This book represents the physical outcome of the symposium “Academic Voices in Contrast”, organised at the University of Bergen, Norway, in May 2006. The symposium, focusing on recent research within the field of academic discourse, was initiated and organised by the KIAP project (Cultural Identity in Academic Prose; see www.uib.no/kiap/). In this project, a special focus has been put on the study of the voice(s) of the academic author, in the doubly contrastive perspective of language and discipline. A narrow selection of distinguished scholars were invited to participate at the symposium. They were asked to address issues related to “traditional” linguistic versus contextual approaches or to interlingual and interdisciplinary similarities and differences in academic discourse. By the papers of the following, the symposium and the present book constitute a clear advancement of the research on academic discourse: M. A. A. Ariza, L. Berge, M. Bondi, S. V. Bonn, S. Carter-Thomas, T. Dahl, K. Fløttum, A. M. Gjesdal, F. Grossmann, K. Hyland, T. Kinn, L. Lundquist, A. Mauranen, M. Pabón, E. Rowley-Jolivet, F. Salager-Meyer, P. Shaw, J. M. Swales, J.L. Tønnesson, E. T. Vold, F. Wirth.

Drawing on genre analysis and corpus linguistics, the book brings together studies on a genre that is becoming one of the most important in present-day research communication. The chapters are organised into three sections focusing on language and genre variation across cultures and disciplines, as well as on recent language and genre change.

This volume reflects the emerging interest in cross-disciplinary variation in both spoken and written academic English, exploring the conventions and modes of persuasion characteristic of different disciplines and which help define academic inquiry. This collection brings together chapters by applied linguists and EAP practitioners from seven different countries. The authors draw on various specialised spoken and written corpora to illustrate the notion of variation and to explore the concept of discipline and the different methodologies they use to investigate these corpora. The book also seeks to make explicit the valuable links that can be made between research into academic speech and writing as text, as process, and as social practice.

Academic Discourse and Global Publishing offers a coherent argument for changes in published academic writing over the past 50 years. Demonstrating how published writing represents academics’ decisions about how best to present their work, their readers and themselves in the global context of a rapidly shifting university system, this book provides: An up-to-date reference on contemporary topics in specialist discourse analysis, current research methodologies and innovative approaches to the study of writing; New insights into conceptual and theoretical issues related to the analysis of academic writing; An accessible introduction to diachronic research in EAP and a case for the value of the diachronic study of texts using corpus techniques; A clear overview of how texts work in interaction and how they relate to evolving institutional and political contexts; Links between the practices of different disciplines and the environments in which they operate, as well as observations on the ways in which they differ. This volume is essential reading for students and researchers of EAP/ESP and Applied Linguistics and will also be of significant interest to academics and students looking to have their work published.

The goal of this volume is to examine academic discourse (AD) from cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspectives. The adjective "Cross-cultural" in the volume title is not just limited to national contexts but also includes a cross-disciplinary perspective. Twelve scientific fields are under scrutiny in the articles. One of the unique aspects of the volume is the inclusion of a variety of foreign languages (English (as a lingua franca), Spanish, French, Swedish, Russian, German, Italian, and Norwegian). Besides, in several articles dealing with oral AD, comparisons and parallels are also established with written AD. The research methodologies used in the studies are varied and they offer an overview of the diversity and richness of approaches to AD. All in all, it is hoped that the volume appeals not only to young researchers but also to confirmed scholars interested in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural aspects of AD. It will also be of interest to language teachers or teachers who are involved with e.g. international students and academic mobility.

Academic discourse is a rapidly growing area of study, attracting researchers and students from a diverse range of fields. This is partly due to the growing awareness that knowledge is socially constructed through language and partly because of the emerging dominance of English as the language of scholarship worldwide. Large numbers of students and researchers must now gain fluency in the conventions of English language academic discourses to understand their disciplines, establish their careers and to successfully navigate their learning. This accessible and readable book shows the nature and importance of academic discourses in the modern world, offering a clear description of the conventions of spoken and written academic discourse and the ways these construct both knowledge and disciplinary communities. This unique genre-based introduction to academic discourse will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying TESOL, applied linguistics, and English for Academic Purposes.

This collection of essays traces the attempts of one writing teacher to understand theoretically - and to respond pedagogically - to what happens when students from diverse backgrounds learn to use language in college.Bizzell begins from the assumption that democratic education requires us to attempt to educate all students, including those whose social or ethnic backgrounds may have offered them little experience with academic discourse. Over the ten-year period chronicled in these essays, she has seen herself primarily as an advocate for such students, sometimes called "basic writers."Bizzell's views on education for "critical consciousness," widely discussed in the writing field, are represented in most of the essays in this volume. But in the last few chapters, and in the intellectual autobiography written as the introduction to the volume, she calls her previous work into question on the grounds that her self-appointment as an advocate for basic writers may have been presumptous, and her hopes for the politically liberating effects of academic discourse misplaced. She concludes by calling for a theory of discourse that acknowledges the need to argue for values and pedagogy that can assist these arguements to proceed more inclusively than ever before.The essays in this volume constitute the main body of work in which Bizzell developed her influential and often cited ideas. Organized chronologically, they present a picture of how she has grappled with major issues in composition studies over the past decade. In the process, she sketches a trajectory for the development of composition studies as an academic discipline.

Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres brings together a range of perspectives on two of the most important and contested concepts in applied linguistics: stance and voice. International experts provide an accessible, yet authoritative introduction to key issues and debates surrounding these terms.

Ken Hyland draws on a number of sources to explore how authors convey aspects of their identities within the constraints placed upon them by their disciplines' rhetorical conventions. He promotes corpus methods as important tools in identity research.

Contemporary research into written academic discourse has become increasingly polarised between two approaches: corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. This volume presents a selection of recent work by experts in academic written discourse, and illustrates how corpus linguistics and discourse analysis can work as complementary approaches. The overall introduction sets the volume against the backdrop of current work in English for Academic Purposes, and introductions to the each section draw out connections between the chapters and put them into context. The contributors are experts in the field and they cover both novice and expert examples of EAP. The book ends with an afterword that provides an agenda-setting closing perspective on the future of EAP research. It will appeal to reserachers and postgrduates in applied linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and EAP.