Drawing on Lillis and Curry's (2010) text history methodology, this presentation explores the moments and mechanisms of intervention in the process of research paper writing and evaluation, as well as the associated norm negotiations. The focus is on trajectories of papers written by multilingual scholars in English.
Drawing on Lillis and Curry's (2010) text history methodology, this presentation explores the moments and mechanisms of intervention in the process of research paper writing and evaluation, as well as the associated norm negotiations. It addresses the following questions with focus on text histories as temporal and spatial trajectories: (1) What are the mechanisms and practices enabling and restricting interventions by different brokers and co-authors along the trajectory? (2) What happens in the particular moments of intervention (e.g. who intervenes and how are the interventions negotiated)? (3) How do the interventions impact the text and what norms and appropriateness criteria are suggested in the process? The presentation draws on text history data (multiple drafts, research interviews with writers, recordings of meetings around writing, language reviser comments, peer reviews and document data) collected from multilingual scholars writing for research publication in English. Findings are discussed particularly in reference to two example cases: the trajectory of a co-authored research paper in the field of HCI from an indicative abstract to a published paper and conference presentation, and the trajectory of a single-authored research paper in the field of history. The findings suggest that various "evaluative authorities" (Blommaert 2010) are evoked, but that the regulative influence of the interventions depend on how authors weigh broker suggestions against their own understandings of appropriateness. Different scales of consideration (Canagarajah 2018) seem to be in operation along the trajectory, as norms and appropriateness criteria are (re)negotiated at different moments of the trajectory. The study forms part of the Language Regulation in Academia (LaRA) research project at the University of Helsinki (see http://www.helsinki.fi/project/lara).
References:
Blommaert, J. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Canagarajah, S. 2018. Materializing 'competence': Perspectives from international STEM scholars. The Modern Language Journal 102(2): 268–291.
Lillis, T. & M.J. Curry. 2010. Academic Writing in a Global Context. The Politics and Practices of Publishing in English. London: Routledge.
