Growing into Academic L2 Writing

Abstract

The trend towards greater globalisation of the academic landscape is closely linked to the establishment of English as the strongest academic language. As a result, more and more university courses are taught in English, with students of diverse subjects being required to write their academic texts in English. Through this development, even successful students and experienced foreign language learners frequently face new challenges, but the level of support offered by the universities varies widely. Research in this area has only quite recently begun to take account of the extent of this phenomenon. The present paper offers, in a first step, a concise overview of current research in the field of academic L2 writing in English. The second part consists of a presentation of empirical study results involving Austrian students of English, and a discussion of the implications of these findings for pedagogy in Higher Education, with a special focus on three subject areas: attitudes and perceptions of student writers, challenges and difficulties involved in academic writing, and writing practices.