Abstract
The debate about ‘linguistic injustice’ centers on whether or not English as an additional language (EAL) writers face challenges in writing academically that are qualitatively different from those of novice academic writers irrespective of language background. This study aims to add nuance to this debate by looking at range of writers (from novice to expert) within an interdisciplinary social science research institute in Norway in order to investigate the mediating role of the institutional context. Using an ethnographic approach with an academic literacies perspective, it examines the challenges these writers face and discusses them in light of tensions between identity and institutional environment. It argues that the high degree of immersion in English causes ‘situated multilingualism’, where their ability to write about their topic in English surpasses their ability to write about it in Norwegian. Nonetheless, even the expert writers, particularly those in disciplines that value a unique authorial voice, demonstrated insecurity and lack of ownership to their writing in English. Moreover, the pressure to also sometimes write in Norwegian represented an additional site of negotiation not faced by their non-Norwegian counterparts. This suggests that the challenges EAL writers face are not determined by their language background alone, but also by their institutional environment—including the pressure to publish ‘internationally’, the amount of writing expected, and their immersion in English.
Highlights
English is not the most common first language for most academics, it is perhaps the most common second language and is generally considered the lingua franca of academic publishing see, e.g., [1,2]
As is common with academic literacies research, this article takes an ethnographic approach [40,41,42] in the sense that it looks beyond issues of language and at how individual researchers understand their identity as researchers and the expectations of their different environments for a deeper understanding of the challenges they face when writing in English
This paper reports on a specific aspect of a more general study carried out at the institute where I conducted semi-structured interviews covering a wide range of themes related to academic writing and publishing
Summary
English is not the most common first language for most academics, it is perhaps the most common second language and is generally ( not uncontroversially) considered the lingua franca of academic publishing see, e.g., [1,2]. On the one hand, argue that EAL scholars face significant challenges expressing themselves, developing a sufficiently flexible vocabulary, and writing a convincing argument [3,4,5,6,7,8]. This may result in not using language exactly as a native speaker would e.g., [8,9]. Having these differences in language use pointed out by reviewers may result in a feeling of having one’s academic identity challenged [10], and hinder publication [11,12,13]
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