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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Christopher Leyland
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
A good deal of research reveals the ways university students fulfil the needs of the reader in their academic writing. Little is known, however, about the ways writing tutors help students to understand their audience during the preparation stage. Understanding the reader's needs can be difficult for any student, but particularly for international students that may come from different linguistic, cultural and academic backgrounds, some of whom may little or no prior experience of writing an essay. As the numbers of international students at ‘Western’ universities continue to grow, understanding the pedagogical practices that enable them to develop as academic writers is vital. This study shows how, in real-life interaction, writing tutors make systematic and explicit reference to the reader as a pedagogical tool when advising international students. Using Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, this paper (i) explores the interactional contexts in which tutors invoke the reader, (ii) discusses the ways tutors construct particular characteristics and activities of a ‘standardized relational pair’ (writer-reader), and (iii) tracks the ways students respond in real-time. This study finds that advice-giving practices that include an invocation of the reader routinely results in students providing claims and demonstrations of knowledge and a general agreement. Analyses also explore occasions when this invocation requires further unpacking to help students understand. Findings show how the reader-invocations enable tutors to engage with broad principles, which can help international students adapt to new writing norms. This study builds on research on writing centres and advice-giving practices, then discusses practical implications for educators.
Author(s): Leyland C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Linguistics and Education
Year: 2021
Volume: 61
Print publication date: 01/02/2021
Online publication date: 23/12/2020
Acceptance date: 17/12/2020
Date deposited: 09/02/2022
ISSN (print): 0898-5898
ISSN (electronic): 1873-1864
Publisher: Elsevier
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2020.100900
DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2020.100900
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