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10.2357/FLuL-2020-0006
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2020
491
Gnutzmann Küster SchrammGrowing into Academic L2 Writing
61
2020
Julia Hüttner
Angelika Rieder-Bünemann
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.
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49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 J ULIA H ÜTTNER , A NGELIKA R IEDER -B ÜNEMANN * Growing into Academic L2 Writing Perceptions, Practices and Challenges of Student Authors 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. 1. Introduction The ongoing internationalisation of universities has resulted in English attaining the status of ‘academic lingua franca’ (cf. e.g. J ENKINS 2014; M AURANEN 2012), requiring academics across the globe to produce and engage with English-language publications. A considerable body of research has addressed the precise nature of this Anglicisation of academia, highlighting the pervasive nature of the need to produce in English in order to attain international visibility of one’s research output, for instance also in the inclusion of research in meta-studies of the field. A more detailed study of this internationalisation has highlighted some discipline-specific differences as far as ‘English-only’ publishing is concerned (G NUTZMANN / R ABE 2014) as well as * Korrespondenzadressen: Prof. Dr. Julia H ÜTTNER , Universität Wien, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Spitalgasse 2-4, 1090 W IEN E-Mail: julia.huettner@univie.ac.at Research areas: Bilingualer Sachfachunterricht (CLIL), English-Medium Instruction (EMI), Classroom Discourse Analysis, videounterstützte LehrerInnenbildung Mag. Dr. Angelika R IEDER -B ÜNEMANN , Universität Wien, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Spitalgasse 2-4, 1090 W IEN E-Mail: angelika.rieder@univie.ac.at Research areas: Wissenschaftliches Schreiben in der Fremdsprache, Bilingualer Sachfachunterricht (CLIL), Wortschatzerwerb und -vermittlung 84 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 in the native-speaker norm-orientation of the English required or produced in specific fields (M AURANEN 2012). Although European universities retain strong affiliations to national languages of education, especially in teaching, a trend towards an increased use of English in teaching is visible. At times, this takes the form of more English-medium courses being offered, especially at Masters’ level, which aim to prepare students for a more international academic or other career while also catering for staff and students unfamiliar with the local language of education. Local students attending such programmes are by default required to produce all their university writing in English, which has added to demand for greater consideration of teaching relevant aspects of L2 academic writing. While these programs still constitute only a minority, their rise over the last decade has been dramatic, i.e. from 2,389 in 2007 to 8,089 in 2014 (cf. W ÄCHTER / M AIWORM 2014: 48) In addition, there are more individual classes being offered in English and in students’ production of academic texts in English, either as course requirement or by choice. As an example, G NUTZMANN / R ABE (2014: 32) show the rise of dissertations written in English at a medium-sized German university from 7.5% in 2000 to 38.1% in 2010. Taking account of the above-mentioned trends, this paper will focus exclusively on student writers of academic English as an L2 and address both their writing processes and products and, importantly, their perspectives on themselves as academic writers. The precise focus lies on German-speaking students of English and American studies and thus a group of students who are, on the one hand, privileged by having access to more institutional L2 support as members of a language department but, on the other hand, members of a discipline where language use, like in many other Humanities subjects, is seen as more challenging and less formulaic than in, for instance, natural or life sciences (cf. R ABE 2016). 2. Students as Academic Writers 2.1 Conceptualising Academic Writing and its Teaching When we consider students as academic writers, a conceptualisation of both academic discourse and its associated learning and teaching is needed. Acknowledging the diverse traditions of studying language in academia and the difficulties of arriving at any form of generally accepted definition, we shall here follow the inclusive proposal by W INGATE (2015: 6) of viewing academic literacy as “the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community”. This straddles two areas within academic writing research that we consider of major importance for the studies reported here; firstly, the aspect of communication, with its dominance in academia on written genres, and secondly, the social aspects of practice, shown in this definition’s focusing on the academic discourse community. Different categorisations of academic writing research abound, such as textual, Growing into Academic L2 Writing 85 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 contextual and critical (cf. H YLAND 2009) or study skills, academic socialisation and academic literacies (cf. L EA / S TREET 1998) or into conforming, challenging and paradigm-shifting approaches (cf. J ENKINS 2014). Due to demands of space, we cannot present a comprehensive overview here, but will focus on the most prominent view in our context of study, i.e. academic writing as genre. This conceptualisation of both researching and teaching academic writing addresses both textual and contextual aspects, with its prime focus on linking the purposes of specific written and spoken texts within a community to specific textual realisations. B HATIA (2012: 241, our emphasis) summarises this by saying “genre analysis is the study of linguistic behaviour in institutionalised academic or professional settings”. Of paramount importance within genre analysis is the focus on the communicative purpose of any text, which drives any discursive or lexico-grammatical choices. This purpose is brought into relief through individual moves, i.e “discoursal or rhetorical unit[s] that perform […] a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse” (S WALES 2004: 228). Prolific work has been done both in the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) schools of genre analysis, which has addressed the relationship between genres, the specificities of individual genres across disciplines and the specific types of textualisation patterns (cf., e.g., B HATIA 2004; S AMRAJ 2002; C HRISTIE / M ARTIN 2005). An aspect worth remembering in the conceptualisation of academic literacy as genre-based is, firstly, its inherent rejection of a solely skills-based approach focused on linguistic realisations only and of a homogeneous view of language use in academia. Secondly, these views of academic writing strongly embed genres in larger patterns of social behaviour, and so combine textual and contextual approaches. The teaching side of the genre-approach has focused on raising awareness in students of the link between purpose and text or in H YLAND ’ S (2004: 11) words creating “an explicit understanding of how target texts are structured and why they are written the way they are”. This aspect has also fed most directly into teaching within a genre approach, where often awareness of purpose, move structures and textualization options are highlighted (cf., e.g., J OHNS 2001). This analysis stage is typically followed by both critical engagement and increasingly less guided writing tasks. While student writing was originally, at least implicitly, conceptualised as needing to ‘mirror’ more expert writing, the last decade has seen an increased acceptance of student genres as legitimate and independent (cf., e.g., H ÜTTNER 2007, 2015; N ESI / G ARDNER 2012) in line with a positioning of students as ‘legitimate, peripheral members’ (L AVE / W EN - GER 1991) of their academic communities of practice. Although not usually specified in this way, the educational trajectory of students towards becoming members of their chosen academic discourse community (cf. S WALES 1990), i.e. the group of people who share common goals and social (including generic) conventions, shares tenets with academic language socialisation (cf., e.g., D UFF 2010). This is defined as “the processes by which newcomers […] of a culture of community attempt to gain the communicative competence and knowledge needed to participate fully and appropriately, according to local norms, in their communities” (D UFF / A NDERSON 2015: 337). 86 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 The aspects of socialisation and of more critical academic literacies research address the importance of participation in relevant discourse communities and the interlinked communities of practice in the process of becoming an academic writer (cf. R ABE 2016). W ENGER (1998: 5) describes the process of developing these new identities within communities of practice as “talking about how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities”, and these ideas of writer identity have been much more thoroughly developed, for instance, by I VANIČ (1998). In the distinction between the diverse writing selves (autobiographical, discoursal, as author and in the possibilities of self-hood), she creates a space for addressing the complex paths of students towards embracing their new roles as academic writers. One area of investigation in this development has been stance and voice (cf., e.g., S TOCK / E IK -N ES 2016), which highlight the intricate discursive processes of navigating one’s position within academia. Criticism of genre-based teaching has focused on its textual bias, as well as on its perpetuating of disciplinary norms by teaching students to unquestioningly adopt established genre patterns and so strengthening, rather than challenging, existing power relations in academia (cf. L ILLIS / S COTT 2007). Although justified in some instances, it is necessary to note that genre-based teaching continues to develop to allow for a greater inclusion of contextual aspects and of space for student writers’ development of an independent writer identity, not characterised by blind copying of existing models. Following W INGATE (2015: 34) we acknowledge the importance of continued attention on written genres, given their paramount status in higher education assessment practices. 2.2 Academic Writing for L2 Authors T ANG (2012: 12) points out that “‘academic discourse’ is not the natural ‘first language’ of any writer” and study skills approaches to academic writing have justly been criticised for their limited view of L2 writers only requiring (surface-level) linguistic support. However, the need to ‘learn’ academic discourse by all students has not resulted in a systematic provision of L1 writing instruction in academia. In fact, the assumption of “learning to write [...] by osmosis” (B URGESS / P ALLANT 2013: 24) and in turn of academic writing teaching as a remedial exercise remains strong. Research into L2 academic writers has had a strong bias on students in Anglophone countries (cf., e.g., L EKI 2017), who are frequently marginalised in a mainstream English-speaking study environment. The changed status of English as an academic lingua franca has not yet done much to alter the positioning of international students in Anglophone universities and their language needs; thus, a recent study by J ENKINS (2014) found that the majority of these students did not receive discipline-specific academic literacy training but only very general language classes (often perceived as unhelpful), and that in their academic contributions they were frequently measured against standards of native-like-ness rather than appropriacy in the discipline. The general tendency of subject lecturers to not feel responsible for language or genre-related teaching sup- Growing into Academic L2 Writing 87 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 ports the relegation of academic writing classes to ‘one-size-fits-all’ language classes; the extra challenge faced by L2 students, however, is shown, for instance, in the role of low English proficiency in the lower success of international students in Englishspeaking universities (cf., e.g., L I / C HEN / D UANMU 2010). The situation for the students in focus here is somewhat different, as their universities are located in non-English-speaking environments, where students’ status as L2 or lingua franca speakers of English is the default rather than being unusual. However, some of the challenges of learning academic literacy in an L2 remain, aptly summarised by K NORR / P OGNER (2015: 16) as a double challenge. The situation in continental Europe, and as such also in Austria, in terms of academic writing support for the L1 is varied. While there is an increase in writing centres and support mechanisms (cf. D OLESCHAL 2012; G RUBER 2012), there is still a reluctance to include obligatory courses in L1 academic literacy in degree programmes. With universities generally over-subscribed, there is little pressure to improve student drop-out rates or to increase the support for students from non-German-speaking backgrounds. In this setting, students of English have the advantage of obligatory language courses and systematic feedback on (academic) language use in their degree course. The focus of this article lies on the perspectives of student academic writers on their conceptualisations of academic literacy, the challenges they face when writing their texts and the processes they undergo, both at a micro-level of writing one specific text and at the macro-level of their development throughout their studies. This particular group of students has so far not received much research attention compared to L2 speakers in Anglophone countries, but will arguably become more prominent with continued Anglicisation of universities across Europe. As the students are advanced learners of English with a proficiency level of B2+/ C1 in the Common European Framework of Reference (C OUNCIL OF E UROPE 2001), the findings highlight the aspects of academic writing in an L2 that are unique to academic literacy rather than related to more general L2 writing. The studies presented in the following sections were conducted at the Department of English and American Studies of the University of Vienna. Students of the older of these two studies (H ÜTTNER 2007, 2015) had academic writing support as part of a content class only, while those of the second study (R IEDER -B ÜNEMANN / R ESNIK forthcoming) also had a specific English for Academic Purposes class later in their studies. 3. Empirical Results: Perceptions of English Language Students Growing into Academic L2 Writing 3.1 Students of English as L2 Academic Writers As indicated above, students of English represent a special learner group in the field of L2 academic writing on two complementary levels. On the one hand, they differ 88 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 from non-language student writers in that they undergo extensive training in the L2 as part of their studies, which generally renders them both more competent in the L2 and also more aware of language-specific features like text type characteristics or register differences. On the other hand, students of English also stand out from most students of other subjects having to produce academic texts, since the education of English language students typically involves explicit training in, and reflection on, academic writing procedures and conventions. Although awareness of the need to explicitly address academic writing competences is generally rising, many other disciplines where academic texts are typically written in the students’ L1 still offer no such training to students. With this twofold special status in mind, students of English are likely to have a particularly rich perception of both (L2) academic writing practices and of their perceived challenges in this field, which makes them a promising target population for investigating student perceptions of academic writing. 3.2 Study Participants and Data The insights presented in the following were collected in two studies. The first one (henceforth Study 1) consists of 66 questionnaires and Proseminar papers in linguistics by second-year students plus six in-depth interviews, all data collected at the Department of English, University of Vienna, in 2004. In addition to an analysis of moves and textual realisations of introductions and conclusions of their papers, student questionnaires addressed students’ background, including their previous experiences of academic writing in the L1 and the L2, their strategies while writing the specific paper submitted and, finally, their communicative intentions in two of the paper sections shared by all students, i.e. introductions and conclusions. The semi-structured interviews were conducted with students who had achieved high grades and self-identified as ‘successful’ academic writers; students were probed on their perceptions of academic writing, partly in contrast to other writing in the L2, their practices while writing and editing their papers, and perceived challenges and support structures. 1 Most data are taken from the second study (henceforth Study 2), comprising guided written reflections of 50 advanced students of English attending the course ‘English for Academic Purposes’ in 2016, a course offered to MA students and advanced students of the teacher training program, at the Department of English, University of Vienna. Students completed written reflections on their experiences as academic writers at the beginning of the term, as well as a follow-up questionnaire containing openended questions at the end of the course. The guiding questions in the reflections specifically addressed their development as academic writers throughout their university career, challenges they had faced and aspects they experienced as positive, differences 1 For a more detailed description and discussion of results, cf. H ÜTTNER (2007). Growing into Academic L2 Writing 89 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 perceived between their L1 and L2 academic writing, and their view on the role of writer identity. 2 3.3. Study Results and Discussion 3.3.1 The macro-level: Personal development as academic writers Study 1 students were still very much at the beginning of their studies and so for the vast majority, to be precise 77.2%, this was the first paper in English they had to write. Their thoughts on development as academic writers thus primarily concerned the change from other school or university writing in English to these linguistic papers. What students highlighted in their interviews were the contrasts to their previous writing, which was considered to be less constrained, more personal in that writers could express their own stance freely and, in general, more creative. See, for instance, this statement by one female student: “You can’t really be creative; yes, you must make sure that your reader really understands [your paper] and, well, bring many examples […] then the whole thing should have a structure somehow”. The perception of a change in genre was verbalized also as a move from a display of opinion to one of (newly acquired) knowledge; aligned with this view was a frequent desire by student writers to use the academic papers to document and show their learning of the linguistic topic in question. In terms of the textual production, the aspects of learning and personal growth were present in the genre move of ‘providing a personal reflection’, realized in 32.7% of all texts. One example, which highlights this most directly, is the following: Finally, I wanted to make a personal statement as the author of this seminar paper: the process of my research has taught me a wide range of things I already knew. This information was inside my brain, but only the investigations worked as a means to make it visible. 3 At the time of Study 1, only general (rather than academic) language competence courses were offered at the English department; most students did not feel that these courses helped prepare them for their new tasks in writing academic papers. Thus, students scored an average of 1.89 on a Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (very frequently), regarding their using materials or information from language classes when writing academic papers. In the interviews, one student confirmed this picture saying that “[…] for academic writing, it [i.e. the language classes] didn’t really help that much.” Since, by contrast, the students interviewed in Study 2 were already at a quite advanced stage of their (MA or teacher education) studies, they had been experiencing a range of stages and developments in their careers as academic writers. When looking 2 For a detailed description of the study and the results gained, cf. R IEDER -B ÜNEMANN / R ESNIK (forthcoming). 3 Interviews from Study 1 were conducted in German. The first author translated the extracts used here. 90 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 back to their transition from school to university, however, their perceptions of development mirror those of Study 1 participants quite closely. Thus, the increased demands in terms of language competence as well as the increased complexity of the study fields encountered were mentioned by a number of students as perceived challenges on their way into academic writing. This is exemplified by the following statement of a female student: I think that it was particular difficult for me, because my language skills were not good enough at the beginning of my studies. Furthermore, I was introduced to so many new text topics that it was simply too much to take in all at once. 4 Also, students experienced difficulties adapting to the different text types, writing goals and formal requirements of academic writing compared to writing tasks at school as the comment below illustrates: I was not used to write in this particular way, in school I often had to write about my own point of view or fulfil creative tasks without researching information, but at university the knowledge is already there. Therefore, I have to summarize information from different sources and indicate the origin of the source, which means I have to follow citation rules according to a particular department. The third point which stood out in the student reflections was the requirement of viewing writing as a process rather than a product, which obviously required a conceptual shift in some student’s approach to writing: I think my problems with text organization were due to the fact that I did not see writing as a process requiring different drafts and various stages of revision. I always wanted to write a very good text in one sitting, which was simply not possible most of the time. As I got used to this, I invested more time in drafting and revising texts until I was satisfied with the outcome. At the same time, the fact that they received extensive and explicit training in writing at university within their English studies was perceived as valuable. As one student puts it: “Practicing to produce such texts regularly over the courses definitely helped me to improve my writing/ speaking skills and to become more professional”. Generally, the study results show that the continuous education throughout their studies, with a focus on both general language competence and on (academic) writing competence, is seen as rewarding by the students, and seems to help them not only to cope with the demands of academic writing, but also to gradually increase their professionalism and their confidence as academic writers. 3.3.3 The micro-level: Perceived challenges and benefits The novice writers of Study 1 mention a number of challenges experienced that are quite simply related to the greater length of the required texts, accounting for a need 4 The questionnaires in Study 2 were answered in English, so quotations from student responses were left unaltered, i.e. errors were not corrected. Growing into Academic L2 Writing 91 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 for more time to plan and organize their papers, but also to edit them. The interviewees, who had self-identified as successful writers, all reported extensive phases of planning and editing. The plans mostly consisted of outlines in terms of content and structure, with students adding and changing them in line with their reading and learning about the new topic. One student described this as I always make such plans before, on a piece of paper, I write down what I want to do, and what is most intelligent, so that I group it somehow […] mostly, I make a plan before writing, where I decide what belongs where regarding content and so on. With regard to editing, the status of novices with regard to academic conventions of writing becomes quite apparent, in that students’ focus lay quite clearly on surface or formal features, such as using the style sheet correctly, especially in terms of quotations, and on the use of specific terms, including connecting devices. The purpose of doing this was identified by one student as “[…] so that it sounds - under inverted commas - clever”. In terms of more functional genre conventions, i.e. the choice of moves and the understanding of a link between moves and communicative intention, two different sets of challenges could be identified (cf. also H ÜTTNER 2015). Those student writers that produced genre moves in introductions and conclusions that were deemed inappropriate by their markers could be clustered into two groups; firstly, the group who reported planning to use an inappropriate move, such as ‘presenting new information’ in the conclusion, and had clear textual realisations of this intention in their texts. The second group reported planning to use required and/ or appropriate genre moves, e.g. ‘presenting the main points’ in the paper introduction, but did not manage to turn this communicative intention into a textual realisation in their papers. Clearly, for the former group, the challenge is one of awareness of the communicative purposes of particular academic texts, whereas for the latter group, the difficulties lie in turning appropriately understood communicative intentions into recognizable textual realisations. With the more advanced students in Study 2, a number of common themes emerged as regards specific challenges on the micro-level of writing academic texts. As to be anticipated at a higher language competence level, most of the issues experienced were related to academic writing literacy rather than to general language or writing competence. The two most frequently mentioned challenges related to literature (reading, finding, selecting and evaluating sources), and to textual logic or structure (providing well-structured texts with a coherent, persuasive argument). Language factors were also experienced as challenging, but the main problems here related to academic language (e.g. formal vocabulary, impersonal writing style) rather than to general language competence. Furthermore, topic-related issues like finding a research question, narrowing down or staying focused on the topic were listed frequently. Interestingly, quite a number of students mentioned emotional challenges as hindering their writing process. These were either intrinsically motivated feelings of anxiety or lack of self-confidence that were triggered, especially when having to write 92 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 longer papers: “I suppose I always feel intimidated by ‘big’ papers and tend to put them off because the amount of work they require scares me at the beginning”. These negative emotions, according to the student responses, frequently lead to procrastination strategies prolonging and delaying the writing process. On a more extrinsic level, students mentioned a lack of motivation, partly induced by a lack of interest in the research topic, or by missing the sense of purpose in student writing, as exemplified in the following statement: “But as a student I do not really see the relevance of the content of our work. Who is really going to read the paper or the diploma thesis besides our professors? […] It is a little bit frustrating”. Here, awareness raising as to the relevance and place of student genres within the academic discourse community could clearly help to increase student motivation. While academic writing was obviously associated with a range of difficulties, all students also mentioned various positive experiences related to academic writing, which showed that they, at least partly, tended to link both the writing process and the end result with a sense of enjoyment. One group of these positive emotions was related to the topic level, such as the joy experienced when delving into an interesting topic, or the act of comparing and contrasting views and finding one’s own: What I liked most about writing academic texts was that I had to read about so many different topics and areas of research, compare/ contrast different views and opinions and back up my own ideas with relevant source material. These positive experiences were also mentioned when initial procrastination was involved. As one student notes: “Sometimes it takes some time for me to start the writing process, but I actually really enjoy working on topics of my interest and reading through secondary literature”. On a more personal level, participants mentioned the sense of “relief and accomplishment” when handing in the final paper, and the self-confidence gained over the course of their academic career, which, as students felt “will also help me in my future career”. Here, positive feedback received on their papers was mentioned as a special factor strengthening students’ self-confidence. Overall, then, academic writing seems to be quite emotionally charged, both negatively and positively, even for advanced students with a range of previous experience in academic writing. 3.3.3 The mother tongue: Perceived competence in L1 vs. L2 academic writing As participants in Study 1 did not comment at all on the use of L1 as a language of academic writing, only findings from Study 2 will be reported here. Since particularly the advanced students in the teacher training program participating in Study 2, who are required to study a second subject, were likely to be engaged in academic writing both in their L1 and their L2, their perspectives on L1 vs. L2 writing processes offer interesting insights into potentially L2-specific factors; for this reason, Study 2 Growing into Academic L2 Writing 93 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 included reflection questions addressed only to students who had to produce academic texts in both languages. Among this group, numerous students reported feeling more competent in their L2 although this was not their native language, due to the targeted input they had received at the English Department, which (in line with the above comments on the lack of L1 writing instruction in academia) they described as less prominent or even absent in their other subjects: I feel that I am more competent when writing academic texts in English, simply because I have the impression that at the English Department we focus more on academic writing/ style/ citations etc. than at the German Department. Although I generally feel quite confident when writing in German, I feel that we are much better prepared for writing academic texts in English. The English Department simply focuses a lot more on writing competence; in Biology the main training/ issues rather relate to knowledge in the fields of Biology. Other students, in turn, indicated that they were more comfortable writing in their L1 because they felt more confident in their mother tongue. While they related this partly to their more extensive experience in writing L1 texts, in some cases, the source of this perception seemed to be linked to their supposed lack of language proficiency in the L2, even though they were at an advanced stage of their (language) studies. This was apparent in statements like the following: I do feel a lot more confident writing academic texts in my L1. I think this is due to the reason, that I never have had problems in German concerning vocabulary, spelling, cohesion, etc. Furthermore, it is much easier to express myself and my ideas in my L1. Hence, for these participants, their perceived limitations in linguistic range and accuracy diminished their confidence, as these rendered their writing process more timeconsuming and less straightforward than in their L1. For a third student cluster, the L1-L2 competence distinction was not so clear-cut, as they differentiated between language competence on the one hand, where they felt more confident in their L1, and writing competence on the other, where they felt better equipped in their L2. This, again, suggests that the obstacles and preferences experienced in L1 or L2 academic writing competence are linked to both levels, academic writing conventions as well as language-related issues, which are experienced as strengths or limitations with varying intensities by different students. 3.3.4 The social nature of academic writing: Awareness of writer identity and varying conventions A clear difference between the less mature academic writers of Study 1 and the more mature ones of Study 2 lies in the awareness (or lack of it) of writing as social practice, including issues of stance. For Study 1 students, academic writing was quite simply defined as ‘objective’, operationalized as focusing on conveying factual information and the need to avoid the first-person pronoun ‘I’. Interestingly, there were two genre moves were a writer identity was verbalized, i.e. in the ‘acknowledgements’ of the 94 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 introduction and the already mentioned ‘personal reflection’ of the conclusions. Neither of these moves, however, embraces an academic writer identity; the reflections are those of learners of content and hence best captured as more general student identities and the acknowledgements focus on the private, social persona of the students. Beyond that, very little was reported in terms of writer identity by Study 1 participants. Study 2 participants, on the other hand, showed deeper, albeit diverse, levels of awareness of academic writing as a social practice, which were addressed in one section of the reflections focusing on their perceptions of the role of writer identity in academic texts. Even though the students were at an advanced stage of their studies at this point, and had received considerable input on academic writing throughout their university courses, views here appeared to be astonishingly mixed. Some clearly seemed to conceptualize academic writing as a social activity where the writer inherently expresses his/ her identity through the act of writing, as exemplified by a typical response: Every academic text (as long as it is no case of plagiarism) necessarily conveys the opinion of the author. Thus, the identity (meaning the set of beliefs, the approach to the problem in question, the formulation of the thesis) is intrinsic to the process of academic writing in my opinion. Another group, in turn, apparently saw academic texts as separate from the writer, which points to a skills-based conceptualisation that, still in line with the notions of beginning students in Study 1, disregards the social embedding of academic writing practices. This is illustrated by the two responses below, where, in the case of student A, writer identity is viewed as distant from, and inappropriate in, academic texts, or where, for student B, the notion seems to be unfamiliar altogether: A. I do not think that the writer should show his/ her identity, as the text is meant to present a contribution to the pertaining field of study, and the identity of the author should not influence or determine this thesis. (reflection 1) B. I don’t think I can answer this question correctly since I am not familiar with the term of writer identity or its meaning. (reflection 1) However, it appears that targeted instruction indeed helps in raising student awareness in this respect, even if they are already at a relatively advanced level. The EAP course took a genre-approach to academic writing, stressing its social nature and explicitly addressing writer identity and the positioning of students’ writing within their academic community. Furthermore, as the participants were writing their Master-/ Diploma Theses in various fields (literature, linguistics, cultural studies, or for student teachers even in completely unrelated fields), the course tried to sensitize the students to varying genre conventions in different fields by picturing them as agreed practices negotiated by a particular academic community. 5 5 For a comprehensive analysis of the effect of the EAP course on student conceptions, cf. R IEDER - B ÜNEMANN / R ESNIK (forthcoming). Growing into Academic L2 Writing 95 49 (2020) • Heft 1 DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 As the answers of the same two students in the follow-up questionnaire after the course showed, their views did indeed change through the course input, both with regard to the role of writer identity, and the varying conventions as to its explicit realisations in academic texts. This is apparent in their verbalisations, with a clearer conceptualisation addressing field-specific conventions on the part of student A and an admittedly much fuzzier response of student B, which nevertheless seems to imply some familiarity with the notion of writer identity and a degree of sensitivity as to varying genre conventions. A. I now think that it is obvious that writer identity is implicit in his/ her argumentation, and that the (non)usage (is that a word ? ) of personal pronouns depends on convention. (reflection 2) B. My views have definitely changed since the beginning of the course […] since I am now more familiar with the term. In my opinion, a writer’s identity is fairly important, however it mostly depends on the text type. (reflection 2) With this in mind, it seems that targeted teaching with a focus on academic writing as genre and as a social practice can trigger important reconceptualisations on the part of the students. 4. Conclusion and Implications This paper brought together two studies at the same institution, albeit at two different levels of study progress, covering a period of over ten years. During this time, some curricular changes were made in order to address some of the difficulties of students with regard to their academic writing practices in the L2. Although the studies were not planned as directly comparable, some noteworthy similarities and differences emerge. As regards the similarities, we find that some of the challenges remain; students are daunted by the length of academic texts they need to produce, which usually constitutes quite a jump from L2 writing genres and practices experienced at school. The difference in terms of moving away from personal, opinion-based writing to informative, argument-based writing is also shared across time and level of students; especially the challenges of finding, understanding, evaluating and organising information are foregrounded. In terms of differences, students in Study 1 were still largely recipients of ‘learning by osmosis’, which led to a diversity in understanding and applying genre conventions, as well as a focus on surface-level linguistic features of academic texts, suggesting a certain level of desperation in trying to make a text ‘look’ academic without understanding what is actually meant by ‘being’ academic. The effects of participants in Study 2 having taken part in focused, explicit genre-based teaching of academic writing are clearly apparent even if the data focuses on the level of language and 96 Julia Hüttner, Angelika Rieder-Bünemann DOI 10.2357/ FLuL-2020-0006 49 (2020) • Heft 1 genre-awareness rather than the level of textual practice. The more mature writers are noticeably aware of the benefits of their targeted education for improving both their competence as well as their confidence as academic writers. This perceived need to receive explicit training in academic writing, and the benefit experienced, are most evident in students’ direct comparisons of L1 scenarios without instruction with their L2 context. Despite positive developments, data suggest that Study 2 participants are also still developing; especially the aspect of academic writer identity is very diversely tackled by different students, although it has to be noted that, unlike Study 1 participants, there is some awareness of the role of writer identity in academic genres. What becomes clear through the development of the students of Study 2 after having received targeted genre-based instruction in the EAP course, though, is that even at an advanced stage, focused teaching can have far-reaching effects. These effects, most importantly, succeed in raising students’ awareness of academic writing practices and conventions, and thus adjusting students’ conceptualisations towards a social view of academic writing where they, as student writers, can find their own place, and their own voice, as participants in their chosen academic discourse community. 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