Call for Papers - Special Issue - Fall 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE

English for Academic Purposes (EAP): new frontiers in learning to write in English

 

Guest Editors:

Laura Pinnavaia, University of Milan

Annalisa Zanola, University of Brescia

Research into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has expanded enormously in the last decades, owing to the burgeoning use of English for professional reasons, as well as for the concerted interest EAP has attracted in higher and further education courses for native speakers and non-native speakers of English worldwide (see among others Alexander, Argent, & Spencer (2008); Basturkmen (2006); Dudley-Evans & St. John (1998); Hyland (2006); Jordan (1997); McDonough (2005); Richards & Farrell (2005)). Stemming principally from English for Specific Purposes (ESP), in the last few years EAP has obtained its own space as a highly skill-based area of language study that can be examined at different degrees of specificity, more generally as English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP), or in greater detail as English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP).

Among the four skills that EAP has traditionally featured, writing is still in need of great attention. Learners of English at university level have indeed great difficulty in writing in English. Besides the cultural differences, difficulties are enhanced by the failure to provide targeted and well-structured lessons aimed to help learners how to write in academic English. Writing still seems to be treated as a trial-and-error exercise, with the illusion that sooner or later students will simply pick it up. It is our firm belief that this cannot be.  As Bourdieu and Passeron (1994, p. 8) have pointed out, “no-one speaks (or writes) academic English as a first language, therefore everyone needs to learn it.” More concerted action should therefore go into studying the possible strategies necessary to make writing a less frustrating task for English learners.

In the attempt to promote this idea, we would like to invite contributions to a special issue on writing in EAP that present cutting-edge research within this area of language teaching. We envision papers that fall in three areas: the use, the knowledge, and the cultural aspects of English (Gillett, 1989) as they relate to the teaching and learning of academic writing. Disciplinary variation in EAP has received considerable attention in theory (that is, knowledge) more than in the practice (or use) of designing, implementing and teaching culturally-bounded programmes. Yet, in the context of English as a global language, some of the greatest challenges for non-native English speakers are the quality of written specialised communication, good understanding of the communicative context, as well as the appropriate professional register and style (Zanola, 2023, p. 29). Moreover, EAP is becoming a unique gateway to both English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and English for Professional Purposes (EPP), and “multinational corporations need ways of ensuring that the workplace English demands of their operations in non-English speaking situations are being met” (Hamp-Lyons & Lockwood, 2009, p. 150). Dissatisfaction on the side of the students is also signalled, as most learners need “help in handling generic realizations of professionally driven discourses, some of which have an academic orientation, others being related to workplace contexts” (Bhatia & Bremner, 2012, p. 419): the perception of their teachers generally reinforce and complement this statement.

All submissions should be related to language pedagogy and either be research-based papers providing data and analysis or theoretical papers building on previous research and offer new perspectives. Also, regardless of the approach, all the articles need to have broader implications for the field.

 

Important dates

The special issue is scheduled to be published in November 2023.

The deadline for submitting articles is April 20, 2023.

Authors interested in submitting a paper to this special issue should do so by using the submission form on the journal website: www.e-journall.org

 All the papers will go through double blind peer review. 

For any questions pertaining to this special issue, please contact  laura.pinnavaia@unimi.it and  annalisa.zanola@unibs.it.

For any other questions, please contact editor@e-journall.org.

  

References

Alexander, Olwyn, Argent, Sue, & Spencer, Jenifer (2008). EAP Essentials: A teacher’s guide to principles and practice. Garnet Education.

Basturkmen, Helen (2006). Ideas and options in English for Specific Purposes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bhatia Vijay K., & Bremner Stephen (2012). ‘English for Business Communication’, Language Teaching, 45(4), 410-445.

Bourdieu, Pierre, & Passeron, Jean-Claude. (1994). Introduction: Language and the relationship to language in the teaching situation. In Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-ClaudePasseron, & Monique de Saint Martin, Academic discourse (pp. 1-34). Polity Press.

Dudley-Evans, Tony, &St. John, Maggie (1998). Developments in English for Specific Purposes. Cambridge University Press.

Gillett, A. J. (1989). Designing an EAP course: English language support for further and higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 13(2), 92-104.

Hamp-Lyons Liz, & Lockwood Jane (2009). ‘The workplace, the society and the wider world: The offshoring and outsourcing industry’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 29, 145-167.

Hyland, Ken (2006). English for academic purposes: An advanced resource book. Routledge.

Jordan, Robert R. (1997). English for Academic Purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge University Press.

McDonough, Jo (2005). Perspectives on EAP: An interview with Ken Hyland, ELT Journal 59(1), 57–64.

Richards, Jack C. and Farrell, Thomas S. C. (2005). Professional development for language teachers: Strategies for teacher learning. Cambridge University Press.

Zanola Annalisa (2023). La lingua inglese per la comunicazione scientifica e professionale. Carocci.

 

Guest editors

Laura Pinnavaia (PhD) is Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Milan (Italy). Her research interests in lexicology and lexicography have resulted in the publication of over forty articles, two co-edited monographs: Insights into English and Germanic lexicology and lexicography: past and present perspectives (Polimetrica 2010); Esempi di Seconda Mano. Studi sulla citazione in contesto europeo ed extraeuropeo (Di/Segni 2019); and three authored monographs: The Italian Borrowings in the OED: A Lexicographic, Linguistic and Cultural Analysis (Bulzoni 2001), Introduzione alla Linguistica Inglese (Carocci 2015). Food and Drink Idioms in English: “A Little Bit More Sugar and Lots of Spice” (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2018). She is currently working on the history of writing instruction for native speakers of English.

 

Annalisa Zanola (PhD) is Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics and Director of the Language Teaching Centre at University of Brescia (Italy). She represents her University at the European Language Council (ELC) meetings, and she is member of the Board of the International Doctoral program in Euro(pean)-Languages and Specialized Terminologies at the University of Naples “Parthenope” (Italy), in collaboration with Université d’Artois, Arras (France). Her current research interests include the study of language and communication for professional purposes and the most recent trends in Public Speaking and Academic Writing, English as an International Language, International English in Business and Health Communication and English for Scientific and Professional Purposes.