Writing passage: Academic literacy socialization among ESL graduate students, a multiple case study
Author(s):
Bronson, Matthew Clay
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : University of California, Davis, 2004.
Pages:
410
Language:
English
Abstract:
Research in academic literacy began with text-based analyses of finished research monographs in the 1960s and 1970s and, through the 1980s and 1990s acquired an increasing concern with the socio-cultural contexts in which such texts were created and interpreted. This study continues a nascent line of inquiry into the practices of the socio-literate academy and their impact on post-graduate students in real-world educational settings. The focus of the study was four ESL graduate students (2 Japanese, 1 Hmong, 1 Chilean) as they were being socialized into the academic language and professional discourse practices of anthropology and psychology at a U.S. graduate school via their assignments and their professors' responses. “Language Socialization” (“LS”) is a theoretical framework that was extended in this study to deal with literate (in addition to oral) practices and adult learners (as opposed to children). LS was adapted to include an analysis of the genres and tasks inherent in particular assignments and the communities-of-practice in which the assignments were embedded. The four students were followed through their academic careers for a period ranging from one to three years; drafts of their assignments and, where possible, final papers with professor's comments were collected. Interviews, field observations and member checks provided an increasingly “thicker” data set through the sequence of four cases. All data were coded and, in the course of a grounded theory-based analysis, three analytical concepts emerged: (a) “critical incident,” in which participants learned something important about themselves as language learners and/or aspiring academics, (b) “resources” such as dictionaries, tutoring and writing conferences, and (c) “challenges” such as second-language transfer, cognitive overload or lack of a lived relationship with English. Students were found to progress in their learning when their available resources were sufficient for the tasks required of them and when they felt challenged and invited to enter the “zone of proximal development” but with sufficient social and moral support. Their progress was hindered when there was no clear path to success as when there was a clear mismatch between what they expected and what they experienced by way of their professor's responses.