Synopses & Reviews
Researchers around the world are under increasing pressure to publish in high-profile international journals, which requires them to bring their academic writing into line with the norms enforced at the centre of the system. This book explores some of the issues affecting authors from countries on the semiperiphery, who often find themselves torn between conflicting academic cultures and discourses. Through a series of case studies from 10 countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, the chapters discuss themes such as the dominance of English and its effects upon traditional scholarly discourses, the difficulties these researchers face in trying to negotiate a dual identity as members of both the global and local academic discourse communities, knowledge flows on the semiperiphery, and discrepancies between state policy and de facto practice on issues such as academic recruitment and intellectual property.
Synopsis
With researchers around the world are under increasing pressure to publish in high-profile international journals, this book explores some of the issues affecting authors on the semiperiphery, who often find themselves torn between conflicting academic cultures and discourses.
About the Author
Karen Bennett lectures in English for Academic Purposes, Scientific Communication, and Translation at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and is a researcher with the Centre for English Studies, University of Lisbon. She is author of Academic Writing in Portugal I: Discourses in Conflict and English Academic Discourse: Its Hegemonic Status and Implications for Translation, as well as numerous journal articles.
Table of Contents
Introduction - The Political and Economic Infrastructure of Academic Practice: The 'Semiperiphery' as a Category for Social and Linguistic Analysis; Karen Bennett
PART I: DISCOURSES IN TENSION
1. The Erosion of Portuguese Historiographic Discourse; Karen Bennett
2. The Changing Face of Czech Academic Writing; Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova
3. Academic Discourse Practices in Greece: Exploring the 'International Conference of Greek Linguistics'; Dimitra Vladimirou
4. Teaching Academic Writing for the Global World in Poland: The ELF Perspective; Anna Gonerko-Frej
PART II: COMMUNITIES IN CONFLICT
5. Centre-periphery Relations in the Spanish Context: Temporal and Cross-disciplinary Variation; Sally Burgess
6. Portuguese Academics' Attitudes to English as the Lingua Franca: A Case Study; Rita Queiroz de Barros
7. Changing Research Writing Practices in Romania: Perceptions and Attitudes; Mirela Bardi and Laura Muresan
8. Looking Back from the Centre: Experiences and Perspectives of Italian Academics Living/Working Abroad; Raffaella Negretti
PART III: PUBLICATION PRACTICES
9. Turkish Academic Culture in Transition: Centre-based State Policies and Semiperipheral Practices of Research, Publishing and Promotion; Hacer Hande Uysal
10. English-medium Journals in Serbia: Editors' Perspectives; Bojana Petric
11. The Croatian Medical Journal: Success and Consequences; Ana Marušic and Matko Marušic
12. The Academic Weblog as a Semiperipheral Genre; Malgorzata Sokól
Conclusion: Countering the Centripetal Forces in Academic Writing; Karen Bennett