Multilingualism and Academic Writing: A Match Made in Heaven or a Disastrous Combination?
Paul, R. and McDonald, Ian (2017) Multilingualism and Academic Writing: A Match Made in Heaven or a Disastrous Combination? Journal of Research Initiatives, 3 (1). ISSN 2168-9083
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Abstract
There has long been a tradition of international students studying in the United Kingdom. Despite a dip in the most recently published statistics, Indian students continue to make up a high proportion of UK’s international student population. The majority of Indian students are
multilingual and this raises potential problems for them with regards to academic writing, such as grammar, structuring, and vocabulary. This article presents a largely empirical study which examines the experiences of, and issues faced by seven postgraduate research students in the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Birmingham City University.
Samples of academic writing of each participant were analysed and semi structured interviews were also conducted with the participants. Lessons from these experiences, such as the difference between participants’ actual and perceived academic writing ability, and the
tendency of some students to think in their native language and then translate their thoughts into English, are discussed and proposals made as to how multilingual students can be better supported in their academic writing within the Faculty.
| Item Type: | Article | ||||||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | multilingualism; academic writing; research; international students; postgraduate students | ||||||
| Subjects: | CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-01 - education | ||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment > College of Built Environment | ||||||
| Depositing User: | Ian Mcdonald | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 12 Apr 2018 07:47 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 20 Jun 2024 11:46 | ||||||
| URI: | https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5740 |
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