contributions of the native, the near-native and the non-native speaker. Issues in language program directions. A series of annual volumes. ERIC FL 027 869. Boston: Heinle/Thomson Learning. Kramsch, C. (2008). Pierre Bourdieu: A biographical memoir. In: J. Albright & A. Luke (Eds), Pierre Bourdieu and literacy education (pp. 33–49). New York: Routledge. Levinas, E. (2006). Entre nous. Thinking of the other. M. B. Smith & B. Harshav (Trans.). London: Continuum. Maley, A. & Mukundan, J. (Forthcoming). Creative writing activities in English for young Asian writers. Malaysia: Pearson. McKay, S. L. (2002). Teaching English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mellor, B. (Ed.) (1984). Changing stories. London: ILEA English Centre. Nash, R. J. (2004). Liberating scholarly writing. The power of personal narrative. New York: Teachers College Press. Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 409–429. Norton, J. H., & Gretton, F. (1972). Writing incredibly short plays, poems, stories. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Phan Le Ha. (1999). Different voices: Writers’ comparisons of Vietnamese and English academic writing. Thesis presented as part of the requirements for Master of Education (TESOL), Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Phan Le Ha. (2004). Daughter-in-law of a hundred families: Forming national professional identities in the teaching of global English. Ph.D. thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Crafting New Possibilities for Self

21

Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powell, B. S. (1973). Making poetry. Canada: Collier-Macmillan. Ramanathan, V., & Atkinson, D. (1999). Individualism, academic writing, and ESL writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 45–75. Seidlhofer, B. (2001). Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11, 133–158. Sennett, R. (2003). Respect. The formation of character in an age of inequality. London: Penguin. Spiro, J. (2007). Teaching poetry: Writing poetry — teaching as a writer. English in Education, 41(3), 78–93.

Appendix Dear Lecturer, I am an overseas postgraduate student from Vietnam. I would like to share with you the way I wrote academic Vietnamese essays in my first degree, so that you would have a general understanding of how I write in my language, and would give me explicit instructions about how you expect me to write in your subject yyy Above is how I normally write in Vietnamese. I may employ some of these characteristics when I write in English. You may even enjoy some of them, especially those which give my writing an individual ‘flavour’. However, you may need to tell me which characteristics conflict with features of academic writing you most value. I would be very grateful if you could give me detailed guidance of how you expect me to write in your subject. Yours sincerely Vietnamese postgraduate student (Excerpt from Phan, 1999, p. 48)

Chapter 2

The Writing and Culture Nexus: Writers’ Comparisons of Vietnamese and English Academic Writing Phan Le Ha

Introduction An increasing number of Asian students have enrolled in Australian higher education institutions over the past three decades. This on the one hand has contributed to the multicultural academic environment in Australia, but on the other hand has raised the question of cross-cultural adjustment of Asian students who come from different cultural backgrounds. Cross-cultural issues, in general, arise when ‘the non-native speaker has to learn to communicate in a specialist community in another language’ (Liddicoat, 1997, p. 13). Such issues, as many scholars (e.g., Ballard & Clanchy, 1988, 1991a, 1997; Barrett-Lennard, 1997; Connor & Kaplan, 1987; Felix & Lawson, 1994; Jordan, 1997; Kaplan, 1966; Liddicoat, 1997; Ryan & Viete, 2009; Samuelowicz, 1987; San Miguel, 1996) have noticed, lie mostly in the academic performance of Asian students in Australian tertiary institutions, in which English academic writing appears to be the central issue. The reasons for this, according to Felix and Lawson (1994, p. 67), are rooted in ‘cultural, psychological, and technical’ factors. They also argue that Asian styles are different from those characteristics of many Australian academic institutions. An ‘Asian’ style, proposed by several authors such as Ballard and Clanchy (1984, 1988, 1991a), Barrett-Lennard (1997), Kaplan (1966) and Sowden (2005), is presented as being similarly practised in many Asian countries. As these researchers see it, the core problem faced by Asian students studying in an English-speaking country concerns their writing style, which is crucially determined by ‘Asian’ culture.

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 23–40 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022005

24

Phan Le Ha

While being well aware of the limitations and inherent stereotypes embedded in associating culture with writing issues, as pointed out by Liu (2005), Phan Le Ha (2006) and Tran (2006), I do want to argue that culture does play an important role in how one writes. It is also important to acknowledge here that the relationship between writing and culture by no means implies that culture is the only and ultimate factor governing one’s writing. In the light of this understanding, in this chapter I present the findings of a research study exploring the writing experience of Vietnamese postgraduate students enrolled in universities in Australia and whether they perceive any differences between Vietnamese and English academic writing, and if yes where these differences rest and what causes the differences. At the same time, the chapter aims at challenging common assumptions about inferior ‘Asian’ culture evident in Western academia, as clearly shown in Said (1978) and Pennycook (1998). In the same vein, the chapter showcases these students’ critical stance towards what constitutes Vietnamese writing and their awareness of its strengths and weaknesses.

Writing across Cultures: The Assumed Superior English/Australian Norms and the Inferior ‘Asian’ Culture Most people learn a foreign language through their own languages and cultures, which require interaction based on different cultural norms. Liddicoat (1997, p. 13) argues that ‘language use in a group is a form of cultural behaviour.’ This suggests that language is seen as cultural/social practices. Socially valued text types, or genres, therefore, are determined by sociocultural norms. This results in the relationship between culture and writing about which Purves (1988, p. 178) concludes ‘the ways in which we express thought in writing are very strongly influenced by our experiences with discourse generally and written text specifically and the related conventions that govern each of these within our own social and cultural contexts’. In addition, ‘actual discourse is determined by socially constituted orders of discourse, sets of conventions associated with social institutions’, as Fairclough (1989, p. 17) contends. Also, Farrell (1994) alludes to the fact that whether elements of a text are considered to be important in an argument is determined by culture. The aforementioned literature indicates that writing across cultures is very much influenced by a particular culture of a writer’s first language. Members of a particular culture, as a result, tend to produce texts in the light of their own cultural visions through which they are taught to understand the universe. However, some authors, such as Ballard and Clanchy (1997), Kaplan (1966) and Barrett-Lennard (1997), have taken for granted the so-called Asian writing style, which implies that Asian students write in the same way, one that irritates English readers. These authors suggest (though not explicitly) a superior–inferior relationship between their way and the Asian way. For example, Ballard and Clanchy (1997, p. 12) conclude that teaching strategies and learning styles in Asia are dominantly reproductive with the aim as being a ‘simple (unreconstructed) transfer of knowledge and skills’. Meanwhile, the authors see the Australian way with its aim as encouraging ‘development of

The Writing and Culture Nexus

25

speculative [and] critical intelligence’. This conclusion may be true at the superficial level but is misleading and inherently problematic, resulting in convenient blame on ‘Asian’ culture and heritage as the taken-for-granted cause for Asian students’ ‘bad’ and ‘poor’ academic performance (for more details, see Grimshaw, 2007; Marlina, 2007; Phan Le Ha, 2009).

English Academic Writing versus Vietnamese Academic Writing I draw on the culturally situated notions of ‘literate’ forms and culturally situated notions of ‘relevance’ presented by Farrell (1997a, 1997b, p. 142) to discuss English and Vietnamese academic writing. As this chapter refers to Vietnamese postgraduate students studying in Australia, an English-speaking country, what constitutes English academic writing there will be used as the criteria to which Vietnamese academic writing is compared. This does not at all suggest that English academic writing is superior. I fully acknowledge Kubota and Lehner’s (2004) criticism of the tendency to treat English rhetoric as the de facto superior in relation to other languages and rhetorical traditions.

Culturally Situated Notions of ‘Literate’ Forms Farrell (1997a, 1997b, p. 142) argues that ‘school literacy in most English-speaking countries is a highly specialised discourse’ and ‘is objective, analytical and sequential’. Thus, in this sense, essays must be ‘sequential or organised’ in a linear and co-ordinated way that contributes to the reader’s perception of symmetry, order and logical thinking. In academic writing style in Australian universities, candidates are required to show the ability of critical thinking, questioning, discussing or analysing (Ballard & Clanchy, 1997; Taylor, 2009). To support this, San Miguel (1996, p. 39) states that ‘the Western education system values critical evaluation and analysis of knowledge’. The rhetorical organisation in English follows strictly the criterion of the very ‘English way’ of presenting things that is ‘going directly to the point’ or being ‘linear’ in its development. This value is clearly required in essay performance at a tertiary level. The features and specifications of the notions of ‘literate’ forms in English academic writing differ somewhat from those in various Asian practices. ‘Literate’ forms in Asian academic writings enjoy their own sense of ‘literateness’ characterised by their cultures, which Kaplan (1966) has stereotyped as an approach by indirection. Also, Burns (1991) contends that Asian thought is more likely to view things as a whole, the argument structure is circular, and points made are not necessarily connected to the central issue. I would like to explore ‘literate’ forms in English academic writing, then compare them with those in Vietnamese, to see the real values underlying each culture in the light of Liddicoat’s remark (1997, p. 18), that ‘within each culture, each of these

26

Phan Le Ha

patterns [rhetorical patterns] will be considered to be ‘‘linear’’ although the lines try to achieve different things’. What is considered ‘linear’ or relevant in the rhetorical pattern in Vietnamese writing, as a matter of fact, may be seen as ‘digressive’ in English. The perceived ‘digression’ of Vietnamese indicates that a writer has a broad and comprehensive view of the topic which allows or motivates him/her to integrate a variety of ideas, issues and/or emotional feelings into the text. As far as an essay organisation is concerned, both English and Vietnamese essays share these three components: introduction, body and conclusion. What makes the differences between these two writing styles is what is to be included in each component. Introductions and conclusions seem to cause most ambiguities (my own observation from many texts written by native-English and native-Vietnamese speakers). The introduction in English writing is like a funnel, which means ‘very wide at the top, increasingly narrow in the middle, and very small at the neck or bottom’ (Oshima & Hogue, 1991, p. 79). Also, the way an English introductory paragraph is written should be very direct and immediate, as Ballard and Clanchy (1991b, p. 30) pinpoint, so that the introduction ‘will set out the key issues to be discussed, maybe define a key term or set limits to the proposed discussion, and indicate the position the writer intends to take on the issues in question’. By contrast, the introduction in Vietnamese writing is often long and provides a great deal of information. Basically, it introduces the essay topic with related information supporting the topic context, such as the historical background to the generation of ideas in the field or to the author about whom the essay writes. Even anecdotes and stories are suitable introductions. The introduction also briefly addresses the essay framework that is to be developed next. Very importantly, it attracts readers’ attention towards the issues already raised and soon to be explored in the essay body (Nguyen & Nguyen, 1998). What makes it attractive include the use of persuasive language and sometimes flowing epic style. With this feature in the introduction, essays written by Vietnamese students are often misread by Australian lecturers as lengthy and redundant. In turn, Vietnamese readers may perceive English essays as ‘abrupt’ or ‘too straightforward’. The ‘standard’ conclusion in English writing often restates what has been discussed in the body. Information such as suggestions, contributions or recommendations may form another part. In Vietnamese writing, the conclusion often plays a very important role in an essay. The writer is required to summarise or paraphrase the main ideas discussed in the body. At the same time, the writer can make his/her personal comments and/or judgements on the issues of the essay with the view to generating follow-up studies. The writer is advised to make the conclusion as strong, impressive and rich as possible to let the main issues be long remembered (Nguyen & Nguyen, 1998). Owing to the differences, Vietnamese students may be confused about how to write a conclusion in English. Even when they are familiar with the techniques of including an introduction and conclusion, they still may not be certain about what is to be included in them (Felix & Lawson, 1994). They may combine the so-called standard English conclusion and their own comments in strong terms as well as recommendations to form the conclusion for the essay. This may be much longer than is expected by an Australian English reader.

The Writing and Culture Nexus

27

The ‘linearity’ in English requires a writer to be responsible for his or her readers who often object to encoding ambiguities made by the writer. In other words, the responsibility of the writer is to make everything clear for the audience and to make sure that his/her writing causes no strain for the audience as well. Hinds (1978, p. 143) sees ‘English as a ‘‘writer-responsible’’ language, since the person primarily responsible for effective communication is the writer’ (cited in Kroll, 1990). In Vietnamese writing, in contrast, the responsibility of the audience is assumed. The reader is to interpret the message underlying the text. Consequently, the same text can be encoded in various dimensions and different raters may give different results. Another feature of ‘linearity’ is that in English concrete and accurate words are highly recommended, whereas in Vietnamese, sometimes abstract, vague and even ambiguous words are preferred in order to create a ‘sophisticated’, ‘controversial’ and ‘poetic’ text. Thus, English academic styles, compared with Vietnamese ones, may have less richness, elegance and auditory delicacy, which generate interest and curiosity in the audience. One of the most popular characteristics of the Vietnamese language is the value of symbolism, which encourages Vietnamese people to use symbolic words in high volume. Symbolism in Vietnamese lies in the tendency to generalisation with symmetrical and harmonious structures (Tran, 1998). Another popular distinctive feature of the Vietnamese language, both spoken and written, is the expressive style (Tran, 1998), and this also influences how one writes in Vietnamese. The rhetorical pattern in English follows the principle of ‘placing the most important points first’, meanwhile in Vietnamese writing a series of less important points tend to be placed first to build up to the most important one appearing last. Noticeably, published English academic essays often guide the audience towards what is going to be focused on by including such phrases as ‘I will explore X in the next part’ or ‘the following part will discuss X’. Vietnamese writing is not always familiar with this. Instead, emotional feelings, personalised observations, or personal and subjective assumptions seem to be dominant and a text is developed in the light of these determiners with few explicit signposts. Thus, a ‘logical mind’ (Farrell, 1997a, 1997b) in Vietnamese may consider the English approach to lack creativity.

Culturally Situated Notions of ‘Relevance’ Relevance, as Farrell (1997a, 1997b, p. 68) contends, refers to decisions about both ‘whether something is relevant and how it is relevant’. Also, relevance is seen as ‘central in establishing meaning’. In English, what counts as relevance includes the correct identification of ‘key words’ and the correct interpretation of instructional words. Successful writers are those who can encode correctly what the task requires them to do, whether to write a comparison, an evaluation, an instruction, or a recommendation. One more aspect of ‘relevance’ in English academic writing is that all ideas, issues and suggestions have to be associated with the topic. That explains why most

28

Phan Le Ha

paragraphs include a topic sentence and supporting ideas. This feature may facilitate readers to summarise the main idea of any reading passage and contribute to ‘linearity’. However, Moore (1998) argues that student writers often find writing task topics and requirements ambiguous. Their confusion may lead to substituting one genre for another. For example, instead of performing an evaluation (how valid/important/relevant is X), they fulfil a recommendation (what can be done about X) or a description (what X is like). The ambiguity of the notion ‘relevance’, explained above, is often ignored by many academics when marking their students’ work because they may simply consider an essay topic and its requirements ‘normal’. The culturally situated Vietnamese notions of ‘relevance’ partly share those of English. These include the role played by ‘key words’ and ‘instructional words’, whether a task requires the analysis of an economic issue or evaluation of a policy released by the government. However, ‘relevance’ in Vietnamese writing does not seem to be strictly demanded as in English. If a writer is able to lead the audience to what he/she intends to say by employing creative, complicated, beautiful but occasionally ‘irrelevant’ (off the topic) and figurative words and structures, the audience tends to still be patient and willing to follow the whole text. Perhaps this is due to the general pride held among Vietnamese linguists and part of the population in the richness and beauty of the Vietnamese language and the multilayeredness of meanings embodied in every word. This sense of beauty also refers to the musical sound of the language and the pleasure sophisticated words and structures may bring to the reader. To some extent, readers not only look for something purely academic and formal, they tend to appreciate a piece of writing that sounds nice to their ears, touches their hearts, or pleases the sense of romance popular in Vietnamese poetry and literature, too. But this does not necessarily mean that Vietnamese writing has no rules for ‘relevance’. In the light of what I have discussed, it is clear that what ‘literateness’ and ‘relevance’ mean can be far different between English and Vietnamese academic writing. What is important is how to draw on these differences to value different writing practices and to see difference as not a deficit. The next section reports the findings obtained from four Vietnamese postgraduate students enrolled in two Australian universities about their writing experience in both English and Vietnamese and the differences between these two writing styles.

The Study I carried out the study with four Vietnamese postgraduates from two Australian universities. Two were studying for a Master of Education (TESOL) degree and two were taking a Master of Business Administration course. One participant was female and three were males, aged from 26 to 30. They had all done their first degrees in universities in Vietnam. The two Education postgraduate students had studied

The Writing and Culture Nexus

29

English as the major subject at university. They were lecturers of English at a university in Vietnam. The two postgraduate Business students had studied Economics as the focus in their first degrees. They had had several years of work experience. All of them had been in Australia for about one-and-a-half years by the time the study was conducted. They all started their courses when they arrived in Australia. All these students had taken courses in academic writing in English with English-speaking lecturers before they commenced their coursework in Australia. Their perceptions of essay writing in English are hence likely to have been shaped by these courses as well as by the feedback from assessment of completed writing by their lecturers. They were all familiar with writing essays in their courses in Australia. Their essays were from 2,000 to 5,000 words long. In-depth interviews were used to collect data. I selected these students to interview for the following reasons. First, these students were very competent at English as attested by their IELTS entry scores of 7 and 7.5, so they, I assumed, would not focus on explaining their English problems (e.g., grammar, proficiency), but instead might be more likely to discuss cultural differences between English and Vietnamese academic writing which this study aimed to identify. Second, their disciplines require much written work, which could contribute to the study by giving down-to-earth examples of performing in English writing by Vietnamese students whose English proficiency is not a problem. The last reason is that the disciplines of Education and Business embody in themselves cultural norms regulated by social structures of different authorities and various implementing guidelines. Because these postgraduate students had already studied and written in these disciplines in Vietnamese, the discourse of these disciplines is somewhat familiar. For the purposes of preserving their anonymity, the participants were given pseudonyms. The two male Education postgraduates were Minh and Huy. The male MBA postgraduate was Thanh, and the female MBA postgraduate was Hoa.

Structure of an Essay — Organisation of Discourse The data referring to the organisation of discourse fell into three subcategories, namely, general shape, essay argument development, and coherence, cohesion and signposting. The first two categories were generated on the basis of the literature, while the last arose from the data. For each category, the data are discussed separately with reference to Vietnamese and English writing.

General ‘Shape’ All the participants said that both Vietnamese and English essays follow the same essay organisation: introduction-body-conclusion. However, they all mentioned some differences between the two writing styles in terms of a general ‘shape’.

30

Phan Le Ha

A Vietnamese essay The participants all reported that Vietnamese writing has an ‘indirect’ or ‘circular’ approach, and each of them gave his or her own description of and explanation for it. Minh said Vietnamese writing has something like ‘clumsiness’, is very ‘indirect and circular’. He explained that this was due to the personality of Oriental people, whom he saw as not straightforward, very tactful and indirect. They often refer to things implicitly, say things around one topic and gradually conclude. Huy described Vietnamese writing as ‘free’, ‘not controlled by any rules’ and ‘indirect’. The reasons he gave were that there are no common standards to write an essay at Vietnamese universities. Also, Vietnamese culture, education system and expectations from teachers influence the way students write essays, he said, although he did not tell explicitly how these factors influence writing. In further conversations, Minh described a Vietnamese essay as ‘a forest where anyone finds it so easy to get lost’. Nevertheless, Vietnamese people still find their way ‘out’ since it is they who have created their own writing styles, he added. Thanh reported that Vietnamese writing ‘just lets you explore by yourself ’. It ‘implies something, and does not tell readers exactly what the problem is’. He also commented on how a conclusion is written in general and how he wrote in written exams in his first degree. He revealed this by giving examples from his writing. When you see my Vietnamese introduction, you’ll see that it doesn’t tell you clearly what the topic is. I write from a distance toward the topic. After four or five paragraphs, I may tell the topic or even not tell it explicitly. Readers have to read between the lines what I’m arguing through my writing. I write in a circular way y I don’t remember exactly what was included in the introduction but I’m sure that I wrote very indirectly and circularly about anything concerning the topic y Conclusions often include recommendations or personal feelings, suggest follow-up activities or propose new ideas but these recommendations or suggestions are only superficially touched, not comprehensively arguedy Hoa described the way she wrote essays in Vietnamese and gave examples to demonstrate. I didn’t have a clear indication between a topic sentence and supporting sentences y If I just say something like ‘‘I’ll write about this or that’’ in Vietnamese writing, then my writing is too straightforward y It’s said that Vietnamese writing is more circular and English writing is more straightforward. But my writing in both languages is not much different. For example, when I write introductions in both English and Vietnamese, I often introduce a general context, then focus more on the topic y Sometimes I suggest something new in a Vietnamese essay She explained that she wrote essays as she did in Vietnam because she was not taught how to write an essay at university. She just applied what she had learnt at

The Writing and Culture Nexus

31

school to the way she wrote an essay. She wrote according to her writing habits. She also added that students in Vietnam in general are not taught how to write academic essays. An English essay An English essay, as perceived by all the participants, has the qualities of being ‘direct, straightforward, and clear’. In Huy and Hoa’s opinions, this is because English writing has standards for essays. Huy added that the thoughtpatterns of English people might be more direct and clearer, so their writing is direct and clear. Please note that the notion of thought-pattern being synonymous with written discourse pattern may have been picked up by this participant in his courses on English writing during his undergraduate study and in the English for Academic Purposes program prior to his study in Australia. Thanh gave a detailed description of English essays. When reading an English introduction, you know exactly what is going to be written about. It is very direct, not circular, and points clearly what is to be focused on next. Conclusions contain only what has been written in the body. If the writer wants to raise more ideas, another part such as recommendations or suggestions is formed. The recommendations or suggestions part is rich and well-discussed. The findings have indicated that both Vietnamese and English essays follow the same organisation: introduction-body-conclusion. But this organisation is developed differently in these two writing styles. What was reported by the participants supports the notion that Vietnamese writing tends to be indirect and could be developed in ‘whatever’ direction, which is contrasted with the assumed way English people write – ‘going directly to the point’. In other words, Vietnamese writing was perceived by the participants to be ‘free and not controlled’ by any rules. This characteristic of Vietnamese writing lies in the ‘indirect and circular’ manner, according to the participants, which goes against the ‘straightforward’ quality of English writing. While Vietnamese writing does not tell readers explicitly what is written, English writing tells the audience exactly what the writer intends to focus on and argue. This was explained by the participants as being due to the characteristics of polite behaviour amongst Oriental people who often find it impolite or even rude to be straightforward. They tend to be tactful and often prefer implying things. The participants’ reference to ‘Oriental people’ implies a positive characteristic that is well recognised among people in the region instead of something inferior or immature as often been interpreted by the West (Pennycook, 1998; Said, 1978). Another reason why Vietnamese writing was considered ‘free’ by the participants is the fact that Vietnamese universities do not have common standards to write essays and teachers’ writing tastes can be very different. So altogether, Vietnamese culture, the education system and expectations from teachers influence the way students write. This characteristic can be seen as a ‘product’ of the responsibility of readers of Vietnamese writing whereby writers do not have to keep in mind ‘a mutual frame of reference for writer and reader’ (Ferguson, 1997, p. 33).

32

Phan Le Ha

The participants did not spell out that it is the ‘responsibility of readers’ but the information given by them shows this in such observations as, for example, ‘readers have to read between the lines what I’m arguing’. The experience in Vietnamese writing communicated by one participant supports the view that in Vietnamese writing, long and rather circular introductions are popular. Conclusions often include something new and different from what has been discussed in the body. This ‘something’ may include recommendations, suggestions, new ideas or follow-up activities, and these are only superficially ‘touched’ on, not thoroughly argued. This Vietnamese way to write introductions and conclusions is different from that of English which is known as so direct and strict that writers need to pinpoint exactly what is to be focused on in introductions and must not add new ideas in conclusions. However, one participant argued that her writing in both languages was very similar, by which she meant that her style was very straightforward. However straightforward her Vietnamese, she still wrote conclusions in the same way as many Vietnamese people do, that is she sometimes suggested new ideas. She explained that this was because she was not taught how to write in her Vietnamese university. She wrote according to her writing habits. But she never did it in English writing because she was well aware of the rules for academic writing. The data suggest that Vietnamese writing tends to place emphasis on conclusions as the explicit part of an essay and as the part that permits extension of knowledge, whilst English writing places emphasis on the introduction as the explicit part, which ‘makes a clear way for readers to follow the whole text’, as one of the participants observed. Moreover, it is obvious that all the participants recognised the explicit and practical patterns of English writing which assisted them in easily comprehending English texts. This suggests that the explicitness expected in English academic writing is well recognised and appreciated as it appears to be helpful for students.

Essay Argument Development A Vietnamese essay Both Minh and Huy reported that ‘students write in whatever way they like’. For Minh students’ writing does not show clear coherence and cohesion; they can jump from one paragraph to another freely without giving full information in one paragraph. According to Huy ‘you write as you think, you can start a new paragraph if you like even when you have not finished an argument’. Hoa shared her experience in writing Vietnamese essays, reporting that she did not have a clear indication in her writing of what was a topic sentence and what were supporting sentences. She wrote according to her writing habits. Minh, Huy and Hoa claimed there are no clear criteria for academic essays in Vietnamese universities, so students write the way they like. An English essay Minh, Huy and Hoa all agreed that an English essay topic is developed in a number of paragraphs in which parts of the topic are directly treated and linked to one other. Each paragraph develops an argument with a topic sentence

The Writing and Culture Nexus

33

and supporting sentences. Minh and Hoa also reported that an essay outline is needed before writing, and students follow the outline to write essays. According to them, there are clear-cut rules for English essays at universities, so students just have to follow the rules to write. The participants’ observation on the one hand corresponds well to many of the guides on how to write good English essays, for example, Taylor (2009), but on the other hand demonstrates a limited view on English academic writing that assumes that it is heavily and can be ‘straightforwardly’ and effectively governed by rules, the view that Taylor (2009) also seems to both imply and contest in his writing guidebook. The data given by the participants suggest that Vietnamese students can write Vietnamese essays in whatever way they like. They can jump from one paragraph to another without finishing an argument. They reported there is no clear link between topic sentences and supporting ideas. This is completely different from an English essay, which they saw as being developed in a number of paragraphs based on an outline. Then, each paragraph develops one idea, which is shown clearly by a topic sentence and supporting sentences. The reason why Vietnamese students write in their own way is that they are not taught how to write at universities. Thus, they have to find different ways to write in different situations, as voiced by one participant. They have to ‘struggle’ to find a best way and are never sure which way is better because they have no standards to follow. It is obvious from the findings that what the participants call English ‘clarity’ comes from explicitness, and this is contrasted with the circuitous, flowing and tenuous connectedness of Vietnamese writing. Moreover, ‘analysis’, defined as selecting ideas for discussion for and against with evidence in English writing, is contrasted with accepting ‘wisdom’ in Vietnamese writing. Also, Vietnamese writing could see knowledge as a gift to all, not always as property. This stands in contrast to the English rules for use and acknowledgement of others’ ideas.

Cohesion, Coherence, and Signposting A Vietnamese essay According to the participants, clear signposts such as firstly, secondly, finally, etc., are less used in Vietnamese writing. Discourse markers are less used. (Minh) Signposts are not often used. Even if one is aware of the necessity to use signposts, these signposts only link superficially but not within the writing itself because these signposts may not reflect coherence and cohesion of one’s writing. This is different from English writing. (Huy) Further clarification of this question with Minh and Huy indicated that ‘coherence’ in Vietnamese writing is not very necessary. By contrast, ‘cohesion’ is more important. Writers can develop an essay in any way, whether ‘circular’, ‘indirect’, ‘flowery’ or even ‘moody’, but cohesion is still required by Vietnamese

34

Phan Le Ha

writing since what is important is the ‘flow’. Huy noticed that the use and repetition of ‘key words’ are not familiar in a Vietnamese essay while these are customary in English writing. Hence, when writing Vietnamese, he was not aware of the so-called key words or did not know that these exist, but in writing in English he was very familiar with the technique of using key words and key word repetition, which helps make writing coherent and cohesive. Thanh indicated that if a writer mentions something in paragraph A in Vietnamese writing, he or she has to find a way, even if ‘ridiculous’ to link it to paragraph B, then his/her writing has a ‘flow’. For example, something is mentioned in one paragraph and at the end of the paragraph, some sentences are written to act as a bridge to the next paragraph. These sentences generate new ideas and signal to readers these new ideas that will be discussed next. On further clarification with the researcher, Thanh added he could see that Vietnamese writing is digressive, but it always has a ‘flow’, which implicitly gives an essay the cohesion it needs to satisfy readers. For Hoa, she always wrote linking sentences between paragraphs. She could not be excessively straightforward in Vietnamese writing although she wrote very directly. If she wanted to signpost readers with clear markers, such as first, second, third, she still had to write ‘bridging’ sentences, such as ‘Although it is y it y ’. Hoa said if she was too straightforward in Vietnamese writing, then readers may feel bored or dissatisfied with her writing. They may feel her writing is incoherent or lacks cohesion. She concluded it is impossible to perfectly compare ‘cohesion’ and ‘coherence’ in Vietnamese and English writing since these qualities are interpreted in Vietnamese ways and terms. In Vietnamese writing, she also felt that Vietnamese people prefer writing long sentences to refer back to previous ideas rather than using such referents as ‘this’ or ‘that’, which are very popular in English. An English essay All the participants reported that English writing is very clear with its signposts. Minh observed discourse markers are used to make things ‘clear’ for readers. Cohesion and coherence in English are ‘very clear’. Signposts are often used in English writing as reported by Huy. According to Thanh, English writing is ‘very clear’ with signposts such as ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, ‘then’, ‘eventually’. It indicates ‘clearly’ what is to be focused next by using such phrases as ‘I’ll explore y in the next part’ or ‘The next part will focus on y’. ‘Clarity’ in this discussion by the participants appeared to mean being ‘explicit’. Minh also added that relevance in English writing is also gained through synonyms and antonyms. In addition, referents such as ‘this’ or ‘that’ are frequently used in English writing, which are not often liked by Vietnamese writers. All the participants supported the literature indicating that signposts or discourse markers in English writing are very clear, ‘visible’ and frequently used, whereas in Vietnamese writing these tend to be implicit, ‘invisible’ and less used. Readers have to identify what is implied to them but are not clearly told. The participants emphasised the importance of ‘bridging’ or ‘linking’ sentences between paragraphs in Vietnamese writing. The signposts themselves do not seem to give coherence and cohesion to an essay without ‘bridging’ sentences even when these sentences are ‘ridiculous’. This is

The Writing and Culture Nexus

35

because linking sentences give a ‘flow’ to one’s writing and please Vietnamese readers’ taste, the taste for tactfulness and indirectness that has been discussed in the literature showing that its writers have sophisticated ways of understanding and interpreting knowledge. The findings also reflected that Vietnamese writing values ‘flow’ while English writing expects directness, and more focused ‘relevance’ with continual reference back to the same main points. In other words, coherence in Vietnamese writing relates to ‘flow’ rather than ‘relevance’ in English. In Vietnamese writing, coherence and cohesion seem to be unrelated in the eyes of the participants, whilst in English, they are interrelated and interdependent (relevance comes through strategies for coherence). It is not that Vietnamese writing has no coherence but coherence may indeed come from the way in which readers read. Also, relevance is the way parts of the discussion hold together. Vietnamese writing is often ‘digressive’ in Australian terms (even in Vietnamese terms, but this is valued), but it still holds together through the strategies to create ‘flow’ and always comes to the point in the end, as confidently stated by all the participants in further conversations with the researcher.

Styles A Vietnamese essay Vietnamese writing has the quality of a ‘flowery’ style with beautiful words used, as reported by all the participants. However, different participants gave different ideas about this. According to Minh, Vietnamese writing prefers a flowery style and Vietnamese people tend to use beautiful, poetic, and flowery words to express things. He offered the reason for this preference as being that the education system is heavily academic and theoretical. Although Huy said that Vietnamese people prefer poetic and beautiful words, he felt that this depended on different people and that it was not true for everybody. Thanh also reported that Vietnamese writing is more flowery with frequent use of poetic and beautiful words but this was not always true for him. Sometimes he wrote in a ‘sophisticated, polished, and flowery’ manner but sometimes very simply. It depended on his mood. He stated that he felt good to read a flowery Vietnamese piece of writing. Maybe Vietnamese people value ‘polished’ and ‘vague’ words because ‘the more polished, the more superior’. But this style is rather the literary style, he said. Hoa, like Huy, said that flowery style depends on the individual. She felt Vietnamese writing has both flowery and straightforward writers. Discussing her own writing style, she stated she did not use beautiful words in either language. She wrote very straightforwardly without beautiful words. She tended to use simple and clear words. She did not make her writing flowery or ‘flying’.

An English essay All the participants agreed that English essays are simply and clearly written. Minh felt English writing is more practical. Huy observed that clear

36

Phan Le Ha

and simple words are used, but he also commented on the tendency to use beautiful words for expressions when writing in English by his students in Vietnam. Thanh described the way he wrote in English. He tended to write very simply because he preferred simplicity and he did not have complicated words to use. He also had to make everything clear for lecturers, otherwise ‘they may cross out’ his writing. Hoa claimed that not all English people write straightforwardly or lack a flowery style. For her, English writing has both flowery and straightforward writers. They also use ‘symbolic, polished, and poetic’ words. Her writing in English was very similar to her writing in Vietnamese, which she said meant that she did not use beautiful language. However, she reported some of her friends liked to use polished and ‘rare’ words in English. They wrote long sentences in a rather circular manner. It was so difficult to understand, she felt. In her opinion, it was more necessary to write ‘correctly’ and ‘understandably’ than ‘beautifully’. On further iscussion with her about what she meant by ‘correctly’, she contended that ‘correctness’ should be understood in terms of grammar, styles and rules of English academic writing, which everyone should follow when writing English. The participants all agreed that Vietnamese writing prefers a ‘flowery’ style with beautiful and poetic words. One participant explained that the education system is heavily academic and theoretical, not as practical as that in Australia. But two participants concluded the perception of what constitutes simple or flowery depends on different individuals. Both Vietnamese and English have straightforward language and flowery writers. One participant, Thanh, claimed that his style depended on his mood — sometimes he produced very sophisticated, ‘polished’, and flowery work but sometimes very simple. He also added it felt good to read flowery Vietnamese writing. He guessed that ‘polished’ and ‘vague’ words may be valued in Vietnam because ‘the more polished the more superior’. That strongly supports the contention that Vietnamese people tend to like something which sounds nice to them. But Thanh also stated that this was rather a literary style than an academic style. All the participants saw English essays as being simply and directly written with everything ‘clear’ and explicit for readers. But one participant commented that English students also use ‘symbolic’, ‘polished’ and ‘poetic’ words in their writing. This has raised a question regarding to what extent essays are allowed to be ‘flowery’ within academic norms that Phan Le Ha (2009) and Viete and Phan Le Ha (2007) have explored and discussed. This may also vary between the discourses associated with different disciplines, as pointed out by one of the participants who saw that her discourse was ‘not poetic’, so the way she wrote was very straightforward; she linked this with her disciplinary requirements in Business studies.

Criteria for Good Vietnamese Academic Writing to be Assessed by Lecturers Minh and Huy studied for their first degree in English-medium in Vietnam, so they did not have to write Vietnamese essays. Thus, they did not give any information

The Writing and Culture Nexus

37

about this question. Thanh and Hoa described in detail what criteria they thought lecturers might employ when assessing students’ writing papers. I don’t think lecturers base [their judgments] on any common criteria to assess our writing papers. They may prefer logical and fluent writing with good coherence and cohesion. For example, if you mention something in paragraph A, you have to find any way, even ‘ridiculous’ to link it to paragraph B, then your writing has a ‘flow’. If your lecturer can read the ‘flow’, your writing is highly valued. Also, lecturers often prefer flowery writing in papers, which sound ‘telling’. Maybe in Vietnam, when marking writing papers, lecturers do not look at the deep analysis of a writing (it’s extremely hard for students to reach to the level of deep analysis) but they look at how students write. Normally, lecturers are the ones who decide whether you’re right or wrong based on their perceptions of right and wrong. Therefore, if your lecturer tells you 10 things, for example, and you repeat exactly these 10 things, you’ll get full marks. If you repeat 9 out of 10, you’ll get 9. Or if a textbook tells you something and you repeat it in your writing paper, then you’ll get good marks. (Thanh) Personally, I think that a good essay doesn’t always have to be very informative but what it needs is cohesive and coherent development. Moreover, if a marker is fond of the flowery style appearing in linking sentences, and your essay is that style, then your essay is given a good mark. It’s always the best if your introduction and conclusion are interesting even if the body is rather boring. Still your essay gets a good mark y After long pages, it’s better to read a good conclusion that concludes all the main ideas and helps readers memorise what’s been read so far. (Hoa) It appears that, from the personal experience of these two participants, lecturers in Vietnamese universities seem to value the ‘flow’ in writing, which helps make an essay coherent and cohesive. They also tend to value flowery writing, the inclusion of content representing the course focus, and a conclusion that clearly ‘reminds’ the reader of the main ideas covered. ‘Good’ Vietnamese writing in this case is work that receives good marks. The interview data have supported the hypothesis that a ‘flowery’ style is preferred and valued in Vietnamese writing since lecturers may often be interested in flowery writing, which appears in the ‘telling’ of an argument and in linking sentences. At the same time, it is clear that interesting conclusions in Vietnamese essays are very important since they refresh readers after following long pages of essay development. It also seems that the appearance of an essay is sometimes more important than its content, especially when the participants explained that it is extremely hard for students to reach the level of deep analysis, and that a good essay does not have to be very informative.

38

Phan Le Ha

The information given by the participants suggests that English essays set rules for style and for what counts as an adequate ‘argument’. By contrast, Vietnamese writing has no strict standards for style, but content is somewhat driven by sociocultural practices.

Conclusion To conclude, the study has demonstrated that writing is indeed a social practice and much influenced by culture and social norms, as argued by Liddicoat (1997), Purves (1988) and Farrell (1997a, 1997b). Although other factors such as educational backgrounds, individual preferences and teachers’ expectations influence how one writes, cultural and social norms play a certain role in shaping how one develops one’s writing, expresses ideas and perceives coherence and cohesion. All these are evident in how the Vietnamese students participating in this study perceived and explained the differences between Vietnamese and English academic writing, regardless of whether they had to write Vietnamese essays in their first degrees or not. However, acknowledging the role of culture and social norms in shaping one’s writing does not at all suggest that culture is to blame when one tends to have difficulties in writing. After all, cultural differences should be seen as difference not deficit and need to be respected and studied. The study has also identified some cross-cultural issues embedded in academic writing experienced by Vietnamese students enrolled in Australian institutions. These issues could result from students’ familiarity with valued practices in their mother tongue and the knowledge they have gained from their prior education in the home country. Their valued practices and prior knowledge need to be recognised and acknowledged as contributing to their writing as a whole and enriching their English writing rather than ‘polluting’ it. Importantly, students themselves need to be aware of the values associated with their writing practices and be encouraged to make full use of their prior knowledge and ways of doing in performing in English, given the internationalising status of the English language itself.

References Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1984). Study abroad: A manual for Asian students. Malaysia: Longman UK. Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1988). Studying in Australia. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1991a). Teaching students from overseas. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1991b). Assessment by misconception: Cultural influences and intellectual traditions. In: L. Hamp-Lyons (Ed.), Assessing second language writing in academic contexts (pp. 19–34). New Jersey: Ablex. Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1997). Teaching international students: A brief guide for lecturers and supervisors. Australia: IDP Education Australia.

The Writing and Culture Nexus

39

Barrett-Lennard, S. (1997). Encouraging autonomy and preparing for IELTS: Mutually exclusives goals? Prospect, 13(3), 29–39. Burns, R. B. (1991). Study and stress among first year overseas students in an Australian university. Higher Education Research and Development, 10, 61–77. Connor, U., & Kaplan, R. B. (1987). Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text. California: Addison-Wesley. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London: Longman. Farrell, L. (1994). Making the grade: A study of the writing in English of non-English speaking background students in the final year of schooling. PhD thesis, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. Farrell, L. (1997a). Making grades. Australian Journal of Education, 134–149. Farrell, L. (1997b). Doing wellydoing badly: An analysis of the role of conflicting cultrual values in judgments of relative ‘‘academic achievement’’. In: A. Duszak (Ed.), Cultural values and intellectual style (pp. 63–86). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Felix, U., & Lawson, M. (1994). Evaluation of an integrated bridging course on academic writing for overseas postgraduate students. Higher Education Research and Development, 13, 59–69. Ferguson, G. (1997). Cultural differences in academic essay orientations. In: Z. Golebiowski & H. Borland (Eds), Academic communication across disciplines and cultures. Melbourne: Victoria University of Technology. Grimshaw, T. (2007). Problematizing the construct of ‘the Chinese learner’: Insights from ethnographic research. Educational Studies, 33, 299–311. Ha, Phan Le. (2006). Overseas students and plagiarism: Stereotypes again? ELT Journal, 60, 76–78. Ha, Phan Le. (2009). Strategic, passionate but academic: Am I allowed in my writing? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8, 134–146. Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education. Language Teaching, 16, 1–2. Kroll, B. (1990). Second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kubota, R., & Lehner, A. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(1), 7–27. DOI:10.1016/j.jslw.2004.04.003. Liddicoat, A. (1997). Communicating within cultures, communicating across cultures, communication between cultures. In: Z. Golebiowsky & H. Borland (Eds), Academic communication across disciplines and cultures. Melbourne, Australia: Victoria University. Liu, D. (2005). Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit? ELT Journal, 59, 234–241. Marlina, R. (2007). International students’ experiences of participation in university tutorials. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Moore, T. (1998). Contrasting rhetorics: Academic writing and the IELTS. Paper presented to the ACTA/VATME Conference (unpublished). Nguyen, M., & Nguyen, V. H. (1998). Tieng Viet thuc hanh [Vietnamese in use]. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Dai Hoc Quoc Gia Ha Noi. Oshima, A., & Hogue, A. (1991). Writing academic English. California: Addison-Wesley. Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the discourses of colonialism. London: Routledge. Purves, A. C. (Ed.) (1988). Writing across languages and cultures: Issues in contrastive rhetoric. Newbury Hill: Sage Publications.

40

Phan Le Ha

Ryan, J., & Viete, R. (2009). Respectful interactions: Learning with international students in the English-speaking academia. Teaching in Higher Education, 14, 303–314. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism: Western conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin Books. Samuelowicz, K. (1987). Learning problems of overseas students: Two sides of a story. Higher Education Research and Development, 6, 121–132. San Miguel, C. (1996). Cultural influences on academic literacy: A case study. Journal: Open Letter, 6(2), 31–43. Sowden, C. (2005). Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad. ELT Journal, 59(3), 226–233. DOI: 10.1093/elt/cci042. Taylor, G. (2009). A student’s writing guide: How to plan and write successful essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Tran, N. T. (1998). Co so van hoa Vietnam [Basic Vietnamese culture]. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban giao duc. Tran, T. L. (2006). Different shades of the collective way of thinking: Vietnamese and Chinese international students’ reflection on academic writing. Journal of Asia TEFL, 3(3), 121–141. Viete, R., & Ha, Phan Le. (2007). The growth of voice: Expanding possibilities for representing self in research writing. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6(2), 39–57.

Chapter 3

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English: Toward an Understanding of L2 Academic Writing Meihui Wang

Prologue In this chapter, first I would like to reflect briefly on my own English writing experiences both in China and in Australia, in the hope that it may facilitate a thorough and holistic understanding of L2 postgraduate students’ experiences of and attitudes toward writing in English. At the time of the study, I was a Chinese postgraduate student specializing in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the Faculty of Education in an Australian University. Before coming to Australia, I had spent my whole life in China. Mandarin is my mother tongue. I began to learn English at the age of 12 as a junior middle school student. Since my time in junior middle school, I have had much writing experience in both English and Chinese. As a motivated English writer, I have accumulated a number of helpful strategies to improve my English writing capability, such as reading extensively, keeping writing entries in journals, and so forth. However, I am not satisfied with the past education in terms of English writing I have gained in China. Most writing practices were oriented toward preparing us for the College Entrance Examination. We were expected to write following rigid templates and rarely had opportunities to write freely and creatively. Therefore, I was fairly excited to pursue further study in Australia after I finished my undergraduate study in China. Deviating from those ingrained templates and rigid sets of rules, I was allowed to make the best of my imagination and creativity when I was involved in my overseas study in Australia.

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 41–58 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022006

42

Meihui Wang

However, new problems came up when I wrote assignments in an Englishspeaking country. I preferred a flowery written style with beautiful and sophisticated words. However, my lecturer thought it was too florid and unreadable. Also, I was accustomed to employing idioms, proverbs, or quoting famous scholars. In my experience in China, I did not have to acknowledge detailed references for these quotes. However, as I have come to realize, not doing so can lead to accusations of plagiarism in Australia. Over time, I began to realize these problems as arising from the differences between English writing and Chinese writing. At that time, writing posed a dilemma for me. On the one hand, I wanted to acculturate into a Western community. On the other hand, I wanted to ‘‘be myself.’’ I was extremely reluctant to discard my own values and writing ‘‘style’’ that I had developed over nearly 10 years. However, that awkward experience did not deter me. It kept me thinking: Was my encounter unique? Or do other Chinese overseas students have similar problems? In the area of English writing, is there room for overseas students to have any freedom or flexibility? Partly from that experience, I decided I wanted to do some research into Chinese students’ beliefs and experiences about academic writing in Australia.

Introduction Becoming a writer is a complex and ongoing process. – Kroll (1990, p. 1) Over the past decades, the figures for international students enrolled in Australian tertiary institutions have continued to increase. In 2007, international students represented approximately 17.3 percent of the total population of Australian higher education students, and China has been the main source for overseas students studying in Australia (IDP, 2007). Before the worldwide economic downturn, it was predicted that this trend would accelerate in the future and the number of international students in Australia would rise ‘‘sevenfold by 2025’’ (Ryan & Carroll, 2005, p. 4). Since most international students in Australian universities speak English as a second language, it is generally realized that the large socially and culturally diverse student population has brought challenges for many Australian universities’ lecturers and tutors. Although international students add remarkable diversity in terms of learning experience, views of the world, and communicating styles to the classroom, educators sometimes feel challenged to ‘‘guide students from diverse backgrounds to successful attainment of learning outcomes for particular courses or programs of study’’ (Schmitt, 2005, p. 63). In particular, lecturers have registered concerns about international students’ academic writing. It has apparently become an area of concern for lecturers, not only because of international students’ English language proficiency but also because of what lecturers see as international students’ initial writing traditions and thinking styles.

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

43

Ryan and Carroll (2005) report, and it is my experience as well, that many international students struggle as they attempt to deal with a variety of challenges they face in a new learning and living environment. This problem is particularly evident in their English writing. Owing to their limited training in and practicing of English writing in their home country (Schmitt, 2005), they tend to regard L2 writing as a dreaded ordeal. What is more, lecturers and tutors in most English-speaking universities are inclined to expect that international students will ‘‘perform in and [be] assessed against the conventions of the host country’s educational values and practices’’ (McLean & Ransom, 2005). As a result, students are likely to experience some degree of loss of sense of self and some reduction in self-esteem in English writing, especially writing in academic settings. My interest in investigating Chinese students’ academic writing experiences has also evolved from the tone of much research literature in this field which regards ESL writers as deficient in terms of language and culture (Reyes, 1992). This has generated in me the wish to have better insight into ESL writing’s characteristics and perhaps to contest these arguments about ‘‘deficiencies.’’ I tend to analyze and discuss participants’ writing practice in light of Green’s 3D Model, which highlights the social aspects of students’ learning and thinking of writing capabilities in terms of linguistic abilities, meaning making, and communicative competence in literacy practices.

Green’s 3D Model Green’s (1988) 3D Model (Table 3.1) provides a vital approach to understand and respond to the complexities, challenges, and diversities of literacy practices. On the basis of a social-cultural perspective on literacy, Green (1988) discusses the 3D Model in relation to subject-specific literacy learning, which he says is a ‘‘holistic,

Table 3.1: Green’s 3D Model (1988, pp. 160–163). 1. The operational dimension — Learners’ competency with regard to the language system, which involves understanding the functions of the alphabet, grammatical knowledge, genre conventions, and technology system of writing in terms of handwriting and keyboarding. 2. The cultural dimension — Learners’ capability to make sense of the meaning system of literacy. They bear in mind the specific contextual and cultural elements to underpin an adequate and effective way of reading and writing within a given situation. 3. The critical dimension — Learners’ ability to improve, transform and construct knowledge in literacy practices. Learners should challenge and critique the existing knowledge system and take an active role in knowledge reproduction and transformation.

44

Meihui Wang

integrated view of literacy, as composing three interlocking dimensions or aspects’’ (Green, 2002, p. 27). The three primary components in the 3D model are the operational, the cultural, and the critical dimensions. The model assumes that literacy is a situated social practice bringing together language, meaning, and context in various literacy practices (Green, 1999). This is a useful framework, since it leads to a thorough understanding of various interdependent aspects of literacy and allows for a multidimensional, balanced teaching approach and learning method (O’Mara, 2006). Green’s 3D Model seems to be consistent with the major theme of New Literacy Studies (NLS). NLS explores an understanding of literacy that identifies literacy as social practice in various social, cultural, and economic contexts (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Gee, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope, 2000). The notion of context in NLS is concerned with not only ‘‘the interactions with particular writers and readers’’ but also the use of ‘‘different genres, conventions, or even varieties of English’’ in different communities (Hyland, 2003, p. 26). In this regard, students are required to take into account appropriate literacy practices in keeping with their writing contexts and to work with the social meanings that each evokes in their writing (Lea & Street, 1998). The advent of NLS has exerted a constructive and significant influence on the learning and teaching of writing. Locke (2005), amongst others (e.g., Badger & White, 2000; Lea & Street, 1998), has suggested that there are competing conceptions of writing in recent curriculum history, which can be categorized into four groups: skill acquisition (promoting learners’ textual and sub-textual competence); critical literacy (improving learners’ abilities to do critical text analysis and social translation); personal growth (developing personal understandings and sensitivities to the world); and cultural heritage (focusing on the value and emulation of traditional literacy works). Since literacy learning more broadly and learning to write more specifically are complicated and multifaceted processes, Locke (2005) suggests that learners cannot afford to rely on a single model to solve all problems arising from their writing and learning processes. Rather, they ought to take into account different dimensions of writing and interweave the essence of these four groups’ approaches in order to learn to write.

Previous Studies on L2 Writing Recent decades have witnessed a number of research projects (e.g., Silva, 1993) probing into influential issues related to L2 academic writing in terms of the unique features of ESL writers’ written products as well as the potential explanations of their uniquenesses. Among those studies, some focus only on deficit aspects of L2 writers and their written products, and this focus often arises from negative generalizations about Asian students. For instance, Kumaravadivelu (2003) summarizes the ways Asian students’ characteristics are represented in the literature and personal/ professional conversations: They (a) are obedient to authority, (b) lack critical

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

45

thinking skills, and (c) do not participate in classroom interaction (p. 710). Meanwhile, studies are increasingly preoccupied with problems and difficulties L2 writers face in learning to write. Mahmoud (1982) reports that L2 writing is prone to be less logical and to lack variety and explicit formal closure. Besides that, ESL writers’ style has been characterized by some as full of digression and vagueness (Hinkel, 1997). Even though it is acknowledged that such findings may play a positive role for ESL students in assisting them to improve their English writing skills, this study is more interested in reviewing research directed at investigating L2 writing from a productive standpoint rather than merely concentrating on deficit characterizations of their writing (Kramsch, 2003), since deficit characterizations of L2 writing often seem more like broad stereotyping than the results of critical and grounded studies of L2 writers’ experiences. The language style consideration seems to become ESL writers’ particular concern partly because of their L2 language proficiency and partly because of the different language styles in different cultures. Phan (1999) remarks that Vietnamese people prefer some musical and sophisticated words to create a multilayered and flexible writing style. She draws attention to the influence of lullabies, folk songs, and Vietnamese tonal language on Vietnamese students’ English writing. Similar analyses may be undertaken with Chinese students’ writing in English. In my own experience, the traditional Tang-poems and Songci-poems have exerted an enormous influence on my L2 writing, and this ‘‘poetic’’ written style has been popular among Chinese students’ English writing. For example, Chinese students seem to have a preference for verbal or grammatical parallelism in their English writing to create a symmetrical and harmonious writing structure (Kirkpatrick, 1997). As Liddicoat (1997) notes, ‘‘Texts like other parts of language are cultural activities’’ (p. 13). Researchers and scholars should never take culture for granted when discussing writing both in the English teaching profession and in public discourse about education. Among numerous cultural issues related to L2 writing, the often-found ‘‘cultural bias’’ (Tan, 2000, p. 15) in English learning and teaching is particularly worth being discussed. When judged according to traditional Western writing criteria and rhetorical value systems, L2 writing seems to be fraught with problems. When operating purely within these systems, it is likely for educators and students to presume that English culture is superior and should be privileged. For instance, Burns (1991, as cited in Tan, 2000) claims that Chinese rhetoric allows writers to follow a repetitive and disconnected order in their writing. His view indicates the inferior status of Chinese rhetoric. However, Canagarajah (2002) points out that, instead of getting rid of the L2 writers’ own culture in their writing, their cultural peculiarities should be appreciated because they could enrich a multicultural academic discourse community. Louie (2005), for one, believes that L2 writers should try to develop their ‘‘meta-cultural sensitivity’’ while acculturating into a new academic environment in order to shape their own identities in their writing (p. 24). Some studies, which have focused not just on L2 written products but also on the writers who have produced them, have explored writers’ individuality and values in the text (Liddicoat, 1997). Such research has noted that the process of writing that

46

Meihui Wang

individual writers enact might have much to do with ‘‘their own ever-evolving writer identities’’ (Viete & Phan, 2007, p. 55). Thus, in this chapter, I also look into how Chinese students’ identities mediate their English academic writing.

The Study Participants I conducted the research with four Chinese postgraduate teacher education students in a large internationally focused university to learn about their perceptions and practices of academic writing. For the purpose of preserving their anonymity, the four participants are referred to as Jack, Nina, Sara, and Adela. All the participants have had L2 academic writing experiences both in China and Australia. Their background information is listed in Table 3.2. The four students were selectively chosen for several reasons. First of all, they were undertaking postgraduate study in an Australian university at the time of the research. Therefore, they were already producing scholarly written texts at the time of this study. In this case, I was able to carry out my investigation in an authentic context. Secondly, in an attempt to look into various influential factors, I took into account participants’ varied backgrounds in terms of their ages, gender, English language proficiency, Chinese writing ability, and teaching experience when selecting cases. To some extent, the different contexts of participants provided me with access to rich insight and knowledge concerned with the research topic.

Data Collection and Analysis The participants were given prepared questionnaires at the outset of the research. Keeping my research questions and participants in mind, I refined Mu and Carrington’s (2007) questionnaire, which contains 100 questions designed in a fivepoint Likert-scale form to investigate students’ L2 writing strategies, into 20 items focusing on investigating students’ L2 academic writing experiences and writing processes. The participants indicated how much they agreed or disagreed with each statement in the questionnaire. The data derived from the questionnaire provided significant prompts and clues for the following interviews. The semi-structured indepth interview was the main data collection method. I worked out a set of questions in advance, but was free to modify the sequence, give explanations, and leave out inappropriate questions at any stage of the interview (Wengraf, 2001). The specific interview questions were set out based on the main research questions. The semistructured interviews were conducted with the four participants in English with occasional contributions in Chinese. Each interview lasted around one hour and was audio-taped with the participant’s permission. When collecting data, I was inclined to seek multiple sources of information on the grounds that ‘‘no single source of

Age

Mid-20s

Late-20s

Mid-20s

Early-30s

Name

Jack

Nina

Sara

Adela

Female

Female

Female

Male

Sex

PhD

PhD

Master

Master

Degree

Table 3.2: Background information on participants.

TESOL

Musical Education

TESOL

Mathematics and Science

Major

Completed undergraduate study in China and her Master’s degree in Australia Completed undergraduate study and one Master’s degree in China, gained another Master’s degree in Belgium

12 months

Completed undergraduate study in China

Completed undergraduate study in China

Previous educational background

6 months

12 months

6 months

Duration of study for the current degree when the study began

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English 47

48

Meihui Wang

information can be trusted to provide a comprehensive perspective on the program’’ (Patton, 2002, p. 306). Therefore, I also relied on follow-up informal interviews and email for data clarification and additional information.

The Role of Academic Writing in L2 Writers’ Lives The two master’s students, Jack and Nina, seem to be motivated English writers and emphasized the significance of writing in their learning and in their life. Jack thought: Writing can help me to express my ideas, my opinions and my thoughts. Also, it can reflect my feelings and y sensation y Writing is an important tool for me to communicate with others. Nina regarded writing as her ‘‘life habit’’ and was accustomed to write down her thinking and ideas as soon as she came up with them in her mind. She said that writing often functioned as a ‘‘friend’’ for her: Sometimes if people have some ideas about something y they probably need to talk about them with friends. For me, writing is like such kind of a friend y who will listen to me. If I have some new ideas, I like to express them out by writing. The two doctoral students, on the contrary, spoke at length of their aversion to English writing. Sara believed that English writing is extremely difficult for her. She explained that her anxiety about grammatical correctness and linguistic accuracy has decreased her interest in English writing to a large extent. Adela compared her academic writing experiences to ‘‘dancing with shackles’’. She felt it is important not only to be ‘‘creative’’ and ‘‘original’’ but also to ‘‘conform to some rules’’ in academic writing. As a result, she reported that she did not like academic writing very much because ‘‘those rules’’ constrained her writing and thinking to a large extent. However, Adela did not deny the benefits that English writing brought to her: ‘‘I think my English language proficiency is improved because of so much English writing I have to do now’’. Adela spoke of the importance of writing for her current research and future career success. She said that writing is a vital way of ‘‘showing what I get from my study to others.’’ Moreover, she claimed that an English teacher is also a researcher who should publish papers in international journals. Therefore, she made great efforts to improve her academic writing capability. The interviews and questionnaire responses indicated that all participants understand writing as playing a constructive and fundamental role both in their academic survival and in their social life. For example, Nina said that ‘‘writing has become one of my habits, and it is a part of my life.’’ As Pennington (1996) also found in his research, writing can be both a ‘‘personal, expressive act’’ and an ‘‘interpersonal, social act’’ (p. 8). The participants in this study recognized that

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

49

writing serves a range of functions in terms of assessment, self-development, and future career success. One of the main motivating factors for participants in going about their writing would seem to be their desire to fulfill the requirements for earning their postgraduate degree. For Jack and Nina, the two participants who were in their master’s programs at the time of this study, writing was an essential component in their assessment. Although lecturers in the Education Faculty speak with their students often, they are inclined to rely on students’ written assignments to evaluate their learning in the course. For the two doctoral students, Sara and Adela, writing appeared to be the sole medium of showing their research results to their thesis examiners. Compared to other forms of assessment (e.g., examinations), participants claimed that writing an assignment or a research report was far more reasonable and acceptable because it allowed more time and space to display their ‘‘true capability’’ in ‘‘flexible and creative’’ ways and with less stressful time constraints. What was reported by the participants also supports the notion that writing can function as a significant means of personal growth (Locke, 2005). Adela explained in the interviews that writing helps her to clarify grammatical and rhetorical issues as well as understand complicated theories. In this sense, writers could develop a growing proficiency in L2 and disciplinary knowledge. More importantly, it is clear that participants could, with more practice in writing, become more proficient in some skills that are crucial for their further development such as ‘‘critical thinking,’’ ‘‘expressing ideas,’’ and ‘‘communicating with others.’’ This is consistent with Doecke and Parr’s (2005) claim that highlights the close relationship between writing and learning. It is evident that, to a large extent, engaging in writing can facilitate students’ individual improvement both in the academy and in social life. Apart from Jack, who has not decided about his future occupation, the other three participants reported planning to be university teachers after their current study. They placed high value on the importance of writing to their future career success. Since university teachers and academics should be involved in both regular teaching activities and research on education, publications in research journals often determine their professional survival and career success. What is more, since Nina and Adela are inclined to be English teachers in the future, they are more motivated to hone their English writing capabilities due to their deep-rooted belief that ‘‘a qualified English teacher should write better than her students.’’

Linguistic Problems in L2 Writing The four participants all reported some linguistic problems arising from their English writing in academic settings. Jack and Nina’s concerns over their use of language focused very much on vocabulary (as something ‘‘stored in their heads’’). They felt that their difficulties rested on how to shape and convey their ideas by varied words with similar meanings as well as through different arrangements of those words. Jack complained about his ‘‘shortage of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in

50

Meihui Wang

English.’’ He was aware that it not only reduced the quality of his writing but also interfered with the flow of his thinking in and through writing. For example, his thinking would come to a halt when he needed a lexical item he did not know. Although he had striven to make up for these disadvantages by reading and ‘‘memorizing’’ vocabulary, he found that he still had a long way to go. Nina said that what made her worry about her writing was the ‘‘monotonous expressions’’ in her writing and her shortage of vocabulary. To her mind, the language used in a piece of writing is one of the decisive factors in judging the overall writing quality. Therefore, she claimed that every time after she fixed on her main ideas for writing, she tended to struggle to adopt various expressions in order to yield a similar effect in a persuasive or creative way. Sara reported that the main characteristics of her language style in English academic writing are ‘‘small words’’ and ‘‘short sentences.’’ These language features result from her language restrictions in terms of limited knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. She said that although English education in China attaches high value to grammar and vocabulary learning, students seem not to have sufficient opportunities to put what they learn into practice in a Chinese environment. As a result, it is hard to improve their language proficiency. However, recognizing that it is impossible to make progress in language proficiency in a short time, Sara claimed that she would make efforts to express herself clearly through ‘‘simple language.’’ Of the students I interviewed, Adela seemed to have had the most experiences in terms of English writing and learning. Although she has many vocabulary options open to her, she encountered other linguistic problems in her L2 writing. She complained that she could not figure out the ‘‘nuances of meanings.’’ Adela elaborated on her dilemmas when selecting appropriate language to communicate in her writing: I feel difficult to choose an appropriate word when I know several y equivalent expressions in English. Sometimes I ask my colleagues for clarification y one of my colleagues, from Indonesia, he is good at both English and Chinese y he is my alive dictionary y also, I use a very useful software – Jinshan dictionary on computer. I pay attention to their English explanations. Another useful strategy is to borrow y expressions or sentence patterns from native writers’ writing. As reflected in the findings, participants’ major concerns in writing seem to relate to their perceptions of their proficiency as second language users. Therefore, the interview data are in line with Mohan and Lo’s (1985) research findings. For example, Nina reported that linguistic problems, such as vocabulary and sentence variety, affect her writing to a large extent. The reason why participants put so much stress on linguistic issues in their English writing may result from the nature of Chinese education systems and teachers’ expectations of their students’ written products in China. Since English education and assessment in China mainly concentrate on grammar and the ‘‘mechanics’’ of writing (Li, 1999), participants said that deeply ingrained writing habits led them to be mostly concerned about

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

51

sentence-level skills. However, an interesting point emerging from participants’ experiences is that although they invest much attention in language correctness and accuracy, none of them take for granted the importance of exploring and developing ideas. Rather, Sara reported in our interviews that only when she felt her ideas were clear and coherent would she proceed to dealing with grammatical problems and grappling with alternative forms of sentence patterns. Participants reported different linguistic problems in the interviews. Sara, whose writing experiences resonate with Phan’s (1999) argument that L2 writers aspire to use sophisticated language in their writing, complained that she did not have a remarkable vocabulary repertoire to make her written texts sound ‘‘impressive’’ and ‘‘academic.’’ As an L2 writer who has more experience in English learning and has already developed a considerable vocabulary, Adela reported wrestling with the choice of an appropriate word when faced with an array of available synonyms. Adela’s experiences suggest that a focus on writing as a ‘‘product’’ is not enough for improving students’ linguistic capabilities, because it does not consider the specific context in which the composition takes place (Coffin et al., 2003).

The Consideration of Audience and Context: ‘‘The Boss of My Writing’’ Jack, Sara, and Adela all asserted that they take into account the context and audience when engaging in English writing. Individually, they reported a broad array of strategies in catering to their intended readers’ expectations and backgrounds. Regarding the written assignments’ content, Jack explained that he tries to ‘‘cover all the points required in the unit guide’’ because they are the lecturer’s expectations for students’ assignments. ‘‘Reading and citing what lecturers wrote themselves’’ helps him to satisfy the lecturer’s requirements and yet still feel that he is showing his own ‘‘stance’’ on a topic. In later conversations with me, Jack discussed how he took into account the writing contexts and his audience’s expectations when structuring his writing. For example, like other Native English Speaker (NES) readers who are accustomed to direct expressions in texts, he tended to point out major issues at the beginning of his introduction. Nina and Adela reported that their English written texts tended to be related to Chinese culture or their own experiences in China. In that case, it was of considerable importance to keep their potential readers, who may have different backgrounds in terms of both academy and daily life, in mind while writing in an English-speaking country. Nina revealed this by giving an example: When I talk about my experience in China in my writing, I will express it in very detail. For example, I mentioned CET in my assignment once y all Chinese students know that is the College English Test in China, but my lecturer is not familiar with it at all. So I provide the definition and the background of CET in detail.

52

Meihui Wang

Adela is accustomed to using Chinese idioms and proverbs in her English writing. Given the difficulties of these expressions due to cultural differences, she often provides detailed clarification when using them in her writing. What is more, Adela added that since at present her supervisor is the main reader of her Ph.D. thesis, she is inclined to be conscious of her supervisor’s preferred writing style in terms of structure and language when writing in English. For example, since Adela’s supervisor is a professional figure in her field, she noted that she tried to use more ‘‘terminology’’ in her writing with the purpose of making her writing more ‘‘professional’’ and ‘‘academic.’’ My participants gave no indication of ESL students’ lower awareness of their intended audience and their reader-responsible writing style (Raimes, 1994; Hinds, 1986, as cited in Yang, 2001). All participants seemed to take into account their readers’ expectations when they engage in writing. Jack talked about his ‘‘subconscious’’ awareness of his lecturers and how he tended to write his assignments by following his lecturers’ favorite ways. In this sense, Jack could ‘‘use particular knowledge of the readers’ beliefs, abilities and interests so as to construct an argument likely to be understood and accepted by the reader’’ (Govier, 1996, p. 80). A little different is the sense in Nina’s and Adela’s interviews that they have a keen ‘‘readerly’’ sensitivity (Kern, 2000). They spoke of bearing in mind the different backgrounds between the potential readers and themselves. Rather than skipping details and explanations and leaving room for readers’ interpretation by themselves, they are inclined to offer explicit clarification for those expressions which may be related to their native culture because they are aware that most of their potential readers are native English speakers.

L2 Writers’ Identity: ‘‘I Want to Be More WESTERN’’ Vs. ‘‘I Just Want to Be Myself’’ Writing is not just about conveying ‘content’ but also about the representation of self. Who we are affects how we write, whatever we are writing. – Ivanicˇ (1998, p. 181) Regarding L2 writers’ identity in their English writing in academic settings, a cross-case analysis of the data revealed that the four participants seem to have differing perceptions. Jack and Adela reported that they wanted to acculturate themselves into the Western discourse community and make their writing more ‘‘Western.’’ Jack claimed that he consciously ‘‘followed’’ and ‘‘imitated’’ the NES writers’ writing and thinking styles on the grounds that he was writing in a Western country and most of his readers were NESs. However, he admitted that he often felt at a loss due to his lack of familiarity with traditions in the Western discourse community. At this point,

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

53

when I asked him about the risk of losing his own cultural identity, he said that it was worthwhile making his writing more ‘‘Western’’ and ‘‘native,’’ even if this was at the expense of losing his own identity. Similarly, Adela asserted that she is sensitive to the differences in writing styles between English writing and Chinese writing and cautious about the risk of ‘‘Chinglish’’ in her writing. At this point in our initial conversation, when I asked her about the likelihood of losing her cultural identity, she answered that the writing context and potential readers in Australia urged her to ‘‘make writing sound more like native’’ and to some extent to give up her unique cultural views. She was prepared to do this and to ‘‘hide’’ her own cultural identity because she thought these two kinds of behavior were contradictory. In contrast, the other two participants, Sara and Nina, expressed an ardent desire to keep or manifest their unique writing style or characteristics, which may be intimately bound up with their cultural background, in their English writing. In the questionnaire, Sara showed that her native Chinese cultural conventions did not constrain her L2 writing. And yet, in the interviews that followed, she suggested that it was the influence of her national culture that explained her individuality and uniqueness in her English writing: Someone said that y different cultures lead to y different writing styles. But I do not think writing style here y and all of Western expressions y are suitable for me, and I never use a model y because I do not want to totally follow others. I just want to be myself y keep my own writing style y and keep my own characteristics. As with the experiences of Sara, Nina was also eager to maintain and reflect her own Chinese cultural identity in her English writing. In her opinion, Chinese students ought to use ‘‘China English’’ in their English writing. The proper adoption of ‘‘China English’’ plays a fundamental and constructive role in assisting Chinese students in acquiring an L2 writer’s identity in their English academic writing. However, Nina asserted that she wrestled with the ‘‘dilemma’’ of establishing her own identity in English writing. She felt that to some extent an inappropriate use of ‘‘China English’’ might confuse her lecturers and affect their feedback on her written texts. In this case, she noted that Chinese students need more explicit instruction and training in terms of the proper use of ‘‘China English’’ in their English writing. All the participants asserted that various cross-cultural differences gave rise to challenges in their English writing, but responded to the challenges in different ways. Having particular ESL backgrounds, the four participants may be tagged with the label of a ‘‘language minority’’ (Chiang & Schmida, 2006, p. 99). For some participants, their English learning and writing experiences seem to be consistent with what this label means because they often struggled with their self-definition when engaging in L2 writing. For example, Jack said, ‘‘I always lose myself in English writing because what I do in my writing is just to imitate the native writers’ expressions or even ideas.’’ Thus, surviving in a ‘‘foreign’’ environment and writing in a second language posed a dilemma for Jack.

54

Meihui Wang

It is interesting that Jack and Adela both suggested that they were passionate about the need to adjust or acculturate themselves into the ‘‘hosting’’ Western country as much as possible. They agreed on the need to follow NES writers’ writing conventions and even thinking styles. As Jack said, ‘‘To some extent, I want to be more Western at the expense of sacrificing my own cultural identity.’’ One reason they spoke of their eagerness to absorb NES writers’ writing styles may be due to their current writing context and their potential readers. At face value, this eagerness seems to indicate that they bear in mind the writing context while writing. However, they quickly appeared to lose sight of the fact that ‘‘context is more than the interaction of particular writers and readers,’’ and the fact that it is also concerned with the choice of conventions, genres, or even the varieties of English resulting from the influence of different discourse communities and culture (Hyland, 2003, p. 26). Thus, to some extent, their inclination to compose based on native speakers’ writing norms confirms the influence of Chinese culture on Chinese students’ L2 writing discussed in the literature, which emphasizes the interdependent relationship among individuals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Very often, Chinese students are reluctant to highlight their individuality, and they strive to become a part of an encompassing social relationship in their writing. On the contrary, Nina’s and Sara’s writing experiences are in agreement with Liddicoat’s (1997) contention, which stresses that writers should adapt their own ways of writing taking account of their individual identities. They reported their desire to preserve L2 writing styles which could stand for their own personality and Chinese cultural values. In this regard, Sara expressed her desire of ‘‘being herself’’ in English writing in the interviews: ‘‘I think myself is unique, and a piece of writing which has the writer’s own characteristics is a good paper.’’ Also, Nina talked about her preference for ‘‘China English’’ as an appropriate written standard English in Chinese students’ English writing. ‘‘China English’’ is a variety of English that is based on native English and adapted to express Chinese culture, has Chinese characteristics in terms of lexis, sentence structures, and discourse patterns, but does not show L1 ‘‘interference’’ (Li, 1993). It can be inferred that the two participants were struggling with their linguistic and cultural loyalties as they attempted to forge a personal identity in their English writing.

Implications for Learning to Write and Teaching Writing This study suggests several implications for students’ learning to write and Western lecturers and tutors’ teaching of Asian students. From the students’ perspective, it is evident that international students have to undergo a variety of pressures and difficulties arising from studying in an absolutely new environment, and that part of their learning involves getting to know the cultural norms and conventions that dominate the target academic community. However, this does not mean that Asian students should accept unconditionally these Western conventions (Murray, 1982, as cited in Tan, 2000; Brutt-Griffler & Collins, 2007).

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

55

Rather, this study suggests that L2 students might well strive to preserve their own cultural identities while being aware of their acculturation into Western cultural values. As far as academics in Western universities are concerned, this study confirms what others have recommended (Ryan & Carroll, 2005), that it is desirable for them to gain more understanding of and familiarity with Asian students’ backgrounds in terms of culture, education, and prior writing experiences. These factors may exert a vital influence on the way students learn to write in academic contexts. Rather than regarding Asian students as inferior and deficient (Kumaravadivelu, 2003), academics might usefully recognize and appreciate their unique styles of learning and writing. In addition, with regard to the assessment and evaluation of L2 students’ writing, studies on English as a lingua franca point out that it is more reasonable to evaluate students’ written texts based on what they bring with them to the intellectual enterprise (Seidlhofer, 2004). In this sense, lecturers and tutors might value various ways of Asian students representing themselves in their writing. They may modify their expectations of these students’ written assignments to some extent and take on alternative assessment criteria. For instance, it may be better for lecturers and tutors in Australian universities to take into consideration cross-cultural variations at lexical and discourse levels when assessing Asian students’ written products in order not to compromise students’ unique cultural identities.

Conclusions In a study focusing on students’ perceptions of academic writing, it is interesting to see the extent to which the participants emphasized the essential role that academic writing plays in their academic and nonacademic lives. Apart from the promotion of their acquisition of L2 linguistic proficiency in terms of textual skills and grammar knowledge, they reported that their learning about and through academic writing facilitated their personal growth and improvement, such as enhancing critical thinking skills, interpersonal communication abilities, and the like. These are consistent with Locke’s (2005) understandings of language learning and writer orientations within this learning. It is evident that the act of writing is ultimately bound up with learning about crucial capabilities for self-development and growth within social communities. What is more, the findings of this study have challenged negative and stereotypical views of Asian students’ learning and writing traits, which characterize them as passive rote learners who lack ‘‘self voice’’ (e.g., Shen, 1989; Yang, 2001). To a large extent, participants seem to be aware of the significance of critical thinking and make efforts to reflect their individuality if they are engaged in critical inquiry or if they are arguing their own points of view in a piece of academic writing. As social beings who are deeply rooted in cultural and educational backgrounds unique to China (Ryan & Carroll, 2005), these participants continue to wrestle with appropriate ways to

56

Meihui Wang

construct for themselves a sense of their identity or voice when writing in English in an Australian university. L2 writing is an extremely complicated individual and social activity. It is paramount to probe L2 writing deeply for the purpose of global communication in general and for facilitating L2 writers in academic success in particular. I hope my research, in association with the prefatory comments on my own writing experience, might contribute to knowledge in this field. I hope it may shed some light on strategies of learning to write for students and pedagogical improvements for lecturers and tutors in Western universities.

References Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). A process genre approach to teaching writing. ELT Journal, 54, 153–160. Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (2000). Literacy practices. In: D. Barton, M. Hamilton & R. Ivanicz (Eds), Situated literacies: Reading and writing in context (pp. 1–7). London: Routledge. Brutt-Griffler, J., & Collins, J. (2007). English as a multilingual subject: Theoretical and research perspectives. In: V. Ellis, C. Fox & B. Street (Eds), Rethinking English in schools: Towards a new and constructive stage (pp. 158–173). London and New York: Continuum. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Chiang, C., & Schmida, M. (2006). Language identity and language ownership: Linguistic conflicts of first-year university writing students. In: P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Coffin, C., Curry, M. J., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T. M., & Swann, J. (2003). Teaching academic writing: A toolkit for higher education. London: Routledge. Doecke, B., & Graham, P. (Eds). (2005). Writing ¼ learning. Australia: Australian Association for the Teaching of English. Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London: Taylor and Francis. Govier, J. (1996). Writers, readers and arguments. In: D. P. Berril (Ed.), Perspectives on written argument (pp. 73–91). Cresskill, NJ: Hamilton Press. Green, B. (1988). Subject-specific literacy and school learning: A focus on writing. Australian Journal of Education, 32, 156–179. Green, B. (1999). The new literacy challenge? Literacy Learning: Secondary Thoughts, 7, 36–46. Green, B. (2002). A literacy project of our own? English in Australia, 134, 25–32. Hinkel, E. (1997). Indirectness in L1 and L2 academic writing. Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 361–386. Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. New York: Cambridge University Press. IDP. (2007). International students in Australian higher education, Semester 1, 2007. Available at http://www.idp.com/research/fast_facts/higher_education.aspx. Retrieved on November 5, 2008. Ivanicˇ, R. (1998). Writing and identity. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Chinese Postgraduate Students Learning to Write in English

57

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2000). Changing the role of schools. In: B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 121–148). London: Routledge. Kern, R. (2000). Literacy and language teaching. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Kirkpatrick, A. (1997). Traditional Chinese text structures and their influence on the writing in Chinese and English of contemporary mainland Chinese students. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6, 223–244. Kramsch, C. (2003). The privilege of the nonnative speaker. In: C. Blyth (Ed.), The sociolinguistics of foreign language classrooms: Contributions of the native, the near-native, and the non-native speaker. Issues in Language Program Direction, A Series of Annual Volumes (pp. 250–262). Boston: Heinle. Kroll, B. (1990). Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Problematizing cultural stereotypes in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 709–719. Lea, M. R., & Street, B. (1998). Students writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23, 157–172. Li, W. (1993). China English and Chinese-style English. Foreign Language and Foreign Language Teaching, 25(4), 18–24. Li, X. M. (1999). Writing from the vantage point of an outsider/insider. In: G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native educators in English language teaching (pp. 43–55). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Liddicoat, A. (1997). Communicating within cultures, communicating across cultures, communication between cultures. In: Z. Golebiowski & H. Borland (Eds), Academic communication across disciplines and cultures (pp. 12–23). Melbourne: Victoria University of Technology. Locke, T. (2005). Writing positions and rhetorical spaces. In: B. Doecke & G. Parr (Eds), Writing ¼ learning (pp. 75–94). Northwood, SA: Wakefield Press and AATE. Louie, K. (2005). Gathering cultural knowledge: Useful or use with care? In: J. Carroll & J. Ryan (Eds), Teaching international students (pp. 17–25). New York: Routledge. Mahmoud, A. (1982). A functional analysis of written compositions of Egyptian students of English and the implications of the notional functional syllabus for the teaching of writing. Dissertation Abstracts International, 44(5), 1439A. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Cultures and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253. McLean, P., & Ransom, L. (2005). Building intercultural competences: Implications for academic skills development. In: J. Ryan & J. Carroll (Eds), Teaching international students: Improving learning for all (pp. 45–62). New York: Routledge. Mohan, B. A., & Lo, W. A. (1985). Academic writing and Chinese students: Transfer and developmental factors. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 515–532. Mu, C. J., & Carrington, S. (2007). An investigation of three Chinese students’ English writing strategies. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 11, 1–22. O’Mara, J. (2006). Becoming literate: Pre-service English teacher and ICTs. English in Australia, 41(3), 44–48. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Pennington, M. (1996). The computer and the non-native writer: A natural partnership. Cresskill: Hampton Press.

58

Meihui Wang

Phan Le Ha. (1999). Different voices: Writers’ comparisons of Vietnamese and English academic writing. Unpublished minor thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Raimes, A. (1994). Language proficiency, writing ability, and composing strategies: A study of ESL college student writers. In: A. H. Cumming (Ed.), Bilingual performance in reading and writing (pp. 139–172). Ann Arbor, MI: Language Learning Publishing Company. Reyes, M. (1992). Challenging venerable assumptions: Literacy instructions for linguistically different students. Harvard Educational Review, 62, 427–446. Ryan, J., & Carroll, J. (2005). ‘Canaries in the coalmine’: International students in Western universities. In: J. Ryan & J. Carroll (Eds), Teaching international students: Improving learning for all (pp. 3–10). New York: Routledge. Schmitt, D. (2005). Writing in the international classroom. In: J. Ryan & J. Carroll (Eds), Teaching international students: Improving learning for all (pp. 63–74). New York: Routledge. Seidlhofer, B. (2004). Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 209–239. Shen, F. (1989). The classroom and the wider culture: Identity as a key to learning English composition. College Composition and Communication, 40, 459–466. Silva, T. (1993). Toward an understanding of the distinct nature of L2 writing: ESL research and its implications. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 657–677. Tan Y. S. L. T. (2000). What makes writing difficult for Hong Kong international students in Australian universities? Unpublished minor thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Viete, R., & Phan, Le Ha (2007). The growth of voice: Expanding possibilities for representing self in research writing. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6(3), 39–57. Wengraf, T. (2001). Qualitative research interviewing. London: Sage. Yang, Y. (2001). Chinese interference in English writing: Cultural and linguistic differences. Available at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/ 0000019b/80/19/cf/d0.pdf. Retrieved on August 25, 2008.

Chapter 4

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations: Critical Thinking in Academic Writing Ly Thi Tran

The case study reported in this chapter explores how four Chinese and Vietnamese international students from two disciplines, Economics and Education, mediated their ways of displaying critical thinking in disciplinary writing at an Australian university. It draws on a modified version of Lillis’s (2001) heuristic and positioning theory (Harre´ & van Langenhove, 1999) for the interpretation of students’ writing practices within an institutional context. The study includes four talks around texts, which engage the students in an exploration of their practices in demonstrating their critical thinking in their first texts at the university, and four in-depth interviews six months later, which aim to examine how students negotiated their writing practices as they progressed through their course. Morrison, Merrick, Higgs, and Le Mactais (2005) argue that a large body of literature concerning international students in English-medium institutions has worked from a ‘‘deficit model’’ and tends to problematize international students. Challenges facing international students in English-medium higher education have often been assumed to be related to cultural differences. The discourse of cultural differences contributes to some extent to our understandings of some of the preferred learning ways and values Asian students may bring with them into Western institutions. However, within the current changing global context, which is associated with cross-border education and student mobility, relying too much on the link between cultural factors and the images of Asian students may limit the possibilities of exploring complexities and variables as well as invisible aspects in international students’ processes of participation in institutional practices. International students’

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 59–74 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022007

60

Ly Thi Tran

individual intentions, personal preferences and personal agency, which tend to represent what may lie behind their personal practices and mediate their ways of constructing knowledge, remain largely invisible across various studies. The study reported in this chapter is an attempt to respond to this gap in the literature. Based on an analysis of individual students’ writing experiences, it will be argued that all the students in the study seemed to employ a similar coping strategy, namely accommodation, to achieve their academic goals and empower themselves in their disciplinary community. However, underlying that common umbrella of accommodation are their different stories of mediating ways of demonstrating their critical thinking skills and exercising their personal agency. For example, while Wang and Xuaˆn both positioned themselves as wanting to conform to disciplinary expectations in terms of critical writing, and spoke with the voice of an Asian student who appeared to be unfamiliar with the concept of critical thinking, their experiences in writing varied a great deal. Wang tended to disguise her belief and drew on what she referred to as ‘‘pretension’’ through inventing gaps in experts’ research as her initial coping strategy. Xuaˆn, on the contrary, in her attempt to write critically, resorted to comparing and contrasting different authors based only on their good points. The students’ different experiences in engaging in academic writing in their disciplines indicates a need to avoid essentializing Chinese and Vietnamese students into a homogeneous Asian group who are often characterized as over-conformist, lacking in initiative, and lacking in critical thinking abilities (Hu, 1989; Nash, 1991; Osajima, 1988, cited in McKay & Wong, 1996; Vandermensbrugghe, 2004). The analysis of the data also shows that international students’ internal struggles in mediating critical thinking involve a complex web of factors, which appear to be unrecognized on the surface of their writing, such as their intrinsic motivations, their individual life histories, their experiences in writing, and their personal interests and preferences.

International Students and Academic Writing within English-Medium Institutional Contexts International students’ experience in disciplinary writing in English-medium institutions can be linked to the negotiation of ways of writing into which they have been socialized and the academic requirements within their new institutional contexts. It may be at the same time related to their endeavour to mediate between different sources of identities rooted in their personal experiences and personal factors. International students’ personal attributes, their prior literacy, and their awareness of the writing requirements in their disciplinary fields contribute to shaping their writing in higher education. Students’ writing practices thus should be viewed in relation to the ways students as language producers with their own preferences, interpretations, and experiences of academic writing may struggle to respond to the disciplinary requirements and have some influence upon the written discourse practices of their fields. A large body of research indicates that as international students come from different cultures, they may prefer different cognition and learning styles (Cadman,

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

61

1997; Connor, 1996; Fox, 1994; McKay, 1993; Ryan, 2000). In light of this, we can conclude that international students have been brought up with particular ways of interpreting and describing the world and of reflecting this in their writing. There are, therefore, particular approaches to knowledge in different cultures that may have an impact on international students’ interpretations of the ways written arguments should be constructed. Some research, however, suggests the need to treat this assumption with caution and indicates that individual factors seem to shape one’s writing quality more than cultural patterns (Sasaki & Hirose, 1996; Kubota, 1998). Others argue against the cultural generalizations of Asian students as passive learners lacking in critical thinking skills (Littlewood, 2000; Stapleton, 2002). Contrastive rhetoric as advocated by Kaplan (1966) and Connor (1996) is concerned with the preferred cultural patterns of thinking and writing amongst students from different cultures. Kaplan highlights the different rhetorical organizations of ideas in different writing traditions. Indicated in his ‘‘doodles’’ article (1966) is the transfer of first language writing conventions to second language writing practice. Kaplan’s research offers insights into how second language texts are constructed. His article has, however, been disputed for generalizing the writing approaches of different language groups, for example, all Asians as ‘‘Oriental’’ who use an ‘‘indirect approach’’ (Hyland, 2003, p. 46). Also, Kaplan’s argument about culture-specific patterns of writing appears to place much emphasis on rhetorical styles while leaving the influence of culture-situated factors on forming these rhetorical styles unexplored (Connor, 1996). Thus, it is necessary to study how student writers learn what counts as ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘appropriate’’ writing in different cultures (Purves & Purves, 1986, cited in Connor, 1996, p. 112). Contrastive rhetoric tends to rely on the analysis of finished texts to explore writing practices of students from multicultural backgrounds. But it seems insufficient to base the study of written discourse on only the ‘‘surfaces’’ of texts. In the past two decades, research into academic writing has recognized the significance of the processes involved in writing the texts (Badger & White, 2000; Caulk, 1994; Jordan, 1997). Hence, in addition to the written product, internal and external factors that affect the writing process and experiences the student writers have gone through are worth being studied. Furthermore, the fact that early contrastive rhetoric made generalizations about first language ‘‘thought patterns’’ of students based only on an examination of their second language writing reveals a deterministic view of writers’ cultural backgrounds (Hyland, 2003; Leki, 1991; Matsuda, 2001). Such generalizations, which are not based on evidence about students’ reflections on their intentions in constructing texts, cannot be considered reliable information for teachers (Matsuda, 2001). This offers grounds for the selection of the talk around text model (Lillis, 2001) in my research design. This framework enables the students in the study reported here to reflect on their practices in writing their own texts. Thus, it offers an insightful interpretation of student writing that looks beyond the ‘‘surface’’ of the texts and generalizations about student writers’ cultural backgrounds to better account for the complexity of factors that may affect students’ writing.

62

Ly Thi Tran

As academic writing plays an important role in students’ success in higher education, they often try to accommodate the academic requirements in their disciplinary discourse communities. The power of a discourse community is embedded in its conventions, and its power is thus partially maintained through the ways its conventions are expected to be put into practice in writing. Going hand in hand with the issues of power relations and the critique of a discourse community when represented as framed and homogenous, the question of the exclusive nature of academic discourse has been raised in related literature (Fairclough, 1995; Lillis, 2001; Starfield, 2001; Gardener, 1992, cited in Lillis, 2001). In explaining the claim that an academic discourse community is exclusive, Clark (1992) maintains that the rules of the discourse community are often determined by the teaching staff of the community and thus ‘‘it is easier for staff to flout those rules than students’’ (p. 118). Fairclough (1995, p. 243) and Lillis (2001, p. 24) share the view that diversity in meaning making as the result of students’ attempts to tailor their communication in conformity with context and audience is limited in the sense that the notion of ‘‘appropriateness’’ in this regard is associated with a set of ‘‘clear-cut’’ conventions that hold for all members of the so-called homogenous community. ‘‘Discourse community’’ is characterized by Ritchie (1998, p. 128) as a ‘‘closed and unified system’’ and students must learn the forms of the language as well as ways of making meanings demanded in that community — this reflects features of transmission pedagogy. In this respect, a discourse community is seen as homogenous and restricted since student success in participating in it is mainly dependent on their efforts to conform to its conventional practices rather than on their own ways of constructing meanings. Capturing international students’ experiences in participating in disciplinary written discourse has become an area of increasing significance since academic writing is a central higher education practice. This emerging research stream moves beyond past research with much emphasis on exploring the writing problems international students have. It has focused more on viewing international students as individuals attempting to enter a community of practice and become a member of their discipline. As a result, issues concerning cultural values and disciplinary beliefs surrounding student writing tend to be taken into account in an increasing number of studies. Yet students’ agency and personal factors, which represent what may lie behind their attempts to mediate their writing and adapt to academic expectations, remain largely invisible across various studies on student writing at the tertiary level.

Research Design A qualitative case study approach was adopted to construct stories of individual Vietnamese and Chinese students participating in disciplinary writing. A case study (Stake, 2000; Yin, 2006) explores the complexities of students’ experiences rather than drawing hard and fast conclusions. Moreover, a qualitative case study is appropriate for the nature of this research since it focuses on insights, discovery, and

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

63

interpretation rather than hypothesis testing (Merriam, 1998, p. 28). As the accommodating process of individual Chinese and Vietnamese students can be multifaceted, a case study approach allows opportunities to document students’ diverse writing experiences. This provides insights into how they mediate their writing and manage to respond to disciplinary requirements. For several reasons, the case studies reported here focus on Chinese and Vietnamese international students in Education and Economics. China is one of the leading sources of international students for Australian institutions (AEI, 2006). At the university where this project was conducted, international students from China comprise the largest proportion of international students. In addition, recent analysis has revealed that at this university there has also been growth in the number of postgraduate students from Vietnam. Chinese and Vietnamese students from two disciplines, Economics and Education, were selected for the study. Economics is the largest faculty at the university and it has the largest enrolment of international students. Education is another program at the university, which has recently seen a rise in the number of international students. The students in this study were required to meet cut-off IELTS scores of 7.0 and 6.5 to gain entry to their master’s course in Education or Economics, respectively. These four students were selected because they met the descriptive criteria above. They volunteered to participate in the study and were willing to reflect on their experiences of writing their first texts at an Australian university, as well as on how they participated in disciplinary writing as they progressed through the course six months later. All respondents presented in this study are referred to under pseudonyms. To date, research in the area has explored students’ written texts mainly from the view of an ‘‘outsider’’ such as an analyst, a researcher, or a teacher (see, e.g., Pilus, 1996; Tarnopolsky, 2000). The study reported here, by contrast, seeks to understand how students negotiate their academic writing in a Western university, from an insider or emic perspective. Each student participant was invited to a one-hour interview in which he/she was asked to talk about his/her selected text. The talk aimed to engage students in explorations of their experiences of writing these specific texts and how they exercised their agency to meditate their writing and adapt to disciplinary practices. The talks around text were conducted from four to eight weeks after the students had completed these texts. Lillis’s (2001) heuristic for exploring student meaning making was adopted for the data collection and data analysis of this study. This heuristic is based on three sets of questions: How can you say it/how do you want to say it? What can you say/what do you want to say? Who can you be/who do you want to be? Lillis’ framework is relevant for this study since it offers an opportunity to avoid ‘‘surface judgments being made about students’ intentions through their writing’’ (Jones, Turner, & Street, 1999, p. xvii). I have adopted the overall idea of Lillis’ framework and adapted it to suit the aims and context of my study. Here, rather than the ‘‘who’’ question, the ‘‘how’’ and ‘‘what’’ questions have been more focused and a ‘‘why’’ question has been added. This modification aims to understand students’ negotiations of different interpretations of academic writing through what/how they think they are required to write

64

Ly Thi Tran

and what/how they desire to write. The ‘‘why’’ question in turn helps to tease out the underlying factors influencing why students wrote in the ways revealed in their texts and why they may wish to write a certain way. At the same time, students’ identities are also revealed through their responses to the ‘‘why’’ questions. On the basis of Lillis’s model, I asked the Chinese and Vietnamese students to talk about how they negotiated their writing of their first texts and adapted to disciplinary practices through three main sets of questions: what you thought you were expected to write/what you wanted to write; how you thought you were required to write/how you wanted to write; and why you thought you were expected to write so/why you wanted to write so. Without these stories about what/how/why students wrote in a certain way, their intentions and desires in meaning-making would remain a mystery. In addition to the talks around text, an in-depth interview was conducted six months later to see how students might have changed their views as they progressed through their courses. Positioning theory (Harre´ & van Langenhove, 1999) was used alongside Lillis’s model to interpret how the students positioned themselves, and their personal approaches to writing and disciplinary requirements. Positioning theory refers to the possibilities of individual’s multiple and contradictory interpretations and multiple identities within multiple discursive practices. Harre´ and van Langenhove (1999, p. 17) contend, ‘‘Fluid positionings, not fixed roles, are used by people to cope with situations they usually find themselves in.’’ Positioning theory highlights shifts in positions as narratives unfold and as people interact with artifacts within discursive practices (Davies & Harre´, 1999). Initial positionings can be challenged, and this leads to possibilities for individuals to reposition themselves, thereby reconstructing their identities. People thus experience changes through opportunities to exercise agency and create new positions for themselves. The possibility of contradictory discursive positioning is necessary for individuals to exercise agency and make changes (Harre´ & van Langenhove, 1999). This view is relevant for the context of this study, which took into account that the students would confront different ideas about academic writing as newly enrolled students embarking on their first assignments and experience changes in coping with disciplinary requirements. As a result, their former interpretations of academic writing could be contradicted and challenged. The students could shift their beliefs and actively negotiate ways of constructing meaning in light of different beliefs in an attempt to take control of their writing practices and thus their academic life. Through reshaping their interpretations and repositioning themselves, the students would be taking action to achieve their goals. In this way, positioning theory explores the multiple interpretations, intentions, and possibly changing positions of this study’s subjects when participating in their written discourse communities. There are three main forms of positioning which arise from the students’ accounts in this study: situations of self-positioning, situations of forced self-positioning, and situations of positioning of others. Self-positioning arises when one wishes to express his/her personal agency to achieve a particular goal in discursive practice (van Langenhove & Harre´, 1999, p. 24). With regard to forced self-positioning, van Langenhove and Harre´ (1999, p. 26) propose that it is different from deliberate

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

65

self-positioning in that ‘‘the initiative now lies with somebody else rather than the person involved.’’ In the case of this study, forced self-positioning is related to how the students positioned themselves in the ways they think they are required by their lecturers or their subject disciplines. Other positioning means that one’s intentional positioning of oneself in a certain way can lead to the positioning of someone else in the correlative position (van Langenhove & Harre´, 1999).

Students’ Accounts of How to Demonstrate Critical Thinking in Academic Writing The two students in Education decided to take Second Language Development as their first subject in their master’s program. For their first assignments, they were asked to write an essay of about 2500 words on one of a set of given topics related to second language development such as how input, age, motivation, or formal instruction influence second language acquisition. Of the two students in Economics, one worked on a 2500-word essay on a given topic on human resource management, and the other wrote about communication and promotion management. The first essays written by the students have been chosen as the focus of this study because they were seen as particularly challenging. International students’ first texts for their master’s courses are often where the transition space and the clash between disciplinary requirements and their former interpretations of writing occurs. Hence, this may be the place where students have to struggle hard to negotiate between their initial interpretations of academic writing and disciplinary requirements.

Critical Thinking — A Sort of Pretension Wang is an international student from mainland China, who was enrolled in the Master of Education program. The text she talked about was the first assignment for the first subject, Second Language Development. Wang decided to work on the topic: ‘‘How input influences second language acquisition.’’ As critical thinking appears to be a contentious issue in the literature (Adamson, 1993), students are left on their own to interpret what it means to use critical thinking in writing. In her talk around text, Wang revealed she relied on ‘‘pretension’’ as her initial strategy. She assumed she had to identify the weaknesses of famous authors’ work in order to demonstrate her critical thinking skills and satisfy her lecturer’s expectations. Reflecting on her writing, Wang said: I know after reviewing all the opinions, the lecturer expects me to write something about my understanding. so I tried to write this part but this part is really difficult for me because I think all the studies are beautiful and I couldn’t see anything there, I tried very very hard to say something like thisy. (Wang’s talk around text, p. 6)

66

Ly Thi Tran

It can be seen that Wang’s approach to critical thinking was dependent on what she thought her lecturer expected her to do. She expressed her critical view in her essay through such wordings as ‘‘there was not very much discussiony’’ and ‘‘might be another interesting researching areay’’ (Wang’s essay, p. 5). According to her, she struggled very hard to write these parts of her essay, since she was shaped by her own admiration for the experts’ ideas and writing. Within Lillis’s (2001) talk around text model, Wang’s reasoning for her approach to critical thinking, which seemed to be invisible on the surface of her writing, was uncovered based on exploring how she thought she was (or was not) expected to demonstrate this critical thinking and how she struggled to do so. In elaborating on how she evaluated the literature, Wang explained, ‘‘I pretend to say something to show my understanding about other people’s studies y it’s a sort of pretension’’ (Wang’s talk around text, p. 2). She argued that this habit was influenced by her Chinese collective way of thinking: ‘‘That means I should think as other people think and I should not say something different. I should behave like other people. I just anticipated this sort of context for so many years’’ (Wang’s talk around text, p. 2). Within the talk around text framework, Wang tended to be influenced by her voice as experience, which Lillis (2001) refers to as a dimension of life or cultural experience a student might bring into her writing. What Wang referred to as ‘‘pretension’’ in her approach to critical thinking reflected a communal ideology of constructing knowledge valued in Chinese culture (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). That is, knowledge tends to be built up in a communal harmonious way with significant efforts from community members to avoid tension in communication. Being shaped by this collective spirit, Wang’s earlier way of developing arguments was thus tied to her attempt to avoid tension in writing by accepting others’ views rather than criticizing them. Lillis’s talk around text heuristic helped to reveal that Wang’s effort to expose her personal agency through writing critically was complex. She preferred accommodation when confronted with the academic demands of her discipline; however, she lacked the ability to do so since she was previously unfamiliar with this way of constructing arguments. Her reflection on this specific instance of meaning making was an example of forced self-positioning. Harre´ and van Langenhove (1999) argue that this situation occurs when the initiative for individual positioning arises from the expectations of another person who represents an institution (p. 26). Wang forced self-positioned as a student who attempted to conform to what she felt her lecturer wanted to hear in terms of critical thinking. It appeared that Wang was caught between the way she thought she was required to write in English at an Australian university and her past experience of writing in Chinese. As a result, in response to the disciplinary positioning and expressing her agency through attempting to situate herself in a more powerful position in relation to her disciplinary discourse, Wang drew on ‘‘pretension’’ as her coping strategy. Unlike Hao, a Chinese student in Economics who found her experience in disguising her beliefs and accommodating disciplinary requirements unpleasant, Wang felt positive about her attempts: ‘‘Even I have to struggle and I consider the process of struggle as the ways to learn things and I don’t want to stick to my own ways’’ (Wang’s talk around text, p. 4). She thus

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

67

exercised strategic agency by drawing on committed adaptation to take control of her writing practice and her academic life. In the later in-depth interview, Wang revealed: You start to know academically you are not supposed to accept whatever written in the textbook, it’s shared knowledge and everybody can contribute to that knowledge and you have to be critical and ask questions. This is also what I’ll tell my students to do and sort of training, not very systematic but I’ll try to help them to understand that nothing is perfect and you have to ask questions to the things you read y If I am supposed to write something academic, I am not scared, I mean I am now confident in writing this sort of things. Wang’s attempts reveal that she has gone through different stages in her personal construction of how to manifest critical thinking and make meaning in academic writing. Initially, she assumed she had to identify the weaknesses of famous authors’ work to demonstrate her critical thinking skills. As she progressed through her course, she built a more positive attitude toward critical thinking through her awareness of questioning ‘‘shared knowledge’’ in textbooks rather than simply accepting it. In terms of critical thinking, moving from her former habit of constructing arguments to what she was required to do in her course appeared to go along with a shift from ‘‘pretending’’ to having enough courage and confidence to criticize others’ views. This shift also reflects her emerging maturity in taking control of her writing practice and her academic life. Her personal transformation regarding critical writing was by no means simple but rather was dynamic, complex, and multilayered.

Critical Thinking — Focusing Only on the Strengths of Others’ Studies Xuaˆn is from Vietnam and was enrolled in a Master of Education program. She chose the topic ‘‘how age affects second language acquisition’’ for her first assignment in the Second Language Development class. She tended to engage in a hybrid adaptation in demonstrating her critical thinking skills in her first text for this course. To her, critical writing was related to how she could compare and contrast different views. Xuaˆn talked about how she attempted to be critical: I like the way I organize this argument y For example, for phonological [the topic of her text], I could find some people who did some research study about phonological and it was interesting that I could find someone who thinks that young learners are better in acquiring phonological while the others think that the older people are better. So I mean it is interesting to see that two opposing views on that and then I can look at what their studies are and how they argue y Then I myself can judge what is the strong point and good

68

Ly Thi Tran point of each argument so that I can give my own idea on that rather than just said that this person said that, the other person said that y At that moment, you can jump in and say something about that like ‘I think this isy’. (Xuaˆn’s talk around text, p. 2)

In the preceding quote, Xuaˆn stressed the significance of finding mismatches among different sources as her strategy for critical thinking. In addition, she highlighted the need to focus on identifying the strong points of each view. She did not seem to struggle to comment on negative aspects of researchers’ work (as other students in this study did). Rather, her strategy allowed her to avoid emphasizing the weaknesses of experts’ studies and placed her in a more comfortable position. She employed the following words to talk about her critical writing approach used: ‘‘I like the way,’’ ‘‘it is interesting to see that two opposing views,’’ ‘‘it was interesting that I could find,’’ ‘‘I could find’’ (three times), ‘‘I can’’ (four times), and ‘‘I myself can’’ (twice). Xuaˆn’s vocabulary usage illustrated she felt quite positive and confident about her way of being critical of other research, and it was contrary to the one adopted by Wang and Lin when these students struggled to identify only the flaws in the experts’ studies. In light of Lillis’s talk around text model, how Xuaˆn demonstrated her critical thinking was shaped by how she thought she could say and how she wanted to say. There seemed to be no mismatch between her commitment to respond to the disciplinary demands and her personal values. She appeared to position herself as being quite comfortable with her strategy for critical writing. In the later interview, Xuaˆn demonstrated more complex perceptions of critical thinking: It’s some kind of comparing or contrasting. That’s because Vietnamese culture, in our educational background, we don’t have critical thinking, it’s very difficult for me to know about that, to evaluate an author when you always think that that person is high above you, that person is very knowledgeable, that’s the person who can write the book. That’s person is so right, so good, something like that. Actually, I am starting with comparing and contrasting, I read that author and the other authors and then I think okay, they have their good point of views and how they argue that and then I think that okay that’s person is more convincing. (p. 1) Xuaˆn acknowledged that she found it challenging to understand the concept of critical thinking in her course. She revealed that in Vietnamese culture, comments on others’ work should be ‘‘Good thing, not bad thing’’ (p. 8). Like Wang, who claimed that she was influenced by her Chinese culture, Xuaˆn also brought along her voice as experience (Lillis, 2001, p. 45) and believed that it did not seem sensible to be ‘‘critical’’ of a person who had the authority of a writer of a book and was thus more knowledgeable than her. This aspect has been discussed in the literature (Nguyen, 1989; Tran, 1999) as deriving from the Vietnamese tendency to respect authority and value harmony in knowledge-building. For this reason, Xuaˆn resorted to her hybrid

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

69

strategy of comparing and contrasting, focusing on the good points of authors’ work. While finding it difficult to evaluate, this coping strategy (Leki, 1995) seemed to put her in a safe position and gave her more confidence in writing. It seemed that by employing this strategy, Xuaˆn reached a compromise among her beliefs, her voice, and her wish to participate in the academic community. This hybrid adaptation enabled her to avoid pointing out the weaknesses of authors’ work and preserve her own view of critical writing, while at the same time allowing her to engage in her academic writing within her discipline.

Critical Thinking — Being Critical of the Topic Itself Hao was a Chinese student enrolled in a Master of Applied Commerce program. She chose the topic ‘‘Strategic human resource management: significance and barriers’’ for her first essay. In her talk about writing her text, she appeared to tackle a different aspect of critical thinking. She revealed that she attempted be critical of the topic itself but her effort was discouraged by her lecturer. Hao showed her dissatisfaction at not being allowed to discuss her thoughts on this matter: I found someone’s interesting argument about this topic, just like this paragraph. His argument [one of the references Hao used in her essay] does not actually meet the requirement for this essay. I really want to use his argument in my essay and I discussed this with my lecturer. She said ‘it’s not good for you to say too much about his argument’ because it does not quite meet what she wants we said in this essay. So I just use a small paragraph y Because in this essay we should, we must, we must say that HRM [human resource management] is important and helps us but for his argument, he said that HRM is not really important in some cases. You know the lecturer gives us a topic but I think I can have different opinion with this topic, maybe I can give the evidence for the different way from this topic but after I talked with my lecturer, I know that I must write that it is important and I cannot say that it is not important. (Hao’s talk around text, p. 6) It would appear from Hao’s account that she wanted to be critical of the subject matter or implied thesis statement and to put forth a contrasting view. Yet her awareness of the lecturer’s expectations prevented her from doing so. Her linguistic choices — ‘‘I found someone’s interesting argument,’’ ‘‘I quite agree with him and I really want to use his argument’’ — versus ‘‘we should,’’ ‘‘we must,’’ ‘‘we must say that,’’ ‘‘I know that I must write that it is important and I can not say that it is not important,’’ appeared to indicate the tension between her personal desire to be critical in writing and her interpretation of the disciplinary requirements. Thus, the ways Hao constructed meaning revealed that her writing was regulated by what the

70

Ly Thi Tran

lecturer wanted her (not) to say rather than what she really wanted to say. In light of Lillis’s (2001) framework, this revealed a mismatch between her actual way of writing and her potential choice with regard to the content in this writing assignment. Therefore, in this specific instance of meaning making, Hao forced self-positioned (Harre´ & van Langenhove, 1999) as a student who attempted to respond to the voices that she thought the lecturer as the representative for the institution in this case wanted to hear. Hence, she demonstrated her strategic agency through making facevalue adaptation to allow her to gain access to the academic world. Hao, however, other-positioned her lecturer as regulating what students should and should not say in writing, thereby unconsciously not allowing any possibility for her to demonstrate her critical thinking skills and engage in shaping the disciplinary written discourse. This highlighted how the relations of power embedded in the lecturer’s expectations were exercised and maintained through the way the preferred writing content was reproduced (Fairclough, 1995; Lillis, 2001; Matsuda, 2001; Ritchie, 1998). Her case indicated that the student was self-positioning because of the forced self-positioning of the lecturer. The lecturer positioned Hao as being concerned with giving the lecturer what she was asking for. She did not disagree with the lecturer because of the power relationship. Hao’s account was compelling since in the attempt to gain access to the disciplinary community and empower herself in her chosen discourse, she had to disguise her beliefs through excluding from her writing the arguments she favored.

Critical Thinking — Reflecting Theory on a Specific Context Vy was a Vietnamese student undertaking a Master of Economics program. The text she focused on was a case study in which she was required to apply theories about communication and promotion management she had learned during the course. She decided to analyze a recent advertising campaign for Heineken beer in Vietnam. The approach to critical thinking Vy used in this assignment was different from the ones adopted by the three students discussed earlier. This emerged in part from the nature of her text, which was a case study, while others worked on argumentative essays. Her critical thinking in this work was tied to her attempts to reflect the case in the Vietnamese context, rather than on evaluating related studies as the other three students did in their argumentative essays. Vy explained how she attempted to be critical in her text: It may be more funny for the Western people, the thing that wine is more luxury and beer is something for thirst but in Vietnam, it’s different. That’s why here I have to be critical because I can’t apply my own idea about that, I have to think about the situation in Vietnam and I have to ask my friends in Vietnam, someone already goes to bar, already drinks a beer. In the eyes of the target market, what they think about Heineken beer. What I got from them is that it’s very expensive, it’s very nice, number one or kind of thing, so that’s what I think I have

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

71

to be critical a bit. I do a bit of research on the websites and what they think about Heineken is not so serious like what I think. nha` mı` nh [In our home country] while in the rural area or the countryside, the domestic local beer is cheap, about 2,000 dong [Vietnamese currency] or 3,000 dong a bottle while Heineken is very expensive, around 13,000 a can. (Vy’s talk around text, p. 3). In this case, Vy demonstrated her critical thinking by not accepting what was indicated on the websites but instead trying to look at the product from the viewpoint of consumers in the target market. According to her, Heineken was just a normal beer for quenching thirst in Western countries, whereas in Vietnam it was considered a luxurious and expensive beer for those who ‘‘showed themselves as being outgoing, upscale and stylish’’ (Vy’s text). To be critical in this respect, she employed two main tools: collecting information from websites and data from her friends who were beer drinkers in Vietnam. Her critical thinking was bound to the evaluation of the Western perception on the status of the product by reflecting it onto the market situation in Vietnam. Vy further explained that her approach to critical thinking was expected by her lecturer: ‘‘For this one, the lecturer said that we don’t have to do a lot of research and literature review and criticize this one a bit and support this one but here we have to apply the idea [the model she learned in class] and we try to integrate it into the case’’ (p. 4). As indicated in Vy’s text and her perceptions of the lecturer’s expectations, the critical thinking skills required in a case study differed substantially from the skills required for a literature review. In light of the talk around text framework (Lillis, 2001), the reason why she did not attempt to evaluate much related literature was revealed and like Hao, who was discussed in the previous section, Vy’s way of being critical was influenced by what she thought she needed to do. However, while Hao felt forced into doing so and just made a face-value adaptation, Vy seemed comfortable and positive about her attempts to respond to her lecturer’s expectations. This links to the form of committed adaptation she adopted in her disciplinary writing.

Conclusion Insights into stories of these four students producing their own academic texts help to reveal the varying reasons underpinning their ways of constructing knowledge in general and the variable shades of critical thinking in particular. The students’ different practices in engaging in academic writing within the disciplines of Education and Economics confirm the need to avoid lumping Chinese or Vietnamese students into a homogeneous Asian group. This finding is congruent with an emerging theme in the literature that tends to challenge generalizations of Asian students as passive learners (Koehne, 2005; Biggs, 1997; McKay & Wong, 1996) and calls for the need to explore issues of subjectivity and identity with international

72

Ly Thi Tran

students rather than just locating them in certain cultural groups (Koehne, 2005). It is also noticeable from the analysis of the writing accounts of the students in this study that their culture is not the only factor that influences their approaches to displaying critical thinking. Rather, the study found their internal struggles in mediating among different ways of writing involved a complex web of factors, which appear to be unrecognized or invisible on the surface of their writing or in the end products. This is important because we can conclude that ethnic background did not play a dominant role in these students’ writings but instead interacted with other factors. When culturally influenced ways of writing are reproduced, it is not typically in simple and uniform ways, but rather is personally adapted by individuals through intentional use and transformation. Therefore, to understand international students’ writing practices, it seems valuable to turn the spotlight to their internal struggles in mediating writing rather than merely exploring differences among cultures’ writing norms. In recent decades, students have entered universities from a wide range of educational, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. The learning contexts they are located in are diverse and no longer reflect ‘‘traditional academic subject boundaries’’ with conventional values and norms (Lea & Stierer, 2000). In parallel with these important changes, in recent years in Australian, American, and British higher education, there has been an expansion in the cohort of international students, who add to the heterogeneity of the student body. Thus, universities are making various attempts to help international students adapt to institutional requirements and transition to institutional contexts. However, international students’ participation in disciplinary communities is not fully facilitated since students are often expected to adapt to what is required of them and are seldom provided with opportunities or strategies to negotiate their preferences and values. This one-sidedness seems to ignore the heterogeneity of the student body and the heterogeneity of ways of meaning-making and the emergence of alterative practices embedded in students’ values. The students’ accounts suggest the need for academics to work toward ways to articulate the underpinning constructs of critical thinking in more concrete ways rather than use abstract terms to refer to it. In addition, it also appears important to teach students how to mediate ways of displaying critical thinking in their writing. Hao’s struggle, for instance, indicates that the lecturer’s expectation as a gatekeeper made her decide to keep her argument voiceless and thus restrained her from her first attempts in negotiating critical thinking. As her first attempt was unsuccessful, Hao felt more confused about how to demonstrate her critical thinking skills and struggled later because of this. It thus seems valuable to involve students in dialogues where they can share their understandings, concerns, hidden logic, and experiences in displaying critical thinking in academic writing. We should also reexamine current institutional practices embedded in such notions as ‘‘academic expectations’’ or ‘‘appropriateness’’ in higher education so that space is opened up for students’ alternative ways and diverse aspirations in meaning-making. Rather than be left silent, these approaches should be nurtured in a process of interaction, negotiation, and appreciation of difference.

Turning the Spotlight to International Students’ Internal Negotiations

73

References Adamson, H. D. (1993). Academic competence theory and classroom practice: Preparing ESL students for content courses. London: Longman. Australian Education International. (2006). Statistics on international students. Available at http://aei.dest.gov.au/AEI/MIP/Statistics/StudentEnrolmentAndVisaStatistics/Recent.htm. Retrieved on September 7, 2006. Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). A process genre approach to teaching writing. ELT Journal, 54, 153–160. Biggs, J. (1997). Teaching across and within cultures: The issues of international students. Paper presented at the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, Adelaide, Australia. Cadman, K. (1997). Thesis writing for international students: A question of identity? English for Specific Purposes, 16, 3–14. Caulk, N. (1994). Comparing teacher and student responses to written work. TESOL Quarterly, 28. Clark, R. (1992). Principles and practice of CLA in the classroom. In: N. Fairclough (Ed.), Critical language awareness (pp. 117–140). London: Longman. Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (1999). Cultural mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom. In: E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 196–219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, B., & Harre´, R. (1999). Positioning and personhood. In: R. Harre´ & L. van Langenhove (Eds), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional acts. London: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. New York: Longman Group Limited. Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the world: Cultural issues in academic writing. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. Harre´, R., & van Langenhove, L. (1999). Positioning theory: The moral context of intentional actions. Great Britain: Blackwell Publisher Ltd. Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, C., Turner, J., & Street, B. (1999). Introduction. In: C. Jones, J. Turner & B. Street (Eds), Students writing in the university: Cultural and epistemological issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jordan, R. (1997). English for academic purpose: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, R. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning, 16, 1–20. Koehne, N. (2005). (Re)construction: Ways international students talk about their identity. Australian Journal of Education, 49, 104–119. Kubota, R. (1998). An investigation of L1-L2 transfer in writing among Japanese university students: Implications for contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7, 69–100. van Langenhove, L., & Harre´, R. (1999). Introducing positioning theory. In: R. Harre´ & L. van Langenhove (Eds), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 14–31). Great Britain: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Lea, M., & Stierer, B. (Eds). (2000). Student writing in higher education: New contexts. Suffolk: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

74

Ly Thi Tran

Leki, I. (1991). Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing pedagogies. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 123–143. Leki, I. (1995). Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across the curriculum. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 235–260. Lillis, T. M. (2001). Student writing: Access, regulation and desire. New York: Routledge. Littlewood, W. (2000). Do Asian students really want to listen and obey? ELT Journal, 54, 31–36. Matsuda, P. K. (2001). Contrastive rhetoric in context: A dynamic model of L2 writing. In: T. Silva & P. K. Matsuda (Eds), Landmark essays on ESL writing (pp. 241–255). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. McKay, S. L. (1993). Examining L2 composition ideology: A look at literacy. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2, 65–81. McKay, S. L., & Wong, S. C. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Education Review, 66, 577–608. Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Morrison, J., Merrick, B., Higgs, S., & Le Mactais, J. (2005). Researching the performance of international students in the UK. Studies in Higher Education, 30, 327–337. Nguyen, K. V. (1989). On the historical role of Confucianism. Vietnamese Studies, 94(4), 67–72. Pilus, Z. (1996). Coherence and students’ errors: Weaving the threads of discourse. English Teaching Forum, 34. Ritchie, J. S. (1998). Beginning writers: Diverse voices and individual identity. In: F. Farmer (Ed.), Landmark essays on Bakhtin, rhetoric, and writing (pp. 127–147). Mahwah: Hermagoras Press. Ryan, J. (2000). A guide to teaching international students. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Sasaki, M., & Hirose, K. (1996). Explanatory variables for EFL students’ expository writing. Language Learning, 46, 137–174. Stake, R. E. (2000). Case studies. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 437–454). California: Sage Publications, Inc. Stapleton, P. (2002). Critical thinking in Japanese L2 writing: Rethinking tired constructs. ELT Journal, 56, 250–257. Starfield, S. (2001). ‘I’ll go with the group’: Rethinking ‘discourse community’ in EAP. In: J. Flowerdew & P. Matthew (Eds), Research perspectives on EAP (pp. 132–147). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tarnopolsky, O. (2000). Writing English as a foreign language: A report from Ukraine. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9, 209–226. Tran, N. T. (1999). The fundamentals of Vietnamese culture. Hanoi: Education Publisher. Vandermensbrugghe, J. (2004). The unbearable vagueness of critical thinking in the context of the Anglo-Saxonization of education. International Education Journal, 5, 417–422. Yin, R. K. (2006). Case study methods. In: J. L. Green, G. Camilli & P. B. Elmore (Eds), Handbook of complementary methods in education research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Chapter 5

Staff Perceptions about the Role of Writing in Developing Critical Thinking in Business Students Duong Bich Hang

Introduction As one of the ‘‘tools’’ needed in a technological society, critical thinking (CT) has become a highly valued outcome of a liberal education in America and in many other Western countries.1 In practice, it has been widely accepted as ‘‘a defining concept of the Western university’’ (Barnett, 1997, p. 2). In Australia, together with analytical skills, CT skills have become one of the most fundamental goals of higher education and are advocated by the Australian Vice Chancellors’ Committee2 as an educational goal for effective teaching and learning. CT is thus supposed to permeate teaching and learning practices in most Australian tertiary courses, including business programs. Nevertheless, the widespread focus on CT does not hide the fact that CT remains a complex construct and its interpretations particularly vary across different disciplinary areas. Many educators seem to have a vague understanding of what CT is and how it can be taught (see, e.g., Johnson, 1992, and Atkinson, 1997). A number of recent studies on CT instruction at the Australian tertiary level (Davies, 2000; Jones, 2004; Moore, 2004; Phillips & Bond, 2004; Tapper, 2004; Thompson,

1

Mainly refers to developed English-speaking countries such as the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 2 AVC-C, 2004, Commitment to Effective Teaching, available at http://www.avcc.edu.au/news/public_ statements/publications/gleffut.htm

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 75–98 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022008

76

Duong Bich Hang

2002) reveal that teaching CT appears problematic, with criticisms mainly focusing on inconsistencies identified in both CT instruction and assessment. This is obvious since different understandings of the nature of CT will lead to various pedagogical implications in CT instruction. Of the strategies for developing CT, writing is often perceived to be an effective tool to foster better thinking skills, but it has not been used to its full potential in teaching students to think critically. Consequently, students often have little understanding about its importance and see it as merely a classroom practice, which has no real, meaningful effect on their way of thinking. Furthermore, inadequate support or guidance for enhancing thinking through the writing process might make it difficult for students, particularly (international) non-English speaking background (NESB)3 students, who are unfamiliar with Western styles of learning, to demonstrate the thinking skills that their teachers want to see. Even if they succeed in their academic study, this is no guarantee that they have become analytical and critical thinkers. This chapter aims to explore staff’s perceptions of CT and the role of academic writing as a way of developing CT ability among students of a business faculty at an Australian university. It also investigates staff’s views about effective ways which business lecturers and language and learning support (LLS) staff can use to enhance the development of students’ CT through writing. The study found that, while there were some common understandings of CT amongst the surveyed and interviewed lecturers, it was an elusive notion for many and even had negative connotations for some. Writing was perceived to be an important and useful means of fostering CT, but the use of writing to develop business students’ CT was limited to formal writing assignments. This chapter also offers a number of implications for CT teaching and relevant recommendations for the business curricula of the context under study.

Conceptions and the Teaching of Critical Thinking There are various ways in which CT is interpreted in the literature. The current debate centers around two main issues: how CT is understood and how it is taught. Because of the conflicting and even competing ideologies underlying approaches to this notion, many diverse understandings of CT are emerging. From a philosophical point of view, CT is seen as the norm of good thinking or as an intellectual virtue needed to approach the world in a reasonable, fair-minded way (Gibson, 1995). This set of ‘‘pure skills’’ (Siegel, 1988, p. 6) comprises abilities for the ‘‘correct assessing of statements’’ (Ennis, 1962, p. 83) and for seeing things from others’ points of view. Drawing on cognitive psychology, most psychologists such as Vygotsky (1962), Widdowson, (1990), Halpern (1997), and Kuhn (1999) conceptualize CT as higher-order thinking skills. For example, Halpern (1997) defines CT as

3

Refers to a student population who are often described as overseas/international students from nonEnglish speaking countries (where English is not used as a native language).

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

77

the ‘‘use of cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed’’ (p. 4). The interpretations of CT held by most scholars are to a greater or lesser extent, all influenced by Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Karthwohl (1956) Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain. This construction, which is highly logical, consists of six levels of intellectual behavior in learning: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Of these six successive levels, the last three levels, that is, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, are often referred to as higher-order thinking skills, including CT skills. Following Bloom et al., Halpern (1998, cited in Ten Dam & Volman, 2004) proposes a classification of CT skills that includes: verbal-reasoning skills; argument-analysis skills; thinking skills such as hypothesis-testing; thinking in terms of likelihood and uncertainty; and decisionmaking and problem-solving skills. Also based on Bloom et al.’s work, Amin and Amin (2003) build an assessment model for benchmarking student core competencies in which CT is characterized as including three major elements: analysis, integration and synthesis, and a critical attitude. A common criticism of defining CT as being comprised of a set of skills is that critical thought also calls for particular affective behaviors or dispositions to use these skills (Reece, 2002). Bloom et al. and indeed many other scholars have placed overwhelming attention on CT as thinking skills. The philosopher of education Robert Ennis (1987, 2001) maintains that CT entails not only skills such as analyzing arguments, judging credibility of sources, etc., but also necessary dispositions. His taxonomy of CT dispositions includes trying to be well-informed, being willing to take the whole situation into account, being prepared to seek and offer reasons, and being open-minded. The skills and dispositions toward CT are reflected in Ennis’s (1987, p. 10) well-known definition: ‘‘critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.’’ Similar to Ennis, Paul (1995) argues that such dispositions as the habits of using the skills to guide behavior are an integral part of CT and that otherwise CT would acquire a ‘‘weak sense’’ that cannot exceed ‘‘the tendency to think egocentrically and sociocentrically’’ (p. 372). Another attempt to define CT dispositions is made in the Delphi report research by Facione, Giancarlo, Fancione, and Gainen (1995). The seven aspects of an overarching disposition toward CT identified from the results of this study are truth-seeking, openmindedness, analyticity, systematicity, CT-confidence, inquisitiveness, and cognitive maturity. These aspects are the basis on which the first instrument to measure the disposition toward CT was developed — the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (Facione et al., 1995). While higher-order thinking dispositions as well as the disposition toward CT have been gradually recognized to be an indispensable part of CT and need to be cultivated in educational contexts, the way CT ability is instructed and assessed has divided academics in a debate with ‘‘a high degree of disputation’’ (Moore, 2004, p. 4). The two major approaches to CT evident from the debate in recent academic discussions and research in North America and Australia are: (a) CT as a generic skill and (b) CT as an embedded skill. The generalist movement, whose leading figure is Robert Ennis, views CT as a set of generic skills that transfer across disciplines

78

Duong Bich Hang

(Ennis, 1987, 2001). In contrast, John McPeck rejects the notion of CT as a generalized skill. McPeck (1981, 1990) stresses that CT is linked to disciplinary competence or it must be interwoven into the fabric of disciplinary courses. He names CT as ‘‘reflective skepticism’’ (1981, p. 7), which varies across subjects and cannot be removed from the domain to which it is applied. The dichotomy of general versus specific skills tends to be less evident as Facione (1990) and a number of other authors (e.g., Bean, 1996; Ten Dam & Volman, 2004) argue that some aspects of CT are generic across disciplines. For Barnett (1997), this debate about generic and embedded CT appears limited and even pointless as it fails to incorporate CT at a more general level. On providing a multiple-level model of CT, Barnett argues that education should include critical self-reflection and critical action, and that criticality should go beyond the narrowly defined notion of an operational set of cognitive skills to the ‘‘reconstructing of traditions and transformatory critique’’ (Phillips & Bond, 2004, p. 280). Pennycook (2001), arguing along the same lines, refers to political critique of social relations and engagements with power and inequality as two kinds of critical work. In fact, his political critique and engagements approach to CT is similar to Barnett’s model of CT. Also in an effort to locate CT as a more comprehensive concept, such theorists as Tollefson (1991), Benesch (2001), and McLaren (cited in Ten Dam & Volman, 2004) adopt the view that CT in critical pedagogy involves recognizing and overcoming social injustice. To that end, students should be educated to ‘‘examine the deep meanings, personal implications, and social consequences of any knowledge, theme, technique, text, or material’’ (Shore, 1992, cited in Pally, 1997, p. 295). Similar to general thinking skills courses that have been promoted in U.S. universities since the late 1980s, formal instruction in CT offered prior to or concurrently with several tertiary courses of degree has been increasingly recognized in Australia. The general approach to CT instruction results in courses which often take the form of stand-alone subjects aiming to develop in students ‘‘a set of critical thinking dispositions and abilities’’ (Ennis, 1985, cited in Moore, 2004, p. 5). Accordingly, lecturing staff who advocate CT as a generic skill are more likely to prefer to leave the teaching of CT to a CT expert or a special software program (e.g., Reason!Able4). However, there are quite a few educators favoring the embedded skill approach to CT as they emphasize a disciplinary, content-driven view of CT (e.g., Bean, 1996; Benesch, 2001; Condon & Kelly-Riley, 2004). Recent research on CT at the Australian tertiary level (Jones, 2004; Moore, 2004; Phillips & Bond, 2004; Tapper, 2004) shows that lecturing staff tend to be more convinced that teaching CT should be critically contextualized. They suggest that the application of student critical abilities should be taught in ‘‘distinctive ways within academic disciplines’’ (Tapper, 2004, p. 202), treated as ‘‘discipline-specific’’ (Jones, 2004, p. 168), or ‘‘embedded in

4

Developed by van Gelder (2002, University of Melbourne). This educational program is designed to assist students to practice their informal reasoning and argument skills.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

79

an institutional culture of enquiry’’ (Phillips & Bond, 2004, p. 293). As a result, the popular approach to CT instruction in business programs in many Australian universities is to use the infusion or immersion model rather than a general program. For example, many Management degree programs at Australian universities (Harrison-Hill, 2001; Phillips & Bond, 2004) instruct CT within the context of subject matter (infusion method) or through intense content engagement in which general CT skills principles are not made explicit (immersion method) (Sormunen, 1992). Yet in either model, to go about teaching students to think critically appears not simple at all. Examining the fact that students are mostly left to absorb CT skills by ‘‘osmosis,’’ Tapper (2004) explains that many academics in practice ‘‘do not have the time or the strategies to teach CT’’ (my emphasis) (Tapper, 2004, p. 202). Academics also find it hard to develop in NESB students the type of required thinking skills when there are few materials and techniques for teaching higher-order thinking skills to this group of students and again, when there is still a confusion among educators about what CT in tertiary study should entail (Davies, 2000). In short, although CT is a desirable outcome of teaching and learning in higher education and has become a recurring concern for most educators, Barnett (1997) is quite right when he points out that ‘‘we [still] have no proper account of it’’ (p. 2), and it is a fact that the teaching of CT at the tertiary level, including CT instruction in business education, reflects divergent understandings of CT held by academics and staff. .

Writing and Critical Thinking Given the strong connection between language and human thought which has been long proven, writing has been popularly used by teachers in many ways to assist students to foster persistence and precision in their thought and the use of language. Writing, according to such theorists as Vygotsky, Luria, and Bruner, is a heuristic in the development of higher cognitive functions, thus students’ analytical and synthetical skills, and also creative thinking, could be enhanced considerably through writing. As for Bean (1996), if writing instruction is to be effective, writing should be first and foremost conceived as a process and product of critical thought instead of just as a ‘‘communication skill’’ (p. 3). Stated differently, writing should be viewed as both a process of doing CT and a product communicating the results of CT rather than just the mere application of grammatical rules which can be isolated from content. CT in this sense reflects the view of John Dewey (1916, cited in Bean, 1996, p. 2), who rooted this notion ‘‘in the students’ engagement with a problem,’’ and therefore, it is ‘‘a productive and positive activity’’ in learning (Brookfield, 1987). In business education, Vance and Crosling (1998) report that writing has been formally integrated with discipline content in two main ways: (a) the subject specialist incorporates writing pedagogy into his/her subjects; and (b) the language specialist is initiated into the discourse and provides instruction. Different universities in Australia choose to adopt whichever approach to writing instruction best fits their teaching and

80

Duong Bich Hang

learning contexts. However, the literature on teaching CT in Australia shows that, while CT lies at the core of most educational programs for business or commerce students, research focusing on CT instruction and assessment in business education with particular reference to the role of written assignments is extremely scant. In another respect, having students do a CT task in written form does not automatically mean that lecturers succeed in asking them to think critically. For example, Tapper’s (2004) study finds that the students did not perceive the ‘‘problemsolving’’ assignments as requiring argumentation or ability in CT. Quantitative research by Condon and Kelly-Riley (2004) reveals an even more surprising result with students of Washington State University (WSU): the better the writing, the lower the CT score, but the more problematic the writing, the higher the CT score! This paradoxical finding was explained in that ‘‘when writers take risks with new ways of thinking, often their writing breaks down in structure as the students grapple with a new way of thinking’’ (Haswell, 1991, cited in Condon and Kelly-Riley, 2004, p. 8). The inverse correlation in their study might well cause us to challenge long held assumptions of the connection between writing and CT. In more practical terms, we may need to reconsider the contexts in which business students’ CT skills are developed and measured through writing. Does writing or the writing process itself in business study necessarily entail CT? Alternatively, in what particular ways can writing contribute to enhancing business students’ critical abilities? What are the types of writing through which students can develop effectively as critical thinkers? How should other factors, for example guidelines, assessment criteria, and feedback on writing assignments be set or provided so that the development of CT in students can be supported? Besides, are international students, who account for a great part of Australian universities’ student population, and particularly those from non-Western non-Anglo-Saxon cultural backgrounds, made fully aware of the sorts of required thinking skills and relevant strategies to develop these? Since CT may well also be a vague and unfamiliar concept to them, do they receive adequate support from faculty and staff during the writing process so that their CT skills can be developed in the ways expected by their lecturers?

Staff Strategies for Supporting the Development of Critical Thinking through Writing Another CT teaching implication of the paradoxical results reported in the research of Condon and Kelly-Riley (2004) is that, besides setting a good problem for students to reflect on, lecturers also need to use certain effective ways to enhance and support the development of CT in students during the writing process. Crebbin (1999) and Pierce (1998) call for lecturers to use precise instructions with clear terms, and to discuss with students from the outset the meaning of such terms as analysis, synthesis, reflection, and critique. Pointing out some limitations of the traditional term paper, Pierce (1998) also argues that students need enough guidance about workable topics, finding material, checkpoints, models (sample papers), and how to conduct peer reviews of rough drafts. In a very insightful book on guiding professors toward integrating writing and CT in the classroom, Bean (1996) offers a range of strategies

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

81

for coaching students in the CT and writing process. These strategies include designing good problem-oriented assignments, clarifying the grading criteria, having students submit something early in the writing process and then conducting a peer review, using a class hour for the generation of ideas, referring students to the institution’s writing centre, and using efficient methods for giving students feedback. Viewing writing as a process of doing CT, Bean (1996, p. 226) also emphasizes the role of writing specialists or language support staff in nurturing students’ thinking and writing skills. The strategy used by professional tutors (even student peers) in the writing centre is to create the necessary environment in which students can openly talk about their ideas. Bean (1996) argues that, by assisting students at any stage of the writing and thinking process, for example, helping them clarify an assignment question and brainstorm for ideas, commenting on their flow of argument, editing for style, guiding them to find and fix their own errors, language specialists should really engage in developing students as critical readers, writers, and thinkers. Another staff support strategy suggested by Bean (1996) to enhance the development of the required thinking skills in students while accommodating the diverse student population at most American universities is the use of a mixture of assignment types. Fox (1994, cited in Bean, 1996), Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) and many other academics agree that writing processes may not be explicitly taught in some non-Western educational models and that such communication styles as argumentative writing, analytical, or CT skills are unfamiliar to many NESB students. Hence, as claimed by Bean (1996), it is necessary for lecturers who set CT tasks to be aware of their student cohort characteristics in terms of their language proficiency and particularly their prior educational experience. A repertoire of writing assignments should accommodate different writing and thinking styles of students of particular groups, and at the same time should stimulate the most growth in writing and CT amongst all students in general. In summary, it is clear from the literature on CT that this is a ‘‘notoriously slippery’’ concept, although it is an integral part of higher education (Jones, 2004, p. 168). Approaches to teaching and assessing CT skills remain far from being clear and consistent while there has thus far been little empirical research on ‘‘academics’ views on the CT requirements in their [own] academic areas’’ within a specific context (Tapper, 2004, p. 218). As regards writing, which is perceived as an instructional heuristic to contribute to better thinking and to the development of several cognitive high-order thinking skills, it is often used by academic staff to foster and assess CT skills in university students. However, what particular writing tasks and how they help in fostering university students’ CT within an Australian business education context have not been adequately explored, although such issues have important implications for practitioners in developing business students as critical thinkers.

The Research Context and Design On the assumptions that CT is an important skill for all students including (international) NESB students at Australian universities to develop and that cognitive thinking skills can be developed and cultivated through writing, this study

82

Duong Bich Hang

was conducted to investigate a business faculty’s perceptions about (a) CT and (b) the role of academic writing in developing this type of thinking skill. In addition, the study aimed to explore strategies that content lecturers and English teachers believe they can use to support the development of business students’ CT. The research context was the Business and Economics (BusEco) Faculty of an Australian university that has nearly 300 teaching staff members across six departments, four of which were included in the present study — the departments of Business Law and Taxation (BLT), Accounting and Finance (AF), Marketing (M), and Management. To simplify, these departments were either seen as business faculty when a generalization of all business departments under research was made or as individual business disciplines when a specific business discipline was implied or addressed. Available documentation about the course indicates that business students in the faculty will gain the subject-specific CT skills through the subject course. General CT skills, which are not made entirely explicit, are supposed to be taught through intense content engagement. This approach to teaching CT might place a stronger focus on the content knowledge and interaction process rather than on basic cognitive processes (Sormunen, 1992). In regard to teaching business students writing, the faculty is more inclined to the approach adopted by the whole university, in which students often receive writing instruction through the voluntary programs run by Language and Learning Units. However, to the benefit of all students, writing programs sometimes include integrated sessions for orientation, assignment writing, etc., co-taught by both subject and language and learning staff to assist students with the subject through an emphasis on appropriate cognitive skills and literacy expectations (Vance & Crosling, 1998, p. 379). Mixed-methods design was employed in this research in such a way as to best address the specific research issues. First, I used a ‘‘semi-standardized’’ questionnaire to identify broad trends of how a business faculty conceptualizes CT and writing as a means to facilitate CT through descriptive statistics. Semi-structured interviews were then used to follow up and validate the quantitative data and further explore why staff came to adopt such perceptions and opinions about CT instruction in their own disciplines. A survey package was mailed to 90 lecturers and 5 LLS teachers in the BusEco Faculty. The potential respondents were followed up by email and telephone to invite them to respond to the questionnaire (Appendix 1). The interview questions (Appendix 2) were sent beforehand through email to six staff members who expressed interest and fully met the study’s criteria. Each interview lasted for around 40 minutes; all six interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed with the participants’ written permission.

Business Faculty’s Perceptions about Writing as a Means to Develop Critical Thinking All respondents (100%, N ¼ 30) believed that business students could hone their CT skills through writing assignments. However, a number of lecturers qualified their

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

83

responses by adding that ‘‘it also [depended] on how assessment [was] structured,’’ ‘‘[but] in conjunction with other forms of assessment,’’ or ‘‘it also [depended] on the quality of feedback provided.’’ Survey findings also revealed that the forms of research paper, case study, and essay were virtually equal in rank in their perceived potential importance for enhancing business students’ CT. What is clear from these findings is that a case study was invariably believed to be central for later-year students in their business studies. When asked to consider the ways in which writing could contribute to CT development amongst later-year students (question 5.3), most of the lecturers nominated the following: summarize information from different sources (M ¼ 4.36, SD ¼ 0.68), communicate their (students’) ideas precisely and clearly (M ¼ 4.34, SD ¼ 0.72), and organize and clarify their (students’) thoughts (M ¼ 4.28, SD ¼ 0.59). This can be interpreted in another way that being able to summarize information from various sources was probably considered to be the clearest evidence of CT when later-year business students did their written assignments. By contrast, asking radical questions when students were writing was not viewed by the staff as a way to develop CT (M ¼ 3.24, SD ¼ 1.15). The highest number of comments was made in response to the survey question (number 6) regarding the importance of CT in a business profession. Other ideas focused mainly on commenting on the current general situation of teaching CT, which though perceived as ‘‘vital,’’ was ‘‘not always done.’’ For instance: the reality is that we are not encouraged to teach it, nor are we given any teaching support for any such innovations. As it is we only teach critical thinking because we see it as important (not the university). Note in 6 years, [we] I have not had any staff development training. It is just not seen as important on this campus. (Kevin-A4)

Conceptualizations of Critical Thinking Findings pertaining to perceptions held by the interviewed staff about what they meant by CT, which generally supported the survey findings, fell into four main subcategories: CT as critical analysis, CT as critical evaluation, CT as critical attitude, and CT as what it is NOT.

Critical Thinking as Critical Analysis Ability to analyze critically was referred to by most participants as one fundamental step in the CT process. One respondent reported that it was important to develop a ‘‘good analytical mind’’ so that business students were able to look at an idea, a concept, or a proposal not only to describe it but to analyze it, to explain it, and

84

Duong Bich Hang

make a judgment about its logic and credibility. A minimal requirement for CT in this sense was the ability to assess strengths and weaknesses of options, or know how to weigh both sides of a situation using dichotomous comparisons such as positive and negative, pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. The participants emphasized the importance of demonstrating CT evidence at the early stage of doing a task, where students were expected to spend more time on task analysis, looking for the directions and the content in the questions. According to the lecturers, CT tended to move away from what was often conceived of by many as ‘‘clear, precise thinking’’ and ‘‘logical thinking’’ to being able to analyze what underpinned an idea or a text. This seemed most obvious when students were required to do critical analysis on journal articles. One lecturer said that students were asked to think critically by not just being able to read and interpret an article, but ‘‘there [seemed] to be bigger than that, those kinds of things, the assumptions underlying the text’’ (Wendy-LLS).

Critical Thinking as Critical Evaluation ‘‘Being able to evaluate’’ was the skill that all participants ascribed to the term ‘‘critical thinking.’’ According to them, mere analysis was insufficient for a critical thinker because there were different ways of looking at things. Evaluating, legal analysis (for business law), critical evaluation, or critically analyze were used by the academics in particular teaching contexts to denote CT. By evaluation, some academics implied that they expected students not just to understand theories or apply knowledge to other situations but to: [evaluate] different theories and theorists and the reasons why, and [look] at the multi positions of Why. (Wendy-LLS) be able to use legal reasoning based on case laws and statutes, y use their understanding of the law y [and] evaluate problem situations. (Paul-BL) Moreover, ‘‘being critical or being analytical about ideas to evaluate a business or journal article or whatever’’ y meant that students should be able to develop ‘‘appropriate and relevant criteria, the criteria [were] not for entertainment but should be critical and relevant’’ (Simon-LLS). No other participants addressed the ability to determine one’s own criteria used to evaluate something; but some lecturers tended to stress a critical thinker’s confidence in his/her questioning and reasoning. This affective behavior was perceived to be important in a sense that when one was willing to ask questions to learn more or to challenge some idea, one might have formulated his/her own evaluation criteria and must trust his/her ability to seek (further) reasons. In much the same way, one should also be confident to arrive at his/her own values after critically evaluating an issue. A later section describes the dispositions toward CT in more detail.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

85

Another aspect pertaining to critical evaluation was the extent to which one can critique and ‘‘[challenge] the status quo’’ (Glen-M). A language specialist lecturer expressed this in a more specific way: I take critical thinking perhaps a step further than [it] may seem to, into asking students to question more deeply in a sense of may be y critical thinking in the emancipatory sense. So as improvements y looking at it in a new society, imagining how if we are able actually really be engaging in critical thinking when moving in sorts of a fair kind of critical thinking space. (Wendy-LLS) Although she repeatedly admitted that she was not sure what the faculty meant by CT, in her conversation class,5 this lecturer thought she needed to help her students access a kind of CT that extended beyond the context of academic study. On the contrary, she tried to be fair to the students in interpreting what the business academics wanted them to do, in particular, ‘‘what the unit outline [said], what the tutor [said], the lecturer [said]’’ (Wendy-LLS).

Critical Thinking as Critical Attitude This aspect of CT was almost not made explicit or directly discussed by the participants; however, they did imply or hint at some specific attitudes of mind that were believed to be necessary dispositions for critical thinkers in any context. Below are some quotations reflecting staff members’ emphasis on the disposition of seeking reasons through the practice of asking questions: Critical thinking, I think is about being able to evaluate, but not just evaluate but also about being able to identify and ask the right questions, and then systematically work towards possible answers. It’s not being able to come up with a particular kind of argument, answer or conclusion, method, or process y but being able to ask questions y asking how it could be different. (Simon-LLS) You can encourage people to engage in critical thinking y by asking questions y so you can have a degree of critical interaction verbally. (Paul-BLT) Both lecturers from the Marketing department referred to this as preparedness to express doubts about the value of something or whether something was true. This

5

An informal discussion class that was open to all business students for practicing communication skills. This class was run by the faculty-based LLS staff.

86

Duong Bich Hang

disposition toward CT was asserted by them to be particularly essential for professionals in Marketing, because marketing was about dealing with people and ideas, which were often changing; as a result, a person who did marketing had to: question the appropriateness of a given way of doing things for the situations that they find themselves in’’ or ‘‘question information presented’’ and ‘‘ y look at something and question its validity, critiquing what [they’re] doing. (Glen-M) However, as acknowledged by other participants, it was not simple for even a person who might be expert in a given area to question or challenge a commonly accepted idea or theory. Some participants indicated the need for later-year students, who might have acquired the necessary background knowledge and skills to engage in critiquing, to learn to be confident at all times in their thinking and expressing their own ideas. This is another crucial disposition toward CT that one lecturer referred to as the ability to ‘‘trust [their] own ability to evaluate.’’ In her own words, she said: you should think better for yourself and think whether or not you agree and to which extent y You should have the confidence to act according to your own beliefs that you have reached after speaking to a number of experts, people with experience. (Denise-BLT)

Critical Thinking as What It Is NOT It is interesting to learn that CT seemed to be such an elusive notion that the participants all tried to conceptualize it in terms of what CT was ‘‘not.’’ One concern that they frequently voiced was ‘‘not take things as presented’’ (Jack-M): [by critical thinking] I mean not just accept thing for what it is, not take things as presented and actually thinking through, do I agree or not, yes-no; if I agree what are the reasons behindy. (Glen-M) you can’t just accept everything that everyone told you or everything that one person told you. (Denise-BTL) Jack (M) explained that to many students, particularly those who were from a Confucian-style educational system, learning was just about rote learning, surface learning, and not deep understanding. Their learning style had accustomed them to believe that ‘‘there [was] no questioning. The biggest compliment to the professor [was] to repeat his words back to him’’ (Jack-M). Other participants admitted that being good at memorizing was a huge advantage, but again, they stressed this was not CT. By this, they targeted not only international students but also local students as well.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

87

Strategies for Enhancing and Supporting the Development of Critical Thinking through Writing According to all participants, the act of writing alone did not necessarily entail CT but a platform for practicing and demonstrating CT. Accordingly, the lecturers suggested several strategies to enhance and support the development of CT in business students. These strategies are in form of either direct or indirect support that the staff expected to provide the students who come to address written assignments.

‘‘Careful about How You Structure the Tasks’’ Discussing the setting of a question or a task that aimed to develop CT, only one participant recognized the importance of the type of the task that would promote students’ active thinking and engage business (law) students in problem-solving learning. Other participants focused on the structure of the task in general or more in terms of careful presentation of assessment criteria, which according to them, had to ‘‘work correctly’’ (Glen-M) and ‘‘be standard’’ (Jack-M). By this, they meant that CT needed to be set overtly as an item like other criteria on the assessment guidelines, and if the students were to perform well and receive a high score on the task, they had to follow all the guidelines carefully and engage with CT. However, two LLS lecturers expressed the need to have ‘‘more sorts of formative assessment rather than [just] summative assessment’’ (Simon-LLS) so that students would have more opportunities to ‘‘practice writing, learning and develop their CT skills, not just writing for marks’’ (Wendy-LLS).

‘‘Making Everything Explicit’’ Nearly all the participants (4) stressed to varying degrees that if a writing task was to be effective in developing students’ CT, the instructions and the guidelines for the writing task had to be made explicit. This view was most clearly articulated by Simon (LLS): sometimes the technical demands of that can complicate the task, so students are not very sure what it is that they are trying to do when they tackle a particular assignment. So it’s important for the person setting the assignment to make it as clear as possible what the purpose of the task is, what particular skills or abilities that are required, and to make clear what kind of response is required, what it should look like and how it should look. If that’s made clear and not complicated by unnecessary details then that gives students at least a chance to develop and demonstrate this skill. (Simon-LLS) With regard to CT as a grading criterion of the writing task, Wendy (LLS) maintained that though ‘‘we [were] all in the dark about what critical thinking means

88

Duong Bich Hang

in the faculty,’’ lecturers should ‘‘be fair to the students’’ by making all the expectations clear right at the beginning. Simon (LLS) argued that for some students, the writing and thinking process seemed ‘‘intuitive’’ as they had actually been taught the necessary skills earlier. But to other students, ‘‘especially if they [were] not coming from Australian schools, culture or something like that, they [might] not have had that experience,’’ and as a result, ‘‘it [was] necessary to make it very explicit and give them options.’’ Interestingly enough, another content lecturer found it better to leave the requirements concerning CT tacit because to him, CT was clear enough, for example: [Critical thinking] is very clear y [and] I don’t make it explicit. It’s assumed that people understand what it’s talked about, that’s very good point y they can say what they like, if they can think of something that makes sense to me particular given the amount of information that they have y something I haven’t thought of or have thought but it took me a long longer time than they have then they’ll certainly get a high distinction; because I reward risk-taking. (Jack-M) CT in this sense was equated with creativity that was valued in the business area, particularly marketing. If this holds true and if creative thinking is actually often understood more clearly than CT, Jack might be reasonable in his assumption that people would understand what CT was about.

‘‘Giving Useful Feedback’’ Feedback was perceived to be ‘‘very important’’ or ‘‘absolutely essential’’ by all the interviewees. One participant asserted that assessors needed to provide direct feedback to the students about what [was] good and what [was] not working, why it [was] not working and what they could change. (Simon-LLS) He further noted that if the curriculum was CT-oriented, then above all, feedback had to focus on the quality of CT. As argued by some participants, a report or an essay could received ‘‘high distinction’’ because it was ‘‘beautifully constructed, well written, logical flow y , but [it was] just ordinary and [didn’t] show any insights’’ (Glen-M), or was ‘‘just descriptive with no critical evaluation at all’’ (Denise-BLT). Therefore, the staff believed that it was important to provide useful and relevant feedback focusing on the thinking skills that were required in students. They suggested a number of ways of giving feedback, mainly focusing on the possibility of using tutorials differently. However, considering the current situation of most universities with a large amount of students and academics’ limited time, the lecturers found it hard to provide students with useful feedback, which could help to nurture students’ CT.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

89

Support from the Language and Learning Laboratory Several content lecturers, acknowledging their own time constraint and workload, would refer some students to the LLS staff because they could not provide enough guidance throughout the semester by ‘‘[sitting] down with every single student and go through coaching and coaching’’ (Denise-BLT). Additionally, the tasks were often in form of assessment, in which students had to compete for marks, so the staff found it unfair to other students if they helped certain students. As a result, ‘‘all [they] can really really do [was] point [the students] to the services provided by the university at the language and learning laboratory’’ (Denise-BLT). Other content lecturers tended to advocate a more collaborative approach to working with LLS staff whom, as one lecturer suggested, should perhaps be referred to as CT consultants. Another content academic, who was a professor from the BLT department, supported the idea of integrating CT instruction into the content course with the assistance of LLS staff. Pointing out the dual purposes of the infusion approach to CT instruction, wherein students were provided opportunities to practice specialist English and communication skills (CT included) in the meaningful context of their own discipline, he gave an example6 of an introductory subject for post graduate Law students in the Law School of the university under investigation: [the School] run an introductory subject in legal methods, I think for postgraduate students, that seems to me an excellent attempt to try to integrate some basic teaching to give students some ideas of legal framework and also practicing using English in particular contexts, they have many many exercises for the students to do y and it’s quite rigorously taught so students find it very attractive, especially international students. (Paul-BLT) This type of integrated teaching seemed to be most favored by the LLS staff, who suggested subject lecturers should take more advantage of LLS services and consider their support to be a joint effort to enhance the development of students’ CT. They, therefore, expected to ‘‘do more integrated work’’ (Wendy-LLS) or ‘‘go into class at an early stage to make clear the writing expectations and be more involved in helping to teach critical thinking explicitly’’ (Simon-LLS). According to Simon, ‘‘the more integrated what [they] do, LLS do, the more integrated with the subject matter itself, the more useful it will be for students.’’ What appeared clear from their argument was that this approach to CT and writing instruction would be most beneficial for the

6 After the interview, he sent me an email informing of the exact name of the new unit (Problem-solving and critical thinking techniques) that was to be taught in the Law School to international post graduate Law students.

90

Duong Bich Hang

students who had not learnt CT skills before, had been unfamiliar with the term ‘‘critical’’ and with a critical/analytical way of writing, or had negative associations with a ‘‘critical’’ way of thinking. Nevertheless, the other two content lecturers (Denise-BLT, Glen-M) were strongly opposed to the idea of collaborating with LLS staff in fostering students’ CT. First, as they explained, these staff members did not have sufficient resources and capacity to work with all the students. Second, the support provided by the LLS staff focused on language issues, and as a result, this type of support should be regarded as an extra service for first-year students or additional help for remedial students. I return to this issue in the next section.

Discussion: Writing as a Means of Developing Critical Thinking and How to Make It Work The findings in this study substantiate what is reported in the literature (e.g., Bean, 1996; Bonk & Smith, 1998; Zhu, 2004) regarding the use of essays and research papers to enable students to become deeply engaged in problem-based learning and thus improve their CT skills. Notably, the data in both the survey and the interviews show that a case study was strongly believed to be an effective tool to enhance students’ CT skills as well as to be an important type of writing task for later-year business students. This accords with earlier research findings indicating that business case studies have been used as a powerful and flexible CT tactic. For example, case analysis was identified by Zhu (2004) as one of the major business genres that have a strong problem-solving and decision-making orientation, requiring students to think through a problem, evaluate and synthesize information to make an argument, and communicate their ideas logically. Briefly stated, a case study approach provides learners with opportunities to strengthen their CT; it is for this reason, as Jacobowits and Onore (2004) report, that a case method of teaching has been used in business and law schools for at least half a century. With regard to strategies for enhancing the development of CT among business students through writing, information given by the participants supports Bean (1996), Pierce (1998), and Crebbin (1999), who say that lecturers should first and foremost clarify all grading criteria and expectations concerning the CT skills required. Designing good CT assignments was addressed by the interviewed lecturers but received little emphasis from them, while according to Bean (1996), this is the fundamental step in deepening students’ engagement with the course content and promoting their CT skills. Nevertheless, it might be the case that the staff placed more interest in discussing direct support strategies that they thought they could use to enhance the development of CT in students. Even so, other direct support methods proposed by Bean (1996) were not addressed by the interviewed staff, for example coaching students to read difficult texts, using some class time for the generation of ideas (group or pair discussion), having them submit something early in the writing process so that they can start thinking and writing early, or considering holding group conferences with students. Perhaps they had a high expectation that later-year

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

91

students should be already autonomous thinkers and learners, or they found these strategies impractical given their already heavy workload. Whatever the possible reasons might be, one thing evident from most interviewed content lecturers’ views is that writing tended to be viewed and used as an assessment tool rather than as a means of fostering CT. Accordingly, writing was likely to be treated as a finished product rather than a process. Bean (1996) points out the importance of viewing writing as a process of learning, of CT and discovery, whereby students engage with ‘‘wrestling with the conditions of the problems’’ at hand (Dewey, 1916, in Bean, 1996). This is in fact how writing and thinking are intertwined and support each other in the problem-solving process. While some content lecturers saw writing as a mechanical process with proper application of grammatical rules, information given by other lecturers, mainly LLS staff, shared Vance’s and particularly Bean’s (1996) idea that ‘‘behind the scenes of a finished product is a messy process of exploratory writing, conversation, discarded drafts, midnight agony’’ (Bean, 1996, p. 4). Fisher (2001) believes that because studying CT involves trying to change the ways in which most of us think, learners of CT need extensive practice and feedback. Lecturers therefore should design their courses so as to integrate more informal writing assignments (e.g., personal writing tasks, reflection papers, exploratory writing, or ungraded writing). In that way, students have more opportunities to practise writing and thinking with substantive revision. Further, staff’s feedback and commentaries focusing on students’ CT performances could be used to advantage in subsequent work. The use of faculty-based LLS staff was also considered by some content lecturers and LLS staff as one of the ways to develop students as critical thinkers and writers. However, the content lecturers themselves were divided in their own opinions regarding the ideal role of LLS staff or the extent to which these practitioners could provide support in coaching students in CT. On the one hand, LLS staff were seen as ‘‘specialists’’ [as opposed to content lecturers as ‘‘doctors’’ (Denis-BLT)] and as ‘‘ambulances’’ [for emergency cases (Jack-M)]. The first metaphor implied there was no collaboration between content lecturers and LLS staff, just as ‘‘doctors direct or refer patients [students] to specialists, not collaborate with them’’ (Denis-BLT). The second metaphor reflects many content lecturers’ views about the writing centre or the LLS unit/laboratory as a ‘‘fix-it shop’’ particularly designed for (international) NESB students, where LLS staff deal with language-checking only (Bean, 1996). Furthermore, LLS work was regarded as an ‘‘extra service’’ or ‘‘additional support’’ which ‘‘in fact our students [who should be independent learners] shouldn’t need’’ (Glen-M). In all these views about the limited role of LLS staff, two things were evident. First, CT was seen as exclusively embedded in the disciplinary knowledge and thus, LLS staff, even those who were faculty-based, could not have enough resources [‘‘and capacity’’ (Glen-M)] to teach students to think critically together with content lecturers. Second, language and writing were seen as being essentially separate from the CT process, which is problematic because, as discussed earlier, writing is itself a process of thinking and learning. On the other hand, some of the interviewed lecturers and especially the LLS staff considered integrating more teaching of academic skills into the content course

92

Duong Bich Hang

aiming to further support the development of CT in students. This approach to developing students as writers and critical thinkers was believed to be, and actually it is, more effective in several ways. First, since LLS lecturers are no longer regarded as the ‘‘medium’’ to address language problems, which in reality are not the root cause for students’ absence of CT in their writing (Bean, 1996), they can collaborate with content lecturers and tutors to support students in reading difficult texts, understanding assignments, or to be brief, to assist students during writing processes. In that way, they also help lessen the content lecturers’ burden of guidance work. Moreover, the support in collaboration with subject specialists provided by facultybased LLS staff would benefit all students, who would need meaningful guidance in their writing and thinking processes rather than mere language- and style-checking, which is often out of their study context and should be the work of tutors or peer students at the university’s language support laboratory. In short, if pre-sessional progams7 are viewed as general courses on CT skills and academic skills, the abovediscussed approach to teaching CT with faculty-based LLS staff’s assistance seems to ‘‘teach’’ thinking skills as a separate course at the same time that they are infused and reinforced throughout the entire curriculum.

Conclusion This study looked closely at how business staff used writing as a strategy to engage students in the thinking and problem-solving process to develop as critical thinkers. A number of strategies suggested by the participants include careful structuring of the writing tasks that require CT, making clear the expectations of CT and evaluation criteria for the CT tasks, and providing useful feedback focusing on CT performance. Another strategy that was highly recommended but had not been used to its advantage by some lecturers is making full use of LLS. While this study is too small to have a bird’s-eye view of how LLS staff (particularly faculty-based) were actually located in their effort to improve students’ thinking skills, we contend that these academics’ task is obviously not limited to fixing up (international) students’ grammar and spelling mistakes, but rather they should be referred to as truly CT experts or consultants.

References Amin, M. R., & Amin, N. A. (2003). Benchmarking learning outcomes of undergraduate business education. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 10, 538–558. Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 71–94.

7

Pre-sessional language programs or ‘‘bridging courses’’ are courses offered by most Australian universities. These programs are designed mainly to develop academic literacy skills and general English for Academic Purposes for students before they are enrolled in their main content courses.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

93

AVC-C. (2004). Commitment to effective teaching. Available at http://www.avcc.edu.au/news/ public_statements/publications/gleffut.htm. Retrieved on February 24, 2005. Barnett, R. (1997). Higher education: A critical business. Buckingham, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Bean, J. C. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Benesch, S. (2001). Critical English for academic purposes: Theory, politics, and practice. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bloom, B., Engelhart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W., & Karthwohl, D. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. New York: Longmans, Green. Bonk, C. J., & Smith, G. S. (1998). Alternative instructional strategies for creative and critical thinking in the accounting curriculum. Journal of Accounting Education, 16, 261–293. Brookfield, J. (1987). Developing critical thinkers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Condon, W., & Kelly-Riley, D. (2004). Assessing and teaching what we value: The relationship between college-level writing and critical thinking abilities. Assessing Writing, 9, 56–75. Crebbin, W. (1999, 2000). How does learning happen. Paper presented at Language and Learning: The Learning Dimensions of Our Work, Monash University, Australia. Davies, W. M. (2000, September). Where to begin? Problems in teaching critical reasoning to NESB students. Paper presented at National Language and Academic Skills, Latrobe University. Australia. Ennis, R. H. (1962). A concept of critical thinking. Harvard Educational Review, 32, 81–111. Ennis, R. H. (1987). A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities. In: J. Baron & R. Sternberg (Eds), Teaching thinking skills: Theory and practice. New York: Freeman. Ennis, R. H. (2001). An outline of goals for critical thinking curriculum and its assessment. Available at http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis/outlinefoalssctcurassess3.html. Retrieved on September 19, 2004. Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. Executive summary of ‘‘The Delphi Report’’. Available at http://www.insightassessment.com/pdf_files/DEXadobe.PDF. Retrieved on January 24, 2005. Facione, P. A., Giancarlo, C. A., Fancione, N. C., & Gainen, J. (1995). The disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education, 44, 1–25. Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. (1998). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Fisher, A. (2001). Critical thinking: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibson, G. (1995). Critical thinking: Implications for instruction. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 35, 27–35. Halpern, D. F. (1997). Critical thinking across the curriculum: A brief edition of thought and knowledge. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Harrison-Hill, T. (2001). Student-centered learning and critical thinking in a large class business course. Available at http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/largeclasses/pdfs/CaseStudy-10_Hill1.pdf. Retrieved on February 15, 2005. Jacobowits, T., & Onore, C. (2004). Case-method teaching as democratic practice. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 41, 35–38. Johnson, R. (1992). The problem of defining critical thinking. In: S. Norris (Ed.), The generalizability of critical thinking: Multiple perspectives on an educational ideal (pp. 38–53). New York: Teachers College Press.

94

Duong Bich Hang

Jones, A. (2004). Teaching critical thinking: An investigation of a task in introductory macroeconomics. Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 167–181. Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking. Educational Researcher, 28, 16–25. McPeck, J. E. (1981). Critical thinking and education. New York: St Martin’s Press. McPeck, J. E. (1990). Teaching critical thinking: Dialogue and dialectic. New York: Routledge. Moore, T. (2004). The critical thinking debate: How general are general thinking skills? Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 3–18. Pally, M. (1997). Critical thinking in ESL: An argument for sustained content. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6, 239–311. Paul, R. (1995). Critical thinking: How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. Cheltenham: Hawker Brownlow Education. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Phillips, V., & Bond, C. (2004). Undergraduates’ experience of critical thinking. Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 277–294. Pierce, W. (1998). Designing writing assignments that promote thinking. Available at http:// academic.pg.cc.md.us/Bwpeirce/MCCCTR/design.html. Retrieved on April 8, 2005. Reece, G. (2002). Critical thinking and transferability: A review of the literature. Available at http://www.library.american.edu/Help/research/lit_review/critical_thinking.pdf. Retrieved on April 20, 2005. Siegel, H. (1988). Educating reason. London: Routledge. Sormunen, C. (1992). Critical thinking in business education. Paper presented at the American Vocational Association Convention, St. Louis, Missouri. Tapper, J. (2004). Student perceptions of how critical thinking is embedded in a degree program. Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 199–222. Ten Dam, G., & Volman, M. (2004). Critical thinking as a citizenship competence: Teaching strategies. Learning and Instruction, 14, 359–379. Thompson, C. (2002). Teaching critical thinking in EAP courses in Australia. TESOL Journal, 11(4), 15–20. Tollefson, J. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. New York: Longman. van Gelder, T. (2002). The reason project. Available at http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/ reason/. Retrieved on September 17, 2004. Vance, S., & Crosling, G. (1998). Integrating writing skills into the curriculum of the disciplines. A social constructionist approach. In: J. Forest (Ed.), University teaching: International perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing Co. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Widdowson, H. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhu, W. (2004). Writing in business courses: An analysis of assignment types, their characteristics, and required skills. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 111–135.

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students

95

Appendix 1. The questionnaire 1. How often do you use the term critical thinking in teaching? Please tick one box. [ ] Usually [ ] Sometimes [ ] Rarely [ ] Never (If you tick this box, please go to question 7) 1.1. If you have ever used the term, please jot down at least 3 things (anything!) that come to your mind first when you think about critical thinking. critical thinking: critical thinking: critical thinking: critical thinking: critical thinking: 2. Please tick one box to indicate how useful you believe it is to think critically in daily life? [] [] [] [] Extremely useful Quite useful Not really useful Of no use at all 2.1. Please explain why you think so: 3. Please tick one box to indicate below how important you feel to be a critical thinker when studying at an Australian university? [] [] [] [] Extremely important Quite important Not really Of no use at all (if you important tick this box, please go to question 6) 4. The following dimensions are often claimed to be involved in critical thinking skills. Which dimensions do you believe are necessary for the second- and third-year students in (your) business discipline? Please tick a maximum of ten (10) boxes. Do not look back at your answers to the previous questions (there are altogether 15 boxes including Other) [ ] diagnose problems or causes of problems [ ] recognize stated and implied assumptions [ ] assess strengths and weaknesses of an argument [ ] use a relevant theory to explain a problem [ ] draw conclusions and evaluate the effectiveness and justification of the conclusion [ ] evaluate information from multiple perspectives [ ] come up with a range of possible solutions to a problem [ ] determine the criteria to use to evaluate options [ ] challenge a theory [ ] self assess one’s own thinking [ ] be amenable to being well-informed [ ] be prepared to form judgments on logical validity and interpretation [ ] be prepared to seek and offer reasons [ ] keep an open mind [ ] Other? Please specifyyyyyyyy

96

Duong Bich Hang

5. Do you think that business students can hone their critical thinking skills through written assignments? [ ] Yes [ ] No (If you tick this box, please go to question 6) 5.1. How important is each of the following writing tasks in enhancing business students’ analytical and critical thinking skills? Please circle a number in each line from 1 (‘‘not at all important’’) to 5 (‘‘very important’’) Not at all important [ ] essay 1 [ ] case study 1 [ ] article/book report 1 [ ] business report 1 [ ] research project 1 [ ] reflection paper 1 [ ] letters and memos 1 [ ] Other? 1 Please specify:yyyyyyy

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

Very important 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

5.2. Please go back to question 5.1 and indicate which THREE writing tasks are most important to the second- and third-year business students. Please select three tasks and number the boxes on their left with number 1 (‘‘most important’’), number 2 (‘‘second most important’’), and number 3 (‘‘third most important’’). 5.3. Business writing assignments can help second- and third-year business students to develop as critical thinkers in several ways. Please respond to the statement by circling a number in each line from 1(‘‘strongly disagree’’) to 5 (‘‘strongly agree’’). Business writing assignments enable Strongly disagree Apply what has 1 been learned or past experience Have original 1 ideas and improve their imagination Communicate 1 their ideas precisely and clearly Summarize 1 information from different sources

students to: Disagree Neutral

Agree

2

3

4

Strongly agree 5

2

3

4

5

2

3

4

5

2

3

4

5

Role of Writing in Developing CT in Business Students Ask questions in a radical way Organize and clarify their thoughts Understand the content knowledge Read extensively and make use of reference material Presenting a consistent and sustained argument Other? Please specify:yyy

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

97

6. Critical thinking is an essential skill for anyone in a business profession. Please respond to the statement by ticking one of the following boxes: [] [] [] [] [] [] Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree Don’t know 7. Would you like to make any further comments? ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— 8. What department of BusEco Faculty are you in? [ ] Accounting and Finance [ ] Econometrics and Business Statistics [ ] Business Law & Taxation [ ] Economics [ ] Marketing [ ] Management [ ] Language and Learning Support Unit 9. What is your academic level? [ ] Professor [ ] Associate Professor [ ] Senior Lecturer [ ] Lecturer

[ ] Senior Tutor [ ] Tutor [ ] Other. Please specify:yyyyyy

98

Duong Bich Hang

Appendix 2. Interview Questions 1. What particular aspects as evidence of critical thinking skills/dispositions do you expect from business students? Probe: Would you like to tell me more what you think about these expectations when applied to international non-English speaking background students? 2. A majority of survey respondents (65%) strongly agreed that critical thinking is an essential skill for anyone in a business profession. Would you like to elaborate on that? 3. All survey respondents (100%) reported that business students can enhance their skills of critical thinking through written assignments. Do you think that having students to write necessarily means that we ask them to think critically? Why or why not? 4. According to you, what are the strategies that content lecturers can use to enhance the development of critical thinking in students through writing assignments? Probe: Any extra/ different kinds of support to international NESB students? 5. What kind of support should LLS staff provide to best coach students’ critical thinking through writing?. What sort of collaboration between content lecturers and LLS staff do you believe that you can effectively support the students’ advancement of critical thinking skills through writing? What model of collaboration do you favor? 6. Approximately 19% of surveyed teaching staff said that they had never used the term ‘‘critical thinking’’ in their teaching. Would you like to give any possible reasons for that?

Chapter 6

‘‘I Pain, I Gain’’: Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course Paul McPherron

Introduction In their varied and influential work on changes in English language teaching (ELT) in Chinese primary, secondary, and university classrooms, Cortazzi and Jin (2002) and Jin and Cortazzi (2002, 2006) define a Chinese culture of learning as the ‘‘interpretative frameworks’’ through which Chinese students view ‘‘classroom events, other participants and their educational identities’’ (Cortazzi & Jin, 2002, p. 55). They argue that Chinese education is undergoing vast changes in attempts to internationalize teaching and learning, but adopted teaching approaches and activities, such as communicative language teaching (CLT), do not change the traditional role of teachers as experts in Chinese classrooms. The researchers argue that any reform program in Chinese higher education must take into consideration the text and teacher-based traditions of Chinese education. Alternatively, much recent work in applied linguistics on culture and identity in language classrooms has suggested that notions of a unified ‘‘subject’’ or ‘‘identity’’ are always shifting and multiple, disallowing any generalizations (Atkinson, 2003; Bauman, 2005; Kubota, 1999; Varghese, Morgan, Johnston, & Johnson, 2005). On the basis of a reform-oriented university in a southern province of China, named here as China Southern University (CSU) — the names of the university and department are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality — the following chapter explores the contested notions of identity, culture, and cultures of learning in relation to the introduction of portfolio assessments in an academic writing class. Specifically, I present background information on how portfolio assessments are used in Chinese EFL classrooms and analyze extended segments of student writing reflections.

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 99–119 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022009

100

Paul McPherron

In addition to ‘‘how’’ they reflect, I am also crucially interested in exploring ‘‘what’’ CSU students are reflecting on and what this reveals about the cross-cultural dimensions of the Chinese university writing classroom. The chapter thus offers perspectives from Chinese university students and a practicing EFL teacher in relation to two central questions: What types of comments do students include in writing reflection statements? and What do these comments reveal about English language learning in a Chinese university context? I was a teacher at CSU during the time that I collected the student reflection pieces that make up the main data sources represented below, and I taught advanced English and academic writing classes there over a three-year span from 2004–2007. The themes that emerge from the student reflection writing are both particular to CSU and my own classes, as well as reflect widespread negotiations of educational reforms and internationalization in multiple Chinese higher education contexts (Adamson, 2004; Liu, 2008). The following chapter is part of a larger ethnography of ELT reforms and learning at CSU (McPherron, 2008), and I weave traces of my own narrative as a teacher and researcher at CSU into the chapter. I make this point from the outset because many of the themes of the chapter — the cross-cultural dialogues in the portfolio reflections and the reinterpretation of teaching practices — reflect my own movement between divergent teaching contexts, as well as student maintenance and imagination of local and global cultures and identities, both inside and outside the CSU academic context. In the next sections, I first present further background on the use of portfolios in writing classrooms and survey work on the role of teachers in Chinese and Asian cultures of learning. I then detail the background of the language program at CSU and explain how I used portfolios in my academic writing classes. On the basis of Nunes (2004), the data sections then provide a typology of student comments as well as some unexpected responses in student personal writing reflections. I include long quotes and extended passages from student writing to let the student interpretations speak for themselves and to allow readers to understand the actual writing performance and practice of Chinese students during writing portfolio activities. The chapter ends by returning to the research questions and pointing out the unique aspects of portfolio assessment at CSU as well as the broader implications of portfolio assessment in Chinese EFL settings.

Portfolio Assessment in Writing Classrooms The use of portfolio assessment has gained popularity in writing classes in English as a second language (ESL) programs in the United States in recent years, but it is still a relatively underused practice in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings. For example, Hamp-Lyons (1991, 1994), Cohen (1998), Hamp-Lyons and Condon (2000), and Macaro (2001) all report on how portfolios encourage student-teacher dialogue and student reflection in North American writing classes, arguing that portfolios force students to develop the essential skill of self-learning. In addition to student autonomy, Elbow (1993) reports on the usefulness of portfolios as an

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

101

efficient model of the process approach to writing, a widely used approach to writing in L1 and ESL classrooms, and Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) detail the practical application of using writing portfolios in ESL department-wide assessments. In these ESL settings, portfolios typically include some of the following pieces, as detailed in Crockett (1998). First, portfolios primarily consist of student-selected writing documents. These are typically assignments that the students choose as representative of their best work. Teachers may provide requirements to guide student selection, but the focus should be on a student’s personal evaluation of her or his work. The next writing pieces required by teachers include student analyses of previous work. For example, I asked my students at CSU to reflect on why they selected a particular work as representative of their writing abilities. Since portfolios are based in process approaches to writing teaching, many teachers include examples of revisions of previous work in the portfolio assignment. In my writing courses, I typically ask students to revise one of their selections and include all intermediate drafts as well as their final, graded essay. A fourth section of the portfolio may include a reflection on learning goals. In these pieces, students reflect on their own progress during the course, typically in response to a set of questions prepared by the teacher. The results and analyses presented in this paper are based on this type of writing. Finally, teachers often include portfolio writing assignments specific to their own learning goals and assignments. These assignments can include pieces such as poetry, song lyrics, translations, and other creative work. In one of the few studies based on an EFL setting, in this case a university academic writing class in Portugal, Nunes (2004) specifically examines her students’ analysis of previous work. She argues that students were able to learn the language of reflection and that her role in the classroom became that of a guide instead of the traditional center of knowledge. To my knowledge, no research has explicitly examined the use of portfolios in an East Asian EFL context by performing an in-depth typology of the content of student reflective writing. Thus, a key purpose of the chapter is to further Nunes’s (2004) investigation of EFL student reflection writing in a Chinese university setting and connect student reflections to the process of teaching reforms, in this case CLT teaching reforms at CSU with a clear emphasis on student autonomy. As much recent work in applied linguistics has argued, ELT is rarely only about acquiring language skills (Morgan, 1998; Pennycook, 2001; Phan & Phan, 2006; Canagarajah, 2005; Ramanathan, 2005); instead, it is considered part of larger culture flows (Appardurai, 1996, 2001) and investment in transnational communities (Norton, 1995; Adejunmobi, 2004). Considering the characteristics and critiques of a Chinese culture of learning as well as numerous problems with the adoption of Western-based pedagogies in EFL settings, the implementation of a portfolio approach is not a simple matter of adoption and replication.

Teacher Roles in the ELT Classroom Portfolio assessment is a writing activity that directly relates to a CLT or task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach to writing and language learning (Brown, 2000;

102

Paul McPherron

Nunan, 2004; Richards & Rogers, 2001), and it is commonly associated with North American and ‘‘Western’’ academic traditions that value self-learning and independence. Scollon (1999) writes that in a Socratic educational tradition, teachers typically do not directly impart ideas to students; instead, a teacher’s ‘‘role in relationship to the youth is to lead him to the truth by means of questioning’’ (p. 19) — a definition of teaching similar to the model of teaching found in the literature on CLT and TBLT. In both models, students are encouraged to form arguments and critically evaluate their own work in order to arrive independently at ‘‘correct’’ or ‘‘true’’ knowledge and actions. In comparison, Scollon (1999) argues that in Confucian educational traditions, the role of teaching is to model proper conduct and learning, often responding to a student question with a further question. Certainly, Chinese teachers do not only model knowledge without guiding student learning, and Western-based teachers do not only want students to become independent learners — we should always be careful of essentializing Western learning traditions and Chinese educational contexts — however, uniform understandings of traditions and cultures do have meanings for students and teachers as they negotiate roles and identities in a second language writing classroom. For example, Phan and Phan (2006) analyzed English teacher education students in Vietnamese universities, faced with similar pressures as found at CSU to modernize and implement Western-teaching reforms. They wrote that despite and perhaps due to pressures to internationalize, the novice teachers explicitly drew from shared Confucian and Taoist educational traditions, particularly in leading students by example and providing moral education for their students even in English language classrooms. One teacher describes her role as not only teaching English in the classroom but as instructing in moral behavior: Since I started teaching, I’ve always been aware of my role as somewhat like a moral educator. I often spend my break time to talk with students, listen to them and try to understand their problems and why they behave in such a way y I also tell them stories about how to become a good person. I don’t know whether they think of me as a young teacher who likes to teach morality, but I believe that those who listen to me will become better. I tell them such stories to make them realise that besides learning English well, they also need to know many other things, like how to behave properly in different social situations. I often teach them such things through the teaching of English. Through my teaching, I also concentrate on moral education and teach them how to become a person with good morality and personality y There are so many opportunities to do so through teaching. (p. 148) For the teachers in Phan and Phan (2006) and for many of the students at CSU, drawing on shared cultural traditions, particularly the position of teachers as role models and experts, can be a source of pride and identification, setting up an implicit confrontation with the reform pedagogy that encourages communicative and student-centered learning.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

103

The CSU Setting CSU was founded in 1981 next to a coastal city in Guangdong Province that until 1981 did not have a comprehensive university and in the early 1980s was named a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Since its inception, CSU has thus been connected to the massive industrial development and investment that has poured into local businesses. Many of the students at CSU were initially attracted to the campus because of its strategic position on the coast and as part of an SEZ, and they viewed enrolment at CSU as a step toward a move to larger urban areas in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. The students and administrators at CSU view English learning as a key tool in gaining access to the economic growth of these coastal regions, and from its foundation CSU has stressed English learning, in particular through self-learning and immersion programs. In 2002, the university created an English enhancement program that eventually leads to the creation of an English language department (ELD) in 2003. The ELD’s explicit purpose is to align university teaching with international standards through ‘‘teaching innovation that is informed by research; developing students’ critical thinking strategies; and stressing learner autonomy’’ (ELD website). In creating the ELD, CSU is part of national efforts in China to make English language classrooms more student-centered and to adopt a general communicative approach that values critical thinking and the teacher as a ‘‘guide’’ rather than the traditional expert or moral role model. For example, the ELD has adopted the guidelines proposed by the Chinese Education Ministry in the College English Curriculum Requirements (2006) that draw specific attention to a student-centered approach in Chinese ELT.

Portfolio Assignment in My Academic Writing Classes The portfolio reflections collected and analyzed in this study come from two of my academic writing classes during the spring semester of 2007 (n ¼ 36). In the two classes analyzed in this study, the students’ majors were: 15 English, 8 Journalism, 4 Business Administration, 3 Law, 1 Engineering, 1 Math, 1 Art Design, and 1 Chemistry. Student construction of the parts of the portfolio took place throughout the semester and followed the accepted process approach to writing described in Elbow (1993) and Ferris and Hedgcock (1998). During the class, the students wrote three formal writing assignments and five informal journal writing responses. Each of the three writing assignments had multiple drafts and revisions and I gave a final grade to the student’s third draft. For the portfolio, I asked students to include the following: 1) A revised, typed, final draft of essay 1, 2, or 3 (their choice), including all intermediate drafts, a peer response worksheet, and all written instructor feedback; 2) A revised, typed, one-page, piece of informal, personal, or self-selected writing (e.g., a journal entry, a reading response, a letter to the instructor, etc.) that was written at some point during the semester;

104

Paul McPherron

3) A one-page, typed, self-assessment of performance and progress over the semester. In other words, ‘‘What did you learn this semester?’’ This could have included a reflection on why the student picked the essay and journal selections for their portfolio, and what changed over the process of revising their essay for a third time. As this was the first time for all students in the class to put together a writing portfolio and write a self-reflection on their learning, I presented the reasons from the justifications for portfolio assessment as found in the ELT literature as cited above. I also listed questions for students to respond to in their reflection writing, including: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

What have you learned about academic writing from this class? What have you learned about writing in general from this class? What are you still curious or worried about? How do you think you can address these concerns? How was the portfolio selected or created?

Typology of Portfolio Content at CSU In her study of student reflection writing, Nunes (2004) describes two main categories of student comments: dialogue (both interpersonal and intrapersonal) and reflection. She examines reflection in the most detail and breaks down this category into four component parts: (1) syllabus: ‘‘reflections on the contents of the syllabus including the relevance for the students’’ (p. 331); (2) instruction: ‘‘the students reflections on teaching aids and materials, teaching methods, instructional activities, strategies and tasks’’ (p. 331); (3) learning: ‘‘reflections on the contents dealt with in class, on the students strengths, weaknesses and needs, and learning strategies’’ (p. 331); and (4) assessment: ‘‘reflections on the students’ competence and skills, their performance in classroom tasks and conventional tests, as well as reflections on the portfolio itself ’’ (p. 332). In her study, she counts the number of comments that students make under each reflection category and notes that students feel the most comfortable reflecting on class instruction and their own learning, but they do not offer many critical comments on classroom assessments or their overall competence. Nunes (2004) concludes that EFL learners in particular need help in mastering the language of reflection in order to learn how to demonstrate the meta-cognitive skills required for portfolio reflection and analysis. The data sections presented in the following sections draw on Nunes’s (2004) typology of reflection and dialogue categories and compare the types of comments found in CSU student self-assessments. In order to differentiate clearly the topics and accurately reflect the type of comments that students made in portfolio assignments, I renamed Nunes’s (2004) category of assessment as assessment/assignments and changed learning to learning goals. The second data section addresses creative responses that do not neatly it into any reflection or dialogue category.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

105

Reflection Comments at CSU I recorded and categorized 201 comments from the 36 essays. Comments ranged from one to two sentences to full paragraphs. Some paragraphs contain two categories as students began with a comment about their work on assignments and then added comments on learning goals. Table 1 lists the number of times a certain comment type appeared in student papers. In comparison with Nunes (2004), my academic writing students had a larger percentage of assessment/assignment comments in relation to the total number of dialogue and reflection comments (22% of the total compared with 12% of the total in her study). In one way, this represents my own coding decisions under the assessment category and the specific questions I asked students to consider on their reflections about classroom assessments. It also points to student familiarity with assessing their abilities on graded assignments and comparing their skills with other students. By the time they reach university, most Chinese university students have taken many high-stakes tests and assessments and have little difficulty in describing their competence in a wide variety of tasks, particularly in relation to other students. In addition, teachers and departments in Chinese high schools and universities typically rank students in relation to each other, and many students in their portfolio compared their performance on classroom assignments to the work of their classmates. My students had a similarly high number of comments on their learning goals (37% compared to 43% in Nunes, 2004) and a low number of comments on syllabus topics (both were 7% of the total), but unlike Nunes (2004), my students had fewer specific comments on instruction methods (8% of the total compared with 36% of her total responses). CSU student syllabus and instruction comments were typically compliments about classroom teaching and my classroom instruction. Some students took the opportunity to offer suggestions on the organization of the entire class or the ELD department as a whole, but no students openly disagreed with any topics or methods of instruction, only asking for more attention to a particular topic, such as reading instruction. Nunes (2004) did not keep statistics as to the number of dialogue-type comments, but out of the total number of comments coded (both reflection and dialogue), the 55 dialogue comments made up 27% of the total, revealing that students placed an emphasis on writing the formal reflection comments, but they did not avoid the more informal comments that directly

Table 1: Typology of student comments (n ¼ 201). Dialogue Interpersonal 28

Reflection

Intrapersonal

Learning goals

Syllabus

Assessment/ assignment

Instruction

27

75

13

43

15

106

Paul McPherron

addressed the reader or other students and texts in the classroom. The next sections offer examples of each type of dialogue and reflection comment and further analysis.

Dialogue Comments The comments from students that were directly addressing me or continuing a dialogue with other students or topics from the class were somewhat surprising, as on formal writing assignments, students had worked to take a professional and distanced stance, but many of the interpersonal comments directed to me were in the form of giving thanks and hoping to stay in touch. For example, JS (student names are represented with initials to protect anonymity) ends her self-reflection stating, ‘‘How I wish to share my English learning with you now and again!’’ Other students give thanks to classmates for helping them learn throughout the semester, as ML does in commenting, ‘‘I should be more serious on study as Echo does, and read more books like Vivian does.’’ Some students used the space of a self-reflection essay to open a dialogue with the ELD and offer overall suggestions for future courses, as WL does in writing ‘‘I have one piece of advice for the ELD, which probably could be helpful. I hope ELD could set up a reading course before students get down to academic writing.’’ In terms of intrapersonal comments, the students at times would analyze their own efforts and abilities, often offering frank comments on their own shortcomings and needs for improvement. For example, PP comments on the dialogue he had throughout the semester. ‘‘Writing is not easy because Dr. [ ], a great English speaker, also finds it difficult to write.’’ I still remembered what I spoke to myself after learning the essay about Dr. [ ]’s writing experiences in the second class. After that, I determined to write more and write better. (PP) Some of the intrapersonal comments tied the academic writing lessons students had learned to their personal beliefs about life. For example, AI writes, ‘‘I really appreciate that I have already started the real writing — the academic ones. It tells me what has to be precise is not only writing but also your thinking of life.’’ There were about the same amount of interpersonal and intrapersonal dialogues, and in addition to their shortcomings, students articulated their future plans and mentioned their overall feelings about the class. Of the dialogue comments, the intrapersonal comments about personal characteristics are probably the closest to the student autonomy and self-reflection skills advocated by CSU. The large number of interpersonal comments, however, reveal the comfort students find in writing informally about their learning, and these comments illustrate student desires to reflect in dialogue with a broader audience, particularly teachers and fellow classmates, making self-reflection for my students a community discussion not just a personal one.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

107

Reflection Comments Most comments on classroom instruction itself were lists of activities that students liked and overall comments on ELD classes in general. For example, one student comments: Moreover, the revisions and writing conferences are also very useful. The revision is like a mirror, knowing that where my weakness is. Some kinds of mistakes are always happened to me, such as word choices, non-idiomatic words and clause errors. The writing conference gives me face-to-face chance with instructor, which helps me make an improvement in my writing skills. (RA) PH even writes that other Chinese teachers should learn to use the peer review and process approach to writing: It’s a good method to let students turn in several drafts with peer review and teacher’s instruction. By that, we learn how to improve an essay step by step. Chinese teacher should learn to use this means in teaching. (PH) Many of these comments feel almost like a pitch for why my class was useful, and I began to question if students were truly reflecting on classroom instruction or just attempting to say what they felt the teacher wanted. It seems that some students viewed the chance to reflect on their learning as a time to show the instructor how hard they had worked and how much they appreciated the class. Of course, I was happy to read about the benefits of my teaching, but since the main idea of portfolio assessment is to help students focus on personal assessment of their own abilities, the large number of these comments appears to distract from more personal reflections and also reify the role of the teacher as expert and central to student learning. In fact, determining what kinds of comments are truly ‘‘reflective’’ or ‘‘critical’’ is one of the most difficult decisions for teachers in adopting a portfolio approach in academic writing classes. Particularly, foreign instructors in EFL contexts may have different notions of ‘‘critical’’ reflection and have expectations about ‘‘guiding’’ students toward self-reflection, and they may be surprised, as I was, by students who use the reflection assignment to praise teachers, not as a display of self-autonomy. In comparison with praising the modes of instruction, discussion of classroom topics, coded as syllabus comments, were both lists of topics that students liked as well as more personal reflections on the topics we had learned about. For example, AW lists the topics that she enjoyed: Moreover, I benefited a lot from [academic writing] because of the topics covered. In classes, we discussed a lot interesting and complicated topics with which I opened my eyes to a more academic world. Through discussing the topics with other students and searching

108

Paul McPherron for more information about the topic, I knew more about plagiarism, about Hit-Hot [Hip-hop], about English names and signs, about Cultural Revolution, just to name a few. (AW)

In contrast, one of the classroom topics that students did choose to reflect in more detail upon was plagiarism and the characteristics of academic writing in English, both part of classroom readings and mini-lectures. In particular, we read some contrastive rhetoric studies and I led a classroom discussion in which we examined the various and changing definitions of plagiarism and academic writing. KA voices some frustration with imprecise definitions of plagiarism: However, up till now. I still don’t make clear that what kind of things is plagiarizing exactly. There may be different between China and United States. Americans are focus on the specific information and individual. If they use other people’s work or ideas, they will quote it specifically, in order to respect the original work. While in China, most of people do not remember the original author, they just quote the sentence they needs. Especially when they are describing some beautiful things. They may quote some poems or some sayings. It is normal and common that using beautiful sentences which are not their own work. Is it plagiarizing? It is just a technique for writing, for using some beautiful poems or sentences to express your own idea. (KA) In addition, CL writes that he finds English academic writing rather simple: Actually, Chinese writing is different from English writing in some facets. And academic writing makes me feel a little bit mechanical — the same frame filled with different content. (CL) It is not surprising that these two syllabus topics garnered reflection, as they are both rather abstract ideas and in some ways go against ideas of writing students had received in previous composition classes. As a teacher, I was happy to see students challenge the ideas that I had presented in class and articulate opinions of how academic writing makes them feel ‘‘mechanical’’ as well as some skepticism about quoting famous lines as plagiarism. These comments reveal the types of critical thinking on issues of academic writing that I have been trained to value, but I again wonder if these were the types of self-analysis comments the CSU administrators envisioned in their adoption of communicative language classrooms. Regardless, the portfolio reflections appear to offer a space for students to voice these comments on classroom topics that some students may not have found in classroom discussions. The reflections on learning focused on student reflections about the skills they learned in the course of the semester. The comments were a mix of lists containing things the students felt that they had gained from the class as well as detailed narratives about how much they had changed over the course of the semester.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

109

For example, SL writes about learning how to organize essays and become critical of her own writing: My academic writing skills improved a lot. Before this semester, I know nothing about the English academic writing. I have learned several kinds of writing, such as the comparison writing, the CV writing and the book-review. Some of them are very useful for us, especially in our future time. For example, how to write a CV is very important for us, because we will go to find our own job in nearly future, and a perfect CV is very important. Also, I have learned some different styles of English academic writing, such as APA style. From the practice, I learned how to organize an essay and be critical about the writing. (SL) Others move toward a meta-level discussion of their progress over the semester, similar to the type of reflections cited in the literature on portfolios. JB even gives the specific amount of words that he can now include in an essay: How time flies! The end of this semester is coming and maybe my final English course in university also will be concluded. Through this semester, I think my English has improved much, especially writing. I couldn’t image that several mouths age, I couldn’t write an essay more than three hundred words in English, but my final writing assignment is more than one thousand five hundred words. I think this is big advance. (JB) Interestingly, many students in assessing their learning wrote about the number of words that they could now write or the numbers of hours that it took them to complete an assignment. It appears that for CSU students part of reflecting on their writing involves converting writing ability and work into numerical quantities of words or hours. Unlike the learning comments that focused on ‘‘what’’ a student learned, the final category, assessment/assignments were comments that specifically reflect ‘‘how’’ students performed on classroom assignments and tests and what these performances reveal about competencies in a range of language activities. Comments ranged from discussions of portfolio selections to descriptions of the personal circumstances that students encountered during the writing assignments. Many of the student assessments of their own abilities contain negative appraisals of their work on classroom assignments and connect their poor work to their need for personal self-improvement. For example, AA writes about his need for more life and work experiences: I choose the resume and cover letter simply because they are of significant importance to my job hunting in the future. When I tried to write down my skills and experiences I developed in these years in [CSU], I were finally aware of that I seldom had experiences of taking

110

Paul McPherron part of the activities held on campus, as well as that my specialized knowledge and language skills were needed further cultivated. It is known to all that a qualified resume or cover letter is a good introduction for applying for a job after graduation. Thanks to this writing training, I have chance to try my best and dig out all my solid knowledge and vocational abilities developed in school. When I am correcting the essay for a third time, I discover that although my experience and knowledge can hardly make a nice resume, I at least have learned how to write it. (AA)

Similarly, LL offers a more critical assessment of her work on the book review assignment: The last essay is the book review, which take us the longest time to finish. At the beginning of the semester, the teacher told us to choose a book to read and to write a review after reading the book. To finish the book is a tough job for me, because I changed another book just two weeks before handing the draft one. Luckily, I finished the work. Though my review is not enough critical and expanding, writing the review is a rare experience for me. (LL) Overall, the CSU students appeared to have little difficulty in reflecting at some level on all of the reflection categories, but interesting features emerged, such as the praise that they give to teachers and fellow students in the beginning of their writing reflections and the self-critical narratives of overcoming struggles and becoming a better person through the writing assignments. The following section examines these creative content topics in their writing as well as features of the overall organization of the reflections.

The Organization and Content of Reflection at CSU There were many creative organizational patterns in the student reflection essays. I had not specified exactly what type of organization I expected as I hoped that the students would make the reflections relevant to their own needs. In previous CSU classes, if I gave a model to students, they would be tempted to replicate the model. Of the more creative organizational patterns, I received three reflections in the form of letters which all began with ‘‘Dear Paul’’ and ended with either ‘‘Best wishes’’ or ‘‘Yours.’’ Even if students did not use formal letter conventions or salutations, they often ended reflections by thanking me and their classmates by writing, ‘‘Thank you very much. I will remember you and all the classmates forever’’ (AC). Instead of a letter, some students used the reflection essay to showcase their abilities to write an organized thesis statement, something we discussed often in class, as one student writes: ‘‘In this paper, I want to give myself a assessment in what I’ve learnt and my performance in the class,

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

111

explain why I’ve chosen the 2nd essay to revise in the portfolio, my plan in further English studying as well as give my thanks to my [academic writing] teacher Paul and all my classmates’’ (EL). The organizational forms of reflection writing on portfolios are not clearly outlined in the literature on portfolio assessment, but the personal letters to me reveal CSU student creative interpretations of reflection writing, and the use of thesis sentences points out the prevalence of the five paragraph-style essay, even in more informal writing contexts. In addition to the varied organizational patterns, certain content topics were prevalent in multiple student essays, each pointing to interpretations of reflection writing and relationships with teachers, fellow students, and larger communities of learning.

Compliments In reviewing student writing, numerous essays gave at least one compliment to me personally or to fellow students. Often students started their reflections in an impersonal manner by offering reflections on classroom instruction and their assignments, but they would end with statements of praise. For example, ML writes in her penultimate paragraph: Last but not least, apart from the academic knowledge I talk above, the instructor, Paul, educated me by his personality and virtues. I learnt to be serious on academic work and easy-going on informal occasions. In class, all of us are friends talking freely. As I see it we all like him, which makes the class successful to a certain extent. (ML) LL also thanks me personally for my hard work as well as her fellow students. She writes: Thank Paul for teaching me to want to ‘‘talk’’, like to ‘‘talk’’, and how to ‘‘talk’’. Thank him very much for his hard work for us, and I am also happy to make a friend with him. Fortunately I knew many students with different background, and I learned many things from them. (LL) As a final example of these types of compliments that typically appeared at the end of student reflections, MW goes as far as to comment on my appearance: Last but not least, I want to say thank you to Paul, my dear ELC5 teacher. Paul is really a good teacher. He is handsome, knowledgeable, talkative, and careful. At the same time, I want to thank all my ELC5 classmates. I learnt a lot from them in the class and during the group discussions. They are all very friendly and kind. I feel grateful to have such lovely classmates! Thank you, lovely Paul! Thank you dear classmates! (MW)

112

Paul McPherron

As Nunes (2004) points out, novice writers may not have acquired the pragmatic and discourse knowledge of the language of reflection, and they may choose topics not typically considered acceptable for reflections. While I initially wanted to discount these comments as empty ‘‘space-filler’’ that are aimed at making a good impression on me as the teacher, based on the fact that they are so numerous and often offer comments on my personal virtues, it seems that the students are doing more than ingratiating themselves to their teacher and evaluator. Considering Scollon’s (1999) description of the Confucian teacher as modeling wisdom and hard work for students and leading by example not through explicit guiding or scaffolding, the student compliments are not necessarily commenting on me personally but rather on my role as a model of knowledge, virtue, and hard work in the classroom. In this way, LL’s comments are particularly interesting as she adopts the clear communicative and speaking goal as presented in CSU and ELD policy, but she expresses her newfound ability as something that she has learned directly from modelling herself after me, not as something that she has achieved herself. It is unclear exactly what I did in class to teach her ‘‘how to talk,’’ but clearly she has incorporated something from my mannerisms and perhaps from the way I ‘‘talk’’ about writing and essays in class. Examining these compliments and direct statements of praise as reflecting a Chinese culture of learning, I concluded that the students are in some ways sidestepping an explicit student-centered writing reflection, with some even pointing out that the friendships and overall atmosphere of the classroom were just as important as classroom knowledge. For example, LP writes: ‘‘All in all, this semester is a memorable time in my English learning. From ELD5 class, I have gained friendship, happiness as well as knowledge.’’ While the compliments were surprising for me as a teacher and difficult to assess in terms of achieving the critical learning goals of the ELD — it would be interesting to note if students would offer such compliments of how local teachers ‘‘talk’’ and act in class — the student compliments of their classmates and teacher do illustrate the value of the social aspects of our classrooms and that gaining friendships and creating a classroom community of learning are just as important as formal or personal learning goals.

Stories of Personal Struggle and Perseverance Another repeated topic of student reflections, often in the form of a short narrative, was a story about how the writer worked hard to improve themselves, in terms of both their writing and their personal habits. For example, RQ writes about giving up other classes to take on the challenge of academic writing: How time flies this semester! I still remember that I told the classmates I had given up two courses to choose Level five’s course. Now I would say it worth doing so, because I have learnt English writing skills and kept my English-learning passion. Though the essays make me busy and agonizing from time to time, but I feel substantial now. (RQ)

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

113

Similarly, AL writes about the tough work of learning to write in English and how her work reveals her ‘‘efforts and progress’’: I spent many of my weekends and finally finished three big projects, a resume and cover letter, which will be useful for my job hunting in two years, an argumentative essay, which concerns the topic of all major courses in English in STU, and a book review of Vanity Fair, a classical novel. They are not the best in class but I am satisfied because they symbolize my efforts and progress. (AL) Part of these narratives of perseverance, many students end their reflections with a view toward the future: In conclusion, it is memorial semester for me, and I learned a lot from this semester. Also, i know i still need more time to study and practise how to writing, I will do my best to improve. (SL) The students in my academic writing class had all been taking English for 10 years or more, and many had passed the Chinese English test (CET), Levels 4 and 6. Despite these experiences, many students comment on how they felt very nervous when writing academic essays, a fear that shows up in their writing about overcoming great odds and showing moral strength to keep trying. In writing about their experiences over the course of the semester, many of the narratives repeat common phrases such as ‘‘how time flies’’ and one student revises the saying ‘‘No pain, no gain’’ into ‘‘I pain, I gain’’ as the last line of his essay. The use of these cliche´s and famous phrases invokes the student comment on plagiarism mentioned earlier and the use of ‘‘beautiful words’’ as many students complete their reflections with references to these well-known sayings. One passage from WZ’s reflection piece contains many of these phrases and an extended reference to the ‘‘Give a man a fish’’ aphorism: If we want to make great progress, we should know our weaknesses and work hard. However, it is easier to say than to do. What we need includes determination and perseverance. I really learnt something valuable in this semester. Something stimulates me to continue English study more seriously. Maybe I still cannot write the excellent essay, but it is much more important for me to know how to improve writing skills. You will eat out all the fish if someone just gives you fish; but you have endless fish to eat if someone teaches you how to fish. What I need is fishing skills, not just fish. (WZ) This comment is particularly interesting as WZ draws on the discourse of student autonomy in learning to write academically that is found in CSU teaching policy, but he also connects these skills to his life, not just one written assignment. Like the other narratives of perseverance and their metaphors of pain and struggle in order to learn

114

Paul McPherron

to write academic English, WZ describes academic writing in English as something that requires serious attention and personal commitment.

Stories of Perseverance: Evaluations of Personal Characteristics Going further, the stories of perseverance of some students became frank dialogue with me and themselves about their personalities and morals. For example, BL writes about his lazy habits: Every essay we had to write the first, the second and the third draft. I learned a lot from this kind of writing and modifying. I am not a serious or hard-working student. And I am lazy to write an essay again and again. But I still learned a lot from the writing although I was a lazy boy. (BL) In addition to general laziness, the topic of plagiarism created the most significant stories of personal flaws as well as perseverance, and it was a significant topic for students to comment and reflect on. As an example, JL talks in his reflection essay about the different cultures of plagiarism and the lessons he has learned. He comments: Though I got a bad mark in essay 3, I learn a very good lesson which in my opinion is more important than the knowledge. The lesson is that it is wrong to plagiarize. At first, I don’t think it matters much because many Chinese students may plagiarize part of other people’s essay so that they can hand in to the teachers. And most Chinese teachers know that and accept. Maybe it is the difference between two cultures. So I did the same in my essay 3. But at the conference hour, my teacher Paul told me that I really did something wrong. I should not do that in my essay. No matter how busy I was and how I thought, essay was my own duty. I had to finish it by myself. That is a responsible attitude I should have. I failed in the essay 3, but I learn a responsible attitude. It will guide me in all my life. (JL) In his response, JL comments on his perceived differences between local and foreign teacher views of plagiarism, and he positions plagiarism as a moral problem in that writing your own words is a ‘‘duty’’ to himself. I had not intended to teach a view of plagiarism as a sin, but JL, offering a slight justification based on his previous teachers, describes his plagiarism as a lapse in his ‘‘responsible attitude.’’ In the same way, LY included as his class reflection a two-page letter that he had written to me about why he plagiarized. He had originally written the letter as a response to our writing conference in which I had marked large sections of his book review assignment as copied from the Internet. After writing the letter and sending it to me as an attachment, we agreed that he could revise the letter and include it in his portfolio as part of his reflection on his writing over the semester. The transcripts below are from the opening and ending sections of his letter and are full of complex

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

115

reflections and dialogue on the topic of plagiarism and academic writing, and how his writing experiences have shaped his view of himself as a person: Dear Paul, Thank you very much for your advices to me. I am very sad for my plagiarism and I feel terribly sorry for that. Plagiarism is lie, cheat and theft and I should be responsible to any results from that. It proves my dishonest. My faith of honest disappeared radically at this moment and I understand myself more from this. This result will certainly come at the beginning of my plagiarism. I don’t want to plagiarize but in fact I did. I don’t think I am lazy in learning English and I think I like writing too. At this semester of [academic writing] class, I prepared a lot and make myself active in class. I like to speak, I like to communicate and I also feel comfortable in writing journals. But I am nervous at academe writing and I can even unable to write a sentence that satisfies me. Once I pick up my pen at the beginning of my academe writing, I feel terribly ill as if each sentence I have wrote was Chinese English and completely wrong in grammar, spelling or APA style. I was scared of that and it made me filled with pressure. I can only get back my little confidence in my oral English for no one will care whether I have said something wrong. So I speak fast sometimes to avoid my mistakes being found. This advantage radically disappear once I write. So I try to avoid. The best way is to copy English writing directly from the Internet which is perfect in grammar and structures, etc. I can guess that you can tell them apart with a glance. I try to stop my plagiarism but I did not manage to. This is the worst way and it is totally wrong. And I apologize for that seriously. At the end of the letter, he closes with further reflection on writing: I have written more than I imagined so far. I feel free in this way of writing: Just record what I thought and don’t need to care about anything else. It may be easier for me to write a self-review rather than a book review. To me, writing with my true feelings is a most enjoyable entertainment and I like it very much. To be honest, the rewriting of book review is annoying and I wish I can hand in this self-review instead. Still, I will rewrite it and I want to know the deadline of my forth draft. I hope you can give me a little more time for I have to prepare for my final exams these weeks. However, I will try my best to finish it in time. Thanks for you patience and advice for me. Yours, [LY]

116

Paul McPherron

LY’s letter raises very complex questions about portfolios and student views of academic writing. The response makes me wonder about his view of the reflection assignment and his desire to include this letter in his portfolio. In many ways, LY is framing me, the teacher, in the role of moral role model, and he seems to be responding to me as if I were a parent or someone to confess to. Despite my reference to scholarly work on plagiarism and the difficult cultural and political definitions of plagiarism, the students interpreted my writing the word plagiarism on their drafts as a comment on their moral and ethical standards, and they felt the need to ‘‘confess their sins’’ in their reflection writing. In retrospect, I needed to more fully address the assumptions and negatives connotations of plagiarism in class, having students reflect in writing and perhaps in small discussions on their experiences and own definitions.

Conclusion So I suggest, together with encouraging and valuing users’ appropriation of English, TESOL workers also need to promote an EIL (English as an International Language) pedagogy in which the teaching and learning of EIL should involve valuing and nurturing the expression of other cultural voices in English, making explicit the values that support judgments about ‘‘good’’ English and individual ability, and helping students to construct identities as owners, meaning makers, and authorised users of EIL (Phan, 2008, p. 102). In a similar fashion, Kramsch (2006, 2008) advocates teaching English from the standpoint of a pedagogy of reflexion in which the multiplicity of cultures that both unite and differentiate language learners are viewed as new and creative mythic potentials for words and meanings in English. She writes, ‘‘whereas for monolingual speakers words have become one with the world around them, for multilingual subjects different words evoke different worlds they can play off one another y Learners can be made more aware of their third place potential through a pedagogy of reflexion and imagination, of translingual experience and poetic creativity’’ (2006, p. 108). As seen in the creative content and responses found in this study, writing teachers can encourage students to draw on these ‘‘third space’’ pedagogies through the use of portfolios and reflection writing. For example, the large number of compliments that students wrote to me and their classmates point toward a reinterpretation of selfreflection as a classroom activity and a space for students to recognize the role of teachers as experts in the classroom. In addition, by reanalyzing famous quotations such as ‘‘No pain, no gain’’ and ‘‘Give a man a fish’’ in terms of overcoming writing difficulties, students also reinterpreted English sayings in creative and new ways, turning the acquisition of academic writing into a symbol of hard work and personal virtue. Some teachers may not accept these reflections as evidence of self-reflection on specific learning goals, but by enforcing norms in how to reflect, we limit the potential for new ways of reflecting in English and the opportunity to open classrooms up to discussions of new competencies and pedagogies of appropriation.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

117

In examining student responses as examples of appropriation, it is important to also note that not all students may desire the appropriations that Phan (2008) and Kramsch (2006) discuss, nor actively pursue new English meanings and re-interpretations of writing norms. In fact, many students, such as AL, write in their reflections about the need to work hard to write ‘‘more beautiful English like native speakers’’ (AL), and a majority of student responses praised the process approaches to teaching and the student-centered activities such as the writing conferences, multiple paper drafts, and peer reviews. Teachers need to seek a balance in encouraging new and fascinating appropriations of English and reflection writing and at the same time honoring the choices of students such as AL. In addition, much of the student writing represented traits of Jin and Cortazzi’s Chinese culture of learning, particularly the way CSU students modeled themselves after my ‘‘virtues’’ and ways of speaking. The notion of a culture of learning may essentialize the complexities and local realities of Chinese university classrooms, but the prevalence of certain traits in student reflections points out sedimented meanings and practices that we cannot cast aside as irrelevant as they affect the lived realities and, as Jin and Cortazzi (2006) write, ‘‘the frameworks’’ in which students view language learning at CSU. What is important is to not let any one practice become the dominant standard of teaching and as teachers to model the type of questioning stance toward our own beliefs, something that I may have failed to do in our classroom discussions about plagiarism and academic writing. Atkinson (2003) has already discussed this type of ‘‘turning culture back on ourselves’’ (p. 51), and he argues that writing teachers must make the debates over contested terms such as ‘‘culture,’’ and in my case academic writing itself, into opportunities to examine our own socializations as language teachers and researchers. This turning the lens on ourselves must occur before we can work toward pedagogies that represent student appropriations. In retrospect, I could have more explicitly demonstrated this type of questioning of academic writing and plagiarism. In addition to the question, ‘‘What are you still curious or worried about?’’ — a common question that aims to spark self-reflection — I could have followed with a more pointed question such as, ‘‘What is your opinion of definitions of academic writing, plagiarism, essay organization, and research writing?’’ or ‘‘Why do you think academic writing standards exist?’’ and most importantly answered these questions myself in classroom dialogues and talks with students. In conclusion, while portfolio assessment in academic writing courses has primarily been a tool to further CLT goals, I argue that we need also to consider portfolios in EFL contexts as spaces for students to ask questions about Englishlanguage identifications and their own appropriations of academic writing norms. In this way, portfolio assessment can become a place to further discussion of cultures of learning and the role of teachers in ELT classrooms. This type of cross-cultural and transnational dialogue is just as important, if not more so, than the development of communicative language skills and student autonomy, and in this way, we can push student reflections in class to be less about ‘‘what they learned’’ and more about ‘‘how they are learning.’’ Hopefully, more studies on portfolio assessment in China and other EFL contexts can expand our understandings of the uses of

118

Paul McPherron

portfolio assessment and self-reflection writing and local appropriations of English teaching pedagogies.

References Adamson, B. (2004). China’s English: A history of English in Chinese education. Hong Kong: HKU Press. Adejunmobi, M. (2004). Vernacular palaver: Imaginations of the local and non-native languages in West Africa. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Appadurai, A. (2001). Grassroots globalization and the research imagination. In: A. Appadurai (Ed.), Globalization (pp. 1–21). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Atkinson, D. (2003). Writing and culture in the post-process era. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 49–63. Bauman, Z. (2005). Identity in the globalizing world. In: S. Shapiro & D. Purpel (Eds), Critical social issues in American education: Democracy and meaning in a globalizing world (pp. 443–454). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Press. Brown, D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson. Canagarajah, S. (Ed.) (2005). Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cohen, A. D. (1998). Strategies in learning and using a second language. London: Longman. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (2002). Cultures of learning: The social construction of educational identities. In: D. Li (Ed.), Discourses in search of members. Lanham: University Press of America. Crockett, T. (1998). The portfolio journey: A creative guide to keeping student-managed portfolios in the classroom. Englewood, CO: Teacher Ideas Press. Elbow, P. (1993). Ranking, evaluating, and liking: Sorting out three forms of judgment. College English, 55, 187–206. Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. (1998). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hamp-Lyons, L. (Ed.) (1991). Assessing second language writing in academic contexts. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hamp-Lyons, L. (1994). Interweaving assessment and instruction in college ESL writing classes. College ESL, 4(1), 43–55. Hamp-Lyons, L., & Condon, W. (2000). Assessing the portfolio: Principles for practice, theory, and research. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton. Jin, L., & Cortazzi, M. (2002). English language teaching in China: A bridge to the future. Asia-Pacific Journal of Education, 22(2), 53–64. Jin, L., & Cortazzi, M. (2006). Changing practices in Chinese cultures of learning. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 19, 5–20. Kramsch, K. (2006). The multilingual subject. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 16, 97–110. Kramsch, K. (2008). The uses of communicative competence in a global world. In: J. Liu (Ed.), English language teaching in China: New approaches, perspectives, and standards (pp. 55–74). London: Continuum.

Self-Assessment in a Chinese University Academic Writing Course

119

Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese culture constructed by discourses: Implications for applied linguistics research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 9–35. Liu, J. (Ed.) (2008). English language teaching in China: New approaches, perspectives, and standards. New York: Continuum. Macaro, E. (2001). Learning strategies in foreign and second language classrooms. London: Continuum. McPherron, P. (2008). Internationalizing teaching, localizing English: The ‘in-betweens’ of global and local language practices at a Chinese university. Unpublished dissertation, University of California, Davis. Morgan, B. (1998). The ESL classroom: Teaching, critical practice, and community development. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Norton, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 9–31. Nunan, D. (2004). Task based teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nunes, A. (2004). Portfolios in the EFL classroom: Disclosing an informed practice. ELT Journal, 58, 327–335. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Phan, L. H. (2008). Teaching English as an international language: Identity, resistance and negotiation. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Phan, L. H., & Phan, V. Q. (2006). Vietnamese educational morality and the discursive construction of English language teacher identity. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 1, 136–151. Ramanathan, V. (2005). The English-vernacular divide. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. Richards, J., & Rogers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scollon, S. (1999). Not to waste words: Confucian and Socratic discourse in the tertiary classroom. In: E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in the second language classroom (pp. 13–28). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., & Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4, 21–44.

PART II MORAL AND POLITICAL EXPLORATIONS

Chapter 7

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism$ Bradley Baurain The purpose of this chapter is to interrogate the concept of plagiarism, primarily from moral and cross-cultural perspectives. Putting the spotlight on how plagiarism in academic writing is perceived and responded to, especially when the accused plagiarists are international students, reveals an intricately interwoven and multilayered fabric of moral issues. While much of my onion-peeling is deconstructive in that prevailing currents of thought are challenged, my overarching purpose is to work toward a more constructive, tentative shift in the frame of reference from within which plagiarism might be understood and addressed.

Stop, Thief ! What is wrong with plagiarism? The most common answer, and still the dominant paradigm despite incisive critiques (e.g., Pennycook, 1996; Scollon, 1995), is that it is the theft of intellectual property. The Oxford English Dictionary offers this succinct definition: ‘‘The action or practice of taking someone else’s work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one’s own; literary theft’’ (Plagiarism, 2006). Theft and property are for the most part metaphors that link to the moral qualities of honesty and integrity. I say ‘‘for the most part’’ because many see ‘‘property’’ literally in the sense that there are economic implications to academic writing. In the words of one academic writing handbook: ‘‘Intellectual property has value just like the cash drawer at the local

$

Earlier versions of parts of this chapter were presented in 2006 at the 26th Thailand TESOL Convention in Bangkok and in 2008 at the 42nd TESOL Convention in New York City.

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 123–138 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022010

124

Bradley Baurain

McDonald’s’’ (Lester, 2005, p. 88). In any case, those who plagiarize are portrayed as dishonest and deceptive, lacking in honor and trustworthiness. The moral questions permeating this exploratory chapter begin at this starting point of definitions of terms. If property-and-theft imagery is at the heart of plagiarism as a moral offense, then by extension why should not a market morality be applied to academic writing? That is, property can be bought, sold, loaned, or leased, as owners please and markets permit. Why should not this potential also exist for intellectual property? In fact, it does exist, for example, in copyrights. Some of the paper mill websites are run on this very basis — a marketplace model in which students gain access to a database of research papers or enjoy reduced prices in exchange for contributing one or more of their own (presumably original) papers. So why are students who purchase papers at such sites labeled ‘‘plagiarists’’ instead of ‘‘customers’’? Writing and authorship do not qualify as a special case — ghostwriters sell their skills to write books listing celebrities as authors. Academic writing fares little better when we consider, for instance, the practice of listing ‘‘star academics’’ as primary authors of team-effort articles for which they themselves may not have written a word. One cancerous effect of this approach to plagiarism is that it sets up an adversarial and often angry or vengeful relationship between teachers and students. Teachers take personal offense at the academic betrayal of ‘‘literary theft.’’ This mentality can be seen in titles such as ‘‘Internet Plagiarism: A Teacher’s Combat Guide’’ (Suarez & Martin, 2001). Even a brief survey of ‘‘how to stop plagiarism’’ or ‘‘plagiarism is a growing problem’’ articles and materials turns up accompanying negative themes of warfare, crime, punishment, detection, vigilance, violence, law enforcement, and disease. The University of Central Florida, for example, recently built a new, secure testing center for its business students, and cheating rates are down. ‘‘We’ve scared the living daylights out of them,’’ explained an associate dean (Clark, 2008). Recognizing the hollowness of such ‘‘victories,’’ one professor mocked himself (Kolich, 1983, pp. 142–143): Like an avenging god I have tracked plagiarists with eagerness and intensity, faced them with dry indignation when I could prove their deception, and failed them with contempt. I wanted the whole business to be as impersonal as possible, and therefore I said that it was not vindictiveness prompting my actions but an uncompromising belief in college as a place of real honor where only the honorable could be tolerated. But what I did not tell them was the whole truth: I have always responded to plagiarism as a personal insult against me and my teaching. Along these lines, Leask (2006) reviews the literature and identifies battle as the governing metaphor in discourse surrounding plagiarism. She suggests an alternate metaphor of game, which has the advantages of acknowledging the fluid, constructed nature of academic writing conventions and of opening up possibilities for what might happen during intercultural encounters, given that plagiarism is regarded as a major issue for international students at Western universities. The battle metaphor is

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

125

not only competitive and violent but also takes a colonialist stance toward writing teacher–international student relationships: Cultural Others are ‘‘simple natives’’ who must learn the sophisticated mysteries of Western academic discourse in order to earn higher degrees and associated rewards. Electronic countermeasures have only worsened matters. It is no accident that a recent article on this topic in U.S. News & World Report begins: ‘‘Teachers, long behind in the cheating arms race, may finally be catching up’’ (Clark, 2008). Plagiarism detection websites such as Turnitin.com and software such as SafeAssign, while using rhetoric on ‘‘leveling the playing field’’ and ‘‘protecting the honest majority,’’ operate on a presumption of guilt and essentially require students to prove their innocence. Purdy (2005), who studied several such resources and generally found them to be no more effective than free online search engines at unearthing plagiarism, argues that parent companies’ business practices, not to mention possible invasions of privacy and violations of civil rights, are morally objectionable in ways that make these ‘‘solutions’’ potentially worse than the original problem. Similarly, Zwagerman (2008) assesses the threat posed by the surveillance-and-control mentality represented by such websites and software to be greater than that posed by plagiarism and cheating. The ‘‘Scarlet P’’ and academics’ cries of moral outrage over plagiarism establish and guard a boundary between ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ students — another false or misleading binary opposition that exacerbates difficulties and conceals deeper issues. He compares this mindset to Foucault’s analysis of the panopticon in terms of its power, ability to command obedience, and potential to create conditions of self-subjection (p. 691).

From Condemnation to Education Wishing to elude the moral quicksand of an intellectual property approach, many have sought to identify the central issue behind plagiarism not as textual ownership or thievery but as education or pedagogy. The tensions and paradoxes built into academic writing in English are daunting for any student but particularly for those working to master difficult conventions in a new language and new sociocultural contexts.1 Ange´lil-Carter (2000), for one, argues that ‘‘plagiarism is a complex, contested concept and in student academic writing it may be the surface manifestation of complex learning difficulties which relate to the educational environment, the nature of academic discourse and the nature of language’’ (p. 2; see also Blum, 2009). When learners are unaware they are violating accepted standards, when they have not yet developed the higher-level academic skills necessary to fulfill

1

A useful summary of these tensions and paradoxes, under the heading ‘‘Intellectual Challenges in American Academic Writing,’’ may be found at the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), http:// owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/. Similar information can be found in virtually any academic writing handbook.

126

Bradley Baurain

them, or when they are in the midst of negotiating complex developments in writer identity, it comes off as ignorant and mean-spirited to charge them with plagiarism and cheating. For this reason, the process of reaching a pedagogical understanding of the ‘‘real causes’’ of plagiarism tends to be framed as a movement toward moral enlightenment. Those who take this position often start from a confessional stance, opening their articles or conference presentations with personal anecdotes featuring themselves as wrathful punishers of plagiarism who have since repented of their hasty and shallow pursuit of ‘‘justice’’ (e.g., Kolich, 1983; Zwagerman, 2008). Analyses of the educational or pedagogical dimensions of such ‘‘plagiarism’’ tend to concentrate on various aspects of the academic writing process (Abasi, Akbari, & Graves, 2006; Briggs, 2003; Dujsik, 2002; Lake, 2004). Students might not know how to summarize or paraphrase effectively, or how to interact with a quotation. They might not possess sufficient vocabulary to rephrase an idea in their own words. They might be unacquainted with particular systems of citation and documentation. They might not know that disagreeing with published sources is acceptable and expected, or how to do so. They might not have enough background or contextual knowledge to make sense of what they have read. They might be unfamiliar with discourse conventions in their subject area. They might be transitioning to an entirely new set of referencing expectations and academic writing conventions. Howard (1995, 2000) focuses on students’ ability to incorporate sources into their own authorial identity and voice. Cutting-and-pasting or regurgitation represents a failed attempt to do so, while adjusted and digested quotations and paraphrases represent success. The key point of this recognition or distinction is that in many cases students are honestly trying to become authentic academic writers and that teachers should not be overly hasty in pinning a label of dishonest ‘‘plagiarizer’’ on them. ‘‘Patchwriting’’ can thus be seen as a developmental literacy practice, a transitional step students take on their way to achieving higher-order writing skills or crafting new writing identities. From this perspective, it would be inaccurate and cruel to label immature or imperfect writing as ‘‘plagiarism.’’ In part for this reason, Chandrasoma, Thompson, and Pennycook (2004) argue that the term ‘‘plagiarism’’ carries a misleading and confusing load of linguistic and cultural baggage and prefer to distinguish between ‘‘transgressive’’ and ‘‘nontransgressive intertextuality.’’ These phrasings acknowledge the intricate ways in which texts interact with authors and with one another during processes of reading and writing. Essentially attempting to draw new boundaries for what does and does not constitute ‘‘plagiarism,’’ the authors articulate ten ‘‘concerns’’ for evaluating texts in this area. These include student development, that is, the maturity of a writer’s skills in handling academic discourse; identity, or how student writers go about creating authoritative and authentic authorial selves, finding their own voices amidst those of their sources; and common knowledge, that is, the fact that what qualifies as common knowledge differs among cultures, historical eras, geographic locations, and academic disciplines. A main purpose in these educational or pedagogical approaches is to differentiate between plagiarism as a genuine moral offense versus ‘‘plagiarism’’ as a technical lapse, a gap in skills, or a site of intercultural or interpersonal negotiation (Howard & Robillard, 2008), and from this perspective it is a morally admirable distinction.

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

127

Questions remain, however, including the fact that the first half of the distinction often remains unaddressed. What about ‘‘real’’ plagiarism, that is, when students are intentionally and admittedly dishonest about how they have fulfilled an academic writing assignment? On what moral foundations might we discuss and respond to such cases? A second issue is whether proponents of such views mean to argue that right knowledge leads to right actions. This seems morally naı¨ ve, yet studying their arguments seems to lead to such conclusions, as well as to another false binary opposition: ‘‘[I]f students plagiarize, either the teacher has failed to ‘engage’ them in a proper system for learning, or they are psychopaths who cannot be helped’’ (Kolich, 1983, p. 141). Third, why are those who argue in this fashion so anxious to assert students’ good intentions and to catalog and categorize various forms of academic immaturity or intercultural conflict? Perhaps this eagerness springs from a penitent desire to right past wrongs. Perhaps there is a belief in the basic goodness of human nature. Perhaps there is a moral outrage over the police–state adversarialism and discipline-and-punish mentalities described in the previous section. Perhaps we as teachers prefer to believe that the root cause of plagiarism is a pedagogical one within our power to solve. Do we have a vested interest in bringing matters within our domain of expertise? And is that not in itself a reason for doubt or caution? My point here is that in one form or another there are moral assumptions and commitments that undergird and influence educational or pedagogical perspectives on plagiarism, and these need to be examined and critiqued as forcefully as moral assumptions and commitments accompanying intellectual property positions. Even when a stigmatizing or judgmental ‘‘plagiarist’’ label is avoided through a pedagogical refocusing on what is happening with individual writers in particular pieces of writing in specific contexts, moral issues remain. Johnston (2003), for instance, narrates a story about an international student who had plagiarized, in the broad sense of the term, an assignment, but whom he judged as having done so unintentionally (pp. 7–8). He worked with her to clarify her understanding of the assignment, develop her ability to use sources, and build her referencing skills, but in some ways he felt this was unfair to his other students. After all, they had met the original deadline and had done so without so much attention and flexibility from the instructor. He does not express regret for his actions, but rather tells the story in order to avoid triumphalism and to keep the spotlight on the multifaceted, multilayered, and ultimately personal nature of the moral decision. A second example of how a pedagogical approach to plagiarism might fail to resolve key moral questions is inadvertently provided by Sowden (2005). Treating plagiarism as an issue linked to cultural and rhetorical traditions, he recommends using a process writing approach as a preventive tool. Making sure that carefully crafted assignments are done step-bystep, and collecting multiple drafts in portfolios can alert teachers to potential problems and help students prove their innocence should questions of plagiarism arise. Process writing is thus disquietingly and even alarmingly transformed into a way to pour students into a mold and to monitor and control their work. We do not seem to have left the adversarialism and surveillance mentalities behind after all. Another form of the educational or pedagogical line of thinking proposes membership in discourse communities as a desirable outcome of maturing academic

128

Bradley Baurain

writing skills, including knowledge of and conformity to standards regarding plagiarism. This is especially true for international students, who are said to need to learn advanced academic English in order to join in the ‘‘global conversation.’’ This is essentially Deckert’s (1993, 1994) point in his debate with Pennycook (1994), as he refers to the teaching of writing, academic rhetoric, and referencing conventions as a service done for international students. Similarly, Leki (1991), despite acknowledging rhetorical forms as socially constructed and dynamic, sees a responsibility to teach international students the expectations of an academic, English-speaking audience. Using terms like ‘‘service’’ and ‘‘responsibility’’ casts writing teachers in the role of moral benefactors, highlighting once again how futile it is to attempt to relegate plagiarism discussions to the realm of the technical, pedagogical, or cultural, without reference to moral domains. Educational or pedagogical lines of response to plagiarism are to some extent commitments to supporting the status quo in academic writing and publishing — a moral stance. But how sure are we that we want to do this? After all, the pressures on scholars in all fields to publish in English are mounting, with many professional rewards at stake (Curry & Lillis, 2004, 2006; Lillis & Curry, 2010), the dominance of English is fraught with questions of discursive imperialism (Canagarajah, 1999; Phillipson, 1992), and the status quo in academic publishing is hardly just or equitable (Canagarajah, 2002a). Teachers’ desires to do good for their students — that is, to empower them to play the game and access the rewards of the system — clash with evaluations of the inconsistencies and inequities of the game itself. The dilemma is vexing (Canagarajah, 2002b): If we empower our students as described, how do we justify propping up the status quo? But if we resist the power structures, and lead others in resistance to them, how do we justify the risk of disenfranchisement?

Cultural ‘‘Others’’ from a Deficit Perspective In practice, both intellectual property and educational or pedagogical perspectives and arguments regarding plagiarism often lead to cultural generalizing and stereotyping. This tends to produce such representative bits of teacher folk wisdom as: He is from a collectivist culture. They are not as individualistic as we in the West. Crediting individuals with ideas is not part of their tradition, so we must be patient in teaching him about citations. In their country, they learn by imitation. Creativity is not part of their educational system, so it is no wonder they simply repeat what they read. Her culture has a strong respect for authority and printed texts. We should not be surprised if she shows no evidence of critical thinking skills and does not seem to know how to question and critique her sources.

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

129

What we call ‘‘plagiarism’’ they do not perceive as wrong. In fact, they were probably rewarded for doing this in their educational system. We will just have to work harder to clarify our expectations and standards. These kinds of statements — synthesized from many professional conversations and conference presentations in my own experience — are usually well intentioned and often even framed as nonjudgmental. They spring, however, from a morally lethal combination of half-truths and ideological assumptions. The closer we look, the more untenable such essentialism becomes. Kumaravadivelu (2003), for one, discusses and debunks several cultural stereotypes of this type (cf. Scollon & Scollon, 2001, pp. 167–174). Kubota and Lehner (2004) critique contrastive rhetoric along these lines as constructing static and unjust images of learners, exoticizing cultural differences, and ignoring individual agency (p. 9). Even within open-mindedness and empowerment-oriented approaches, English is de facto in the superior position and other languages and rhetorical traditions are in a deficit position (p. 15). To continue believing such untroubled cultural stereotypes relevant to writing and plagiarism, teachers must overlook at least three knotty difficulties with important moral implications. First, the prejudicial direction of the reasoning must be ignored. An example employed by Deckert (1993, 1994) and Dujsik (2002) serves to illustrate: They both point to the pirating of music, movies, and software, photocopying of books, and counterfeiting of clothing and other goods in some Asian countries as evidence of cultural values and traditions that are open or predisposed toward what Westerners see as plagiarism and cheating. Based on this reasoning, one would then expect Westerners, socialized into supposedly opposite cultural values and traditions, to be appalled by such practices and have nothing to do with them. The fact, though, is that when Westerners come as tourists to these countries they often quite eagerly buy the pirated or counterfeit goods and congratulate themselves on having found such great deals! In addition, an opposite reading could be found in these ‘‘facts.’’ Instead of interpreting some Asians as oriented toward dishonesty because they pirate movies and software, one could very easily interpret Westerners as selfish, greedy, or exploitative in how we use intellectual and creative products in relationships with others. (Please understand that I am not endorsing this kind of essentialist reasoning, but rather pointing out that only bias could prevent those who use it from arguing in this direction as opposed to the other.) Second, those who link plagiarism to cultural traditions in a linear or simplistic manner must neglect problematizing evidence regarding cross-cultural similarities with regard to academic writing conventions. Leki (1991) cites an earlier study of 77 international students from various countries who reported learning academic writing skills and standards in their mother tongues that were quite similar to those they were learning in English (p. 130). A survey by Buranen (1999) found students from about 20 countries claiming ‘‘no basic difference’’ in definitions of and attitudes toward plagiarism (p. 68). She thus concludes that holding onto cultural stereotypes (such as those typified in my ‘‘representative bits of teacher folk wisdom’’ above) is patronizing or condescending, a variation in the ‘‘simple native’’ theme (p. 73). Evans and Youmans (2000) interviewed students from 15 countries and heard them

130

Bradley Baurain

‘‘contending that the definition of plagiarism is the same throughout the world’’ (p. 52). Dujsik (2002) states that Thai academic writing and citation practices are similar to those in English — and that students misunderstand and resist them in both languages (p. 22). Ling, Wang, and Xu (2005) cite interviews in which Chinese editors of academic journals claim their documentation standards and academic writing conventions are mostly similar to those in Western, Englishmedium journals, although in practice these editors have differing understandings that appear to depend on where they were educated or trained. Responding to Sowden (2005), Liu (2005) cites numerous Chinese proverbs as evidence of longstanding traditions clearly identifying and opposing plagiarism as morally wrong. Phan Le Ha (2006) does the same for Vietnam. The sheepish Chinese student in Pennycook’s (1996) introduction knew perfectly well that he had not done the writing assignment as intended. Third, a cross-cultural deficit approach to plagiarism suffers from apparent disregard or ignorance of a well-established tradition of cheating and plagiarism in Western education (Rettinger & Kramer, 2009). A 1999 survey of students at Rutgers University, for example, reported 33 percent admitted cheating on exams and 50 percent admitted cheating on assignments (Plagiarism allegations, 2002). Almost half of those surveyed by a student newspaper at Cambridge University admitted plagiarizing, with only 1 in 20 getting caught (Cambridge students, 2008). A largescale study by the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University found that 80 percent of college students admitted to cheating at least once; in another survey, 54 percent admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet, 74 percent admitted cheating seriously at least once in the previous school year, and 47 percent believed teachers sometimes choose to ignore their students’ dishonesty (Fulwood, 2003). Simmons (1999) cites studies finding historical evidence that such practices are not new. A pressure to succeed as well as social obligations to help peers and unite against teachers’ authority have often proved stronger than honor codes or abstract ideas about intellectual development and writer identity. Furthermore, the problem of plagiarism is not limited to students. The Chronicle of Higher Education deemed it to be a significant enough problem among American university faculty to publish a special report, ‘‘Professor Copycat,’’ in December of 2004 (including Bartlett & Smallwood, 2004; Glenn, 2004). A recent article in the same publication noted that some academic journals are using or planning to use plagiarism detection tools on submitted manuscripts (Rampell, 2008). On a general cultural level, one recent bestseller has identified cheating as a habit or practice found throughout American social life (Callahan, 2004). A significant example specific to plagiarism is the paper mill websites (Bartlett, 2009). The rationales offered by many of these sites and the students who use them are a virtual mirror of American cultural values — pragmatism, efficiency, and achievement (i.e., good grades). Many such websites claim their papers are for use only as models or inspirations, while others do not even pretend — the motto at SchoolSucks.com is ‘‘Download your workload.’’ Ironically, many promise that their products are ‘‘plagiarism free.’’ Available resources include not only databases of research papers but also writers on standby to produce papers-on-demand.

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

131

Naturally, higher quality and levels of service command higher prices. Even beyond this, there are persistent rumors about links between plagiarism detection services and the paper mills (Purdy, 2005, p. 284). That is, a student sends in a paper to be certified ‘‘clean’’ and it later shows up in a ‘‘research database’’ maintained by a paper mill website y the detection industry feeding the plagiarism industry to the economic benefit of both. Ritter (2005, 2006) argues that students make use of paper mills due to a consumer mentality toward education. They are disengaged from academic definitions of ‘‘authorship’’ and resist the moral instruction implicit in plagiarism policies enforced in meaningless general education composition classes (2006, p. 30). Her response is a sophisticated variant on the educational or pedagogical approach described in the previous section: She assigns students to research paper mill websites, leading to thought-provoking discussions, debates, and writing projects. She suggests that letting students explore off-the-grid alternatives as free moral agents will for the most part result in them being shepherded back toward a mainstream perspective. If students can be guided to see the ‘‘flaws in a seductive system’’ — by which she means the logical flaw of a seller who encourages dishonesty being trusted to deliver a worthwhile product — then they will choose against it (2006, p. 46). She disavows preaching or moralizing, and claims to want to know what students really think, but this seems disingenuous. Once again the solution to plagiarism is seen as a matter of creative teaching and rational thinking; once again the key belief seems to be that right knowledge leads to right actions. Given all this, the moral shrillness about plagiarism, and especially about the ‘‘plagiarism problem’’ among international students in Western universities, appears rather hypocritical, and the idea that education and open-minded pedagogy can solve the problem rather optimistic.

Trust is Worth the Risk The prevailing responses to plagiarism seem to have at least as many things wrong with them as plagiarism itself. I am not, though, attempting to warn educators away from taking a moral position on this issue, nor am I trying to muddy the waters to the extent that any such position becomes hopelessly arbitrary or relative. What I am trying to do is to bring the discussion back into the realm of the moral. An intellectual property position treats plagiarism as a cut-and-dried affair, not worth discussing except to establish degrees of guilt. Educational or pedagogical lines of thinking tend to view ‘‘plagiarism’’ as mostly a pejorative label for insufficiently developed academic writing skills or for intercultural conflicts and negotiations regarding academic writing. Finally, a cross-cultural deficit response enforces systemic/structural power dynamics adherent in academic writing norms at the same time as it denies making moral judgments about the differences. This chapter, by contrast, contends that genuine plagiarism is not first or foremost a question of property rights, academic writing skills, or cultural traditions and

132

Bradley Baurain

values, but rather one of the many moral dimensions inherent in all teaching and learning relationships (Campbell, 2003; Johnston, 2003). We as teachers need to be keenly aware of the thick moral complexities of and related to plagiarism so that we will take heightened moral responsibility for our actions and responses to it. Otherwise, we will continue to spend seemingly all our time discussing only how to stop it or how to change its definition to something less emotionally charged. This is a both/and stance. While facing squarely up to the moral issues in and surrounding plagiarism, we can and must continue to rethink the related issues raised in this chapter, including discourses of academic integrity; forms taken by developing academic literacy skills; gray areas in information technology and new forms of literacy; the artificiality of general education composition courses and many academic writing assignments; disciplinary differences among conceptions of proper documentation, common knowledge, critical thinking skills, and rhetorical forms; cultural stereotypes and essentialist reasoning; emotional responses by teachers to student cheating; the use of grades as a reward system in a competitive, careerist, and consumerist education system; the fluid and dynamic nature of rhetorical norms and academic writing conventions; and contested notions of authorship and originality. In considering the issues raised in this chapter, the relational quality, virtue, and choice of trust emerges as a substantive and meaningful moral basis for reflecting on, discussing, analyzing, and responding to plagiarism. In classroom relationships, trust is an indispensable and dynamic dimension of learning processes (cf. Johnston, 2003). Bain (2004) identifies building relationships of trust as one key to what good teachers do (p. 140). It is ‘‘an essential nutrient for academic vitality; neither students nor professors can thrive without it’’ (Zwagerman, 2008, p. 703). Why? Because learning is not a utilitarian transaction of knowledge and skills between those who have and those who have not. Rather, it is a process of sense-making or meaning-making engaged in holistically by communities of participants in specific sociocultural contexts. A ‘‘community’’ in this sense is most often formed within a classroom, but we can also speak, for example, as above, of ‘‘discourse communities.’’ If such communities are to be genuine communities, some form of relational trust is required, otherwise, the ‘‘community’’ is in practice merely a hierarchy, game, or other exercise of power or privilege. Plagiarism as an intentional academic shortcut or act of deception is morally wrong, in part, in that it violates the nascent trust between teacher and student, student and student, and even student and text, thus stunting the growth of or wounding potential learning communities. For these reasons, Zwagerman (2008) believes plagiarism needs to stop being a focal point in the teaching of writing — overcoming this problem should rightfully become only a ‘‘desirable byproduct of a collaborative, trusting relationship’’ (p. 702). Grading and assessment too often work against this moral principle and requirement of trust. Johnston (2003) explains: ‘‘Implicit in a great many aspects of testing is a lack of trust toward students: Everything from seating patterns to the meticulously controlled matter of test security are established in ways that assume a default tendency to cheat on their part y In our mechanisms of control we are passing moral judgment on our learners’’ (p. 81). In fact, as he implicitly admits, we

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

133

cannot get away from ‘‘passing moral judgment on our learners,’’ but must these judgments always be negative? We can choose to act on other assumptions, knowledge, and beliefs. As Johnston (2003) puts it: ‘‘Trust y is an implicit belief in the fundamental goodness of the other’’ (p. 81). Specifically with regard to academic writing and plagiarism, Zwagerman (2008) argues that trust is a casualty of plagiarism detection software (pp. 702–703). A police-like response to plagiarism diminishes trust, creativity, and the joy of genuine learning. Williams (2007) similarly describes plagiarism detection services as poisoning the well of classroom relationships and undercutting the potential for trust: ‘‘The use of such a service for student writers begins from a presumption of guilt. If we tell students that their papers must go through such a service before we read them, whether we threaten immediate punishment or not, we are telling them that we do not trust them to act honorably’’ (p. 352). This process ‘‘makes them adversaries instead of collaborators. It creates a prison culture of guards and the guarded — a cat-and-mouse game of detection and mistrust in which the fear of being caught can also breed a desire to get around the rules’’ (p. 352). In the end, teachers do not trust students (are they lazy or dishonest?), students do not trust one another (are others cheating to get ahead?), and the bottom line for honesty, fairness, and trust becomes merely an ‘‘Originality Report’’ from Turnitin.com. Furthermore, when the moral responsibilities of academic integrity are sloughed off to an outside expert or the authority of technology, ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘wrong’’ tend to become operationally defined as whatever one can get away with. Establishing the primacy of trust leads naturally to the question of how to build it. At the level of the classroom, this chapter offers several ideas, closing with the affirmation that above all, trust must be embraced as a deliberate moral choice. Initially, building trust in the classroom calls for interpersonal communication skills such as listening and demonstrating respect. As teachers and students become more familiar with one another, further relational dimensions should become evident, including showing care and empathy, giving and taking ownership and responsibility, and holding one another accountable in ways appropriate to the context. Pedagogically, what might the process of trust-building look like? Bain (2004) points out that trust is often accompanied by the setting of high standards, which in turn implies meaningful and authentic academic assignments and assessments (p. 73). The good university teachers in his study ‘‘stressed the ability to create exceptional works of art or scholarship, to reason well and carefully, to comprehend complex issues and problems, to collect and use evidence, to solve problems, and to do whatever the most accomplished scholars, practitioners, and artists in the field might do outside the course’’ (p. 74). This builds trust because students are made genuine learning partners, with something to give as well as something to take. The purpose and relevance of assignments are clear, lessening the temptation to cheat and increasing the cost of doing so (the learning cost, not the formal penalty or punishment). The freedom and responsibility inherent in such assignments and assessments spur investment by students in the learning process. They are — instead of ‘‘doing school,’’ taking multiple choice tests, and jumping through assorted hoops

134

Bradley Baurain

to earn a required number of academic credits — holistically engaged in education that they understand will continue to matter long after a course is finished. In order for teachers to give such assignments, they must believe that learning is a shared journey of discovery rather than a one-way transaction from the haves to the have-nots. If education is handled as the latter, then students who choose to plagiarize are, in part, simply responding to the consumerist implications of their position. A more constructivist orientation, however, builds trust: ‘‘An atmosphere of trust encourages students to take risks, to try on new roles in the form of courses, majors, and — most importantly — ideas, opinions, beliefs, and ideologies: how does it feel to think like this, or to write like that? What new possibilities emerge?’’ (Zwagerman, 2008, p. 703). For teachers, too, learning takes place and new possibilities emerge: ‘‘I have to admit that my lessons may be less valuable as vehicles for transmitting wisdom than as catalysts for student-generated curiosity and dialogue’’ (p. 703). Bain (2004) argues that for this to happen, teachers must reject power and authority as the basis of classroom relationships. In his study: ‘‘Trust in the students also depended on the teacher’s rejection of power over them. The educators we studied invited people to pursue ambitious goals and promised to help them achieve, but they left learners in control of their own education’’ (p. 74). From my perspective, however, rejecting power and authority may be too simplistic a response. Learners are always in control of their own learning, whether or not teachers acknowledge this. But power and authority do exist and are in some form or other an inescapable aspect of the teacher–student relationship. To ‘‘reject’’ this fact is to ignore it or to abdicate professional responsibilities and thus to risk enacting or perpetuating unproductive or even immoral uses of power and authority. Humility and openness are better moral stances, both pedagogically and in terms of building trust. Bain (2004) describes trust as closely linked with these virtues, which amount to a commitment to being fellow learners alongside students (p. 142). This commitment includes, for example, a transparency about one’s own intellectual maturation: ‘‘Professors who established a special trust with their students often displayed a kind of openness in which they might, from time to time, talk about their intellectual journey, its ambitions, triumphs, frustrations, and failures, and encourage students to be similarly reflective and candid’’ (p. 141). In academic writing, an excellent example of this is provided by Jun Liu, a leading scholar and past-president of the TESOL Inc. professional association. Without at first disclosing that he was the author, Liu (2004) would discuss with his students an early draft of one of his writing projects, then a second draft based on their feedback, then a final draft. After revealing his authorship, he would then share his internal writing processes, including dilemmas he faced and decisions he made in responding to students’ contributions and in revising and improving his paper (pp. 35–37). What effect did his humility and openness have on his students? He summarizes (p. 36): By using my own writing and by undertaking revision based on my students’ input, the writing process became lively and engaging. By sharing my experiences as a NNES [nonnative English-speaking] writer, I demonstrated to my ESL students that no one can write a

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

135

good paper without revisions and no one can effectively revise a paper without receiving comments and critiques. This sharing greatly empowered my students to understand the processes of writing, peer critiquing, and revising and led them to understand the importance of reflecting on their own writing experiences.

In the end, trust must be a deliberate moral choice. No psychological orientation or pedagogical strategy can guarantee how students will respond. Genuine trust by definition includes the possibility, even the certainty, of betrayal. For these reasons, trust cannot be based merely on a teacher’s innocence, optimism, or warm feelings. It must be a set of expectations, assumptions, and decisions as to what one believes students could and might do. These choices mean that teachers treat students not as adversaries but as fellow learners, beginning by assuming both integrity and eagerness to learn: trust is built, in part, through the gift of assuming trustworthiness. Campbell (2003) points out that classroom ‘‘trust is built, at least in part, by an expectation of honesty’’ (p. 34). Bain (2004) adds that such an assumption includes a choice not to worry or obsess about being tricked or fooled by dishonest students. This runs directly counter to a detect-and-punish mentality and so must be a conscious decision. It is little wonder that Johnston (2003) went so far as to say: ‘‘Trust y is an implicit belief in the fundamental goodness of the other’’ (p. 81). The moral and relational quality or virtue of trust can, I believe, provide a foundation for academic integrity. It is realistic enough to acknowledge individual agency and sociocultural contexts inside and outside the classroom, as well as to recognize the potential for trust to be betrayed. It is universal enough to reach across different systems of belief, cultures, religions, academic disciplines, communication styles, and personalities, and yet it is also flexible enough to be adapted and applied differently in different contexts. If nothing else, the moral and relational quality or virtue of trust might at least serve to redraw the boundaries of the discussion. This is not so much a conclusion as a launching pad for additional theorizing, research, and moral reflection.

References Abasi, A. R., Akbari, N., & Graves, B. (2006). Discourse appropriation, construction of identities, and the complex issue of plagiarism: ESL students writing in graduate school. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 102–117. Ange´lil-Carter, S. (2000). Stolen language? Plagiarism in writing. Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman. Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bartlett, T. (2009). Cheating goes global as essay mills multiply. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55, March 20. Available at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i28/28a00102.htm. Retrieved on March 16, 2009.

136

Bradley Baurain

Bartlett, T., & Smallwood, S. (2004). Four academic plagiarists you’ve never heard of: How many more are out there? Chronicle of Higher Education, 51, December 17. Available at http://chronicle.com. Retrieved on January 3, 2005. BBC News. (2008). Cambridge students ‘plagiarising,’ October 31. Available at http:// news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/7701798.stm. Retrieved on October 31, 2008. Blum, S. D. (2009). Academic integrity and student plagiarism: A question of education, not ethics. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55, February 20. Available at http://chronicle.com/ weekly/v55/i24/24a03501.htm. Retrieved on February 16, 2009 Briggs, R. (2003). Shameless! Reconceiving the problem of plagiarism. Australian Universities Review, 46, 19–23. Buranen, L. (1999). ‘‘But I wasn’t cheating’’: Plagiarism and cross-cultural mythology. In: L. Buranen & A. M. Roy (Eds), Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world (pp. 63–74). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Callahan, D. (2004). The cheating culture: Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead (Updated ed.). Orlando, FL: Harvest/Harcourt. Campbell, E. (2003). The ethical teacher. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002a). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002b). Multilingual writers and the academic community: Towards a critical relationship. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 1, 29–44. Chandrasoma, R., Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2004). Beyond plagiarism: Transgressive and nontransgressive intertextuality. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 3, 171–193. Clark, K. (2008). Professors use technology to fight student cheating. U.S. News & World Report, October 6. Available at http://www.usnews.com. Retrieved on October 6, 2008. CNN News. (2002). Plagiarism allegations disturb teachers, January 31. Available at http:// www.cnn.com. Retrieved on July 4, 2007. Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. (2004). Multilingual scholars and the imperative to publish in English: Negotiating interests, demands, and rewards. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 663–688. Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. (2006). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: Interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English-medium texts. Written Communication, 23, 3–35. Deckert, G. D. (1993). Perspectives on plagiarism from ESL students in Hong Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2, 131–148. Deckert, G. D. (1994). Author’s response to Pennycook’s objections. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 285–289. Dujsik, D. (2002). Limiting plagiarism in EFL writing classrooms. ThaiTESOL Bulletin, 15(2), 19–26. Evans, F. B., & Youmans, M. (2000). ESL writers discuss plagiarism: The social construction of ideologies. Journal of Education, 182, 49–65. Fulwood III, S. (2003). Plagiarism: Playing by the rules. Black Issues Book Review, September– October. Available at http://www.findarticles.com. Retrieved on July 4, 2007. Glenn, D. (2004). The price of plagiarism. Chronicle of Higher Education, 51, December 17. Available at http://chronicle.com. Retrieved on January 3, 2005 Howard, R. M. (1995). Plagiarisms, authorships, and the academic death penalty. College English, 57, 788–806.

Cross-Cultural Moral Explorations in Plagiarism

137

Howard, R. M. (2000). The ethics of plagiarism. In: M. A. Pemberton (Ed.), The ethics of writing instruction: Issues in theory and practice (pp. 79–89). Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing. Howard, R. M., & Robillard, A. (Eds). (2008). Pluralizing plagiarism: Identities, contexts, pedagogies. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann. Johnston, B. (2003). Values in English language teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kolich, A. M. (1983). Plagiarism: The worm of reason. College English, 45, 141–148. Kubota, R., & Lehner, A. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 7–27. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Problematizing cultural stereotyping in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 709–719. Lake, J. (2004). EAP writing: The Chinese challenge — New ideas on plagiarism. Humanising Language Teaching, 6(1). Available at http://www.hltmag.co.uk. Retrieved on March 11, 2005. Leask, B. (2006). Plagiarism, cultural diversity and metaphor — Implications for academic staff development. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31, 183–199. Leki, I. (1991). Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing pedagogies. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 123–143. Lester, J. D. (2005). Writing research papers: A complete guide. New York: Pearson. Lillis, T., & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. New York: Routledge. Ling, S., Wang, W., & Xu, J. (2005). Publication culture of foreign language education journals in China. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 765–776. Liu, D. (2005). Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit? ELT Journal, 59, 234–241. Liu, J. (2004). Confessions of a nonnative English-speaking professional. In: L. D. KamhiStein (Ed.), Learning and teaching from experience: Perspectives on nonnative Englishspeaking professionals (pp. 25–39). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pennycook, A. (1994). The complex contexts of plagiarism: A reply to Deckert. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 277–284. Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 201–230. Phan, L. H. (2006). Plagiarism and overseas students: Stereotypes again? ELT Journal, 60, 76–78. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plagiarism. (2006). In: Oxford English Dictionary online. Available at http://library.unl.edu. Retrieved on March 16, 2009 Purdy, J. R. (2005). Calling off the hounds: Technology and the visibility of plagiarism. Pedagogy, 5, 275–295. Rampell, C. (2008). Journals may soon use antiplagiarism software on their authors. Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18. Available at http://chronicle.com/free/2008/04/2546n.htm. Retrieved on April 18, 2008 Rettinger, D. A., & Kramer, Y. (2009). Situational and personal causes of student cheating. Research in Higher Education, 50, 293–313. Ritter, K. (2005). The economics of authorship: Online paper mills, student writers, and firstyear composition. College Composition and Communication, 56, 601–631. Ritter, K. (2006). Buying in, selling short: A pedagogy against the rhetoric of online paper mills. Pedagogy, 6, 25–51.

138

Bradley Baurain

Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and ideology: Identity in intercultural discourse. Language in Society, 24, 1–28. Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2001). Intercultural communication: A discourse approach (2nd ed). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Simmons, S. C. (1999). Competing notions of authorship: A historical look at students and textbooks on plagiarism and cheating. In: L. Buranen & A. M. Roy (Eds), Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world (pp. 41–51). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Sowden, C. (2005). Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad. ELT Journal, 59, 226–233. Suarez, J., & Martin, A. (2001). Internet plagiarism: A teacher’s combat guide. Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 1, 546–549. Williams, B. T. (2007). Trust, betrayal, and authorship: Plagiarism and how we perceive students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51, 350–354. Zwagerman, S. (2008). The scarlet P: Plagiarism, panopticism, and the rhetoric of academic integrity. College Composition and Communication, 59, 676–710.

Chapter 8

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks Introduction The number of Chinese students studying in the United Kingdom has seen a huge increase since the launch of the British government’s long-term worldwide educational campaign in 1999. These students’ study-abroad experience is likely to be ‘a significant transitional event that brings with it a considerable amount of accompanying stress, involving both confrontation and adaptation to unfamiliar physical and psychological experiences and changes’ (Cushner & Karim, 2004, p. 292). Cushner and Karim (2004) argue that overseas students’ intercultural experiences are moderated by the interaction of multiple, positive or negative, individual (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity) and environmental factors (e.g. social and academic support systems). It is within this context that this study was carried out to investigate the myth of Chinese learners’ plagiarising behaviour, which has been receiving increased attention amongst British teaching staff, particularly those in the field of English language teaching (ELT). These people are at the forefront of the internationalisation of British higher education, often working with international students shortly after their arrival in the United Kingdom, and thus may feel particularly strongly about the difficulty of communicating Western academic conventions, of which academic integrity plays an essential part, to their Chinese students. Drawing upon case studies of ten Chinese postgraduate students over a period of 15 months, this chapter argues that although differences in cultural values have a role to play in the accusation of plagiarism, an excessive emphasis on culture may result in a dismissive attitude towards Chinese learning practices. Evidence from the case studies of students’ intercultural experiences over time suggests that learning to write in an unfamiliar academic discourse requires, at the deepest level, a conceptual understanding of knowledge construction and the conventions of the local academic community, rather than the simple mechanical tasks of learning how to cite and reference. Beyond the accusation that Chinese students plagiarise lies a more complex

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 139–156 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022011

140

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

picture. Faculties need to understand the sociocultural sources of their students’ initial frustration, their self-reflection and examination of contrasting cultural values and educational practices, their endeavour to master a different lens through which to view authorship and the ownership of knowledge and ultimately the ‘reborn’ experience of their adaptation and development in a Western academic community. A distinctive strength of this study is the holistic and developmental perspective that the authors adopt to probe into and understand a learning process that is itself holistic and developmental in nature. The purpose of this chapter is to offer pedagogical implications, including the need for increased awareness amongst faculty, of the differing meanings of plagiarism across cultures and the inadequacy of focussing on writing skills rather than conceptualisation and values when training international and especially Chinese students.

The Concept of Plagiarism Plagiarism, a notion that carries a strong sense of disapproval, is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (Allen, 1990, p. 909) as ‘1. Take and use (the thoughts, writings, inventions etc. of another person) as one’s own. 2. Pass off the thoughts etc. of (another person) as one’s own’. Plagiarism originated from the Latin word plagiarius meaning the theft of words as well as of slaves (Howard, 1995). Howard (1995, p. 790) posits that ‘the very etymology of the word plagiarism demonstrates the antiquity of the concept’. With the fast development of modern technologies providing writers with access to vast textual resources, plagiarism is seen as ‘an everincreasing practice and problem’ both within the academy and in the general population (Chandrasoma, Thompson, & Pennycook, 2004, p. 172; see also Briggs, 2003; Price, 2002; Sullivan, 2002). Chandrasoma et al. (2004) argue that the widely growing attention to plagiarism is not only indicative of the degree of interest that this topic generates but is also a measure of the divisions in opinion that exist both within the international academic community as well as in the general population regarding exactly what kind of writing practices might constitute plagiarism in the first place, and second, how best to deal with these practices at the levels of both policy and pedagogy. (p. 172) In the academic community, despite a lack of consensus on the definition of plagiarism (Briggs, 2003; Howard, 2000; Pennycook, 1994, 1996), the prevalent institutional strategy for dealing with students presenting plagiarised assignments continues to be containment and punishment (Briggs, 2003; Chandrasoma et al., 2004; Decoo, 2002; Howard, 1995; Kolich, 1983; Price, 2002; Zobel & Hamilton, 2002). As Howard (1995) observes: In typical college regulations on plagiarism (which are often grouped under headings wherein plagiarism serves as either a synonym for or a

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

141

subset of ‘academic dishonesty’), all forms of plagiarism, including patchwriting, are located on a juridical continuum on which expulsion from college — the academic death penalty — sits at the extreme end as a potential punishment. (p. 789) The act of plagiarism is considered to be a malicious and immoral abuse of other people’s intellectual property, in contrast to academic integrity which connotes a sustained commitment to five fundamental values of ‘honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility’ (Centre for Academic Integrity, 1999, p. 4). Kolich (1983) describes plagiarism as ‘the worm of reason’ — ‘the worm plagiarism spoils the fruit of intellectual inquiry and reason, and starves the seeds of originality that foster such inquiry’ (p. 145). He strongly emphasises the moral responsibilities of learning and thinking that students ought to assume, and urges teachers to encourage students to commit themselves to intellectual inquiry and originality whilst teaching them how to write. Academics are indeed aware of the complex causes of plagiarism. Carroll’s (2004) warning against the rise of plagiarism amongst students suggests such awareness: The literature is clear that a significant percentage of our students submit work which they themselves did not do. Often, this is because students have not understood the conventions of academic writing or have not yet learned to use the skills of citation, paraphrasing and using other’s ideas to underpin their own arguments. Sometimes, it is because students deliberately break the rules, choose to cheat, and have little or no interest in upholding the values that underpin academic integrity. And often, of course, a mixture of these and other motivations — from pragmatic decisions to take shortcuts for juggling multiple demands to fear of getting it wrong if they rewrite the words of an expert. Carroll’s message also helps differentiate between two distinctively different student behaviours — both of which, if discovered, may be thought of as plagiarism: (1) the deliberate act of choosing to break the rules, that is, intentional violations or fraud (Howard, 2000) and (2) ‘misbehaviour’, that is, unintentional violations, which often occur when students are exposed to a set of different, unfamiliar academic conventions. The identification of these acts suggests the complexities of factors that underlie plagiarism, a concept denoting a heterogeneous variety of meanings that are far more sophisticated than a dishonest act of stealing or cheating (Hayes & Introna, 2005; Hunt, 2003). There is a growing consensus of opinion that plagiarism is a ‘cross-cultural phenomenon’ (Pennycook, 1996; Russikoff, Fucaloro, & Salkauskiene, 2003; Sowden, 2005; Sutherland-Smith, 2005). Like many other theories and concepts in education, perceptions of plagiarism are also shaped by a range of context-related variables including historical, political, economic, social, pedagogical and technological

142

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

influences. In their survey of 645 international students, Russikoff et al. (2003, p. 109) found that ‘plagiarism has often been an outgrowth of difference in understanding’. In a similar vein, Pennycook (1996) and Sowden (2005) argue that plagiarism is culturally conditioned and thus is interpreted differently across cultures. Pennycook (1996) points to the complexities of the context of plagiarism. He argues that notions of ownership, authorship and intellectual property which have developed in Western contexts are subject to their distinctive cultural and historical specificities. By exposing ‘not only the fallacy of a pristine textual integrity so vigorously pursued by the dominant writing pedagogy of the West but also the inherent hypocrisy of its deterministic attitudes to plagiarism’ (cited in Chandrasoma et al., 2004, p. 174), Pennycook raises the question of whether people from other cultures should indeed be obliged to conform to the same conventions. Implicated in Pennycook’s argument are relationships of power which pertain in the context in which students learn to compose. Chandrasoma et al. (2004, p. 175) assert that power hierarchies are not only ‘constructed intertextually’ but also ‘intertextually maintained, rejected, contested and transformed’. Making meaning in a text involves an active interplay between the writer, the reader and the discursive resources within a wider social, cultural, historical and political context which each party draws upon. The meaning of a text, thus, does not, in fact, reside in the text (Howard, 1995) but is produced by the interplay between the text and the reader in relations across texts (Pennycook, 2001) with reference to ‘the broader fields of sociohistorically and politically constituted discourses’ (Chandrasoma et al., 2004). Bruner (2003) maintains that the cultural situatedness of meanings provides a basis for their negotiability and communicability. When the reader (the teacher) and the student writer have unequal access to the dominating discursive resources and intellectual conventions, communication between the reader, the writer and the texts may become highly problematic, and plagiarism may occur in the reader’s eyes, but not those of the writer. Sowden (2005) reported his observation of a fundamental issue in the accusation of international students’ plagiarist behaviour. He found that beneath the surface observation of his Japanese students’ failure to cite an author whose arguments they had used in their assignments lay the students’ confusion about how knowledge is constructed and the difference in meaning between common knowledge and common sense. To his Japanese students, ‘the author’s insights, having achieved the status of common sense, had thereby entered the field of common knowledge and no longer belonged to him exclusively’. In the case of Sowden’s Japanese students, plagiarism was shown to be the consequence of their conceptual confusion, rather than a deliberate behavioural avoidance or misuse of citation or referencing. It is, however, unreasonable to assume that such conceptual confusion about where common knowledge stops and the need to cite begins is a problematic terrain for international students alone. Nevertheless, compared to home students (in the case of this study, UK students), the challenge for international students may be particularly acute because of their greater level of unfamiliarity with the socioculturally and intertextually constructed academic conventions, as well as the traditions, values and beliefs embedded in the broader social and cultural

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

143

contexts in which they live. Cultural issues, as some may claim, play a significant role in why students plagiarise (Shei, 2004, 2006; Zobel & Hamilton, 2002), or perhaps more accurately, in why students are perceived to plagiarise by their teachers. Others, however, argue that cultural conditioning is not the major culprit for plagiarism (Liu, 2005; Phan Le Ha, 2006). This chapter takes a similar stance: culture plays an important but not deterministic role in understanding change in Chinese students’ perceptions of plagiarism. We argue that it is much too easy to attribute the differences observed in Chinese students to the consequences of the Confucian heritage culture. Given the diverse differences between geographical areas in China and the country’s rapidly evolving image in these changing times of globalisation, it is virtually impossible to generalise what Chinese learners are. Gu and Schweisfurth (2006) carried out a mixed-method comparative pilot study on Chinese learners’ experiences in the United Kingdom and in British projects in China and found that in addition to culture, factors such as the identities and motivations of the learners and the power relationships between them and their teachers were also significant issues in the strategic adaptations made by Chinese students. Elsewhere, Gu and Maley (2008) also argue that, important though it may be, culture is not the only determinant of teaching and learning practices, preferences and experiences. Their study shows that despite various intercultural challenges and struggles, most students have managed to survive the demands of the learning and living environment, and to adapt and develop. Ange´lil-Carter (2000), also, with a closer focus on students’ motivation and development in writing, finds that textual borrowing is more of a developmental problem than a problem of academic dishonesty. The danger of treating incidents of textual borrowing (in contrast to apparent plagiarism) (Pennycook, 1996) with the rules and sanctions commonly applied to cases of plagiarism is that it may deny students’ genuine endeavour to learn and adapt, it may take away from students an opportunity to correct and improve, and more important, it may have a profound detrimental effect on their self-confidence and motivation to learn. As pointed out earlier, an important aspect of international students’ intercultural experiences is their endeavour to fit in with the host culture and educational conventions, adapt to them and grow with them. Their perceptions of plagiarism, amongst many other culturally embedded values and beliefs that have been challenged by the new context, may also change as they are trying to survive and succeed in their studies. This points to the dynamic nature of plagiarism. Taking Sowden’s and Pennycook’s observations further, it can be argued that because perceptions of plagiarism are culturally conditioned, plagiarism’s meaning will unavoidably be challenged and brought to the surface for examination in the intercultural context where international students live and study. Change in their perceptions under such circumstances is consequently unavoidable. Nevertheless, the extent of change made by international students in terms of their understanding of plagiarist behaviour may vary, depending on their individual educational backgrounds and experiences, and perhaps the length of their stay in the host country and the degree of their overall adaptation to the host culture. It is from this holistic and

144

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

developmental perspective that the authors have analysed ten Chinese case study students’ writing experiences and perceptions of plagiarism during their year of study in a UK university.

The Study The study was undertaken with ten Chinese students who were on a pre-sessional English language and study skills course three months prior to starting postgraduate study at a UK university. The authors then followed these ten students (five arts students, one social science student and four science/engineering students) throughout their master’s study and collected a range of qualitative data through interviews, their essays and teachers’ assessment comments, e-journals (e.g. emails), informal telephone conversations and regular personal contact. Almost all the oral contact was in Chinese in order to facilitate free expression of views and avoid ambiguity in meaning which may arise from the use of a second language. Although each individual case demonstrates a story of adaptation in its own right, these stories from differing angles inform the investigation of change in these students’ perceptions of plagiarism and knowledge construction and advancement in the UK higher education environment over time. Two formal rounds of semi-structured interviews were carried out. The first round interview was undertaken in the middle of their pre-sessional English language and study skills course whilst the second was carried out six months later, in the second semester of their master’s courses. These students’ coursework was used in the interviews to invite a narrative description of their writing experiences in retrospect. The authors also undertook semi-structured interviews with three English tutors who taught these case study students on the pre-sessional course to compare their judgment of students’ development in relation to using previous scholarship in an acceptable manner with the students’ own accounts of their writing experiences. In the following section, we shall discuss five important observations in an attempt to show key areas of challenge that students had experienced in their journey of learning to write and their change and development over time.

Five Key Observations Key Observation 1: Perception Gaps, Conceptual Confusions Interest in what constitutes culture, its deep-rootedness, and its unspoken assumptions has been increasing over recent decades as the phenomenon of ‘sojourning’ (taking up temporary residence in another culture) has become more common. Hall’s (1976) notion of ‘hidden cultures’ is particularly pertinent for teachers working across cultural borders to understand perception gaps between learners and teachers who do not share the same cultural background:

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

145

Everything man is and does is modified by learning and is therefore malleable. But once learned, these behaviour patterns, these habitual responses, these ways of interacting gradually sink below the surface of the mind and, like the commander of a submerged submarine fleet, control from the depths. The hidden controls are usually experienced as though they were innate simply because they are not only ubiquitous but habitual as well. What makes it doubly hard to differentiate the innate from the acquired is the fact that, as people grow up, everyone around them shares the same patterns. (p. 42) Important in Hall’s observation is that when we judge the practices of the ‘other’ on the basis of our own practices, values and perceptions which we believe are the norm because they are shared by people around us and reinforced by the context in which we work and live, we may not see what we think we have seen. In a particular context, when power relationships between ‘we’ and the ‘other’ are in favour of the former, we are more likely to be led to believe that the practices of the ‘other’ are cultural whilst our own remain the norm — a form of cultural exclusivism which Pennycook (1994) argues against strongly. Attitudes influenced by cultural exclusivism are not uncommon in educational practices, particularly in intercultural settings. In his reply to Deckert’s (1993) comments on the cultural and educational background to the ‘problems’ of plagiarism in Hong Kong, Pennycook (1994, p. 279) disputed Deckert’s claim which sees the supposedly Western tradition, which ‘typically honors a person’s divergent thinking through that individual’s arbitration and participation in ongoing academic exchange’ and which supplies ‘evidence of comprehension when source material is accurately reformulated’, as superior to the supposedly Chinese tradition which, in order to promote ‘social harmony’, emphasizes ‘close allegiance to a few acknowledged authorities with resulting convergence of perspective’. (p. 132) In order to understand the comprehensive concept of plagiarism which plays an integral part in the international academy, Pennycook (1994) asserts that one needs to take into account:  the context of the concept (Western academic concepts of authorship, knowledge and ownership);  the context of the students (their cultural and educational backgrounds);  the context of the institution (the demands of English-medium institutions in a colonial context);  the context of the specific tasks required (assumptions about background knowledge and language ability); and  the context of the actual use and ‘misuse’ of text (the merits and demerits of the actual case of textual use) (p. 278).

146

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

Western academic practices are cultural practices (Pennycook, 1994). The same can be argued about academic practices in other parts of the world. Chinese students’ unfamiliarity with British culture and its academic conventions may well be as innocent as many British teaching staff’s limited, if not stereotypical, knowledge of Chinese cultural and educational practices. Thus, it is of crucial importance that teachers and lecturers understand the complexity of plagiarism and engage with issues of context before taking judicial actions and penalising student plagiarists, particularly international students. Zobel and Hamilton (2002) found that many international students, a clear majority of individuals identified as plagiarists by software, did not have the same definition of plagiarism as themselves. Evidence from our study also reveals a distinctive gap between the British language and study skills tutors and the Chinese students in their perceptions of what constitutes plagiarism. For example, one tutor, hypothesising about how a student had produced what was, in his eyes, a piece of plagiarised work, commented: So, to me, one version of it might be that she panicked, and y thought that will do and maybe misunderstood what a draft was, but having said that, the shock of being told it really wasn’t good enough and being in a sense found out because I wrote the name of the website on the top of her draft, that really provoked a pretty dramatic reaction in her y I can only assume that she panicked and had to do it the night before and found something and I would hope that when she looked back on it she would think that it was completely inappropriate, not just the issue of referencing and citation but also the issue of what kind of source is that, bearing in mind that it is a controversial topic. (English tutor B) For that tutor, the Chinese student’s tears were an indication of her sense of guilt. He was convinced that this student cried because she panicked when she was caught copying and pasting materials from a website. However, his interpretation did not quite match the Chinese student’s description of her reactions at the time: I did not put references in the first draft. My tutor gave it back to me and said to me ‘Where are your references? I cannot give you any marks because there are no references in your essay’. That really shocked me because I thought this was only the first draft. It was only a draft. In my research project diary, I only needed to write down my own ideas in my essay. I focussed on language and I wanted to organise the structure of the essay well because I thought these things were difficult. Putting in references is very simple. You just need to copy them in. So in my first draft I didn’t think that was serious. So I handed it in y Maybe he thought I plagiarised others’ work. That was a serious problem — now I know. (Chinese student B)

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

147

The Chinese student was extremely upset because she realised that her hard work was not recognised or valued by her tutor. It was this unexpected disappointment that had caused her tears. She found it totally incomprehensible that her tutor refused to mark her work. For her, adding references for the citations was merely a trivial mechanical task which could be easily carried out as the final step of completing her essay. This observed gap in perception supports the observation that plagiarism is a dynamic, multilayered cross-cultural phenomenon. The English tutor and the Chinese student had contrasting expectations and understanding of the nature of this writing task. For the student, the focus of writing an essay should be on the organisation of ideas and the presentation of a coherent structure, compared to which citation and referencing were less important. The source for such an attitude can be traced back to her educational background at home where the academic conventions placed a particularly high value on the demonstration of profound collective knowledge and the presentation of the essay in training writing. Citation and referencing were not as high on the agenda as Western academic practices would require.

Key Observation 2: Memorisation and Understanding Memorisation plays an important role in Chinese approaches to teaching and learning. On the role of memorisation in learning, however, Western academic conventions tend to hold a contrasting stance. Marton, Dall’Alba, and Kun (1996) found that the Western notion of regarding rote learning as mechanical memorisation could not adequately describe learning practices associated with repetition in Chinese culture. They warned Western researchers to exercise caution when making assumptions about Chinese students’ approaches to learning derived from their own cultures: In Western countries memorization and rote learning are generally equated and it is commonly believed that they do not lead to understanding. A new way of seeing the relationship between memorization and understanding as being intertwined was identified in this study y On the one hand, repetition can be associated with mechanical rote learning; on the other hand, memorization can be used to deepen and develop understanding. If memorization is understood in this latter way, the paradox of the Asian learner is solved. (p. 82) Indeed, we all may have had the experience of reciting a poem that we loved. We may also recall that we wanted to remember the poem word by word because we enjoyed the emotional responses which were generated by the meaning of the poem and the beauty of its language. Learning by memorisation is an emotional and psychological experience. It involves careful thinking, appreciation of rhetoric,

148

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

meaning making and understanding. It is not necessarily a mechanical learning experience by rote, but a form of learning that also promotes deep cognitive and affective learning. Memorisation as the central process of Chinese education is believed to be mandated by the writing system itself (Matalene, 1985). Matalene (1985, p. 790) asserts that a culture’s rhetoric constitutes ‘an interface where the prescriptions of the language meet the practices of the culture’. The fact that Chinese literacy requires staggering feats of memorisation has profoundly affected the nature of Chinese discourse as well as the content of social interaction (Matalene, 1985). For Chinese students, memory y is and always has been more important than any other [rhetoric]. It also informs the other arts of invention, arrangement, and style in ways that are not immediately apparent. Ultimately, the Chinese memorize not just the characters of their beautiful and difficult written language; they memorize the culture itself. (p. 792) Thus, in teaching writing it is important that teachers understand the ways that the linguistic and rhetorical agendas influence how students organise and present their ideas in their compositions. In a similar vein, Liu (2005) delineated the positive role of memorisation in assisting Chinese students in learning how to write: Yet memorizing good writing to help one to learn to write better is not the same thing as copying other work and claiming it as one’s own. y a major role of memorizing good writing in Chinese is to help the learner to appreciate and become familiar with effective rhetorical styles and useful writing techniques that the memorized writing uses so the learner can use them in his/her own writing in the future. In other words, memorization is not meant as a tool for copying. (p. 234) The positive role of memorisation is also reported in our study. There is evidence suggesting that memorising good writing helps generate an appreciation of the language and the flow of ideas. For example: In our Chinese Department we were encouraged to follow a flow while writing, but this was after a period of careful reading and thinking. During this period, we were encouraged to appreciate classic essays. When I came across clear, elegant prose and excellent argument, I would naturally want to remember them. Following a flow had become a habit when I was writing. So I found it quite hard here because I had to stop and worry about making references. But if I completed my writing in one go, I found that I could not remember all the references that I had used. Therefore, I had to be extra careful

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

149

when I was writing my essays here, distinguishing other people’s views from my own and referencing them y I found that this different way of writing affected my train of thought or the organisation of my thoughts. (Student E) Also revealed in this Chinese student’s initial struggle and frustration in writing are the deep influences of his prior educational experiences in China on his current writing practices. His exposure to the interface between two distinctively different cultural practices of composition and rhetorical systems significantly contributed to his feelings of frustration. Such initial frustration is also an indicator of his endeavour to actively learn to adapt to rules and conventions of a different academic culture. Matalene (1985) rightly reminds us that Invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery can all be defined, practiced, and valued in ways other than our own. Recognizing these differences can make us more civilized guests and more effective teachers; we can witness and perhaps even inspire the extraordinary syntheses that are possible when a brilliant student integrates Eastern and Western rhetoric. (p. 804)

Key Observation 3: Deliberate versus Unintentional Plagiarism In his research on plagiarism, McKay (2001) coined the term ‘non-deliberate plagiarism’. He found that some students plagiarised, but not because they maliciously wanted to cheat. There were a range of factors that had influenced these students’ behaviour, such as a mixture of anxiety, fear and uncertainty, which could have been prevented if support, guidance or possible solutions had been offered earlier. He thus proposed a useful continuum in judging students’ plagiarist behaviour, ranging from deliberate to non-deliberate plagiarism (McKay, 2001). Elsewhere, Deckert (1993) observed ‘learned plagiarism’ in the process of students’ learning to write, which exemplifies McKay’s non-deliberate plagiarism: y [students’] egocentric concerns of learning well and feeling right about oneself together far exceed concern for either the college, the original writer, one’s own classmates, or one’s relationship with the teacher. These students expressed the least concern for being found out and punished for violating the college rule. (p. 140) The notion of learned plagiarism describes a transitional period in students’ learning to write. In this transitional phase, the students’ overwhelming concern is over what they perceive as important areas of learning, rather than specific rules and regulations set by their institutions.

150

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

The quote below from a Chinese student in our study supports Deckert’s observation. However, his English language and study skills tutor did not seem to be entirely convinced that non-deliberate plagiarist behaviour ever existed: I think so [a good idea to differentiate deliberate and unintentional plagiarism]. If the student doesn’t know they’ve actually done it, then they can be asked to redo it y But no, if they’ve intentionally copied, then it [the mark] should be a zero y but how can you plagiarise without realising? (English tutor A) I am not quite clear where to draw a line to distinguish my ideas from other authors’ ideas. For example, I read a book and had some ideas of my own. So when I write, maybe half of the sentence is a summary of the author’s ideas whilst the other half is about my new ideas drawing upon the ideas in the book. Should I make a reference to the book? It was a real headache for me because I felt that actually my ideas were integrated with someone else’s. At present I do indicate the original sources in my essays. But I feel that it seems that my own new ideas have become somebody else’s. I find that quite difficult and don’t know what to do. (Student A) The student’s remarks raise the question of whether a lack of citation should simply be considered as a transgressive act. Beneath the surface act of his adding references to the original textual sources was his genuine attempt to demonstrate his intellectual contribution as well as responsible commitment to academic integrity. His remarks suggest that what had troubled him most were the boundaries between common knowledge, textual sources of authentic information/knowledge and his own contribution to creativity and originality. In common with the concept of plagiarism, common knowledge is also a culturally or locally defined concept (Chandrasoma et al., 2004), and this adds to the complexity of learning to write in a different culture because what is considered as common knowledge for individuals in the popular culture may not be the same for students from other cultures. Chandrasoma et al. (2004) reported a student’s confusion in relation to some controversial issues surrounding a sense of common knowledge, institutional expectations and (non)transgressive intertextuality and concluded: The notion of common knowledge is vital for our understanding of some of the nebulous and blurred boundaries between acknowledged and unacknowledged sources and the nature of intertextuality in student writing. (p. 180) Intentionality is thus key to understanding moments of students having unwittingly transgressed the boundaries of academic conventions (Chandrasoma et al., 2004), particularly when they are in a transitional process of adapting to academic conventions that are drastically different from their own.

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

151

Key Observation 4: Patchwriting — A Transitional Strategy Patchwriting is a textual strategy involving ‘copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one synonym-substitutes’ (Howard, 1993, p. 233). It remains a controversial concept in the teaching of writing because for some it is a form of plagiarism. For example, the following English tutor implied that borrowing patches of words and sentence structures from other texts was a deliberate act which revealed a lack of confidence in international students’ linguistic capabilities: I still think if you are on the ball and know what you are doing, I don’t think there is much possibility for accidental plagiarism. There’s careless or tired referencing or citation sometimes, usually I think decidable by the reader y but I think it’s compounded in the students we meet by linguistic constraints. In many cases they don’t have the linguistic facility to write from their note-taking, to note-making, to their drafting to their writing, to write efficiently and fairly swiftly in order to quickly reformulate it and condense it and then do the citations y it’s not necessarily a referencing and citation issue, it’s a linguistic issue before that sometimes. I think therefore then the ideas get mixed up in their heads y . (English tutor B) By contrast, Howard (1993, 1999) describes patchwriting as one of a series of developmental learning stages that all writers pass through. As the above English tutor suggests, it may well be a strategy that international students employ to learn to develop intellectual argument in a second/foreign language and in unfamiliar academic discourses of their disciplinary fields. Nevertheless, patchwriting is not a textual strategy that is unique to international students. Rather, it is a way of helping most writers ‘find a voice and gain a sense of community membership’ (Howard, 1995): Most writers engage in patchwriting when they are working in unfamiliar discourse, when they must work monologically with the words and ideas of a source text. (p. 796) Patchwriting is thus a positive, transitional composing strategy which offers students a valuable pedagogical opportunity for making progress towards membership in a discourse community (Chandrasoma et al., 2004; Howard, 1995). As the experiences of the following student suggest, rather than a deliberate act of cheating, patchwriting is a learning strategy that students use in their endeavours to engage with the linguistic and discursive forms of their disciplines: Sometimes I just want to improve my writing. I read some articles and felt that, ‘wow, that was a wonderful sentence. I want to learn it’. y So I write it down. But I don’t write the whole sentence down, not

152

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks completely. I want to be creative too. I want to reorganise these sentences, and use them to express my own [subject] knowledge, y so that they could be my own sentences. y I learned good [sentence] structures from the articles. The language is beautiful and I want to use it. Just that. (Student D)

Recognising the positive pedagogical values of this composing strategy can thus have a profound impact on sustaining students’ motivation to learn. Were it to be classified as plagiarism, student writers would be thwarted in their initial, genuine attempts to develop and succeed in the dominating academic community within which they pursue their studies in order to fulfil their hopes and dreams.

Key Observation 5: Conceptual, Holistic Development The above four observations all point to the argument that we made at the beginning of this chapter. That is, learning to write in an ‘alien’ and unfamiliar academic convention requires, by the very nature of the task, conceptual and holistic development on the part of the writer. It involves a range of issues related to understanding of the construction of knowledge, the ownership of knowledge and perceptions of self, all of which go far beyond superficial changes in behaviour. Ample evidence from our case study students shows that the intercultural learning experience is also a transitional experience or being ‘reborn’, which at its deepest level involves and requires identity change. For example: But now [on my master’s course] the situation is very different. I have been reading materials in my subject as the course goes along. So I have, consciously and subconsciously, gained some understanding in the field. Sometimes when I come across something interesting in a book, I would put it down in my notebook. So when I am writing up my essay, I can use my old notes which are very useful. I also look for more references according to the specific subject of my essay. So the process of preparing for my essays is very different from before. (Student D) This is a student who used to wonder what the others were doing in the library when she first started her pre-sessional English course in the UK. It is clear that what she had acquired over time was not only her improved understanding of her subject. She had also acquired a deeper understanding of ways of undertaking academic writing in the dominant academic community. However, the most profound and significant change in her goes beyond her improved understanding and ability to write in a way that is deemed as ‘normal’ in the academic community. She managed to confidently engage with the academic conventions as an active and competent

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

153

learner. What shines through is her successful development and adaptation. Comments from the following tutor support this observation: Generally there is a change. Generally, it takes at least, for postgraduate students who are working very hard, it takes at least 6 months for them to really begin to understand what we are doing, and why we are doing it, and how we are doing it. Some students never fully understand it. Some students do understand it and adapt very positively to it. So there is variation, not one uniform response. (English tutor C) The following quote from another student provides further evidence on students’ change and development, suggesting that change at the deepest level may be the way they construct their thinking as a result of negotiation, mediation and reflection in an academic environment that used to be overwhelming and out of reach for them: I think that I am more used to the Western approaches to teaching. I also feel that the way I think has also changed, or been changed by the system. This is because I must think in a very logical way, in other words, thinking very hard to find out a kind of causal relations in my arguments y I don’t think that I was writing in such a strict manner when I was in China. y I think the biggest change for me is that my way of thinking has changed drastically. I begin to feel that my personal views are equally importantly. I seem to have developed a stronger personality y I wouldn’t take someone’s views for granted any more. (Student F) In addition to his change as an author-self, the student also went through a personal identity change, refining and modifying his ‘ideological’ (values that he acquired from his social and cultural background) and ‘logical’ identities (the ‘natural’ way he used to organise and express his thoughts in Chinese writing) (Shen, 1989, p. 459). Chandrasoma et al. (2004) argue: We need to understand what resources students bring and what resources are made available for autobiographical, discoursal, and authorial selves. Because the discursive and identificatory pulls that construct these selves, furthermore, they will rarely be simple accommodatory selves; rather they are about struggle and negotiation. (p. 189) The outcomes of struggle and negotiation are adaptation and development.

154

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

Conclusion This chapter investigates the complexity of the notion of plagiarism, arguing that in a cross-cultural context plagiarism needs to be understood in relation to the specific context of academic conventions and environments. The case study students’ initial frustrations in writing and the misunderstandings which arose between them and their English tutors strongly suggest that learning to write in an unfamiliar academic discourse involves far more than learning how to prepare bibliographies according to the rules of a given system or the technical organisation of an essay. Rather, the learning process requires students’ cultural appropriation of their conceptual understanding of the way of writing, and the meaning of using previous scholarship to develop their argumentation in relation to the subject that they are writing about. It is a process that involves students in persistent self-adjustment, consciously or subconsciously, to the values and beliefs of teaching and learning that are anchored in the local context. Analysis of the ten case study students’ learning experiences and their adaptation, when writing, to the requirements of a UK academic community strongly suggests that this learning process expands a developmental continuum involving the students in overcoming emotional tensions arising from changes in cognition, in their sense of identities and in sociocultural values. A holistic perspective is therefore required to understand the dynamic nature of this change, and a culturally sensitive stance is essential in teaching notions of ownership and plagiarism to students from differing academic cultures.

References Allen, R. E. (1990). The concise Oxford dictionary of current English (8th ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. Ange´lil-Carter, S. (2000). Stolen language? Plagiarism in writing. Essex, England: Pearson Education. Briggs, R. (2003). Shameless! Reconceiving the problem of plagiarism. Australian Universities Review, 46, 19–23. Bruner, J. (2003). The culture of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carroll, J. (2004). Deterring, detecting and dealing with plagiarism. Available at http:// www.oxfordbrooks.ac.uk. Retrieved on 16 February 2006. Centre for Academic Integrity (CAI). (1999). The fundamental values of academic integrity. Available at http://www.academicintegrity.org/fundamental_values_project/pdf/FVProject. pdf. Retrieved on 9 July 2006. Chandrasoma, R., Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2004). Beyond plagiarism: Transgressive and nontransgressive intertextuality. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 3, 171–193. Cushner, K., & Karim, A. (2004). Study abroad at the university level. In: D. Landis, J. Bennett & M. Bennet (Eds), Handbook of intercultural training .(3rd ed., pp. 289–308). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism

155

Deckert, G. D. (1993). Perspectives on plagiarism from ESL students in Hong Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2, 131–148. Decoo, W. (2002). Crisis on campus: Confronting academic misconduct. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gu, Q., & Maley, A. (2008). Changing places: A study of Chinese students in the UK. Language and Intercultural Communication, 8(4), 224–245. Gu, Q., & Schweisfurth, M. (2006). Who adapts? Beyond cultural models of ‘the’ Chinese learner. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 19, 74–89. Ha, Phan Le. (2006). Plagiarism and overseas students: Stereotypes again? ELT Journal, 60, 76–78. Hall, E. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Anchor Books. Hayes, N., & Introna, L. D. (2005). Cultural values, plagiarism and fairness: When plagiarism gets in the way of learning. Ethics and Behaviour, 15, 213–231. Howard, R. M. (1993). A plagiarism pentimento. Journal of Teaching Writing, 11, 233–246. Howard, R. M. (1995). Plagiarism, authorships and the academic death penalty. College English, 57, 788–806. Howard, R. M. (1999). The new abolitionism comes to plagiarism. In: L. Buranen & A. Roy (Eds), Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world (pp. 87–95). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Howard, R. M. (2000). Sexuality, textuality: The cultural work of plagiarism. College English, 62, 473–491. Hunt, R. (2003). Four reasons to be happy about Internet plagiarism. Available at http:// stu.ca/Bhunt/4reasons.htm Kolich, A. (1983). Plagiarism: The worm of reason. College English, 45, 141–148. Liu, D. (2005). Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit? ELT Journal, 59, 234–241. Marton, F., Dall’Alba, G., & Kun, T. L. (1996). Memorizing and understanding: The keys to the paradox. In: D. Watkins & J. B. Biggs (Eds), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 69–84). Hong Kong: CERC and ACER. Matalene, C. (1985). Contrastive rhetoric: An American writing teaching in China. College English, 47, 789–808. McKay, P. (2001). Literature on non-deliberate plagiarism: Current directions. Available at http://clb.ed.qut.edu.au/events/projects/ndp/literaturereview2.jsp. Retrieved on 20 September 2006. Pennycook, A. (1994). The complex contexts for plagiarism: A reply to Deckert. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 277–284. Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 201–230. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Price, M. (2002). Beyond ‘‘gotcha!’’: Situating plagiarism in policy and pedagogy. College Composition and Communication, 54, 88–114. Russikoff, K., Fucaloro, L., & Salkauskiene, D. (2003). Plagiarism as a cross-cultural phenomenon. The Cal Poly Pomona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 16, 109–120. Available online at http://www.csupomona.edu/Bjis/2003/RussikoffFucaloroSalkaus.pdf Shei, C. (2004). Plagiarism, Chinese learners and Western convention. Available at http:// www.swan.ac.uk/cals/staff/shei/publication/Plagiarism.pdf. Retrieved on 9 April 2007. Shei, C. (2006). Chinese learners and plagiarism: Westernisation or Easternisation? Northumbria Learning: Digital Education Services Newsletter, (1) February. Available at http://www.

156

Qing Gu and A. Jane Brooks

northumbrialearning.co.uk/newsletters/issue1/Chinese%20Learners%20and%20Plagiarism% 20-%20Issue%201.pdf Shen, F. (1989). The classroom and the wider culture: Identity as a key to learning English composition. College Composition and Communication, 40, 459–466. Sowden, C. (2005). Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad. ELT Journal, 59, 226–233. Sullivan, J. (2002). Plagiarism hysteria lacks original thought. The Age, Opinion, 13(December 19). Sutherland-Smith, W. (2005). Pandora’s box: Academic perceptions of student plagiarism in writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 83–95. Zobel, J., & Hamilton, M. (2002). Managing student plagiarism in large academic departments. Australian University Review, 45, 23–30.

Chapter 9

Plagiarism, Intertextuality and the Politics of Knowledge, Identity and Textual Ownership in Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing Celia Thompson

Many discussions in the academy about plagiarism have been framed in terms of cheating (e.g. Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead, 1995; Lathrop, 2000; Szabo & Underwood, 2004) and stem from traditional concepts of the author as an autonomous producer of original texts. Yet there is widespread concern that students for whom English is an additional language (EAL) may hold culturally different views about textual ownership. These differences may adversely influence the ways in which these students use attribution conventions in ‘Western’ academic writing contexts and prevent them from realising their academic potential (Carroll & Ryan, 2005; Currie, 1998; Hayes & Introna, 2005). Likewise there has been a growing realisation that questions concerning common knowledge, the multivoiced nature of textuality and the politics of knowledge, identity and textual ownership need to be better understood by university educational practitioners since these factors are especially relevant to the multilingual EAL students who make up a sizeable proportion of the learners in our contemporary university classrooms1

1 In Australia, 16% of the population speak a language other than English in the home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007) and overseas students (most of whom speak English as an additional language) comprised almost one-quarter (23%) of all university students in the first half of 2006 (DEST, 2007).

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 157–177 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022012

158

Celia Thompson

(Chandrasoma, Thompson, & Pennycook, 2004; Hayes & Introna, 2003; Pennycook, 1996; Robillard, 2008; Thompson, 2005; Thompson & Pennycook, 2008). In this chapter, I discuss the findings of a major study that examined the ways in which students from a range of linguistic and disciplinary backgrounds used the words and ideas of the authors of their source texts in their research-based assignments. I will discuss written assignments and interview data of two student writers, Susan and Alan, who are of Chinese descent, together with comments from Theresa and Ron, the academic staff members responsible for assessing the students’ writing. Drawing on Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism (1984, 1986), Kristeva’s writing on intertextuality and the subject-in-process-and-on-trial (1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1996), my analysis demonstrates Susan and Alan’s awareness of the interconnections between politics, authorship and textual ownership, and underlines the importance of conceptualising subjectivity and authorship as sociohistorically constructed and multivoiced. I conclude by emphasising the need for educators to engage with cultural differences over what may constitute ‘common knowledge’ in one context but not in another; conceptualise knowledge as dynamic and co-constructed between students, their peers and their lecturers, rather than ‘transferred’ wholesale from producer to receiver; recognise the high levels of linguistic sophistication, intertextual manipulation (including paraphrasing and appropriate attribution practices) and content-based comprehension required for EAL students to produce authoritative academic texts; and understand that academic student authorship emerges through uncertainty and struggle which relate in fundamental ways to questions of power and identity.

‘Does Every Single Thing That Comes Out of Our Mouth Have to Be Referenced?’ Susan was born of Chinese parents in Australia and spoke Cantonese at home, although she had attended English-medium schools all her life. She was in her late teens/early twenties and in her first year at university studying for a degree in Media and Communications at the time of her interview for this research. The assignment discussed here is entitled ‘A description and analysis of a local media institution: SYNFM (Student Youth Network) radio station’ and comprised part of the assessment for an introductory first-year subject in a Media and Communications degree. When Susan discussed her writing practices, she gave the impression that she was still very much ‘in transition’ between school and university-based approaches to learning as she drew on her school experiences as well as her more recent university ones, to explain her approach to academic writing. The kind of referencing conventions that she had been required to follow at university, she explained, were similar to high school ‘except it’s stricter’. She also mentioned an increase in reading load at university and that she had had to learn new terms, such as ‘hegemony’ and ‘ideology’ for her Cultural Studies subject, and then use them straightaway in her essays, which she found quite difficult.

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

159

Susan went on to discuss whether words like ‘hegemony’ and ‘ideology’ should be referenced in her assignments, or whether they would constitute a form of knowledge that would be considered ‘common’ to her field, thereby obviating any need for attribution. I didn’t actually reference the word (‘hegemony’ — used in a different assignment to the one submitted for this study) because I felt that we’d been taught this for the past few weeks. It’s hard to say because, well, if that’s the case (that such words should be referenced) then does that mean that every single thing that comes out of our mouth have to be referenced because it’s not actually our own opinion? But because we’re learning, that’s the hard thing. When it comes to terms like ‘ideology’ and ‘hegemony’ because it’s (sic) been around and been used for so long, it’s not such an original thing any more and it’s kind of like into everybody’s knowledge in that field of knowledge. In Cultural Studies, everybody would know about ideology. Also, it might be hard to trace it back to whoever coined the term as well. Here Susan identifies the kinds of tensions inherent in all academic writing that emerge from an individual’s sense of language use and learning as a social activity that is at odds with a view of originality and textual ownership founded on notions of authorship as singular and autonomous. She elaborated that ‘common knowledge’ was not a term that could be generalised across a whole population of people since everybody’s experiences and backgrounds were different. She explained that what would, in fact, constitute common knowledge would be the kinds of terms that students studied in their particular subject areas because ‘we’ve all learned that at the same time’. Clearly, determining what constitutes common knowledge is vital for an understanding of the kinds of nebulous and blurred boundaries that exist between acknowledged and unacknowledged sources and the nature of intertextuality in student writing. In her interview, we discussed Susan’s statement that the Australian Broadcasting Authority was formed in 1992 in her assignment (see Table 9.1) as a possible example of ‘common’ knowledge since she provided no reference for this point: Susan commented that she did not think it would be common knowledge but could not remember where the information came from. Such historical details might indicate attribution omissions, although Theresa did not find such referencing details to be highly problematic. For Theresa, it was much more important that students engaged with the ideas and arguments contained within their source texts. Table 9.1: Susan’s assignment extract 1. Susan (p. 4, paragraph 1) All radio frequencies in Australia, commercial or public, are governed by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), formed in 1992 to oversee Australian radio and television transmissions.

160

Celia Thompson

Table 9.2: Susan’s assignment extract 2. Susan (p. 1, paragraph 2) Three interviews were undertaken in order to collate the majority of the information provided in this essay y The final interview was conducted with James Stephens.

In addition to questions concerning common knowledge, Susan also raised the issue of self-representation in her writing. On a number of occasions, Susan uses passive sentence structures in her assignment (see Table 9.2). Susan explained that she was used to using the passive because this was what she was encouraged to do in school: ‘It is more impersonal, I think. It doesn’t actually put us in subject position (and) I’m happy to have it that way’. Susan added that she usually wrote in an impersonal style and could not imagine writing in any other way: ‘I’m just so used to writing that way’. She also said that she remembered a university lecturer telling her that academic writing was always impersonal and written using passive constructions, so she felt she should ‘stick to that ‘‘cos we’re supposed to be doing academic writing’’’. The assumption that impersonal and passive sentence structures are a hallmark of academic writing across disciplines has been challenged by Hyland (1999, p. 344), for example, who argues that the presentation of knowledge and writer identity differs across disciplines: y different discourse communities negotiate knowledge in different ways (which are) influenced by different ways of seeing the world and of tackling research and its presentation. In a subsequent study into identity in academic writing, Hyland recommends that teachers should increase students’ awareness of the possibilities of negotiating and constructing different identities for themselves as producers of scholarly writing, rather than adhering to a view of academic writing as ‘an alien form of literacy designed to disguise the author’ as ‘impersonal’ and ‘faceless’ (Hyland 2002, p. 351). The role of paraphrasing and attribution in the construction and ownership of academic text/knowledge were further aspects of academic writing that Susan, like Alan below, found confusing: If, for example, half of the paragraph was paraphrased and then what was coming after it was my point of view on what was written, then it wouldn’t have to be sourced, obviously y I really think it needs to be cleared up because I don’t really know personally, every single thing that has to be referenced and what doesn’t have to be. It would be better if it was cleared up as early as possible. It’s better to get it out of the way straight away.

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

161

Table 9.3: Susan’s writing (extract 3) compared with Moran (1995). Susan (p. 2, paragraph 1)

Moran (p.148)

The first public radio station, 2MBS-FM, In 1974 the first fully licenced public radio was licensed to Sydney in 1974 (Moran, station, 2MBS-FM, went on the air in 148). In the 18 months following, eleven Sydney. Over the next eighteen months other public radio stations were also to the end of 1975, 2-MBS-FM was licensed. This marked the beginning of a followed by eleven other radio stations, form of radio oriented towards a local in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and and specific interest-community need. Adelaide y Community or, as it was Commercial stations were, and still are, then called, public radio had started in geared for commercially viable gain and Australia y Stations with interests such were therefore lacking in special interest as fine music and education, and stations areas, which aren’t as profitable. By that were regionally-based, had a high 1985, under the auspices of a Labor degree of acceptance and the sector as a government, the number of community, whole grew. By 1980 there were 25 or public radio stations on air had risen stations on the air. In 1985, after the to 65 and the number was steadily rising federal Labor Government came to (Moran, 148). power, the number had risen to 65 stations. In 1988 there were 79 stations on the air. By 1994 the number had grown to 120 stations, with a further 60 aspirant groups y

She added that she was aware of the problem of ‘plagiarism’ and that it was something she had always been unclear about. Some students she felt might accidentally forget to reference and commented that they should not be heavily penalised for a mistake, especially in their first year of university. Further discussion of Susan’s use of referencing and efforts to paraphrase the words and ideas of her source texts reveals a number of uncertainties. In the section of her assignment presented in Table 9.3, Susan outlines the history of community radio, which she explained she had paraphrased from Moran (1995, p. 148). We have included the Moran text for comparison in the same table and underlined the sections in each text that are semantically, lexically and grammatically related. Susan described how she had made use of the source material she had referenced in this paragraph, explaining that the references had been given because the whole paragraph was a paraphrase based on Moran’s work, although she could not account clearly for the exact positioning of the in-text references. Susan provided a full reference in her bibliography, although in her assignment she only provided an in-text reference to Moran with the appropriate page number and omitted the year. The propositional content of Susan’s first sentence mirrors that of Moran very closely, although her sentence structure is quite different: Susan chooses to position

162

Celia Thompson

the phrasal reference to time (‘in 1974’) at the end as opposed to at the beginning of her sentence. She reworks Moran’s phrase ‘Over the next eighteen months’ into ‘In the 18 months following’. In Susan’s third sentence above, she skilfully maintains cohesion in her ‘own’ writing through the use of an anaphoric reference (‘This’, referring to the establishment and growth of licensed public radio stations), as well as reworking Moran’s text both grammatically and lexically to ensure its relevance to the section topic of her assignment: the history of community radio. To do this, Susan transposes Moran’s use of music and education as examples of stations dealing with particular interests into the term ‘specific’ and Moran’s expression ‘regionally-based’, into the word ‘local’, thus Moran’s statement ‘Community or, as it was then called public radio had started in Australia y Stations with interests such as fine music and education, and stations that were regionallybased y ’, becomes Susan’s ‘This marked the beginning of a form of radio oriented towards a local and specific interest — community need’. Here Susan clearly demonstrates her lexical knowledge and textual manipulation capabilities. Her choice of the verbs ‘mark’ and ‘orient’ sound ‘authoritative’ and ‘academic’ and are arguably instances of what Bourdieu (1991) has termed the kind of ‘elevated’ style (p. 152) that ‘confers on those who engage in it a power over language and thereby over the ordinary users of language’ (p. 58), that enables writers to achieve a sense of authority and control over their writing. Susan’s positioning of the term ‘community need’ at the end of her sentence, which she separates syntactically by the use of the horizontal dash, not only highlights its importance but also strengthens its rhetorical impact. Similarly in her final sentence of this paragraph, Moran’s text ‘In 1985, after the federal Labor Government came to power y ’ becomes Susan’s ‘By 1985, under the auspices of a Labor government y ’, again illustrating her ability to use what Starfield (2004, p. 150) has termed the ‘prestige academic vocabulary of English’ to mark a sense of ownership over the text she has produced. So, despite Susan’s uncertainties about ‘doing academic writing’, she is, we suggest, managing to construct an identity for herself as an academic writer as she makes the transition from high school to university. Susan was awarded an H2B (between 70% and 74%) for this assignment, which is an average grade for a first year Arts student at her university.

Theresa’s Perspective on Susan’s Use of Source Texts Theresa commented on how well the source materials had been integrated into the report. Susan used a combination of direct quotation and paraphrasing to achieve this effect, as in the example presented in Table 9.4. Theresa added that she preferred students to use source materials that had been read in class or that she had recommended because she wanted to be able to: y compare students more easily in terms of their understanding of the material. It is also easier for me to check for plagiarism if they are

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

163

Table 9.4: Susan’s assignment extract 4. Susan (p. 3, paragraph 4) James Stephens, volunteer radio presenter sees SYN [Student Youth Network]-FM as providing ‘diversity of who has access to radio’. He suggests that student radio provides listeners with a variety of music and information, which wouldn’t necessarily be available on commercial stations. He believes that ‘students are more prepared to go where others wouldn’t because they aren’t motivated by monetary gain or recognition’. As a presenter himself, James explains that when he presented shows he was more interested in selecting interesting tunes to play and discussing topics such as student politics and youth culture than bending to society’s norms and playing commercial music.

using familiar source material. Increasingly students are using electronic references and I warn them that I am just as likely to check this material for incidences of plagiarism as any written article they may refer to y I am very open with the students about my concerns with plagiarism and the way in which they use source material. Here Theresa seems keen to set up epistemological parameters, which will not only enable her to ‘check for plagiarism’ but will also help her to gauge students’ understanding of the subject materials. As Susan noted above, it was precisely by not referencing terms such as ‘ideology’ and ‘hegemony’ that she could indicate to her lecturer that these concepts were not only what she called ‘everybody’s knowledge in that field of knowledge’ but also her own ‘personal knowledge’ (Penrose & Geisler 1994, p. 517). By appropriating these terms and ‘constructing an impression of herself as knowledgeable’ (Ivanicˇ 1998, p. 165), Susan was able to create an authoritative identity for herself in the field of Media and Communications, at least as far as Theresa was concerned. Theresa suggested that some students were genuinely unsure how to reference materials and believed that if students could learn to acknowledge other people’s words and ideas then this would not only help them to separate their own thinking from that of other people and to formulate their own arguments, but would also ‘make them more aware of the ways in which we inevitably do borrow from other people’s work’. In other words, it could be a means through which issues of textual ownership, origins of ideas and argumentation could be explicitly addressed. Echoing the position of educationalists such as Currie (1998) and Starfield (2002), Theresa commented on the difficulties she perceived that EAL students experienced in using source material: They are frightened of using their own words and therefore they at times resort to using other people’s material. There are also some

164

Celia Thompson cultural issues regarding what foreign students perceive as plagiarism compared with local students.

As both Currie (1998) and Starfield (2002) argue, there is a need for educators to address the fears that students have about producing their ‘own’ words in the assignment they write, as well as a need to explore the nature of the cultural differences that exist between students in order to create the kind of conditions in contemporary university classrooms that promote pedagogical inclusivity for all students. Theresa proceeded to comment that she did not have any episodes of ‘really blatant plagiarism’ involving one student copying the entire essay of another. The cases she tended to experience often involved ‘shifts in tone’ in students’ writing and instances of students ‘cobbling together bits that they’d taken from articles and off the Web; they’d put together the essay themselves even though most of it wasn’t theirs’. She suggested that the latter was slightly different (to ‘blatant plagiarism’) and highlighted the difficulty in talking about plagiarism in a ‘set way’ since it raised questions to do with ‘how people go about writing’. Theresa went on to discuss students’ use of the first person singular in their writing. She considered that although there were different requirements across different disciplines about the use of the passive voice, all writing ‘come(s) from some kind of perspective, (is) not neutral y not just the ‘‘voice of God’’’. Theresa revealed that her ‘most hated sentence’ was ‘History tells us that y ’, and how she discusses with students examples from class readings where authors have used the first person singular to emphasise ownership of particular arguments, as distinct from positions held by other theorists; this was a practice she explained that she wanted to reinforce for students in their own writing. Theresa believed, however, that students were quite confused by this since in some courses they were told never to use ‘I’ (an experience corroborated by Susan above). Theresa commented that international students particularly, experienced difficulty with ‘putting the ‘‘I’’’ into their essays and that some of these students seemed to be ‘more afraid about owning the material, the argument, as their own’, possibly, she suggested, because they lacked confidence in writing in English. She determined therefore overall to be quite flexible and accommodating about students’ use of the active and passive voice in their writing.

‘If You Don’t Know What the Author Says, You Can’t Paraphrase’ I will now explore issues concerning the politics of knowledge, identity and textual ownership, the central themes of this chapter, from the perspective of Alan, the second student writer. Alan was born in Hong Kong and attended schools where both Chinese and English had been the languages of instruction. He was in his late teens/early twenties and in his first year at university studying for a double degree in Arts/Science. Alan’s assignment was entitled: ‘Describe the position of the king in the

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

165

period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. How much power did he exercise? What were the major restraints upon him?’ The essay comprised the assessment for a subject in Ancient History that he completed in his first semester of university study. As Ron (the marker of Alan’s essay) explained, the question was designed to encourage students to explore primary sources and then use secondary sources to support the claims they made. As a student of a combined degree course, Alan was required to enrol in subjects in the faculties of Arts and Science concurrently, and to be able to cope with the disciplinary demands of two very differently constructed epistemological frameworks. He commented that he did not find it difficult to move between the two fields, but that in Science it was possible through various calculations to obtain ‘an exact answer’ to a problem or question, but that in Arts he had found that ‘there’s no actual answer; no one answer. There’s a lot of answer you should find out by yourself, not by tuition’. Here Alan draws attention to the differences in the ways in which knowledge in Science subjects is constructed compared with those in Arts. Yet while disciplinary discourses may be ‘multiple, overlapping, shared and hybrid’ (Canagarajah, 2002, p. 165) as well as open to contestation and resistance, specific disciplinary fields may also possess quite distinct epistemological and ideological practices of their own: particular discourse characteristics might be shaped by particular aspects of fields of study, and so position the writers as participating in the interests, values, beliefs and practices of that field of study. (Ivanicˇ, 1998, p. 283) Learning to cope with such perceived particularities posed a considerable challenge for Alan, especially with respect to the Ancient History subject, for which he was required to use both primary and secondary sources and to provide detailed footnotes and bibliographic information. Alan explained that this was the first time he had written a research-based essay of 2500 words in which it was necessary to cite his sources, adding that for his final school assessments in Hong Kong, it was not necessary to cite sources. So Alan, like Susan above, was at an important stage of transition between the more familiar writing practices of his school-based study and the less familiar academic requirements of studying at university. Alan commented that being required to provide detailed bibliographic information had not only resulted in him spending much more time on his essays but also meant that he had to think very carefully about ‘ which ideas come from the writer and which ideas come from mine’. When asked how he managed to do this, Alan responded by describing his approach to note-making: I just jot down the notes from the book and then think about it and then check them — not the whole list — because maybe I know the idea but I forget it’s come from the writer and I check back the list so

166

Celia Thompson I can see whether the idea’s come from mine or it’s come from the memory of the list. Sometimes, after two or three days, you forget. You read the book. The idea becomes your idea, but still it’s his idea. You think more about it, but sometimes people tend to put the idea from the other people to become our idea, so maybe later on, I think this is my idea.

Alan’s description of his process of making notes from a source text is very interesting on a number of counts. Even before outlining the steps he takes, Alan signals that he is aware of the potential difficulty of determining textual ownership (‘which ideas come from the writer and which ideas come from mine’). Alan identifies three stages to note-making: Firstly, he notes down ideas from a source text; secondly, he thinks about them and finally, he ‘checks them’ against the notes that he made in stage one of the process. It is at the third stage in the process that the boundaries of ownership begin to blur and Alan describes a number of difficulties he has experienced in determining textual ownership. ‘Knowing’ an idea for Alan becomes tangled up with trying to work out whether the idea therefore belongs to him or his memory of the notes he has taken (‘whether the idea’s come from mine or it’s come from the memory of the list’). Depending on memory for determining textual ownership may be difficult because memories can fade as time elapses and maybe ‘you forget’. Alan notes paradoxically, however, that even though ‘the idea becomes your idea’ it may simultaneously belong to the author of the book you have read (‘it’s still his idea’). Eventually though, he says, it is possible to claim ownership over the ideas of others: ‘to put the idea from the other people to become our idea, so y I think this is my idea’. Alan’s comments also resonate with Pennycook’s research (1996). As Pennycook argues, the ways in which we conceptualise authorship and textual ownership are culturally and historically influenced; furthermore, to some extent, all language learning involves memorizing the words of others. In Alan’s case, prior to studying at university in Australia, he was not required to attribute authorship of texts to individuals. So for students such as Alan to rework the way they conceptualise the relationships between memory, knowledge construction and textual ownership requires nothing less than what Ron termed ‘a terrifying revolution in their minds’. For Alan, being able to use his ‘own’ words by paraphrasing and summarising, his source texts seemed to provide him with a sense of control over the processes of academic text/knowledge production. He explained the process as follows: Firstly, he jotted down information from the first page of a book, including the name of the publisher, commenting that it was important to ‘give thanks’ by acknowledging the authors he was reading. Then, Alan explained, he read his source books through two or three times and used his own words to make notes, pointing out the importance of adopting this approach to note-making at the onset of the research process: When you need to acknowledge the sources you will think (about) the idea more carefully y I should separate between my idea and other

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

167

ideas, so I should very careful to separate those and secondly, if I need to acknowledge the author’s idea and I should paraphrase it, then I need to know his idea very well. If you don’t know what the author say you can’t paraphrase it. Might be you just copy. At this point, Alan was asked whether he thought some people might copy because they did not understand what they were reading. He responded: ‘Yeah. When I read the book I tend to just copy because it spend much less time than paraphrase it’. The latter comment seems to contradict what Alan ‘knows’ he is required to do to produce an acceptable academic essay (‘I should separate between my idea and other ideas’), yet in practice he might ‘tend(s) to just copy’ because it is less time-consuming. Here there is a clear tension between Alan’s understanding of what ‘doing academic writing’ entails and his practice of copying as a way of surviving the time pressures of study. In addition, Alan highlights the impossibility of paraphrasing a text that is not understood (‘If you don’t know what the author say you can’t paraphrase it’). In such circumstances, the coping strategy may be simply to copy, as Alan indicates. Alan remarked that students with lower levels of English language proficiency might struggle to express themselves in their writing, but believed that lecturers were less concerned about students’ proficiency levels in English than they were about their ability to think about the subject being studied. Students, explained Alan, could not ‘do better’ than authors in a field of study because these writers were specialists. In contrast, students did not usually have very good ideas and simply had to copy or agree with other people’s ideas because ‘He (the writer) think about the topic for 40 years, but you just think for 6 weeks’. Alan clearly sees himself and other students as low status copiers and reproducers of the ideas of experienced disciplinary specialists: Learners who cannot ‘do better’. As Penrose and Geisler (1994) have argued, however, it is only by viewing knowledge as co-constructed, as opposed to transmitted, between learners and teachers, that ‘domain knowledge’ can become translated into ‘personal knowledge’, thereby creating the conditions for students to develop a sense of ownership, authority and control over the texts/knowledge they produce (pp. 516–517). When asked whether he thought there were other reasons why students might copy, Alan responded: Might be because he (the student) never read the book and unfortunately his ideas the same; for me I have this experience: I read a book, I went ‘Oh! Why the same idea with me?’ But I never read the book before. But I think that still my idea because I got the idea. That’s not very surprise because why people can’t got the same idea? Might be two person have the same idea on those things but they don’t know each other. Alan’s response highlights the need for a theory of textuality that can account for the sociohistorical dimensions of text/knowledge relations and runs counter to a

168

Celia Thompson

conception of textual ownership and production that supports the notion of authorship as singular and unitary. The following comment indicates Alan’s degree of indebtedness to his source texts in the production of his Ancient History assignment: ‘You haven’t got your own idea. You just read all the book and then you know the topic’. An extract from Alan’s assignment (see Table 9.5) shows that he cannot be described as simply ‘copying’ from his source texts (as he states is sometimes the case in his writing); however, his reliance on the words and ideas of others in the form of acknowledged direct citations certainly exemplifies, particularly in a literal sense, Barthes’ definition of text as a ‘tissue of quotations’ (1977, p. 146). Alan’s reliance on quotations in this extract and elsewhere in his essay (on page 2, the first eleven lines contain 5 footnotes and 4 direct quotations, for instance) highlights his need to draw heavily on source texts. He explained that this was necessary when attempting to paraphrase the texts of expert writers who may have been thinking about a topic ‘for 40 years’, in contrast to the student-learner who has only been thinking about it ‘for 6 weeks’.

Ron’s Perspective on Alan’s Use of Source Texts Ron, the Professor of History who marked Alan’s assignment, was very impressed with the way Alan had incorporated his source materials into his essay, especially Table 9.5: Alan’s assignment extract 1. Alan (p. 1, paragraph 3, extract) Assyrian king was the chief servant of the pantheon on earth.1 At the beginning of an inscription, Ashur-dan II (934–912 BC) claimed that he was ‘governor of the god Enlil, vice-regent of the god Ashur, y ’.2 It is clear that the king assisted Enlil and Ashur to manage the world. Moreover, in Assyrian thought, the king was like a puppet of gods whose performance was the result of the god’s will. Esarhaddon (680– 669 BC) reported to the gods that ‘Anu y , who called me by name, Bel, y , establisher of my dynasty, Ea, y , who determines my destiny, Sin, y , who grants my favourable signs (omens), Shamesh, y , who decides my decisions, Adad, y , who makes my amies prosper, Marduk, y , who makes great my kinship. Ishtar, y , who goes at my side, y ’.3 As a result, the king could only act as a servant of the pantheon and he certainly could not rank among them. Note: All omissions from the source texts referred to in Footnotes 2 and 3 in this table are those made by Alan in his assignment. 1 Bold font has been used to highlight propositions that Alan has inferred from his readings. They contain no direct quotations. 2 Grayson, A. K. (1976). Assyrian royal inscriptions (Vol. 2, p. 79). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. 3 Luckenbill, D. D. (1926–1927). Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia (Vol. 2, p. 224). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

169

considering that he was at first-year level. He particularly liked the way Alan’s ‘own’ writing alternated with quotations from his readings: This person’s able to go on, not just quote and rush away, but then stay, and ‘What’s the point we get from that?’ and showing some interesting insights and certain discrimination about what you get out of them (the texts), Yes, yes y This person knows what they’re doing at each point. They’re in control, which is quite extraordinary at that level. Had I still had my student journal, I would have been tempted to publish an essay like this. Ron went on to explain that the History Department used to publish students’ essays in a journal so that other students could see what a ‘good’ essay looked like. So, although Alan uses extensive quotations, Ron does not consider the essay to be ‘over-referenced’. Alan does not simply ‘quote and rush away’, but ‘stay(s)’ and evaluates the ideas he is presenting, suggested Ron, as demonstrated in the underlined statements in Table 9.5. Ron also recounted how he explained to students that academic writing involved constantly being ‘aware of everything owing to other people and y thanking other people for all the help they’ve given to you’. In contrast to Theresa and Susan, who at times displayed very different views about the processes involved in the construction of academic writing and textual ownership, there are a number of areas of overlap between Alan and Ron which may explain why Alan was awarded a higher grade for his assignment (an H2A, or between 75% and 79%). Firstly, Alan had clearly experienced a different approach to learning during his schooling in Hong Kong where he had not been required to reference source texts in his writing, compared with university expectations in Australia, where this was necessary. Ron was aware that cultural differences in the production of text/knowledge existed, and suggested that teachers needed to be aware of this if they were to give students ‘the right leads’. Representing the learning/teaching nexus as a form of ‘scaffolding’ is a cornerstone of the educational writings of the Soviet developmental psychologist Vygotsky, whose socioculturally based theories on the importance of the role played by the ‘zone of proximal development’ in teaching and learning have reached widespread acceptance in the ‘West’ (see, e.g. Cazden, 1993). It is noticeable in Alan’s interview that he uses the same lexis as Ron when he describes the process of attribution as ‘giving thanks’ to the authors of his sources, suggesting that indeed according to Vygotsky (in Cole, Steiner, Scribner, & Souberman, 1978), imitation may lie at the heart of all learning. Alan also mentions how the difficulties he has with paraphrasing might lead him to copy from his source texts. Rather than dismissing copying as unacceptable, Ron recounted an experience with a former student who had copied from her source material, to explain how copying, as Currie (1998), Howard (1992, 1999), Chandrasoma et al. (2004) and Thompson and Pennycook (2008) have argued, can be a means to learning how to become an academic writer.

170

Celia Thompson

In addition, Ron suggested that it was in tutorials where students should ‘feel free’ to discuss their source materials and ‘use of authorities’. He strongly encouraged students to refer to their tutorial notes as legitimate documented source materials in their assignments. Although this may offer the potential for distributing authority more evenly if ‘students come to see themselves as participants in, rather than observers of, the construction of knowledge’ (Penrose & Geisler, 1994, p. 517), the degree to which Alan followed Ron’s guidelines to the letter suggests that Alan did not so much ‘do his own thing’ as Ron intimated; rather he simply followed in the footsteps of his master without making his own imprint.

Cultural Politics, Emergent Authorship and the Construction of Academic Text/Knowledge This study strongly suggests that copying may not necessarily be practiced by students for the purposes of unethical gain; rather, it needs to be considered in the context of difficulties associated with common knowledge, paraphrasing, writer development and emergent student authorship. While understanding how to apply carefully crafted citation conventions is clearly part of learning how to produce appropriately attributed academic texts, referencing ability alone fails to equip student writers to engage more deeply with the contradictory and ambivalent aspects of authorship and textual ownership that are inherent in the kinds of subtle intertextual manipulations that writing for the academy demands. Student writers can establish authoritative identities as writers of institutionally validated forms of discourse if academic staff are prepared to engage with students in ways that promote students’ levels of participation in the processes of text/knowledge construction. In order to achieve this, the hierarchically driven transmission view of knowledge from ‘expert’ to ‘novice’ has to be superseded by an approach to the production of text/knowledge which recognises the value of students’ previous educational and personal experiences. Thus, by acknowledging the sociohistoric and political nature of academic text construction, we are able to create conditions that are conducive to the emergence of new ways of understanding the complexities surrounding writer identity and textual ownership in the academy. Developing the confidence and level of writing proficiency required to effectively challenge the ideas of others, especially those contained in ‘authoritative texts’, is a long and slow process. In addition, as Bourdieu (1991) points out, it is important to acknowledge the broader context in which any form of communication occurs. Such contexts, he suggests, both reflect and produce particular sociohistorically constructed power formations. In order for students to become legitimate and authoritative, they need to gain entry into and acceptance by their academic communities; this they can achieve by acquiring what Bourdieu terms ‘elevated’ style: ‘the means by which a discourse declares itself to be authorized’ (p. 152) (emphasis in original).

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

171

The relationship between discourse and writer identity is represented by Bartholomae as the tension that exists when a student has to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse y as though he [sic] were a member of the academy y by mimicking its language while finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of the discipline on the other. (1985, p. 134) An example of this tension is presented by Phan (when she was a postgraduate student), who originates from Vietnam, and Viete (her supervisor) (Phan & Viete, 2002). They describe their experiences of co-constructing academic discourse (as ‘elevated’ style) and discuss their deliberations over whether Phan should incorporate her own experiences of academic writing into the writing she was required to produce as part of her postgraduate assessment on the subject of academic literacy. They also consider whether Phan’s desire to write in the first person singular would compromise her ability to assert her authority and authorial presence in her writing. They argue that Phan’s descriptions of writing in English are very relevant to her assignment and that since these are her ‘own’ experiences, the use of the first person singular would not only be an appropriate but also a necessary linguistic vehicle for the expression of these experiences. Furthermore, they advocate the notion of textual hybridity as ‘generative of new spaces’ (Phan & Viete, 2002, p. 6) and growth in terms of knowledge, as well as being educative for both students and academics. Phan and Viete’s position concurs with Gore’s analysis of the nature of knowledge production. Gore proposes that one way of overcoming hierarchical differences in educational settings is by including students’ personal experiences in the content of what is taught (1993, p. 79), thus ensuring that students are able to participate more fully in, as well as having the potential to transform the processes of knowledge production. In What Is an Author?, however, Foucault (1984) states that the author function needs to be conceived in terms of a number of simultaneous selves that should not be thought of as autonomous originators, but as subjects that are ‘variable and complex’ (p. 118): y in the sphere of discourse one can be the author of much more than a book — one can be the author of a theory, tradition or discipline in which other books and authors will in turn find a place. These authors are in a position which we shall call ‘transdiscursive’. (p. 113) As I discuss below, it is from Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism (1981, 1986) and Kristeva’s conceptualisation of subjectivity and intertextuality (1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1996) that a transdiscursive and sociohistorical framework emerges through which further insights into the relationships between language and communication theories

172

Celia Thompson

and the politics of knowledge production, textual ownership and the development of writer identity can be gained.

Power Relations and the Dialogic Struggle to Construct Text/Knowledge and Authorial Identity As I have suggested elsewhere (e.g. Thompson, 2005; Thompson & Pennycook, 2008), Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism adds a crucial dynamic element to our understanding of language, communication, textual ownership and knowledge production. For Bakhtin, language is ‘ideologically saturated y (it is) a world view y in vital connection with the processes of sociopolitical and cultural centralization’ (1981, p. 271). It is through language, with its echoes from the past and its intimations of the future, that we create a dialogic framework for the construction of meanings. As individuals, we become part of the creative process of text production by re-accenting and re-articulating the words and ideas of others. Bakhtin classifies this kind of ‘dialogue’ as occurring not only between individuals or ‘texts’ (‘external’ dialogue) but also within the individual in what he has called ‘interior’ or ‘internal’ dialogue (1981, p. 427): a ‘dialogue with the self’ (1984, p. 213) in which ‘all words in it are double-voiced, and in each of them a conflict of voices takes place’ (Bakhtin, 1984, pp. 74–75). Kristeva (1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1996) adds to this dialogic approach to language and communication through her theory of intertextuality and subjectivity. For Kristeva, the co-construction of meanings and open-ended interplay between texts and ‘signifying systems’ constitutes what she refers to as ‘a field of transpositions y (an intertextuality)’ (1986c, p. 111), where one or more different sign systems become transposed (or ‘translated’) into others. Such transpositions, explains Kristeva, suggest ‘the abandonment of a former sign-system (and) the passage to a second via an instinctual intermediary common to the two systems’ (1986c, p. 111). This overlapping intermediary sign system in which commonalities are shared between two different sign systems resonates not only with Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism and double or multivoiced texts but is also suggestive of what has been termed ‘interlanguage’ (Selinker, 1972) and ‘interdiscourse’ (see, e.g. Wilson, 1997) in the literature on second language learning. According to Kristeva, textuality denotes ‘a mosaic of quotations’ (1986b, p. 37), whereby producers and readers of texts experience what she terms ‘the same putting-into-process of y identities (that are) capable of identifying with the different types of texts (and) voices’ (Kristeva, 1996, pp. 190–191). Such an intertextual framework provides the means through which all experiences of reading and writing can be understood. Kristeva (1996, p. 190) conceives of the subject as en-proce`s: the subject in a constant process of becoming (yet also ‘on trial’, following the French connotations of the word ‘proce`s’). It is through actively participating in this productive (rather than re-productive) and creative process, claims Kristeva (1996), that the subjectivity

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

173

of a speaker (or writer) can be affirmed (p. 190). Clearly, Kristeva’s intertextual subjects are analogous to Susan and Alan: emergent student authors seeking confirmation as ‘legitimate’ academic writers from their lecturers.

Plagiarism, Intertextuality and Emergent Student Authorship There are several key issues that emerge from this study. The academic writing practices of contemporary EAL university students need to be understood in the broader context of the push for internationalisation that has occurred in higher education sectors in Australia. This drive has led to the production of competing cultural discourses and highlights the difficulties inherent in approaches to plagiarism that are founded upon moral imperatives and universal value systems. Students’ ability to establish a sense of authority, control and ownership over what they write should be understood as part of a developmental process that is shaped by their unequal access to cultural capital. Access to and participation in the processes of disciplinary discourse production can be facilitated by teachers building on students’ previous educational and personal experiences in the co-construction of text/knowledge. For students to become authoritative writers, a mechanical understanding of attribution practices alone fails to equip them to engage more deeply with the contradictory and ambivalent aspects of authorship and textual ownership that are inherent in the kinds of subtle intertextual and linguistic manipulations that writing for the academy demands. It is clear from Susan and Alan’s writing practices that the constructs of ‘common’ knowledge, textual originality and autonomous authorship require re-thinking. Given the extent to which cultural difference is a defining feature of contemporary university classrooms, epistemological commonality needs to be constantly negotiated. Furthermore, the quest for originality becomes inherently problematic if textual knowledge and meaning are viewed as transdiscursively and sociohistorically co-constructed by speakers and listeners and writers and readers. It follows, therefore, that once texts are conceived as multivoiced and intertextual, they cannot be owned by autonomous and unified authors. As I/we have discussed elsewhere (see Chandrasoma et al., 2004; Thompson & Pennycook, 2008), since the construct ‘plagiarism’ derives from the concept of textual originality and singular authorship, discussion of students’ textual borrowing practices should be re-cast in terms of transgressive and non-transgressive intertextuality. Degrees of transgression can only be determined according to specific pedagogical contexts and the nature of the assessment tasks that have been set by particular lecturers for their students. My analysis and discussion of the intertextual writing practices of Susan and Alan, the focus of this chapter, show that academic writer identities are produced by and through struggle as each student engages with very different intertextual manipulation practices in order to construct disciplinary texts for assessment. This study also highlights how an ‘information transfer’ model of communication in which meaning (or knowledge) is conceived as objective and fixed serves to exclude students from actively participating in the processes of knowledge/text production.

174

Celia Thompson

Susan and Alan experienced various uncertainties as they struggled to construct writer identities in the texts they produced. Susan rejected authorship in what she calls ‘the subject-position’. By expropriating the terminology of her academic disciplinary community, Susan was able to participate in the processes of text/ knowledge production as she navigated between the familiar influences of her high school teachings and the unfamiliar expectations of her university lecturers. Using a process of intertextual scaffolding, Alan managed to produce a kind of semantic and lexical template through which he was able to mimic the writing practices of the authors of his source texts (as well as those of Ron, his lecturer and marker), to create a writer identity that met with the approval of his assessor. Susan and Alan described their understandings of the processes involved in the construction of intertextual knowledge and authorial identity in terms of tensions concerning commonality and difference, originality, authority and paraphrasing. Forging a pathway through such seemingly incommensurable forces at times may seem impossibly difficult to achieve, yet both Susan and Alan recognised the dialogic nature of textual ownership. They demonstrated that the dialogues they engaged in with their culturally different and at times conflicting ‘voices’ (or subjectivities) did not impede their development as emergent student authors/subjects-in-process-andon-trial, at least in the eyes of Theresa and Ron, their markers. The experiences and beliefs of these students reinforce the inadequacies of a homogenising approach to academic writing and authorship practices and highlight the importance of being able to recognise and deal effectively with difference in relation to culture and power. The students in this study also knew that they were expected to achieve academic legitimacy, in part, by paraphrasing the texts of their source authors, which as Alan commented, meant that they were required to understand the texts they had been reading. The mechanics of referencing, however, was not the central issue. The problem as Susan and Alan saw it, both students for whom English was an additional language, could not be solved by just writing ‘in the subject-position’, nor by simply engaging with and interpreting the ideas of ‘experts’, but in possessing the linguistic resources that would allow them to re-present the ideas presented in these source texts as fluently and as effectively as their authors. Susan and Alan’s lack of perceived ability is hardly surprising since, as Ange´lilCarter has pointed out: ‘Reshaping the original is a high order skill requiring excellent comprehension of the original text’ (2000, p. 125). Similar views are well supported by other academic writing theorists, particularly those in the literature on second language learning (e.g. Currie, 1998; Ivanicˇ & Camps, 2001; Pecorari, 2003; Starfield, 2002, 2004). Yet despite these difficulties, both students were able to perform a number of complex intertextual manipulations that produced a sense of textual authority that their markers found impressive.

Concluding Comments Understanding how students writing for the academy reproduce (or resist) institutionally validated forms of text/knowledge is integral to the development of

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

175

writing pedagogy, especially with respect to students who are ethnically and racially marginalised (Canagarajah, 1997, pp. 186–187), as in the cases of Susan and Alan. In their different ways, both of the students in this chapter recognised that the language, ideas and the texts they produced were intricately tied up with accenting and reaccenting the language, ideas and texts of others. As Bakhtin (1986), Barthes (1977), Canagarajah (2002), Kristeva (1996) and Howard (1999) have all argued, using the language/texts of others (whether in the form of direct copying and imitation, or through the process of re-presentation and use of paraphrase) underlies all forms of human communication. Since language also constitutes the ‘world view’ of its producers and consumers (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 271; Fanon, 1967), then it is precisely this ‘push-pull-mix’ (Singh & Doherty, 2004, p. 21) that characterises the nature of the transcultural encounters that are constantly at play as students and staff struggle to engage with difference yet find commonality in their understandings of the processes involved in the construction of text/knowledge and emergent student author identity.

References Ange´lil-Carter, S. (2000). Stolen language? Plagiarism in writing. Essex, England: Pearson Education. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Year Book, Australia. (2007). Ethnic diversity in Australia. Available at http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/bb8db737e2af84b8ca 2571780015701e/7056F80A147D09D3CA25723600006532?opendocument. Retrieved on 24 April 2008. Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Barthes, R. (1977). Image music text. Great Britain, London: Fontana/Collins. Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In: M. Rose (Ed.), When a writer can’t write: Studies in writer’s block and other composing-process problems (pp. 134–165). New York: The Guilford Press. Bourdieu, P. (1983/1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Canagarajah, S. (1997). Safe houses in the contact zone: Coping strategies of AfricanAmerican students in the academy. College Composition and Communication, 48, 173–196. Canagarajah, S. (2002). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Carroll, J., & Ryan, J. (Eds). (2005). Teaching international students: Improving learning for all. London: Routledge. Cazden, C. (1993). Vygotsky, Hymes and Bakhtin: From word to utterance and voice. In: E. A. Forman, N. Minick & C. A. Stone (Eds), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s development (pp. 197–212). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Chandrasoma, R., Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2004). Beyond plagiarism: Transgressive and non-transgressive intertextuality. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 3, 171–193.

176

Celia Thompson

Cole, M., Steiner, V. J., Scribner, S., Souberman, E., & Vygotsky, L. S. (Eds). (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Currie, P. (1998). Staying out of trouble: Apparent plagiarism and academic survival. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7, 1–18. Department of Education, Science, and Training (DEST). (2007). Higher education publications. Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. Available at http://www. dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/profiles/students_2006_first_ half_year_selected_higher_education.htm#topics. Retrieved on 24 April 2008. Fanon, F. (1967). Black skins, white masks. New York: Grove Press. Foucault, M. (1984). In: P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader. London: Penguin. Franklyn-Stokes, A., & Newstead, S. E. (1995). Undergraduate cheating: Who does what and why? Studies in Higher Education, 20, 159–172. Gore, J. (1993). The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth. New York: Routledge. Hayes, N., & Introna, L. (2003). Alienation and plagiarism: Coping with otherness in our assessment practice. Available at http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/publications/viewpdf/ 000239/. Retrieved on 23 April 2008. Hayes, N., & Introna, L. (2005). Cultural values, plagiarism, and fairness: When plagiarism gets in the way of learning. Ethics and Behaviour, 15, 213–231. Howard, R. M. (1992). A plagiarism pentimento. Journal of Teaching Writing, 11, 233–245. Howard, R. M. (1999). The new abolitionism comes to plagiarism. In: L. Buranen & A. Roy (Eds), Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world (pp. 87–95). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hyland, K. (1999). Academic attribution and the construction of disciplinary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20, 341–367. Hyland, K. (2002). Options of identity in academic writing. English Language Teaching Journal, 56, 351–358. Ivanicˇ, R. (1998). Writing and identity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Ivanicˇ, R., & Camps, D. (2001). I am how I sound: Voice as self-representation in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 3–33. Kristeva, J. (1986a). The system and the speaking subject. In: T. Moi (Ed.), The Kristeva reader (pp. 24–33). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Kristeva, J. (1986b). Word, dialogue and novel. In: T. Moi (Ed.), The Kristeva reader (pp. 34–61). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Kristeva, J. (1986c). Revolution in poetic language. In: T. Moi (Ed.), The Kristeva reader (pp. 89–136). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Kristeva, J. (1996). Intertextuality and literary interpretation. Interview with M. Waller. In: R. M. Guberman (Ed.), Julia Kristeva interviews (pp. 188–203). New York: Columbia University Press. Lathrop, A. (2000). Student cheating and plagiarism in the Internet era: A wake-up call. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Moran, A. (1995). Multiplying minorities: The case of community radio. In: J. Craik, J. J. Bailey & A. Moran (Eds), Public voices, private interests: Australia’s media policy. St Leonard’s, New South Wales, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic secondlanguage writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 317–345.

Undergraduate ESL/EFL Students’ Academic Writing

177

Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 201–230. Penrose, A., & Geisler, C. (1994). Reading and writing without authority. College Composition and Communication, 45, 505–520. Phan Le Ha, & Viete, R. (2002). The growth of voice: Negotiating representations of self in research writing. Paper presented at the Knowledge and Discourse 2 Conference, University of Hong Kong. Robillard, A. E. (2008). Situating plagiarism as a form of authorship. In: R. M. Howard & A. E. Robillard (Eds), Pluralizing plagiarism: Identities, contexts, pedagogies (pp. 27–42). Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann. Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 209–230. Singh, P., & Doherty, C. (2004). Global cultural flows and pedagogic dilemmas: Teaching in the global university contact zone. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 9–42. Starfield, S. (2002). ‘‘I’m a second-language English speaker’’: Negotiating writer identity and authority in Sociology One. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 1, 121–140. Starfield, S. (2004). ‘‘Why does this feel empowering?’’: Thesis writing, concordancing, and the corporatizing university. In: B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 138–157). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Szabo, A., & Underwood, J. (2004). Cybercheating: Is information and communication technology fuelling academic dishonesty? Active Learning in Higher Education, 15, 180–199. Thompson, C. (2005). ‘Authority is everything’: A study of the politics of textual ownership and knowledge in the formation of student writer identities. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 1(1), 12pp. Available at http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/journals/index. php/IJEI. Retrieved on 24 April 2008. Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2008). Intertextuality in the transcultural contact zone. In: R. M. Howard & A. E. Robillard (Eds), Pluralizing plagiarism: Identities, contexts, pedagogies (pp. 124–139). Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann. Wilson, K. (1997, July). Plagiarism in the interdiscourse of international students. Paper presented at the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia Conference, Adelaide, South Australia.

Chapter 10

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations: Differentiating Realities from Fantasies Jayakaran Mukundan

Introduction It is difficult to deny the fact that clever marketing of new approaches and the influence of the keyword strategy to influence practitioners has been common practice in English Language Testing (ELT). Generally when one looks at keywords in the decades that followed the revolution in the teaching of writing in the late 1960s, the one single word that will keep recurring more often than others would be the word process. The impact of the word process was so powerful that it soon became the buzzword in writing circles. Ironically, the other word which was also created to show the opposite of process was product. The process–product wars that started immediately after the Process Approach to writing instruction was established soon led researchers into sectarian thinking, attaching positive words and values to the Process Approach while doing the exact opposite for the Product Approach. The propaganda-inspired approach in marketing the Process Approach soon led to teachers being entrapped in what is commonly referred to in communication theory as the bandwagon theory. Most people just got onto the bandwagon never even bothering to figure out where they were all headed to! The keyword process soon spawned other words which collocated with it like recursive, dynamic and responsive. The keyword product also spawned other words like linear, static and authoritative. The choice of positive words used by process advocates to support process and the use of negative words to condemn product soon led teachers into viewing these two approaches as direct contrasts to each other

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 179–193 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022013

180

Jayakaran Mukundan

with no space at all for common ground. This led in most cases to a complete cleanup of product and the total use of process pedagogy in many schools. The reasons for the need for a switch which swayed most teachers were cleverly orchestrated and some of them are listed in Table 10.1. It is amusing sometimes when reflecting on this, and discovering that new things seem to come with marketing and promotion departments which work tirelessly in promoting the new product and ridiculing whatever else exists or is in the process of aging. The teacher and the decision-maker in ELT, in most cases, are also consumers. In the case of Malaysia, they hopped onto the process bandwagon as a result of effective selling. Little did they realize that the change was unnecessary and premature because of the inadequate resources available for teaching through process. Another reason as to why change in this case was counterproductive was that this change itself uprooted some basic foundations that have been a part of the Malaysian learning–teaching environment. Some of the older methods that teachers were already using were, in fact, more effective. The product-based approach was one effective way of teaching that suited English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning communities. This was because it was closest to the preferred learning styles of these learners. Malaysian learners have always considered learning through models as an effective way of acquiring writing skills. This is especially true in the case of students from Chinese and Arabic schools who have been exposed to the culture of rote learning and copying and believe that models are effective scaffolding for a skill like writing which they consider to be very difficult. I would like to acknowledge here my full awareness of the negative connotations associated with these stereotypes about Chinese and Arabic students. From the perspective of research findings in the area of the affective domain, we are also aware that writing can sometimes turn even learners who are proficient in English into blockers. When writing stalls, we are aware from research that it is often due to a high level of stress and anxiety. Many learners would view learning from models and sometimes paraphrasing parts of models as ways in which their time is put to good use. Gain, even from copying, is time put to good use Table 10.1: The reasons of the need for Process Approach. Process Approach No timed writing, no pressure Recursive process Writing: teachable Community-oriented Peer involvement Teacher involvement (conferencing)

Pre-Process Approach Timed writing, lots of anxiety Linear Editing done by teacher: considered teaching — a primitive view of teaching One-way dictatorship, teacher is in charge Individual suffering Teacher judgment, reward/punishment

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

181

and this eventually would have registered some language skill within the learner. Staring at blank pieces of paper faced with an inability to produce written language contributes mainly to psychological problems and frustration. In Malaysia, there are found many people with good writing proficiency but poor communication skills. This shows that learning through models has helped writing skills and the area that actually needs change must be oral communication. We cannot assume that models of learning from other cultures suit our own, just as we know that the Chinese prefer eating with chopsticks, although a fork and spoon do a similar job. The concept of liberating the writer which probably started with the Expressive School of writing with the likes of Peter Elbow advocating Writing Without Teachers (1973) and Donald Murray (1982) stressing the importance of responsive as opposed to authoritarian teaching would be in a way too early for total acceptance from communities, which for a long time have been dependent on teachers and books. Freedom to communities that are not totally ready for it is as useless as attempting to preach the values of democracy in countries totally convinced that peace comes from rigid laws, which benefit the masses, although curbing an excessive desire for freedom for a small number of liberals. In the case of the introduction of the Process Approach to Malaysian schools, the change was too drastic on the psyche of the learners as they have been taught to be dependent on the teacher. They, in fact, want and expect the teacher to direct their learning. The excessive learner-driven freedom and empowerment within the Process Approach made learners look like birds which had been bred in captivity and suddenly given freedom. They probably would not have a clue about how to look for food nor have the slightest clue as to the concept of predator–prey in the food cycle! Elsewhere in the teaching of writing, change was tremendous, almost to the extent that in less than two decades there were four shifts in focus in composition writing. These changes took place mostly at tertiary levels where academics, most of them trained in the United States and the United Kingdom, followed the developments in these countries very closely. As most of those trained overseas held administrative positions, they also had control over curricula. As a result of this situation, writing curricula in some Malaysian universities were in a state of constant change. There were four pronounced shifts in the teaching of writing over less than two decades: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

The The The The

focus focus focus focus

on on on on

form; the writer; content; the reader.

The focus on form era was in the years that the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM) was fashionable. It was understandable to have learners use their time at writing to reinforce the structures that they had learnt as the emphasis placed in the ALM was to get learners to attain mastery in the use of structures in the language. Most people opposed to the ALM viewed it as an approach which restricted the learner from looking at writing as expression. They felt that learners were only involved in manipulating parts of structure (fill-ins, substitutions, matching exercises,

182

Jayakaran Mukundan

completions, transformations, etc.) and worked on routines like sentence-combining practice to form syntactically mature sentences. They were never given the space to write to express themselves. A complete transformation to the writing scenario took place when the mid-1970s saw the rise of learner-friendly teachers, who believed that they had to save ESL/EFL learners from the clutches of the authoritarian teachers of the form era. Accuracy, imitation and patterns were then replaced with new buzzwords of the process bandwagon, which included invention, multiple drafts, revision, conferences and, of course, process. There was total focus on the writer like there is a concern for endangered species in conservation programmes. Then starting in 1986, debate raged on, especially in the United States, on the relevance of the focus on the writer. Many considered this excessive focus on the writer as ‘almost total obsession’ (Horowitz, 1986, p. 788). The most vocal of those opposing the focus on writers were teachers who taught in tertiary level writing classes who were convinced that focus on content was more relevant at the tertiary level as the writers could not be given excessive freedom in making personal meaning and their focus should be directed to content so that they could fulfil the demands of the academy. English was effectively connected to content courses, and teachers in other disciplines joined English language teachers in team teaching efforts. Alongside the focus on content was the focus on the reader movement which sought to socialize the writers into new academic communities as quickly as they possibly could. In university writing classes, buzzwords like academic demands and academic discourse community overshadowed terms associated with freedom and writer-focus. It would seem, just on reflection of the developments during the period 1966 to 1986 (two decades), that ELT seemed to be made up of communal set-ups that resembled sects which propagated their ideology. When the focus changed from a focus on form to a focus on the writer, then to content and the reader, no compromise was reached. People who advocated change seemed to want complete change, not even sparing some thought to keeping useful aspects of whatever worked in the approach that was to be removed. In Malaysia, developers of writing curricula, while adopting changes that were taking place in the United States and the United Kingdom, overlooked the fact that there were large numbers of students who would need to move slowly from a focus on form approach to that of focus on the writer, then to focus on content and the reader. In fact, in the ESL and EFL situations, these approaches, which are differentiated in terms of focus, would be considered parts of a whole. Every ESL and EFL learner will have to experience these different approaches throughout their exposure in writing. The fields of ESL and EFL are basically like peat swamps. When the weather gets hot, they burn and destroy the vegetation almost completely if unchecked. The discussion above shows how much change can happen within a period of less than 20 years. These changes should be viewed positively as change is necessary if methods and approaches in ELT are to be effective. What is necessary, however, is for change to be properly managed. Changes in ELT should not be like sectarian violence or ethnic cleansing. It should not be the case of one thing totally replacing another. Neither should it be the case that the voice of an academician or

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

183

researcher can be so influential to the extent that practitioners buy the idea before it is even tested. I was amused on reading one of Peter Elbow’s (2004) newest contributions to his crusade in writing. ‘Writing First!’ is the title of that article, and that first exclamation sums up what the entire article is about, which is telling the audience that one must put writing before reading, not vice versa. He has an almost religious plea for teachers to set themselves straight using the horse-and-cart analogy to drive home his point: When we stop privileging reading over writing and put the real horse — writing — in front, we stop privileging passivity over activity. I grant the usefulness of the currently fashionable formulations: that reading is ‘really writing’ (actively creating meaning), and writing is ‘really reading’ (passively finding what culture and history have inscribed in our heads). These formulations carry genuine and useful truth, but in the end, writing promotes more psychological and physical engagement than reading. (Elbow, 2004, p. 10) This is a clear example of how the pendulum swings of fashion can confuse the grassroots of the teaching profession. It was only in the 1980s that people still believed that this was a straightforward thing: writing and speaking were active skills and reading and listening were passive skills. Then the late 1980s saw the reading people turn reading into an active skill. It will not be long before an over-reaction by the reading lobby takes place as a result of this Elbow statement, and not long before everyone in the profession, from policymakers to teachers, decide on the next course of action which may lead to more change. ELT in the developing world will then probably inherit yet another direction change in writing instruction. In this chapter, developed countries would be referred to as those that are economically well-off and technologically advanced with high per capita incomes. The SL (Second Language) situation is one where English is given a privileged position. It is the second most important language after the first language. The FL (Foreign Language) situation is one where English is treated like all other foreign languages. In Malaysia, English is a second language as opposed to China where it is a foreign language. In this chapter, the focus is on SL situations, although the writer believes that the discussion applies to FL situations as well. The history of the influences of the developed world on writing situations in SL and FL contexts is an interesting although quite a recent one. The English language made its way to the developing world through colonization. While these countries were under colonial rule or immediately after gaining independence, most of them usually adopted the language of the colonial powers as the official language, which meant that the medium of instruction in mainstream schools funded by the government was still the language of the colonizers. In the case of Malaysia, the medium of instruction in government English schools prior to independence (British Malaya) was English. English remained as the medium of instruction in

184

Jayakaran Mukundan

secondary English schools a few years after independence. The May 13th race riots of 1969 and the social reengineering forces at work soon brought about changes. The education sector was affected and went through major changes. English-medium schools were slowly phased out and Bahasa Melayu became the medium of instruction in schools, although vernacular schools (usually Tamil or Chinese) were allowed to exist. The teaching of writing did not see many changes from the time English was the medium of instruction prior to and after independence right through the time it became the second language. Teachers believed that people who wrote well were usually those who spoke well. Some teachers, especially the pessimists, believed that writing could not be taught, that it required individual effort and ingenuity, while the more accommodating amongst teachers who believed in teacher dominance believed that editing while evaluating writing would be considered teaching. The ignorance of teachers about writing and the teaching of it is largely due to developments in the developed countries where English was the first language. Many people in these countries also believed that writing could not be taught. Developing countries seemed to have inherited almost everything from their developed counterparts — from the initial ignorance about writing instruction, to hasty and often unsuitable directions. This phenomenon is partly due to what is commonly known in the field of communication as the bandwagon theory, a theory that associates people with peculiar behaviour, in this situation the blind pursuit of a trend. In this chapter, I will highlight instances where developing countries have jumped on the bandwagon and discuss the implications of this for the teaching of writing, in particular on learners and teachers. Next, I will discuss the influences of the developed world which have affected the teaching of writing in the developing world. Whatever influences have been accepted by the developing world in the field of teaching of writing will be considered inheritances.

The Inheritance of Ignorance Yes, ignorance too can be inherited. The ignorance of teachers with regard to the teaching of writing even in the developed world has been acknowledged. Cherry Campbell in ‘Reflecting on your own experience studying writing’, (Campbell, 1998, p. 1) states that it was only in graduate school that she was actually taught how to write. She reflects on her experiences in writing classes and recollects sterile environments where she was neither taught nor given directions. The only advice that teachers were capable of giving writers in despair was summed up in a frequently used utterance which has turned out to be a slogan — ‘Outline’: I wish I would be telling the truth if I said that nobody ever said writing would be easy. But I can hear Ms. Novak as clear as day: ‘All you have to do is follow your outline. It’s easy’. I even remember hearing her chipper voice in my dreams later while I was struggling

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

185

with my dissertation: ‘Just write one paragraph for each roman numeral from your outline. That’s all you have to do’. (op. cit.) Cherry Campbell’s account of her writing class experiences in school eventually made her believe that there was ‘a conspiracy in the teachers’ room’ as all of them had been ‘saying the same thing over and over’ (op. cit.). On the personal side, she was made to believe that there was something wrong with her and that she could not write: Okay, I’ve got this outline, but how do I get one little phrase to turn into a whole paragraph. Once I force a paragraph out, the next point in my outline no longer seems to be the next logical step. So if I just give in and write my essay and then rewrite my outline afterward, will the teacher notice? (op. cit.) Teachers who were ignorant of ways to teach writing prescribed to students the technique of outlining which they felt would provide writers a basic framework for their compositions. Writers who are non-outliners would consider this an inhibition or obstacle to their thoughts. Due to the rigid nature of writing practice advocated by the teachers (especially in the 1960s) when Campbell was in school, students who were non-outliners found strategies to beat the teachers’ desire for working from outlines by writing their essays first and then outlining later — a clear case of putting the cart before the horse! The lack of knowledge or the inability in even attempting to at least start building on knowledge in the teaching of writing is best seen in Catherine Lim’s (1978) short stories, both of which are set in school situations and which involve English language teachers. Catherine Lim’s short stories are set in Singapore. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia, being former colonies of the British Empire, inherited English language curricula which emphasized a structural focus towards the learning of the language. Accuracy was also emphasized as this was demanded of by examiners and the public examination system. In Catherine Lim’s stories, the writing teachers are so ignorant about teaching composition that they have used the writing class as an additional avenue for the development of language competencies. In the short story, ‘The Teacher’, the writing teacher is exasperated and unable to contain his emotions as he mourns about his lack of success in the writing classroom: The teacher said slowly and meditatively, ‘I wonder why most of them write like that? Day in, day out, we teach grammar and usage. For my part, I’ve taught them the use of Tenses till I’m blue in the face, but they still come up with all kinds of Tense mistakes! I’ve drummed into them that when narrating a story or incident, they have to use the Past Tense, but I still get hideous mistakes such as the ones you have heard now’. (Lim, 1978, pp. 13–14) The teacher as in the story above, like so many teachers in SL/FL situations, has been burdened with the inheritance of the language and ways of teaching the

186

Jayakaran Mukundan

language from the developed world. The education systems in these developing countries have imposed first language demands on SL/FL situations. The first language education system (especially that which is inherited from the United Kingdom) placed much emphasis on summative evaluation through the public examination system with high-profile examinations like the General Certificate of Education (GCE) or the O level. The writing components of these examinations emphasized a high degree of competency in essay writing. An obvious mismatch is clearly evident as learners in SL/FL situations are severely underprepared for such writing demands. Catherine Lim mocks the teacher and the system when she plays on the irony of the situation. In the story, the student who is highly criticized by the teacher for her grammatical mistakes commits suicide. The teacher and the system, however, are made to look like losers at the end of the story. In the final essay, the student, Tan Geok Peng, effectively manipulated the teacher-prescribed title, ‘The Stranger’, to write about her abusive father. The teacher, who is absolutely concerned with language, is not able to see the ingenuity of the learner in showing a high degree of metaphorical thinking capability: Listen to this! She was supposed to write a story with the title ‘The Stranger’ and all she did was write a great deal of trash about her father y This composition is not only grossly ungrammatical but out of point. (Lim, 1978, p. 15) At the end of this story, the writing teacher is upset to learn of the student’s death but is absolutely unaware of her ignorance: ‘Poor girl. What? She actually jumped down from the eleventh floor? Such a shy, timid girl. If only she had told me of her problems’ (Lim, 1978, p. 15). The Catherine Lim’s short stories are in a compilation that is aptly titled, Little Ironies — Stories of Singapore. The irony of the SL/FL writing class as in the above story is that because of the focus on grammatical accuracy, content and meaning are ignored by most teachers. Catherine Lim’s other short story, which also is set on English classrooms, is entitled ‘Adeline Ng Ai Choo’ (1978). In this story, the protagonist Adeline Ng Ai Choo takes her own life after she fails to get her teacher to give her one extra mark so as to enable her to pass her English paper. The tragedy of the situation is that while the protagonist took her life after she had failed the English examination (a major feature of the examination being essay writing), the diary entries which she constantly wrote and which annoyed her father immensely were so well crafted. One would imply from the story that a child succeeds in writing outside classrooms and outside the domineering influences of a rigid home environment. This in many ways provides justification for the loud voices that were beginning slowly to influence teachers into abandoning authoritative methods of teaching writing in favour of ones which were humanistic and responsive in nature (Murray, 1982). The ways in which the advocates of humanistic approaches went about trying to influence teachers were quite radical and many in authority thought that it was quite close to the

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

187

subscription of anarchy in classrooms. One important crusader in this new sect commonly referred to as the Expressive School was Peter Elbow and his important work, Writing Without Teachers (1973), was the start to humanistic approaches which urged teachers to throw accuracy out of classrooms and encourage fluency through means which they called unfocused exploration. This was considered a reckless and misguided enterprise by more conservative and resistant teachers.

The Inheritance of Anarchy in Writing Classes The concept of absolute freedom and rights is quite an unfamiliar one from the perspective of the culture, sociology and politics of many developing countries. This is, of course, an important point to consider when planning the development of education programmes in these countries. The total adoption of concepts which are essentially developed world may not be appropriate, very much like the situation of a caged bird set free after a long period in captivity. The bird that is protected and fed on time will most probably die as a result of its inability to survive in the uncertainties that are in its newly found freedom. Concepts such as total independence, total freedom, assertiveness and selfinitiated directions towards goals are alien in cultures like those in developing countries in Asia, where the young are taught to be obedient and show respect for teachers. These learners are brought up trusting the teacher and the book in the classroom as these are integral parts of their culture. They have also become acquainted with methods of learning which emphasize assimilation of content and concepts such as experiential learning are alien. It would not be wrong to say that developed world writing movements sponsored anarchy in developing world classrooms through the very influential Expressive School of thought. Peter Elbow began to urge teachers to abandon control in classrooms and to turn them into liberators of writers. Freewriting was introduced and teachers who had for such a long time prescribed topics, forced writers to do timed writing, and evaluated the writing products of their students in a summative manner were coerced into abandoning these methods to make way for the humanistic ones that were introduced. These new methods asked for teachers to stop initiating writing by prescribing topics and encouraged learners to start spontaneous, unfocused explorations of self-initiated writing topics. The role of the teacher changed dramatically from conductor of classroom proceedings to facilitator. The implications of these humanistic approaches were far-reaching. Learners who were forced into freedom were uncomfortable in classrooms where accuracy was compromised and reckless fluency was encouraged. This enraged parents who believed that all errors needed to be corrected and it was the duty of the teacher to do so. Most learners, especially those from vernacular and religious school backgrounds, believed that such ways of writing as freewriting were not serious enough to be considered learning. These learners only believed that learning should be initiated by the teacher and through the book. Writing, they believed, can be learnt via rules,

188

Jayakaran Mukundan

frameworks and models. In fact, they believed that conditioning procedures which include memorization are important aspects of learning how to write.

Developing World ELT Hops on the Developed World Process Bandwagon: Yet Another Quick Inheritance The changes in the teaching of writing which started in the late 1960s and resulted in what was widely acknowledged as a revolution in the teaching of writing (Hairston, 1982) provided some idea as to the extent of radical change that took place, which made writing seriously teachable. In fact, the changes that took place probably made writing teachers the most over-worked among language teachers in schools. The characteristics of change itself were overwhelming and Hairston (1982) summarized it by condensing the major aspects of change into what she terms ‘12 features of the Revolution’. Reid (1993, p. 2) further summarized the 12 features into 5 major changes: 1. an overall focus on the process rather than on the product of writing; 2. concentration by classroom teachers on composing processes rather than on literary discussion; 3. focus on the writer, and on the relationship between reader and writer; 4. interest in research on writing processes and classroom teaching and 5. commitment to the idea that teaching effective, successful writing is possible. It soon became apparent that the new developments were radical and revolutionary and that the characteristics of the old ways contrasted totally with that of the new. The term process soon became associated with concepts such as teacher as facilitator and responsive teaching while product became associated with negative terms like prescriptive and authoritative teaching. When the Process Approach started around the year 1976, it won over the most resistant of teachers because of the friendly face of the approach itself — it was absolutely student-centred, allowing learners to treat every session as part of a cumulative effort, with writing moving from draft to draft with peer revisions and conferences with the teacher in intermissions. Writing became a process with the writer cuddled comfortably within the process, thus removing the anxiety and apprehension that came with timed, product-based writing, which resembled summative testing. An additional feature of the Process Approach which brought back confidence to writers was the de-emphasis on accuracy and the embrace of fluency, which naturally came about when content was emphasized over form. But what is viewed as freedom in expression from a developed world perspective was seen as a conspiracy by teachers to deprive learners in the developing world of the chance to learn from the two main sources of knowledge that these learners had known, the teacher and the book, aspects of a tradition passed down for centuries.

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

189

In the writing classroom, the developing world learner (especially from North Asia, South Asia and the Far East, who has been nurtured in a teacher–book support system) will be psychologically paralyzed. The action of taking away the book and the teacher from a learning system which has these two factors in dominance would be quite like taking away the crutches of a person who is dependent on them. To many learners like those in China and India, the teacher and the book are key elements of learning. In India, the teacher is almost revered and referred to as guru and his position is immediately after the mother and the father of the child. In China, the teacher is sifu or master and total obedience and attention is required of learners if they are to achieve any success from their learning experiences. The work of Joy Reid (1987) in the area of learning styles has shown how important it is for teachers not to ignore the potential of cultural differences as an important factor in the learning–teaching situation. The work of Joy Reid and several other researchers in the field have drawn us closer into accepting several new contributions to our knowledge concerning what leads to successful learning and teaching. These contributions help teachers know more about the human condition in the learning–teaching environment. Generalizations on culture are possible with some cultures considered high-contact cultures and others labelled low-contact cultures. It is then quite easy to see differences in learning attitudes in mixed-culture classrooms which sometimes bring about conflict. A teacher with knowledge of learner style preferences and learner cultures can plan ahead for mixedculture classrooms that he or she has to engage with. Group work configurations will have to be given careful thought; otherwise high-contact culture students will dominate in a group while their low-contact counterparts accept directions from the former. Also, the mainland Chinese, who are collectivist from the perspective of learning culture, seem to agree to everything so as to maintain group harmony. This has serious implications for process-based writing instruction. An important requirement of the Process Approach is that pre-writing precedes the actual writing task. Pre-writing, which was given very little focus in product-based approaches, requires that learners adopt a new psychological stance in relationships. Learners are required to work with others either in pairs or in groups. The most common of pre-writing activity, brainstorming, required participation of writers in group discussion and debate. If learners from low contact and collectivist cultures are not provided proper orientations to prepare them for activities which require group effort, there is every possibility that they might merely become ‘passengers’ in group work activity. Another possibility is that they will be intimidated by learners from high-contact cultures who prefer to dominate in discussion. Learning cultures can also be differentiated because of cultural orientations. Learners from South Asia and the Far East originate from cultures which have placed great emphasis on rigorous testing. Tests within these education systems demanded of students the ability to write prescribed texts. As a result of the emphasis placed on accuracy in citations, most learners were conditioned into ways of learning which were advocated by the behaviourists. Rote learning and memorization were ways in which learners tried to remember texts which they would have to cite in examinations. A negative aspect of this cultural orientation is that writers sometimes are not aware of their tendencies to plagiarize.

190

Jayakaran Mukundan

The implementation of the Process Approach in developing countries was also in some ways hampered because of the lack of a strong reading tradition in these countries. Learners from developing countries (most of whom are Asian) have not had exposure to reading as their counterparts from the developed world had. The English, American and European investment in the reading tradition is deep-rooted and flourishing. Reading in these countries is emphasized while children are still young. Stories are read to them at bedtime, and when children are ready to read the parents invest in books which become part of recreational activities for these children. This is sadly missing within the Asian context, where the oral tradition is stronger than the reading tradition and parents invest less in book-based recreation for children. This again has implications for the writing classroom. Reading, which is an important pre-writing activity in the Process Approach, is not a natural build-up to writing as it has to be (in most cases) prescribed to students as part of pre-writing. The Process Approach in developing countries cannot be modelled along the developed world model as a rich reading culture must be developed amongst learners in developing countries first before it can be successfully established. The bottom line is that the Process Approach has placed much emphasis on content and meaning. Content and meaning are generated and powered by reading.

Confusion at Tertiary-Level Writing: Yet Another Poor Inheritance from the Developed World The influences of the developed world were so strong that even in tertiary-level institutions, where intellect was supposed to reign supreme over ignorance, there was confusion and lack of direction. Teachers in ELT programmes at tertiary-level institutions began adopting developed world ideas when drafting curricula. What became apparent was that real problems, usually to do with looking for approaches to fast track the improvement in the language proficiency of undergraduates, became less of a priority once sophisticated developed world ideas started making an impact on ESL/EFL teachers. One of those ideas which made such a deep impact on tertiary-level ELT that the negative effects still linger is that of the influence of sociolinguistic ideas in the field of writing. The extensive work of sociolinguists and the emergence of ideas like ‘Inventing the University’ by David Bartholomae (1985) soon led to tertiary-level institutions placing more emphasis on the socialization process of writers into their discourse communities. As Bartholomae pointed out in his work, students in universities have to be aware of the conventions of writing in different academic communities: ‘Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion — invent the university, that is, or a branch of it, like history or anthropology or Economics or English’ (1985, p. 34). Bartholomae’s work was further supported by that of Mina Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations (1977), where she pointed out that freshmen writers (she analysed the errors of 4000 student essays) were, in fact, severely underprepared for tasks in academic environments, and as a result they were not weak or intellectually deficient,

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

191

they were simply grappling with the demands of sociolinguistic factors that come with discourse communities. While the adoption of the discourse community concerns of developed countries can be justified as the concerns are relevant from the perspective of SL and FL situations, what would be counterproductive in the situation is if the priorities in implementation are misplaced. The majority of students enrolled in universities in Malaysia, for instance, have poor proficiency levels in English as they come from rural areas. The concern of the universities should be to get these students to upgrade their proficiency levels to at least an intermediate level, from the evaluation perspective of recognized placement tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Instead, the reckless rush into socialization concerns has led universities to shorten the time taken to help students become effective communicators of the language and instead rush them into Academic English programmes. The irony of the so-called socialization process into discourse communities was that it never was learner-friendly. Instead of a slow immersion into the language of the community, learners were given the deep-end treatment (a term that comes from swimming instruction) and exposed instantly to the language of academic discourse. Learners in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes are usually asked to do two courses: Academic Reading and Academic Writing. The reason for this reading–writing focus is obvious as most of the encounters with the academic communities in which learners are involved require communication using mainly the two skills of reading and writing. Reading is given priority even in the writing course as content has been given focus in EAP writing courses as practitioners believe reading is a pre-requisite in any pre-writing session in a writing course. The obstacle in the reading–writing collaboration in writing classes comes in the reading component — the language of academic discourse is not the friendliest language on the planet! This is understandable as people in academia, although following the conventions of the discourse, write differently, especially if they have developed unique personal writing styles which sometimes come from a high degree of thinking and, of course, a certain degree of eccentricity! As such, learners who have not had sufficient time to develop their general language proficiency capabilities and who are rushed into EAP programmes will find academic writing difficult. But the main tragedy of adopting EAP writing programmes from the developed world is that most developing countries cannot afford to implement these programmes as they are set up in the developed world due to cost considerations. In many universities, there could only be two streams in the EAP programme: one for the Sciences and another for the Arts/Social Sciences. This was not a realistic way to approach socialization of learners into academic discourse communities as there are so many branches of science and as such so many discourse communities. Students doing a Bachelor of Science have various specializations, from agriculture and biology to microbiology, physics, chemistry and zoology. Even disciplines related to Science, like those with a technology bias, are sometimes grouped together for EAP programmes. Likewise the same problem exists with the Arts/Social Sciences component of EAP programmes, where the Arts Faculty, which offers subjects like literature, linguistics,

192

Jayakaran Mukundan

history, geography and religious studies, are aligned with the Law Faculty and the Social Science Faculty, which offer subjects as diverse as political science and international relations and anthropology. The clustering of disciplines into two main groups defeats the purpose of venturing into the socialization processes of learners into their discourse communities as they can be considered misplaced when forced into alien discourse communities. A student of physics, for instance, will not find much relevance in an EAP course which focuses on biology or even agriculture or zoology. Likewise a law student might not be properly socialized into his discourse community if his learning materials have a bias towards anthropology.

Conclusion It is good to learn from those who have had more experiences, and in the case of the teaching of writing in SL or FL situations, there is more research done in developed countries then there is in developing ones. So in fairness, teachers should gain from research done in the developed world. The one major fear in adopting ideas from developed countries, however, is that the situations in which these studies are done are far different from the situations in developing world classrooms. For instance, research on learning styles and its effects on writing behaviour may be conducted on SL or FL learners in developed world classrooms, but these subjects are from wealthy backgrounds or have had good private school educations. They do not represent the majority of learners in developing countries. Another point to consider when deciding on types of writing curricula, methods or approaches is that a thorough feasibility exercise be put in place before anything is adopted and implemented. Factors such as class-size and teacher capability are important factors to consider. When the Process Approach was implemented in the early 1980s in Malaysia, teachers were baffled as to how to make it work as they taught classes which had more than 40 students in each and for which they had to work more than 20 hours per week. As such, while the learners spent time in writing drafts and doing peer reviews, teacher intervention (via conferences) was hardly possible. Finally, people involved in research and the teaching of writing in developed countries must consider the positive aspects of writing orientations of people from developing countries as these may, in fact, help strengthen learners’ writing skills in SL or FL situations. Rote learning, which may be considered taboo and pedagogically inappropriate in some developed countries, may be the strength of those in many developing countries. Perhaps what needs to be done is to investigate which aspects of these traits can help with the writing development of these learners. That would be better than merely passing judgment or condemning them.

References Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In: M. Rose (Ed.), When a writer can’t write: Studies in writer’s block and other composing process problems. New York: Guilford Press.

Developed World Influences on ESL/EFL Writing Situations

193

Campbell, C. (1998). Teaching second-language writing. Pacific Grove, CA: Heinle & Heinle. Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without teachers. New York: Oxford University Press. Elbow, P. (2004). Writing first!. Educational Leadership, 62(2), 8–13. Hairston, M. (1982). The winds of change: Thomas Kuhn and the revolution in the teaching of writing. College Composition and Communication, 33, 76–78. Horowitz, D. M. (1986). The author responds to Liebman-Kleine. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 788–790. Lim, C. (1978). Little ironies — Stories of Singapore. Oxford: Heinemann. Murray, D. (1982). Learning by teaching. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook. Reid, J. (1987). The learning style preferences of ESL students. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 87–111. Reid, J. (1993). Teaching ESL writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Shaughnessy, M. P. (1977). Errors and expectations: A guide for the teacher of basic writing. New York: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 11

Walking the Tightrope: An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes$ Matthew Piscioneri

Introduction This discussion mainly reflects on two of the main themes of this volume: (1) practical responses to the challenges faced by students who are non-native English communicants in an English language-based tertiary instruction context and (2) the critical discourse of English for academic purposes (EAP) and English as the international academic language (EIAL). A more submerged element of this chapter is a sideways reflection on the substantive, idealized and perhaps even optimal ethics of the new ‘international’ academy. In the course of this reflection, and perhaps from a slightly atypical perspective, the chapter also touches on three persistent and sometimes contentious issues in contemporary higher education (HE): massification, commercialization and internationalization. To develop these reflections, the question posed in this chapter is whether it is possible to design and implement an EAP programme that successfully balances on the ‘political’ tightrope between the pragmatic, the critical and the critical pragmatic perspectives in the discourse of EAP. The model I have developed as part of my work as a language and learning support mentor at Monash University, Australia (A history of ideas: A culture of inquiry) is an applied or practical response to this question. From the outset, I do not pretend an ambition to definitively resolve the

$

Based on the paper ‘A history of ideas: A culture of inquiry – a content-based approach to teaching EAP’ originally presented at the 10th Annual International Conference of the Foreign Language Education Research Institute at Seoul National University, Korea.

Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures Studies in Writing, Volume 22, 195–212 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1572-6304/doi: 10.1108/S1572-6304(2011)0000022014

196

Matthew Piscioneri

issues encountered. If anything, the following discussion has more of an ambition to increasingly problematize the already difficult issues faced currently by teachers as well as those who theorize about teaching in HE, especially in relation to the challenges faced by students who are non-native English communicants in an English language instruction tertiary education context. A number of examples to illustrate the model’s content-based methodology are presented prior to a survey of the model’s theoretical and pedagogical rationales. This inevitably leads to a more philosophical investigation of the complex of issues that surround what appears at first to be a mainly practical challenge. Consequently, a number of tensions in the critical discourse of EAP and EIAL are identified and explored. However, initially, a brief background to the development of the EAP model is set out.

Background ‘Dr Piscioneri, What is feminism?’ This was the question posed to me by a student that perhaps more than anything stimulated my interest in developing an EAP programme that might better, as in more effectively, address the language and the learning challenges many of my students face in their undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the Faculty of Arts. At the outset of this discussion, it should be emphasized that initially my motivation and thinking about how to assist my students did not broach the complex of normative and ideological issues that became increasingly apparent as I mused over the rationale for the model and the framing of its content and delivery. The latter part of this chapter deals with these issues in more detail. Initially, my guiding concerns were wholly pragmatic: How might an EAP programme best meet the needs suggested by the ‘gap’ (unfortunate terminology) in this student’s (and many others’) contextual, background understanding of the major intellectual trends, themes and methodologies with which she/they were expected to display a familiarity, a competency in order to successfully navigate a programme of study in the Arts in a Western academic context? ‘Successful’, here, I suggest, encompasses both quantitative and qualitative indicators — good results and good learning. Just as important to the inception of the EAP model was recognition that many of the challenges faced by the students I work with are not simply a lack of technical skills in basic areas of English expression (e.g. inaccurate grammar or confused syntax), academic or otherwise or a skill deficit (e.g. diction and modality) in achieving an ‘appropriate’ register in the genre of academic writing. In very prosaic terms, what my students required was a more comprehensive understanding of what it was they were meant to be talking about in their studies. How they talked about ‘it’ was not necessarily the main challenge. The ‘it’ was a very big part of the challenge. So, to return to the question: How to survive in a Western academic context studying the Arts, and not know what feminism is? To not know what happened in 1968, why it happened, and what were the social, cultural and political consequences of the counterculture and protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s, especially in

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

197

relation to study in the Arts? Some sort of social, cultural and historical mapping might actually assist students to better apply, for example, the Socratic method in their critical analyses of texts, topics and issues. Imagine students trying to study successfully in any cultural/academic context without any or very little contextual understanding of the social, cultural and political background to his or her study? It is not impossible, but certainly more difficult. In light of these reasons, the EAP model, A history of ideas: A culture of inquiry, is very much a pragmatic programme. In the context of the author’s work, mentoring mainly non-English speaking background (NESB) non-local/international students at university, as mentioned above, the challenges I witness students grappling with are not simply micro-level skill issues of grammar and syntax but also contextual issues that emerge from an unfamiliarity with rather than an inability to know background awareness of their new ‘alien’ cultural/academic discourse community. Effective and successful participation in the Western academic discourse community, as well as everyday or non-scientific discourse communities, at least partly depends on a non-local student developing awareness of the culture of inquiry in which he or she is seeking to participate. The basic premise of the programme is that many macro-level skills (e.g. critical thinking) and micro-level skills (e.g. word choice, sentence construction) are shaped by broader disciplinary features of the social sciences and the humanities. The EAP model anticipates that highlighting the connections between broader disciplinary aspects of the Arts and macro- and micro-level study skills will result in enhanced learning outcomes and deeper student engagement with their studies. At this stage, consideration of the ideological and/or normative aspects of the programme is delayed. It is acknowledged that the very notions of a ‘Western canon’, a ‘Western academic tradition’ and a definable genre of ‘Western academic study skills’ deserve interrogation, and yet it needs also to be acknowledged that even the most far-flung postmodern, critical, sceptical agenda in a study in the Arts tends to draw on (even when in opposition to) certain well-established conventions of scholarship, methodology and register. Certainly in the Arts, there remains a deep-seated expectation that students will exercise critical thinking skills, for example. The genealogy of such an expectation and the skills themselves are based on European Enlightenment scholarship that certainly drew on the renaissance of Classical Greek thinking in the Europe of the early modern period, which certainly has roots in the Classical academy. There is a fairly well-established ‘grand narrative’ of the developmental trajectory of the Western academy. There is also a fairly well-established ‘set of rules’ accompanying this narrative that more or less oversee active participation as learners and teachers in the academy. To jump ahead a little and briefly address the concerns of critical EAP theorists such as Pennycook (1997), to begin to approach a critique of the narrative, one needs to at least have some understanding of the narrative. Again, relative to study in the Arts in a Western academic context, how can you grasp post-Modernity if you don’t have a sense of the European Enlightenment, if you don’t have a sense of Modernity, of the Renaissance, of the Dark Ages, of Rome, or of Athens?

198

Matthew Piscioneri

As the model began to take shape, it became clear that it was important to try and provoke discussion of the narrative’s status as true or unchallengeable or superior, for example. It also became clear that interrogation of the ‘grand narrative’ of the Western academy, of Western civilization no less, might effectively introduce students to key macro-skills as well as provide exposure to very useful background content (e.g. the Counter-Enlightenment). In terms of providing useful general background content to Arts students, mapping the narrative would at the very least, and however superficially, help answer my student’s question: ‘What is feminism?’ Moreover, it would locate feminism within the complex of other radical/critical social, cultural and political movements (human rights, Marxian/socialist critiques, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, countercultural and environmental protests) and more generally within the extensive tradition of what I will term the criticalemancipatory project — themes from which particularly pervade many Arts subjects, and also appear in a number of other disciplines (law, education) as well as in the overall framing of the Western academy’s ethical/normative mission. In terms of content and providing some degree of background understanding, especially for new participants in a culture/community of inquiry, the model’s mapping of the ‘grand narrative’ is clearly relevant, for example, when a student is asked in Communications and Media 1010 to write of the ‘media and critical political economy’. Overall this EAP programme should be understood as an attempt to facilitate the enculturation of new participants into a new culture of inquiry via a process of mapping the history of ideas in a particular culture’s ‘grand narrative’. In agreement with Lave and Wenger (1990), learning at any level is better conceived of as a calibrated, gradual and cumulative process.

Presentation and Delivery Format Although the EAP programme, A history of ideas: A culture of inquiry, is primarily designed to enhance the micro- and macro-level study skills of students in Arts subjects, it could be adapted to apply to a range of discipline areas at university. The programme has been mainly implemented for transition-level students at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and mainly for students of a NESB and ‘international’ students from non-Western educational backgrounds, for example, from expanding-circle countries in Asia and the Middle East (Canagarajah, 1996). The aims of the programme are threefold. Firstly, the programme aims to enhance target students’ understanding of the content of their subject areas in the Arts by mapping the history of the ideas that comprise the ‘grand narrative’ of Western civilization (roughly from Classical Greece to the present). Secondly, the programme aims to develop the macro-skills expected of Arts students — critical thinking, appropriate register, logical structuring of texts, referencing and citation conventions — by exploring the genealogy of these expectations in the Western academic tradition. Thirdly, students’ micro-level skills — word choice, grammar, coherency

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

199

devices, syntax — are developed through exercises based on analysing the texts that have comprised the content of the programme. For example: Content Macro Micro Discussion

Discussion of Socrates’ critical inquiry into Athenian society as represented in Plato’s Dialogues Highlight the dialectical logic of conventional argumentation (+ /  ) Fallacy of the limited alternative The use of transitions of contrast (e.g. however, nevertheless) Critiques of the impact of binary thinking on Western culture

It is anticipated that highlighting the connections between these broader disciplinary aspects of the Arts and macro- and micro-level study skills will result in enhanced learning outcomes and even deeper student engagement with their studies. Successfully achieving this ‘linkage’, especially in self-directed learning contexts, will be difficult. In agreement with Moore and Oppy (2002), the author’s experience in the field of academic learning support, in particular the development of learning support resources and their delivery, strongly suggests that in self-directed learning contexts (both hardcopy and online delivery of learning support materials) the uptake rate of learning support resources is low (local and non-local students, ESB and NESB). Moreover, the effectiveness of self-directed learning in the area of academic skill development, especially for NESB students, is quite disappointing. Overcoming this hurdle has been the primary presentation challenge of the programme. Ideally, the programme is intended to function almost as well in a flexibly delivered course format (technology assisted + hardcopy materials) as it does in a face-to-face format. To assist the effectiveness of the flexible delivery format, a range of techniques has been implemented. It has been found essential to avoid a largely static presentation format of the learning resources (McDonald, 2002; Nagy & McDonald, 2007; Son, 2007). As a result, short video and audio files have been added to the texts in both the online and physical digital (Powerpoint slides on DVD) media formats. As well, online virtual world (e.g. 2nd Life) formats are being investigated to supplement physical digital + hardcopy formats. The opportunities presented by a blended or multi-modal form of resource presentation should go some of the way towards ensuring the conventional static block text format is avoided. Virtual world learning contexts such as 2nd Life creatively ‘imitate’ face-to-face teaching and learning (Monahan, McArdle, & Bertolotto, 2008). In virtual world contexts, students assume the identity of a mobile avatar and can participate in lectures and tutorials or utilize a range of learning objects (information screens, libraries or virtual environments). While the opportunities for synchronous interaction with instructors are limited to real-time meetings in-world, at the very least the emphasis on the mainly static presentation of resources is reduced. In Figure 11.1 a model of a Powerpoint slide from the programme represents how static content + audiovisual content might be integrated. The short video from the Dean of Arts next forms the basis of a macro-skill tutorial on strategies for listening and notetaking in lectures, and the logical

200

Matthew Piscioneri

Figure 11.1: Slide 1, Module 1: Introduction to Study in the Arts.

development of texts. Macro-analysis of the videotext allows for an examination of genre distinctions between written academic texts (essays) and oral academic texts (presentations). On a micro-level skill, techniques for signposting conceptual transitions can be identified in the text and practiced in supplementary tasks. Complementing the active elements in the programme’s format (short videos of expert commentators, in-world participation), it is deemed highly desirable to include interactive tasks in the way a student navigates the learning resources in the programme. These include interactive multiple choice questionnaires (MCQs) that review students’ progress as well as more extensive assessment tasks to be submitted to instructors for evaluation (Nokelainen & Ruohotie, 2004). While the MCQs are designed to test students’ awareness of the content component of the course, the types of tasks illustrated below review students’ acquisition of the macro- and microlevel skill elements of the programme. On the macro level, for example: Elaboration: The influence of the Ancient Greek Rationalists can be identified in, for example:  debates over the use of the personal voice in academic writing ‘I believe y ’  the use of overly emotional language in academic writing  the requirement that claims to truthfulness is supported by evidence that can be tested  ‘knowing’ based on intuition or emotion is devalued.

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

201

Test yourself: As a critical thinker, your role is to examine the beliefs and truth claims of all theories, theorists and value systems, such as those expressed by the Ancient Greek Rationalists. Apply the dialectical method to the claims of the Rationalists: carefully examine the opposite point of view; carefully examine the consequences of the Ancient Greek Rationalists’ method. What have you found? Think about what members of society, for example, were privileged by the Rationalists’ approach? What ways of knowing were devalued? Linked via HTML to a set of possible ‘answers’, the student then checks his or her responses. In this case, the ‘answers’ highlight the patriarchal nature of Classical Greek society and the growing bias against the traditional epistemologies of religious and mystical worldviews, a bias which has had a lasting impact on the formation of the culture of inquiry in Western academic contexts. On the micro-level, skills such as paragraph organization are assessed and word choice analysed and acquired, as below: Teaching theme: Successful introductions According to our macro-skills discussion, an effective way of structuring an introduction is as follows: A. general subject/topic sentence (introduces the general area of discussion) B. specific issue(s) sentence (narrows the field of discussion to one or two specific issues) C. justification sentence (identifies the ‘problem’; why this issue is a matter of debate) D. author’s thesis sentence (states the author’s position or precise argument) E. method (states what method of analysis will be used to develop the discussion) F. programme (outlines the stages of the discussion’s development). Next, identify the type of sentence in the following introduction by listing the relevant letter (A,B,C y ) 1. European Union (EU)-related issues and patterns of behaviour are permeating the new member states’ domestic environments. 2. The literature assessing the domestic impact of the Eastward Enlargement focuses on the institutional capability of the new member states to meet the accession criteria as defined in Copenhagen in 1993. 3. This chapter expands the remit of the debate on Europeanization in the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by assessing the impact of EU membership on interest politics. 4. The analysis undertaken here focuses on Business Interest Associations (BIAs), their behaviour and patterns of interaction with decision makers at the national and transnational levels. 5. Their experience illustrates the effect of EU accession on the new member states’ repertoires for interest intermediation and the relevance of policy transfer paradigms as suitable research frameworks. 6. At the same time, the impact of the communist heritage and the constraints of domestic political cultures reveal patterns of behaviour at the national and supranational level in a path-dependency fashion.

202

Matthew Piscioneri

7. The evidence presented here will show that the Europeanized activities of Central and Eastern European interest groups constitute a peculiar model of interest intermediation, where the exchange and ownership of information take prominence over the actual impact on policy-making. Sample sentences are quoted from: Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Volume 5, Number 2, 2004, pp. 243–272. After checking their answers, students then re-read the sample introduction and find ten useful verbs to add to their word banks, including permeate, assess, define, focus, expands, undertake, illustrates, reveals, shows and constitutes. The important point to glean from this brief set of examples is the way in which the programme seeks to integrate the three levels of the programme (content, macroskills, micro-level skills). It is not possible here to present a comprehensive overview of the programme’s format or delivery mode. Suffice to say that a multi-modal form of delivery in both flexible and mainly face-to-face contexts is considered optimal. In summary, the programme’s presentation and delivery formats are essential to the potential overall success of the course. Shorter modules, fewer blocks of dense text and a variety of active and interactive tasks are shown to facilitate greater learner engagement and hopefully more productive learner outcomes. The following discussion verges away from practical issues of format and delivery to focus on more theoretical issues connected to the programme’s development.

Rationale Very broadly, the conceptual framework of the EAP model draws on Jurgen Habermas’s (1995) theory of communicative rationality. Habermas has argued that the contemporary culture of (social) scientific and critical inquiry in Western societies reflects the communicative rationality that has constituted the modern, Occidental lifeworld. As Maeve Cooke (1997, p. 16) neatly states: ‘Habermas argues that communicative action is the primary mechanism of social integration in modern [Occidental] societies’. In Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action (1995), he strongly argues that this fundamental type of social action has been coordinated by a unique form of reason: communicative reason. In brief, Habermas understands communicative reason as the expectation that social actors can furnish reasons in support of their speech acts, and that consequently social actors in dialogue can take a yes/no position on the validity of the claims to the truthfulness of another’s speech acts. The liberating innovation of communicative reason, according to Habermas, consists in the constitution of a rational procedure that has guided the formation of the modern autonomous institutions of science, the cognitive and moral-legal institutions, as well as an autonomous art criticism (Habermas, 1994). Significantly, Habermas argues that while communicative reason is potentially a species-wide competency or attribute, historically it is sui generis. The emergence of

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

203

communicative rationality is socioculturally and historically specific, indeed mainly limited to European cultures and their derivatives (Habermas, 1992). In other words, the impact of communicative reason has largely been absent from the sociocultural contexts of many non-local entrants into Western universities. Just as problematic is that the Occidental lifeworld (as are all lifeworlds?) remains largely opaque to those inside — This all-penetrating, yet latent and unnoticed presence of the background of communicative action [the lifeworld] can be described as a more intense yet deficient form of knowledge and ability. To begin with, we make use of this knowledge involuntarily, without reflectively knowing that we possess it at all. Habermas (1996, p. 22) — and perhaps impenetrable to those outside. If Habermas’s sociology of the Occidental lifeworld is accurate, then successful participation in a Western academic context partly depends on a non-local student’s growing mastery over the methodologies again generated by communicative rationality that underpin the Western culture of inquiry (e.g. the experimental method, critical thinking). The basic contention of the model’s theoretical framing is that an EAP programme might be more effective if it traces the staging posts in the developmental trajectory of the formation of the modern, Occidental lifeworld (and its de-formation in advanced or Post-Modernity) through a history of ideas. In this way, however superficial and incomplete the enculturation is, some conceptual mapping has occurred that allows students to at least begin to scaffold more specific themes and theories introduced to them in their Arts’ subjects. This relates to content. In terms of developing an effective academic literacy, the programme’s linkage of the various skills that comprise this conventional literacy to the grand historical narrative of the Western academy means the requisite skills are not dealt with in isolation but embedded in a broader disciplinary and cultural context. Put simply, a better sense of how (academic literacy skills) is achieved by explaining the why (genealogy of skills) through mapping the what (history of ideas). From a quite different angle, the pedagogical framing of this EAP model reflects the principles of situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1990; McLellan, 1995) and addresses the recent research of Duff (2007), Morita (2004) and Zamel and Spack (1998). Successful learning according to Lave and Wenger resembles a process of ‘apprenticeship’, that is, a process of learning a ‘craft’ which suggests a gradual, calibrated enrolment and enculturation not simply into the factual-technical aspects of a knowledge domain but also into the culture of inquiry. The EAP programme we have implemented is about enculturating students, mainly from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, with some basic background understanding of the formation of their new academic discourse community. On the basis of this process of conceptual mapping, we believe our programme addresses the needs of our students on a range of different levels, enhancing their understandings of the central historical narrative of the Western academic tradition and translating this understanding into a more comfortable and familiar practice of the macro- and micro-level

204

Matthew Piscioneri

skills essential to effective study in the Arts at university in a Western academic context. The programme is in its initial trial period and we look forward to evaluating our participants’ responses and reporting these in due course. All that is missing from this rosy self-congratulatory tale of innovation and optimism is a little bit of critical self-reflection y

Discussion (i) The basic contention of the EAP programme A history of ideas: A culture of inquiry is that a history of the ideas taken to be central to the development of the Western academy and ‘civilization’ can illuminate the culture of inquiry that shapes the academic literacy which, in my experience, remains a central (even non-negotiable) requisite for ‘successful’ (certainly in terms of grades!) participation in Arts subjects at the university in which I teach. Such participation, especially for non-local/ international students, as I have argued above, can be facilitated by assisting students to grow an awareness of and ideally mastery over the methodologies generated by what Jurgen Habermas (1994, 1995, 1996) has termed communicative rationality. According to Habermas, communicative rationality has constituted the modern, Occidental lifeworld, its historical trajectory and the form of its academic tradition. The culture of inquiry into which non-local students seek access has been largely shaped by this form of rationality. However, the emergence of communicative rationality, according to Habermas, is socioculturally and historically specific. In other words, it has largely been absent from the sociocultural contexts of many non-local entrants into Western universities (see also Ingleton & Cadman, 2002; Ramburuth & McCormick, 2001; Ridley, 2004). To many, I imagine, the programme’s format might appear staid, even old-school, and the rationale for its development all seems a bit ideologically naı¨ ve, ethnocentric and even triumphalist. Not so, I hope. A major qualification to the entire programme being outlined here is a very strong awareness of the risk of retelling a hegemonic ‘grand narrative’ about the superiority of ‘Western civilization’, its history, its achievements and its culture of academic inquiry. The EAP model described here does not have an explicit (or even hopefully an implicit) normative agenda. In other words, it is not about saying that the West is the best. Indeed, and this is a point I will develop in a little detail below, the content of the programme particularly emphasizes the Counter-Enlightenment tradition of critical scepticism. Of equal importance is careful recognition of the temptation of presenting a perspective on the history of ideas that suggests the West is the worst. It is important to avoid either superlative: best or worst. I argue that an approach to any EAP programme which suggests Western civilization and/or its academic traditions are either superior/the best or inferior/the worst is overly normative, overly didactic and risk dogmatism. These points are examined in more detail below. Very productively, the methodology of the programme (a history of ideas) allows participants to reflect on a broad range of important issues: reflexive critique, logics of inquiry, the dialectic of critique, cultural hegemony, the function of integrating

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

205

social/cultural narratives and processes of Othering. For example, by taking Habermas’s theory of communicative rationality as the formative platform for the development of the programme, the Counter-Enlightenment tradition is usefully exposed (e.g. Hegel, theories of the pathologies of Modernity, Horkheimer and Adorno, postmodernism). In other words, the programme’s methodology — the use of the conventional ‘grand narrative’ of Western civilization/history of ideas — itself becomes part of the programme’s focus. The programme’s methodological emphasis on critical reflection on the programme itself ideally will alert participants to the importance of the logic of critical self-reflection in the Western academic culture of inquiry. In this rather special way, I think such a programme keeps faith with some of the most basic norms that permeate the contemporary Western culture of inquiry, especially in Arts subjects: Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism [Kritik], and to criticism everything must submit. Religion through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from it. But then they awaken just suspicion and cannot claim the same respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination. (Kant, 1993, p. 17) I think that the central issue of philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century has always been, still is and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects? What are its limits and what are its dangers? (Foucault,1984, p. 26). The integration of form, content and learning strategy is one of the strengths of the programme. In addition, it is an approach which the author believes successfully positions the programme as an effective compromise between pragmatic EAP and critical EAP approaches in the discourse of EAP while avoiding some of the ‘fuzziness’ in what others have termed a critical pragmatic approach to EAP.

Discussion (ii) Perhaps dramatically, Alastair Pennycook (1997, p. 265) declares that a ‘tension lies at the heart of EAP’. It is a tension which Pennycook describes as follows: On the one hand we need to help our students gain access to those forms of language and culture that matter while on the other we need to help challenge those norms. On the one hand we need to help our students develop critical awarenesses of academic norms and practices, while on the other we need to understand and promote culturally diverse ways of thinking, working and writing. (p. 265) Pennycook is suggesting that any programme of EAP should not posture a sense of political neutrality. Indeed, it cannot be neutral (1997). The pedagogy of any EAP

206

Matthew Piscioneri

course must take a political stance. It must, in idiomatic terms, fight the good fight. He assumes what, in agreement with Harwood and Hadley (2004), I will term the critical EAP approach. In critical EAP: [I]t is crucial to see English classes not as mere adjuncts to the knowledge curricula but rather as important sites of change and resistance. I am therefore urging that EAP gets itself engaged in critical explorations of academic knowledge, that we need to ask whose version of sociology, engineering, medicine and so forth is being taught. EAP needs to become directly involved with the pluralization of knowledge in the present. (Pennycook, 1997, p. 265) In contrast to Pennycook’s critical EAP is the position we can label as pragmatic EAP, although Pennycook labels an extreme form of this approach to EAP as vulgar pragmatism (1997). In general, the pragmatic approach to EAP programmes is much less interested in the politics of a critical pedagogy (Harwood & Hadley, 2004; Pennycook, 1997). Pragmatic EAP is not especially concerned with revealing the politics of EIAL (Canagarajah, 1996), notions of cultural imperialism and hegemony or with identifying and rooting out oppressive masculinist and/or class biases still believed to suffuse the rationale and methodologies of the Western academy (Harwood & Hadley, 2004; Pennycook, 1997). Neither is pragmatic EAP especially concerned with, as Pennycook would have it, the ‘need to help [students in EAP courses] challenge those norms’. Instead pragmatic EAP focuses squarely on what Pennycook nicely accounts for as the ‘need to help our students gain access to those forms of language and culture that matter’ (p. 265). To the EAP pragmatist, the objective of an EAP programme is to equip students with the academic skills they will need firstly to survive and more hopefully to succeed: Johns (1993, p. 274) summarizes what pragmatism entails when she says that the goal of an EAP course is ‘to prepare ESL/EFL and native-speaking students for the literacy demands at the secondary or college/university level’. It is a skills-based, instrumental approach that attempts to make students aware of the dominant conventions in Anglo-American writing, and then successfully appropriate these same conventions. (Harwood & Hadley, 2004, p. 356) As a form of compromise, Harwood and Hadley (2004, pp. 357–366) posit a critical pragmatic approach to teaching EAP. Their critical pragmatic EAP ‘acknowledges that students should be exposed to dominant discourse norms, in line with pragmatic EAP; while on the other hand, like Critical EAP, it stresses that students have choices and should be free to adopt or subvert the dominant practices as they wish’ (2004, p. 357). Yet this sense of choice is a little illusory. In spite of Harwood and Hadley’s agreement with Lillis (1999) that ‘writing successfully for the academy is an

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

207

‘‘institutional practice of mystery’’’ (2004, p. 360), I would like to suggest that certain core academic writing and presentation conventions, as well as citation and referencing expectations, remain largely intact in the Western academy. Perhaps some of the ‘truth’ (?!) (Harwood & Hadley, 2004, p. 366) is indeed that ‘academic writing practices vary from discipline to discipline, from department to department, and even from lecturer to lecturer’ (Harwood & Hadley, 2004, p. 366). However, this does not appear to constitute a licence for ignoring the overlaps and consistencies that do occur between disciplines, departments and lecturers. An effective EAP programme would focus, as far as is practicable, on these shared, overlapping elements and instructively investigate the reasons for the inconsistencies. Yes, perhaps academic ‘neophytes’ (Harwood & Hadley, 2004, p. 360) should ‘be free to adopt or subvert the dominant practices as they wish’. But largely, I would respectfully suggest, this would amount to the freedom to choose between academic success and academic failure. If this is the case, an EAP programme that proffers the notion that subverting ‘dominant’ academic practices is somehow a viable alternative in the contemporary academy risks neglect of at least some of their students’ more immediate interests. Indeed, an overly paternalistic approach could also be held to ‘construct[s] students as passive receivers in an unequal relationship’ (Harwood & Hadley, 2004, p. 365). The issues identified by key authors in the debate over EAP’s normative positioning are difficult to disentangle and difficult to resolve. Critical EAP appears to risk ‘prescriptivism’ (Ellsworth, 1989; Johnston, 1999); a pragmatic approach to EAP risks a hollow and even disingenuous sense of political neutrality. For as Harwood and Hadley emphasize, the notion of a ‘value-free pedagogy’ is difficult if not impossible to sustain (see also Allison, 1996; Pennycook, 1997). Critical EAP worries about dominant discourses, and Pennycook (1997, p. 257) argues ‘a poststructuralist conception of language would suggest that we need to look more critically at the contexts of language use and to view language as social practice’. However, as with most totalizing critiques of the sort Pennycook appears to favour, it is not clear how one can successfully ‘get outside’ of academic language to offer a sustainable academic critique of the power relations embedded in academic language. Moreover, an irony not fully explored in the literature is that, as the quotes from Kant and Foucault noted earlier suggest, the dominant paradigm in the discursive methodology of the Western academy, especially in the Arts, is that of critique. If this is the case, the opportunity in EAP to have one’s cake and eat it too should readily present itself. It is into this petite maelstrom that assessment of the EAP programme I have developed and reported on here somewhat blithely sails.

Discussion (iii) In this final discussion, I examine the problematic and arguably pervasive paradigm in critical discourse of EAP and EIAL that the ‘West is the worst’, an attitude that is as untenable as ‘West is the best’. Both attitudes function via unwelcome superlatives

208

Matthew Piscioneri

that not only act to harden essentialist positions on cultural identities but might also support the implicit sense of exclusion felt by participating students, as well as contributors to the dialogue on internationalizing HE. Critical positions that purvey the ‘West is the worst’ paradigm complement the hegemony of the ‘West is the best’ attitude: All the moral high ground gets occupied by the West, leaving everyone else to languish in moral and cultural mediocrity! A little more seriously, a critical discourse of EAP that, however, subtly promotes the ‘West is the worst’ consciousness not only risks cultural polarities and essentialism but also denies the full range of human sensibilities and capacities to the full range of human identities. Put simply, the slide down the slippery slope of much critical discourse of EAP and EIAL in relation to the ‘evil empire’ of the West and the moral and cultural ‘purity’ of all things non-Western appears to end up in a sort of odious ‘noble savage’ representation. The persistent emphasis much critical discourse of EAP places on the hegemonic imposition of ‘alien’, homogenizing cultural and social value systems tends to ignore the possibility that people in contexts other than the West just might be in a position to exercise cultural and social agency. This can be a shock for some paternalistic ideologues. The emphasis on acquiring a competency in English in a variety of contexts for a variety of people can be sourced to a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons, for example, might relate to English language competency as a status marker of sorts, as one other ‘chip’ in the diverse games of social competition that get played out everywhere. In these circumstances, English functions as perhaps French once did in certain sociocultural contexts — a marker of prestige, of class. The point is that to stress only notions of the external hegemonic imposition of English in outer-circle and expanding-circle countries, for example, may ironically reinforce a sense of submission, powerlessness, victimhood and lack of autonomy in countries and contexts where English is not the first or an official language. The ironies do not end here. The epistemic origins of critique are largely embedded in the social, cultural and in later Modernity the academic/scholarly traditions of the ‘West’. So, to what extent can a critique of a set of social, cultural and political institutions be immunized from the values that underpin these institutions when that critique has and mainly does still emanate from these very same institutions? Put as simply as I know how, the critical discourse of EAP and EIAL may effectively be another conduit for the transmission of the very hegemony of values the critique rails against. To add to the pernicious paradigms that the ‘West is the best/worst’, the West is the most critical, the land of the free, of the liberators, of the reformers. Perhaps Slavoj Zizek’s (1990) insight into the subtleties of the contemporary mechanisms of social domination is worth referencing here. Zizek (1990, cited in Andrejevic, 2004, p. 16) suggests that the totality of a system’s domination can be discerned in its capacity to ‘admit’ to its dominance. In a Western context, one mode of this admission is through the permission given by the ‘system’ to the critical social theory of the type we are engaged with here. In other words, so total and assured is the system of domination that it can tolerate, even support, resistance so as to maintain the facade of freedom, thereby always reassuring its dominance. As Zizek pessimistically concludes, ‘The final deception is [the suggestion that] the social

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

209

appearance is deceitful: in the social-symbolic reality, things ultimately are what they pretend to be’. Hence, ‘our’ high-minded and passionate critique of EIAL, of the canonical conventions of academic writing, for example, of all things Western (!), may be little more than business as usual. This sense of business as usual might also be discerned in another way. Borrowing from Habermas’s (1987) critique of Michel Foucault’s espousal of the epistemological worthiness of ‘irrationalism’, a perceived tension in the critical discourse of EAP and EIAL of the hegemonic aspects of English and the West is what I will risk terming the apparent ‘performative contradiction’ in the circumstances of the practice of such critical endeavours. Habermas’s critique of Foucault on this point was that Foucault’s ‘anti-rationalism’ was mediated (almost hypocritically) via the very modes of rational argumentation that Foucault railed against. In other words, critics of the hegemonic canon of academic English as well as the oppressive institutional framework that supports this hegemonic canon appear to not only abide ‘in practice’ by the conventions of this canon but also ‘in practice’ work comfortably and often successfully within such a framework. Of course, this can be glossed over as a form of ‘subversion from within’ but there is enough debate on this questionable strategy from other contexts of social and political radicalism and reformism to give us pause for thought, I suggest. Is it simply a matter of she/he who pays the piper calls the tune? I don’t think it is this simple. But at the very least, I believe it is important to address the complex of issues that surround the discourse of EAP/ EIAL. What is an over-simplification is to leave the full complex of issues out of the discussion. The final critique of some aspects of the critical discourses of EAP and EIAL I would like to raise here reflects on the underlying moral inspirations and normative aspirations of these discourses and draws together most of what has been offered above. The final question I’d like to pose is: What are the moral premises that ground the inspirations and aspirations of the critique in the discourses of EAP/EIAL? They appear to be the ‘usual suspects’ in the entrenched discourse of a peculiarly ‘Western’ critical philosophy: universalism, egalitarianism, respect for difference, social, cultural, and personal enlightenment, political and economic freedom. Not surprisingly, these are all hallmarks (however flimsy or disingenuous) of the official Western social, cultural and academic belief system. A counterpoint might be that these ‘canonical’ values are transcendent of time, place, culture and society. However, one of the key arguments in the (critical) discourse of EAP/EIAL appears to be precisely the opposite that language and academic methodologies are always/ already value-laden and these values are always/already context-dependent. Not to recognize the possibility that the underlying moral inspirations and normative aspirations of the critical discourse of EAP/EIAL are context-bound, and that this context is strongly arguable, in relatively recent genealogy at least, as emanating from a mainly Western context, then I think the debates are reduced almost to a form of superficial polemics. To sum up this discussion, in arguing for all the things, we argue for in the critical discourse of EAP and EIAL — for example, greater sensitivity to social and cultural differences, recognition of diverse approaches to learning and acceptance of alternative literacies — it might just be we are foisting

210

Matthew Piscioneri

another set of values and beliefs, however righteous we perceive them to be, over others. Hence, it would seem, a dilemma of sorts emerges. My tentative ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of the design and implementation of EAP programmes is straightforward. Let the users, the participating learners, determine what approach to the pedagogy and the ideological framing of the EAP programme they wish to engage with. To achieve this flexibility, these opportunities, it would be necessary to extend the diversity of the various EAP programmes offered to students in their preparatory/foundation courses, programmes or sections of programmes that develop themes that indicate pragmatic, critical and critical pragmatic perspectives. Such a response supports those who continue to call for the establishment of EAP/ academic skills study as a standalone, cross-faculty and fully accredited discipline. A final set of issues emerges from several of the reflections offered above, and deserves robust, open debate, something which is unfortunately not possible here. These issues refer to the ‘new’ international academy of the early twenty-first century, and all I can do in this forum is to suggest several of what I see to be the most important themes in this debate. These themes first refer to institutional/corporate ethical issues. For example, one of the itches I’d like to scratch a little more openly is the apparent disjuncture between the corporate imperatives of the globalized/ internationalized academy and the discordant ‘posture’ of legislating academic standards at institutional levels and the often commensurate response, for different reasons, at the lecturer level. One musing is that the plagiarism hysteria might be usefully understood in a number of ways: (1) institutionally, as a ‘cover up’, a legitimizing foil for, shall we say, corporate malpractice, the abnegation of a proper duty of care in relation to the ethics of pedagogy and perhaps a more literal malpractice in commercial/legal terms; (2) at the lecturer level, as a localized site of resistance to the corporatization of the academy. In addition, it is a relevant time to reappraise conventional assessment pedagogies (e.g. in the Arts, the essay format as the prized vehicle of evaluation) as well as the possibly ‘distorted’ expectations held for newer participants in learning at tertiary level, expectations that may be connected to the corporate/managerialist rationality that has overtaken HE in the last generation or so. These connections, I believe, suggest very productive avenues for ongoing critical exploration. The final thorny and perhaps most taboo issue in discussion of the ‘new’ international academy of the early twenty-first century that I believe requires critical reassessment is the notion of massification. This notion is inextricably linked to long-held social democratic beliefs in equality of access to HE. The somewhat weird but possibly less than wonderful outcomes of the collision between the social democratic values of equal access to HE, leading to the massification of the university cohort, and the corporatist rationality that has dominated the shaping of the ‘new’ international academy of the early twenty-first century, also deserve ongoing analysis. We have, I believe, sacrificed quality for quantity. Perhaps anachronistically (but I don’t think so), the university’s unique social and cultural mission, the values of HE and the provision of specialized research capacities must be maintained, protected and hopefully enhanced. If inadequate or ‘soft’ standards of entry criteria relating to intellectual and/or communicative competence are to be sacrificed on the corporate/massified altar of

An Inquiry into English for Academic Purposes

211

the ‘new’ international academy, then I suggest a new academy is required. A new, and yes, unapologetically elite, stratum of HE that preserves the relevance of a scholarship based around the values of free and open inquiry, which is at the very least one step removed from the mediocre mishmash, the glorified high schools/ community colleges that our universities have become.

Conclusion At the outset of this chapter, I suggested the purpose of my discussion was more to deepen the problematization of the (critical) discourse of EAP and EIAL and hopefully add some ideas of philosophical interest to the debates than to proffer definitive solutions. This discussion was introduced via an examination of an EAP programme that has been developed and recently implemented (2009) in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University, Australia. Reporting of the programme’s evaluation will be accessible on our research site: http://www.teachanddelivery.net. Data collection and evaluation is expected to commence in 2010.

References Allison, D. (1996). Pragmatist discourse and English for academic purposes. English for Specific Purposes, 15(2), 85–103. Andrejevic, M. (2004). Reality TV: The work of being watched. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). ‘‘Nondiscursive’’ requirements in academic publishing, material resources of periphery scholars, and the politics of knowledge production. Written Communication, 13, 435–472. Cooke, M. (1997). Language and reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Duff, P. (2007). Problematising academic discourse socialisation. Learning Discourses and the Discourses of Learning, 1(1), 1.1–1.18. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 297–324. Foucault, M. (1984). What is enlightenment? In: P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader (pp. 32–50). [Trans. C. Porter]. New York: Pantheon. Habermas, J. (1987). Philosophical discourse of modernity. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1992). In: P. Dews (Ed.), Autonomy and solidarity: Interviews with Ju¨rgen Habermas. London: Verso. Habermas, J. (1994). Postmetaphysical thinking. W. M. Hohengarten (Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1995). Theory of communicative action (T. McCarthy, Trans.) (Vols. 1 and 2). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms. (W. Rehg, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Harwood, N., & Hadley, G. (2004). Demystifying institutional practices: Critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 355–377.

212

Matthew Piscioneri

Ingleton, C., & Cadman, K. (2002). Silent issues for international postgraduate research students: Emotion and agency in academic success. Australian Educational Researcher, 29, 93–114. Johns, A. (1993). Reading and writing tasks in English for academic purposes classes: Products, processes and resources. In: J. Carson & I. Leki (Eds), Reading in the composition classroom (pp. 274–289). New York: Newbury House. Johnston, B. (1999). Putting critical pedagogy in its place: A personal account. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 557–565. Kant, I. (1993/1781). Critique of pure reason. (J. Meiklejohn, Trans; V. Politis, Ed.). London: Everyman. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lillis, T. (1999). Whose common sense? Essayist literacy and the institutional practice of mystery. In: C. Jones, J. Turner & B. Street (Eds), Students writing in the university: Cultural and epistemological issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. McDonald, J. (2002). Is ‘as good as face-to-face’ as good as it gets? Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, 6(2), 10–23. McLellan, H. (1995). Situated learning perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Monahan, T., McArdle, G., & Bertolotto, M. (2008). Virtual reality for collaborative e-learning. Computers and Education, 50, 339–353. Moore, T., & Oppy, G. (2002). Writing instruction online: A case study from a first-year philosophy subject. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 8, 99–108. Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 573–603. Nagy, J., & McDonald, J. (2007). New models for learning flexibility: Negotiated choices for both academics and students. In Proceedings of ACILITE Conference, Singapore. Available at http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07. Retrieved on 8 October 2008. Nokelainen, P., & Ruohotie, P. (2004). Empirical validation of abilities for computer assisted learning questionnaire. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Self-Concept Research Conference, University of Western Sydney, Self Research Center, Australia. Pennycook, A. (1997). Vulgar pragmatism, critical pragmatism and EAP. English for Specific Purposes, 16(4), 253–269. Ramburuth, P., & McCormick, J. (2001). Learning diversity in higher education: A comparative study of Asian international and Australian students. Higher Education, 42, 333–350. Ridley, D. (2004). Puzzling experiences in higher education: Critical moments for conversation. Studies in Higher Education, 29, 91–107. Son, J. (2007). Learner experiences in web-based language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20, 21–36. Zamel, V., & Spack, R. (Eds). (1998). Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Afterword Crossing Cultures in an Unequal Global Order: Voicing and Agency in Academic Writing in English T. Ruanni F. Tupas

Introduction Reading this book has reminded me of a recent email exchange between me and an editor of a publishing company that published one of my papers: Editor: I had to make an editorial decision on one sentence in your paper (deleted) y The copy-editor replied that she felt that sentence was a strong and, albeit a quote, somewhat provocative remark and might cause offence where we do not want it to! I replied that the critical tone y was quite strong throughout the paper y I also felt that this quote added little to that criticism and agreed that we might be better to play safe and remove it. I hope you do not mind. Me: If you were to ask me, I would rather not delete the sentence. The author is THE expert in the field y respected by everyone y (so) y ironically, if you take it out, we are missing out on one formidable source which will silence potential critics of my article. In other words, we are actually safer if we keep the quote given the author’s stature in the field. Editor: Yes I do understand this, indeed, and the author remains very well represented in the paper and the general tone has been untouched, I assure you. Shall we say this suggestion came through from above me and was placed fairly strongly before me as something that was best done. Sorry about that. As strongly argued and clearly demonstrated by authors of this volume, academic writing in English happens across structures of inequality. In the exchange above, the problem concerned only one sentence; yet, it exposes different layers of political configurations in the whole enterprise of academic writing in English where literacy or knowledge brokering (Lillis & Curry, 2006) occurs in all levels of work. Two decades of empirical work on multilingual speakers in their struggles to publish in English language international journals have revealed structures of marginalization

214

T. Ruanni F. Tupas

and disenfranchisement not only due to linguistic, rhetorical, and/or discursive mismatches but also due to material conditions working against these writers (e.g., lack of funds to fund research and developing countries’ overall economic positioning in the global order; Man, Weinkauf, Tsang, & Sin, 2004; Salager-Meyer, 2008; Uzuner, 2008). It seems that decision-making in the exchange earlier does not come from the sympathetic editor but ‘‘from above.’’ Thus, while we can refer to the problem as a matter of compromise, we can also describe the work of the editor as mediation. He has for the most part of the process ‘‘allowed’’ a largely critical tone to saturate the paper that was to be published in a largely conservative volume with a long tradition of privileging ‘‘descriptive,’’ ‘‘neutral,’’ and ‘‘objective’’ studies. But when it comes to ‘‘provocative’’ statements that could potentially antagonize its prospective audience, he too was willing to yield but not after negotiating the limits of a particular (and arguably dominant) culture of writing at the cenrre of the world of academic publishing. In the end, what was produced was a voice that, in true Bakhtinian fashion as espoused by Phan and Baurain in the introduction to this volume and as demonstrated by most of its chapters, was simultaneously personal and social (Prior, 2001). But above all, it is a voice entangled in the infrastructure of power, which lends material shape to the geopolitics of academic writing (Canagarajah, 2002) and which sustains what Piscioneri in this volume refers to as ‘‘the corporate imperatives of the globalized/internationalized academy.’’ Indeed, the academic enterprise is never completely about academic writing only (Tupas, 2004). As the ‘‘simple’’ exchange aforementioned demonstrates, it is subtly or crudely about the search for capital. It is about sustaining, defending, or espousing well-entrenched or dominant ideologies to maintain the same level of readership. It is about creating new technologies of knowledge creation (e.g., the tiering system and journal accreditation processes), which makes sure that particular ways of knowledge creation are favored over others and, more importantly, which allows a few Westbased multinational publishing companies to decide what counts as legitimate knowledge. Look at the devastating effects of the developed world’s promotion and selling of humanistic writing approaches to the rest of the world, for example, the process approach and the socialization approach to the teaching of academic English. On the basis of the Malaysian experience, Mukundan in this volume strongly states that ‘‘effective selling’’ of ‘‘developed world writing movements’’ such as process approaches (Susser, 1994) has resulted in ‘‘anarchy in developing world classrooms’’ because of a huge mismatch between the assumptions of these movements and the specific needs of students in the developing world. Looking at the same issue from a more sympathetic attitude toward writing approaches from the West, You (2004) nevertheless finds that because of the material conditions of teachers in China, which force them take on extra hours of teaching, ‘‘most writing teachers have to maneuver in a limited pedagogical space, making their pedagogical choices virtually from no choice’’ (p. 108).

Afterword

215

Interrelations between Voicing, Agency, Power, and Capital Thus, the politics of ‘‘voicing’’ in academic writing (emphasizing here not only the nature of voice but also the act of incorporating one’s voice into writing) is about the politics of capital as well. In our struggle not only to find our voice in our writing but also to ‘‘envoice’’ ourselves into our work, we also help perpetuate and legitimize the infrastructures of power of ‘‘the global scholarly publishing industry [which is] ever alive to the possibilities of profit from its activities’’ (Kandiah, 2005, p. 121). We also accentuate the so-called Centre every time we self-consciously define ourselves against it as writers on the political edges of the academic world. Similarly, as we resist English and puncture it to form new vocabularies and structures of selfassertion and cultural expression (Kachru, 1992), we also affirm the symbolic and material power of the language (Tupas, 2010). Our voices, in other words, emerge both as a response to and as an effect of power; they are mediating practices of survival because, in the end, most of us really have no choice but to participate in the affairs of the hugely unequal global order. Thus, while our voices are happy reminders of the agentive possibility of our own work because of the unceasing opportunities for negotiation, struggle, and contestation, nevertheless, this is no cause for obsessive postmodern celebrations of freedom and resistance because ‘‘hegemonic forces have begun to develop far more sophisticated methods of control, allowing domination by consensus rather than by force’’ (Kandiah, 2005, p. 118). Such agency, usually equated with empowerment, is never groundless and freewheeling; our mediating practices, our voices, are always conditioned. That is, as we try to act upon the world that tries to create us, we are also acted upon by forces larger than us. We can aim to change the conditions of unfreedom, but we may not be able to transform them. In other words, the transformative power of agency does not come from the awakening of the senses, which now realize we can change the world, but from a sensible realization that we cannot change the world if we ignore its pertinacity against change.

Possibilities in Academic Writing in English I believe that this volume can be understood and appreciated within this framework of voicing and agency as conditioned. All chapters, including the introduction, serve to mediate between institutions of power, but all admittedly participate in unequal conversations in academic writing in English. In a sense, we all have no choice but to be part of these conversations. But ironically, this lack of choice is where the great ‘‘opening up [of] possibilities’’ is (Baurain), and the volume in its entirety has ceased all opportunity to push the limits of academic writing in English. First of all, the chapters in the volume take on explicitly oppositional stances against largely pernicious ideologies and practices in the field. For example, Phan Le Ha challenges ‘‘common assumptions about inferior ‘Asian’ culture evident in

216

T. Ruanni F. Tupas

Western academia,’’ with Ly Thi Tran and McPherron indicating the need to avoid essentializing ‘‘Chinese and Vietnamese students’’ and ‘‘Western learning traditions and Chinese educational contexts’’ respectively. On the basis of her findings on teaching critical thinking among business students, Duong Bich Hang claims that ‘‘writing tended to be viewed and used as an assessment tool rather than a means of fostering critical thinking,’’ a prevalent practice that must be changed if critical thinking is to take root in the culture of learning. Gu and Brooks, on the contrary, in their chapter on plagiarism among international students in the United Kingdom, caution against ‘‘an excessive emphasis on culture’’ in explaining the phenomenon of plagiarism among Chinese L2 writers because this ‘‘may result in a dismissive attitude towards Chinese learning practices.’’ Second, the chapters are indubitably poised to change the shape of academic writing in English, no matter how extremely difficult the journey will be. Thus for Viete, it is an ethical imperative to ‘‘ensure that the English in which linguistic capital resides does not remain inflected only with voices of the privileged or the ‘native speakers’, but that it becomes multivoiced and diverse y .’’ For Baurain, on the contrary, it is a moral imperative to appreciate and recognize the complexities of plagiarism in L2 writing; thus, he seeks to ‘‘redraw the boundaries’’ of discussion through the establishment of trust, not guilt, as the basis of interactions regarding plagiarism. Additionally, for Wang, her academic journey into L2 writing has informed the ideological stance of her own research as a postgraduate student in Australia — to ‘‘contest’’ arguments about so-called deficiencies in L2 writing. It is therefore no surprise that struggle becomes the dominant metaphor that cuts across all pages of this volume. Struggle here indicates a wide range of mediating practices — from accommodation, appropriation, and negotiation to resistance, contestation, subversion, and rejection — which attempt to ‘‘wrestle with’’ (Wang) the power of academic writing in English. Indeed, whatever the dominant mediating practice is, struggle is the center of all action. L2 students of English, those who are the subjects of research by the authors in this volume, cross cultures in excruciating ways. For example, according to one of Thompson’s subjects, viewing one’s conception of knowledge production in academic writing as a shift from collective to individual formulations involves ‘‘a terrifying revolution’’ of the mind. Among McPherron’s students in China who articulated their views on writing through portfolios and other self-assessment mechanisms, the acquisition of academic writing has been transformed into ‘‘a symbol of hard work in life and personal virtue.’’ Interestingly, the word ‘‘capitulate’’ does not appear in the volume at all, perhaps indicating that while mediating practices are not always successful and may indeed result in capitulation, the authors do not view it as a desirable end. It is in this context that agency comes alive in all the chapters, a noteworthy contribution of the entire volume, given that agency remains ‘‘largely invisible across various studies in student writing at the tertiary level’’ (Ly Thi Tran). It always involves a struggle, or at least an awareness that something is not right and needs to be changed. There is, of course, a great difference between accommodation and resistance, but while they occupy opposing ends of a spectrum of mediating practices, they nevertheless defer to the individual, who is part of an institution as a creator of change, albeit a modest one

Afterword

217

in most cases. Therefore, agency, as far as this volume is concerned is, in a simple sense, the capacity to act. Whether one accommodates, appropriates, negotiates, resists, contests, subverts, or rejects, such capacity to act is always suffused with struggle. This is the third opening of possibilities which Thompson refers to as the creation of ‘‘conditions that are conducive to the emergence of new ways of understanding the complexities surrounding writer identity and textual ownership in the academy.’’

Writing in a Material World But can we change the world by changing the way we write? Can ‘‘perform[ing] a number of complex intertextual manipulations’’ (Thompson) alter in a significant way the infrastructures of power that undergird academic writing in English, much of which is controlled by West-based mechanisms of knowledge creation and dissemination? Struggle in academic writing is largely a linguistic or discursive project but, as demonstrated at the start of this afterword, much of academic writing has basis in the material conditions of the global order where knowledge and information are hugely unequally distributed by media and publishing conglomerates largely based in developed countries (Aydinli & Mathews, 2000; Canagarajah, 1996; Salager-Meyer, 2008). It is a fact, for example, that in scientific writing in English, only 2% of indexed research comes from the developing world even if it constitutes 80% of the entire world population (Salager-Meyer, 2008, p. 122). Therefore, the politics of resistance against a largely nonlinguistic global topography necessitates a theory of power in academic writing, which underscores the enactment of voicing and deployment of agency amid conditions largely beyond our control. Several chapters provide glimpses of such workings of power. Ly Thi Tran details a wish of a Chinese student (Hao) to deploy criticality in her first essay in an Applied Commerce program, which required her to write about the importance of Human Resource Management (HRM). She wanted to argue that HRM may not be important in some cases, but she was prevented from doing so after she talked to her lecturer. Hao’s writing was ‘‘regulated’’ by institutional demands represented by her lecturer’s expectations of what good writing in the field is all about. Baurain, on the contrary, refers to ‘‘the inconsistencies and inequities’’ of the game of academic writing and publishing. He writes in the context of issues in plagiarism where one of the possible responses is not to question its underlying assumptions but to initiate students into the rules of the game to help them succeed in their academic pursuits. This moral stance in the teaching of writing may be commendable because it helps students ‘‘access the rewards of the system,’’ but the problem is that the system itself is not fair and equal with the ‘‘dominance of English y fraught with questions of discursive imperialism’’ and ‘‘the status quo in academic publishing y hardly just and equitable.’’ It goes without saying that socializing students into the status quo of academic writing, with the intention of empowering them with the skills they need, may in the end disempower them because the infrastructures of the ‘‘Global (rich persons’) Research Village’’ (Salager-Meyer, 2008) work against them.

218

T. Ruanni F. Tupas

From another perspective, Piscioneri interrogates the notion of ‘‘choice’’ that underlies particular approaches to the teaching of English for academic purposes or EAP. Adeptly navigating the fault lines between the critical and the pragmatic approaches, Piscioneri argues that the ‘‘choice’’ given to students to embrace or challenge the norms and standards of (Western) academic writing into which they have been socialized in their EAP classes is ‘‘a little illusory’’ because ‘‘this might be only the freedom to choose between academic success and academic failure.’’ Interestingly, Piscionery’s tentative ‘‘solution’’ is to offer students another choice: ‘‘Let the users, the participating learners, determine what approach to the pedagogy, to the ideological framing of the EAP programme they wish to engage with.’’ A much broader interrogation of choice is proffered by Mukundan in his chapter on the developed world’s influences on the teaching of writing in the developing world. In his narrative on ELT in Malaysia, not only do we see that learners have little choice of what they want to learn, but the writing pedagogical agenda has been set for them through the ideological machinery of the developed world’s academic publishing conglomerates. One can question Mukundan’s seemingly crude politics of dichotomization between the developed world and the developing world (or the North and the South of the world) — for example, through another celebration of agency and voice among the oppressed in the developing — but one can really see clearly the agenda-setting dynamics of power in the teaching of writing in the developed world. One of the most telling problems, according to Mukundan, is the valorization, and ‘‘effective selling,’’ of a ‘‘socialization’’ approach to the teaching of EAP without recourse to the actual needs of Malaysian students: The majority of students enrolled into universities in Malaysia y have poor proficiency levels in English as they come from rural areas. The concern of the universities should be to get these students to upgrade their proficiency levels to at least intermediate level y Instead, the reckless rush into socialization concerns have led universities to shorten the time taken to help students become effective communicators of the language and instead rush them into Academic English programmes. In the end, the ‘‘irony of the so-called socialization process into the discourse communities’’ was that while it has been heralded as a politically desirable, studentcentered approach to the teaching of writing in the West, in Malaysia at least, ‘‘it never was learner-friendly.’’

Conclusion We see earlier that power dynamics in academic writing in English exists across all levels of interaction and negotiation and that whatever happens at the micro-level (e.g., a student learns what academic writing is all about through a ‘‘socialization’’ approach) is complexly entangled with different layers of power at the macro-level

Afterword

219

(e.g., a global publishing company promoting EAP textbooks, which emphasize the need to socialize students into the academy). The mediating practices clearly demonstrated in the many chapters in the volume are therefore not just practices that mediate but are mediated practices as well. Our capacities to act to ‘‘envoice’’ ourselves into our writing or change the rules of the game to make the game more equitable and unprejudiced are clearly now ‘‘socioculturally mediated’’ capacities to act (Ahearn, 2001, p. 112). In other words, our capacities to accommodate, appropriate, negotiate, resist, contest, subvert, and reject in academic writing are individual/collective, intentional/unintentional, and empowering/disempowering at the same time, thus making agency ‘‘complex and ambiguous’’ (MacLeod 1992, p. 534). But this volume is a clear indication that complex and ambiguous though it is, agency takes some shape in both literal and figurative senses. This is a book where identities, voices, and powers-at-play intersect to produce a genuine platform for change in the field. In fact, collectively, the chapters and their authors become part of an internationalizing solidarity to de-hegemonize (Parakrama, 1995) academic writing in English by writing through it. But let us not be mistaken: for true interaction and negotiation to happen between writers, teachers, and researchers around the world, we must make sure that those who construct knowledge in the center of academic writing and publishing must also listen to ‘‘us.’’ Even if we are able to successfully crack the code of academic writing in English and change it, people in the center may still refuse to listen because theorizing to them happens only on ‘‘their’’ ground. This brings to mind an admonition by Susan Strange, one of the most prominent scholars in the field of International Studies, to American scholars in her Presidential Address during the International Studies Association conference in 1995: American scholars may not be aware that they need a hearing aid. Non-Americans have no doubt of it. You, as authors and too often as editors of professional journals, appear to be deaf and blind to anything that is not published in the USA. (p. 291) But in their introduction, Phan Le Ha and Bradley Baurain refer to their work as groundbreaking; indeed, all the work should not just happen on ‘‘their’’ ground. One single book may not be enough to change the contours of the field, but the capacities to act, both chronicled and enabled in this volume, help us stretch the limits of what we can do and, through this, provide us with realistic freedoms to choose not only what, when, and how to write — or what, when, and how not to write — but, more importantly, to break into the material world of academic writing in English. ‘‘In truth,’’ according to Salager-Meyer (2008), the complete elimination of inequalities in the world of scholarship is unlikely, but progress could be achieved if there were a universal will (at institutional, governmental and intergovernmental levels) to redress the current world North/South imbalance, not only in the academic/ scientific domain but also in all aspects of human life. (p. 129, italics in original)

220

T. Ruanni F. Tupas

This volume has the will to act: the voicing and agency of the authors, their students, and their research subjects collectively tell us that the material conditions of struggle and hope can best be fought through struggle and hope.

References Ahearn, L. M. (2001). Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology, 30, 109–137. Aydinli, E., & Mathews, J. (2000). Are the core and periphery irreconcilable? The curious world of publishing in contemporary International Relations. International Studies Perspectives, 1, 289–303. Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). ‘Nondiscursive’ requirements in academic publishing, material resources of periphery scholars, and the politics of knowledge production. Written Communication, 13, 435–472. Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kachru, B. B. (1992). World Englishes: Approaches, issues and resources. Language Teaching, 25, 1–14. Kandiah, T. (2005). Academic writing and global inequality: Resistance, betrayal, and responsibility in scholarship. Language in Society, 34, 117–132. Lillis, T., & Curry, M. J. (2006). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: Interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English-medium texts. Written Communication, 23, 3–35. MacLeod, A. E. (1992). Hegemonic relations and gender resistance: The new veiling as accommodating protest in Cairo. Signs, 17, 533–557. Man, J. P., Weinkauf, J. G., Tsang, M., & Sin, D. D. (2004). Why do some countries publish more than others? An international comparison of research funding, English proficiency and publication output in highly ranked general medical journals. European Journal of Epidemiology, 19, 811–817. Parakrama, A. (1995). De-hegemonizing language standards: Learning from (post) colonial Englishes about English. London: Macmillan. Prior, P. (2001). Voices in text, mind, and society: Sociohistoric accounts of discourse acquisition and use. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 55–81. Salager-Meyer, F. (2008). Scientific publishing in developing countries: Challenges for the future. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, 121–132. Susser, B. (1994). Process approaches in ESL/EFL writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 31–47. Tupas, T. R. F. (2004). Academic writing in English, identity construction and neocolonialism. In: K. Kaur (Ed.), Second language writing (pp. 68–92). Kuala Lumpur: Sasbadi. Tupas, T. R. F. (2010). Which norms in everyday practice: and why? In: A. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of World Englishes (pp. 567–579). Abingdon, Oxon, UK and New York: Routledge. Uzuner, S. (2008). Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global academic communities: A literature review. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, 250–263. You, X. (2004). ‘The choice made from no choice’: English writing instruction in a Chinese university. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 97–110.

List of Volumes

Volume 1: Theories, Models and Methodology in Writing Research Gert Rijlaarsdam, Huub van den Bergh, Michel Couzijn (Eds.) 1996 558 pages; Paperback ISBN 90-5356-197-8 Volume 2: Effective Teaching and Learning of Writing. Current Trends in Research Gert Rijlaarsdam, Huub van den Bergh, Michel Couzijn (Eds.) 1996 pages 388; Paperback ISBN 90-5356-198-6 Volume 3: The Cognitive Demands of Writing. Processing Capacity and Working Memory Effects in Text Production Mark Torrance, Gaynor Jeffery (Eds.) 1999 pages 113: Paperback ISBN 90-5356-308-3 Volume 4: Knowing What to Write. Conceptual Processes in Text Production Mark Torrance, David Galbraith (eds.) 1999 pages 190; Paperback ISBN 90-5356-307-5 Volume 5: Foundations of Argumentative Text Processing Pierre Coirier, Jerry Andriessen (Eds.) 2000 Pages 273; Paperback 90-5356-340-7 Volume 6: Metalinguistic Activity in Learning to Write Anna Camps, kMarta Milian (Eds.) 2000 pages 228: Paperback 90-5356-341-5 Volume 7: Writing as a Learning Tool Pa¨ivi Tynja¨la¨, Lucia Mason, Kirsti Lonka (Eds.) 2001 Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-6877-0; Paperback, ISBN 0-7923-6914-9 Volume 8: Developmental Aspects in Learning to Write Liliana Tolchinsky (Ed.) 2001 Paperback, ISBN 0-7923-7063-5; Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-6979-3 Volume 9: Through the Models of Writing: Denis Alamargot, Lucile Chanquoy (2001) Paperback, ISBN 0-7923-7159-3; Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-6980-7

222

List of Volumes

Volume 10: Contemporary Tools and Techniques for Studying Writing Thierry Olive, C. Michael Levy (Eds.) 2001 Hardbound, ISBN 1-4020-0035-9; Paperback, ISBN 1-4020-0106-1 Volume 11: New Directions for Research in L2 Writing: Sarah Ransdell, Marie-Laure Barbier (Eds.) 2002 281 p. Paperback, ISBN 1-4020-0539-3; Hardbound, ISBN 1-4020-0538-5 Volume 12: Teaching Academic Writing in European Higher Education Lennart Bjo¨rk, Gerd Bra¨uer. Lotte Rienecker, Peter Stray Jo¨rgensen (Eds.) 2003 240 p. Hardbound, ISBN 1-4020-1208-X; Paperback, ISBN 1-4020-1209-8 Volume 13: Revision: Cognitive and Instructional Processes Linda Allal, Lucile Chanquoy, Pierre Largy (Eds.) 2004 248 p. Hardbound, ISBN 1-4020-7729-7 Volume 14: Effective Learning and Teaching of Writing. A Handbook of Writing in Education Gert Rijlaarsdam, Huub van den Bergh & Michel Couzijn, M. (Eds.) 2nd ed., 2004, X, 670 p. 21 illus., Hardcover ISBN: 1-4020-2724-9; Softcover ISBN: 1-4020-2725-7 Volume 15: Writing in Context(s). Textual Practices and Learning Processes in Sociocultural Settings Triantafillia Kostouli (Ed.) 2005 280 p., Hardcover ISBN: 0-387-24237-6; Softcover ISBN: 0-387-24238-4 Volume 16: Teaching Writing in Chinese Speaking Areas. Mark Shiu Kee Shum; De Lu Zhang (Eds.) 2005 276 p., Hardcover ISBN: 0-387-26392-6 Volume 17: Writing and Digital Media. van Waes, Leijten & Neuwirth (Eds.) 2006 380 pp., Hardcover ISBN: 0-08-044863-1 Volume 18: Computer Key-Stroke Logging and Writing. Sullivan & Lindgren (Eds.) 2006 248 pp., Hardcover ISBN: 0-08-044934-4 Volume 19: Writing and Motivation Hidi & Boscolo (Eds.) 2006 346 pp., Hardcover ISBN: 0-08-045325-2 Volume 20: Writing and Cognition Torrance, Waes & Galbraith (Eds.) 2006 392 pp., Hardcover ISBN: 0-08-045094-6 Volume 21: Written Documents in the Workplace Alamargot, Terrier, Cellier (Eds.) (2008) 336 pp., Hardcover ISBN: 0-08-047487-8