Negotiating Academic Genres in a Multi‐disciplinary Context

Abstract

This article explores the problematic of negotiating academic genre in the context of higher education (HE) and the implications for students’ writing. The growth of multi‐disciplinary, modular programmes and a more heterogeneous student population requires that we consider the challenges faced by undergraduates, both within and between disciplines, and suggest ways in which navigational difficulties can be reduced. Our research is informed by our own multi‐disciplinarity which draws on the substantive areas of education, applied linguistics and sociology. Using case studies of students’ writing we have analysed the ways in which undergraduates negotiate two disciplines concurrently. Our findings suggest that students’ knowledge of one discipline influences another, rather in the same way that a first language affects second language acquisition. The resulting work may fail to hit the target discourse or may recontextualize material in creative but discipline‐challenging ways. Our explorations begin to address the tensions between multi‐disciplinary curricular change and the lack of interdisciplinary response from the academy. Universities are responding to perceived shortcomings in students’ writing by focusing on generic, transferable skills. Our research suggests that whilst power and control of the HE curriculum are located within academic disciplines, for students to be successful within the academy they must acquire ways of knowing that are discipline specific. Student empowerment would be enhanced by a clear articulation of discourse and genre skills and conventions, reducing the ‘discoursal dissonance’ between tutors’ and students’ expectations. Multi‐disciplinarity also challenges the conventional compartmentalization of knowledge providing opportunities for a creative and interdisciplinary dialectic.