Up Logic Lane

 Event 

Up Logic Lane: Developing Argumentation in L2 doctoral students’ academic writing through Pedagogical Innovation and Linguistic Ethnography

Part of the School of Education Research Seminar Series 2022-23.

About the seminar

This paper reports on an ongoing study in the tradition of ‘linguistic ethnography’ (Copland and Creese, 2015), which focuses on argumentation in the academic writing of second-language postgraduate students in our increasingly internationalised and diverse HE sector. The study aims first, to provide a pedagogic intervention in the form of optional workshops in order to develop argumentation in the academic writing of doctoral students; second, to carry out a constructivist evaluation of the materials and activities used.

The study does not aspire to offer a formula for developing argumentation; rather, the main outcome is intended to be a glimpse of the processes involving awareness and competence in argumentation, which may contribute to theory in this under-researched aspect of student academic writing.

About the speaker

Dr Hania Salter-Dvorak is award leader for the MA TESOL at BSU. Her research examines how second language students develop academic literacy and adjust to anglophone academia. She uses ethnography to explore how language, culture, identity and power intersect in the experiences of such students, particularly in relation to processes surrounding communication in academic settings, and the roles played by feedback, assessment and proofreading in academic writing.

Her publications identify ways in which universities can accommodate a highly diverse student body through appropriate course design and community building. Hania is currently engaged in a research project on argumentation in academic writing of postgraduate students.