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Dissertation_Sun Yung Song_AU2013.pdf (2.68 MB)

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Non-native English Speaking Doctoral Students' Writing for Publication in English: A Sociopolitically-oriented Multiple Case Study

Song, Sun Yung
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388489335

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
Given the high status of English academic publishing in academia, there has been an increasing demand on doctoral students to enter into the arena of publishing in international English- medium journals. However, to date, the academic publishing efforts of non-native English speaking (NNES) doctoral students in Anglophone contexts have been under-researched. Addressing this gap, this multiple case study explored how NNES doctoral students enrolled in a U.S. university negotiated the demands of English-medium academic publishing from a sociopolitical perspective. The participants in this study included four NNES doctoral students from East Asian countries. Triangulated data sources included interviews with the focal students and their faculty advisors, questionnaires, email communication, publication-related documents, university policy documents, and analytic field notes. Drawing on the notions of discourse community, (Swales, 1990), legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), and social capital (Boudieu, 1986, 1990), the study focused on (1) the difficulties and successes that the students experienced, (2) the strategies that they used to overcome their difficulties and secure English-medium academic publication, and (3) the micro and macro sociopolitical forces that influenced the students' writing-for-publication process. The findings of the study revealed that the students had to negotiate the complex sociopolitical realities of meeting the publication demands by U.S. and home academic cultures, while studying in a U.S. university. They experienced a range of difficulties not only at the language and genre levels, but also in negotiating unequal power relations with their faculty advisors in the coauthoring process to be recognized as legitimate and competent scholarly writers. To overcome their difficulties and secure English-medium academic publication, the students developed and used academic research networks and linguistic/textual strategies. Some of the students also attempted to take the ownership of their learning by negotiating their positionalities and agency in the power-infused context of novice-expert interaction. Based on the findings of the study, I argue that English-medium academic publishing by NNES doctoral students needs to be seen as a complex phenomenon in which NNES students negotiate multidimensional issues of language, culture, and power to participate as legitimate and competent scholarly writers. To empower these students, I suggest that both language and disciplinary professionals should foster a learning environment which will help NNES students identify power-infused relationships among agents of different power statuses and effectively deal with these relationships to create a more facilitative learning space for the development of disciplinary knowledge and linguistic growth.
Alan Hirvela (Committee Chair)
Keiko Samimy (Committee Co-Chair)
Danielle Pyun (Committee Member)
356 p.
English As A Second Language; Higher Education; Literacy; Multilingual Education
writing for publication; second language academic literacy; non-native English speaking students; doctoral education; power; sociopolitical perspective

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Song, S. Y. (2014). Non-native English Speaking Doctoral Students' Writing for Publication in English: A Sociopolitically-oriented Multiple Case Study [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388489335

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Song, Sun Yung. Non-native English Speaking Doctoral Students' Writing for Publication in English: A Sociopolitically-oriented Multiple Case Study . 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388489335.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Song, Sun Yung. "Non-native English Speaking Doctoral Students' Writing for Publication in English: A Sociopolitically-oriented Multiple Case Study ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388489335

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1388489335
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.