NATURAL SCIENTISTS' TRANSLINGUAL PRACTICE FOR WRITING SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Socio­Cultural Context of Writing Second choice: Writing for Publication

NATURAL SCIENTISTS' TRANSLINGUAL PRACTICE FOR WRITING SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

4 Melanie Brinkschulte¹, Monica Elena Stoian², Ellen Borges³, Irina Barczaitis​

¹Georg­August­University, Göttingen, Germany ²Georg­August­University, Göttingen, Germany ³Georg­August­University, Göttingen, Germany 4​ Georg­August­University, Göttingen, Germany

The research project “Multilingual competence in scientific writing” ­ initiated by the International Writing Center of Göttingen University ­ deals with the perspectives of natural science scholars on scientific writing and their approach towards a global working academia. Natural Sciences normally deal with English as global publication language but scientists often studied in their L1. They are able to develop an academic writing knowledge in more than one language. Statistics regarding the distribution of languages in natural study programs at German universities and students' attitudes towards translingual practice (Canagarajah 2013) in their academic writing processes form the gist of the first part of the research (Brinkschulte/Stoian/Borges 2015). The multimodality of writing and the specifics of writing strategies scientists use, make the topic of this presentation. It offers results of the ongoing analysis of the applied methods and handling of translingual matters from the side of internationally acting scientists in their writing process, be it before, during and following phases of the publications. These phases include the complex embedding of translingual writing process within the scientific community, beginning from the call of papers or topic suitability for a certain journal, e.g. with a high impact factor, until a paper is reviewed and published. In our presentation we will offer insights on how scientists implement translingual writing in the publication process. The research aims in its final outcome to bind the results achieved in investigating the situation among the natural science students and scholars in order to develop a didactical model for multiliteracy in scientific writing embedded in natural science study programs.

References

Brinkschulte, M./Stoian, M./Borges, E. (2015, under publication) Resource focused research for multilingual competence in scientific writing.

In: Journal of Academic Writing. http://e­learning.coventry.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/joaw

Canagarajah, S. (2013) Translingual Practice. Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London and New York: Routledge