SocioCultural Context of Writing
ANALYSING ACADEMIC WRITING PRACTICES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TARTU: A MULTIFACETED PERSPECTIVE ON LANGUAGES, TEACHING, AND TRADITIONS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Djuddah A.J. Leijen , Marge Käsper , Ülle Türk , Pille Põiklik , Mari Kruse , Anni Jürine , Kersti Lepajõe
1
College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 3 College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 4 College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 5 College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 6 College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 7 College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia 2
The symposium, chaired by Djuddah A.J. Leijen, the Head of the Center for Academic Writing and Communication at the University of Tartu, focuses on how texts are constructed in the Estonian context in Estonian and other languages. The presenters all teach academic writing and text analysis, be it to students of specific languages or students from various disciplines wishing to publish in a foreign language. The question we explore is whether there are any culturespecific characteristics which can be traced in the texts of Estonian writers. Our aim in looking at this across languages, formats and levels is to provide insights that could be applied when considering the needs of Estonian university writers. To begin with, Marge Käsper offers a contrastive analysis of book reviews published in Estonian humanities and social sciences and of functionally comparable texts in French. After this, Pille Põiklik and Ülle Türk present an analysis of the written answers produced by Estonian students in English at university entrance examinations, and Mari Kruse analyses the influence of English on students writing in Spanish. Djuddah A.J. Leijen and Anni Jürine analyse the problems young researchers have as they enter specific fields of research. Kersti Lepajõe, the invited expert for the discussion, will comment further on the Estonian writing traditions the students bring with them as they enter university studies and the difficulties they might have in academic writing. Thus, the first presentations provide an overview of where we are coming from: what have been considered the discursive norms and practices in published texts and what is the level of students entering the university, while the following presentations are concerned with the practicalities of the Estonian students’ writing in other languages and the lessons that can be learnt from it. Studying texts that are essentially commentaries on other writings, our presentations share an interest in how source texts or ideas are referenced and how the self is positioned with respect to these, be it studied from the textual (structuring, cohesion), lexicogrammatical or the more sociopragmatic (text strategies, the discipline variable, etc.) point of view.