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This paper discusses the development and implementation of a locally-sourced corpus to address the specific needs of an ESL writing program. The paper begins with a description of the motivation and development of the Corpus of Ohio Learner and Teacher English (COLTE), a large in-house corpus consisting of assessed ESL student writing and teacher feedback from first-year writing courses. The paper illustrates research conducted within the local context using the COLTE and discusses how the program's corpus-based approach influenced curricular revisions and instructional practice. It addresses the evaluation of these efforts, challenges encountered, and considerations for building and using corpora at the program level. The paper concludes by arguing that stakeholders within programs can work collaboratively to build and use locally-sourced corpora grounded in their specific setting to explore local practices and address the English language learning and teaching needs of their own particular context.

Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions. In such settings, translanguaging is considered a common practice in which multilinguals “create an apparently seamless flow between languages and language varieties and to transcend the boundaries between named languages and/or language varieties as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems” (Hua et al., 2022, p. 315). Little research, however, exists on such practices in multilingual workplaces (Du & Zhou, 2022), and even less on the linguistically diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insight into the seamlessness, transcendence, and boundaries such language users create and perceive, we explore the communication practices of employees in different Swedish workplaces. As an initial departure point, five employees in managerial positions were interviewed in the pilot study. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that categorisations of languages are prevalent, with participants applying a scale of linguistic sophistication or complexity and ranking formality conventions on a strong-to-weak scale. When categorising people and groups, participants foreground identity and face, and group dynamics is a recurring theme, with distinctions made between groups and orientations. This presentation focuses on participants’ descriptions of L1 and L2 identities and their perceived effects on workplace communication. Findings suggest that translanguaging has yet to be commonplace in the workplaces we investigated and shed light on lay perspectives on (trans)languaging in the workplace.

References

Du, J., & Zhou, X. (2022). Translanguaging practices in Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ communications in the workplace. Applied Linguistics Review, 13(3), 389-402.

Hua, Z., Jones, R.H. & Jaworska, S. (2022). Acts of distinction at times of crisis: An epistemological challenge to intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 312-323.

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a locally-sourced corpus to address the specific needs of an ESL writing program. The paper begins with a description of the motivation and development of the Corpus of Ohio Learner and Teacher English (COLTE), a large in-house corpus consisting of assessed ESL student writing and teacher feedback from first-year writing courses. The paper illustrates research conducted within the local context using the COLTE and discusses how the program's corpus-based approach influenced curricular revisions and instructional practice. It addresses the evaluation of these efforts, challenges encountered, and considerations for building and using corpora at the program level. The paper concludes by arguing that stakeholders within programs can work collaboratively to build and use locally-sourced corpora grounded in their specific setting to explore local practices and address the English language learning and teaching needs of their own particular context.

In this talk, we present a research project that we plan to launch in late 2023. The aim of the project is to investigate professional communication in video meetings, which is justified given their growing importance in the modern and post-pandemic workplace. The setting is workplaces in Sweden where English is used as a lingua franca, due to the increasing societal impact of multilingual workplaces. In the specific context of study, communication is embedded in several layers of complexity: It takes place in an institutional setting; it is digital and takes place in video mode; it is done across cultures and marked by diversity; and it is done partly in English as a lingua franca. The project focuses on internal communication within the workplace and does not consider external communication, for example involving customers. The overarching research question is: What factors contribute to (un)successful digital intercultural interactions in multilingual workplaces, specifically in video meetings? To map the characteristics of video meetings, we compare them to in-person meetings. We thus ask: (a) What (perceived and actual) differences and similarities are there between digital and in-person workplace meetings? To map the video meeting as a genre, we ask: (b) What are the key structural, linguistic, and interactional patterns of the video meeting? Given the central role of English as a lingua franca in these workplaces, we ask: (c) To what extent and how does English language proficiency—including participants’ beliefs about and attitudes to English language proficiency—affect workplace communication in digital intercultural interactions? Finally, we adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing ‘culture’ as a dynamic concept (e.g., Hua et al., 2022), which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. We ask: (d) To what extent and how is culture seen as relevant in multilingual workplaces? Participants will be interviewed about communication practices in the workplace both individually and in focus groups. We will also record and analyze samples of (i) video and (ii) in-person meetings, to enable triangulation of different types of data. We conclude by discussing how the project's findings can be used as a basis for best practices and for developing workplace communication training materials.

Nominalizations, or nouns derived from verbs or adjectives through suffixes, are a pervasive characteristic feature of written academic discourse. To better understand the nature of nominalization in L2 student writing and its relation to assessment in first-year writing (FYW) contexts, we report findings of a comparative corpus-based analysis of nominalization use in university student papers. Data consist of high-rated (A graded) and low-rated (C graded) L2 undergraduate research papers from multiple sections of an FYW course for international and multilingual students. Nominalizations were examined in terms of frequencies, unique types, abstract/concrete and human/non-human categories, nominal stance types, and modification types. Results reveal no statistically significant differences in the examined classifications. However, the small effect sizes for certain categories point to subtle differences between the two groups, which together might have affected the instructors’ evaluations of text quality. We conclude with suggestions for incorporating nominalization instruction in English for Academic Purposes writing courses.

Contemporary workplaces are often characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions (e.g., Angouri, 2014). In such settings, participants draw on their rich cultural assumptions and values to co-construct meaning (e.g., Takamiya & Aida Niendorf, 2019), as language use and communication patterns have been found to be inextricably linked to different group belongings. While diversity enriches workplace interaction linguistically and culturally, it also presents “communicative challenges to many employers and co-workers” (Holmes, 2018, p. 335). These communicative challenges include increased likelihood of miscommunication, social exclusion (Lønsmann, 2014), and limited interpersonal communication (Tange & Lauring, 2009). While considerable research has been devoted to understanding intercultural workplaces communication, little research exists on the linguistically and culturally diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insights into how diversity may enrich workplace interaction and the communicative challenges employees may experience, this pilot study explores employees’ attitudes to and beliefs about intercultural communication in the Swedish workplace. The pilot study is part of a larger project on digital professional communication in multilingual workplaces in Sweden. Five employees in managerial positions in Swedish higher education and corporations were interviewed. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that: (a) language competence in English is seen as indexing general competence; (b) categorisations of cultures are prevalent: Participants often view culture as synonymous with nation and point at differences between groups as a challenge to achieve effective communication; (c) identity and face are foregrounded: Some participants feel like a different person when using a different language, while others see a specific language as a way to adopt a different persona or professional role; and (d) culture and language are used to explain group dynamics (e.g., feeling as an outsider or as part of the group), and as tools to actively integrate or exclude others. The material has raised our awareness about not seeing the workplace as a monolith, but workplaces may be marked by internal variation when it comes to intercultural communication. 

References   Angouri, J. (2014). Multilingualism in the workplace: Language practices in multicultural contexts. Multilingua 33, 1-9.     

Holmes, J. (2018). Intercultural communication in the workplace. In B. Vine (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 335-347). Routledge.    

Lønsmann, D. (2014). Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: Language ideologies and processes of exclusion. Multilingua 33, 89–116.    

Takamiya, Y. & Aida Niendorf, M. (2019). Identity (re)construction and improvement in intercultural competence through synchronous and asynchronous telecollaboration: Connecting Japanese language learners in the United States and Sweden. In Zimmerman, E. & McMeekin, A. (Eds.), Technology-supported learning in and out of the Japanese language classroom: Theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical developments (pp. 111-145). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.    

Tange, H., & Lauring, J. (2009). Language management and social interaction within the multilingual workplace. Journal of Communication Management 13(3), 218–232.     

An overview of ESP Journal and the desk review (Section 1) 

One of the most important steps in any submission to a journal is understanding and demonstrating how the article fits with the aims and scope of the journal. This section of the panel provides an overview of English for Specific Purposes and outlines the purpose (and challenges) of the desk review as the first element of peer review.

The review process and responding to reviews (Section 2) 

The review process has multiple steps and much of this work is largely undertaken in the ‘back room’ of the journal. In this section, we outline the various steps beyond the desk review and discuss the possible decisions on manuscripts which authors might receive, from accept through to reject. We also suggest ways to deal with responding to reviewers’ comments.

Developing skills as reviewers through SEB membership (Section 3)

This section begins with questions that an early career reviewer might have about carrying outa peer review. Our SEB members will discuss how they developed their various reviewing strategies, and how interacting with members of the ESP board during peer reviewing has helped with developing skills as reviewer and writer.

Ways to become a reviewer (Section 4)

This final section focuses on opportunities for becoming a reviewer as a postgraduate student or early career researcher. It also provides suggestions on possible traps to avoid in reviewing. The session ends with time for questions with the whole panel.

Appropriate use of linking adverbials (LAs) is a key feature of successful academic writing because these devices(e.g., furthermore, however, thus) enhance meaning and establish textual cohesion explicitly (Shaw 2009).Previous research has shown that LAs appear prominently in academic prose. In fact, these studies have revealedthat academic writing includes more LAs than other registers including conversation, fiction, and news (Biber etal. 1999; Liu 2008). Despite their importance in academic writing, second language (L2) writers of English havebeen reported to struggle to use LAs appropriately. Over the past few decades, considerable research has comparedthe use of LAs between first-language (L1) English writers and various L2 English groups including L1 Chinese(e.g., Gao 2016), L1 Korean (e.g., Ha 2016), and L1 Spanish writers (e.g., Carrió-Pastor 2013), as well as amongspecific L1 groups (e.g., Appel & Szeib 2018). These studies have shown that L2 English writers frequentlyoveruse, underuse, and/or misuse these devices. While these studies have been important in understanding L2writers’ challenges with LAs, surprisingly little attention has been given to whether L2 students’ use of LAs intheir writing changes over time or the degree to which their behaviors change with experience. Using corpusbased methods, this study reports findings of an analysis of the developmental trajectory of English-as-a-secondlanguage (ESL) university students’ use of LAs in their academic writing. The study was guided by the followingresearch question: To what extent does L2 university students’ use of linking adverbials in their writing changeover time? Through this analysis, this study aims to provide a greater understanding of the relationship betweeneducational experience and L2 writing development.Data consist of a specialized corpus of 126 high-rated source-based argumentative essays written by 63ESL undergraduate students in US-based first-year writing (FYW) courses at two different points in time. Thefirst subcorpus (ESL-1) includes 63 argumentative essays (66,424 words) written by these students in the first oftwo FYW courses, while the second subcorpus (ESL-2) consists of 63 argumentative papers (87,638 words)written by the same student writers in the second FYW course. To analyze LAs in the student essays, Liu’s (2008)taxonomy of LAs was used because his list is considered to be one of the most comprehensive (Gao 2016), witha total of 110 lexical items. The framework consists of four broad semantic categories: additive (e.g., additionally,similarly), adversative (e.g., however, in contrast), causal (e.g., as a result, hence), and sequential (e.g., first, inconclusion). Each category in this framework is classified further into subcategories. Using the concordance toolAntconc (Anthony 2018), every LA item in Liu’s (2008) list was searched in both subcorpora, and then wemanually examined each example in its textual context to ensure every item functioned as an LA. Item frequencieswere counted per text and normalized per 1,000 words. To determine whether the differences were statisticallysignificant, paired samples t-tests, with Bonferroni correction, were performed, with the alpha set at .05 (twotailed).Analysis reveals statistically significant changes in the overall frequency of LAs, with the ESL-2subcorpus consisting of fewer LAs than the ESL-1 subcorpus. Upon closer analysis, the results show that the useof additive and causal LAs decreased over time, while adversative and sequential LAs increased. However, astatistically significant difference was only found for the additive category. Analysis of the proportionaldistributions of the categories shows that with experience ESL student writers rely less on additive and more onadversative, yet the distributions of causal and sequential do not seem to change. With a few exceptions, the mostfrequently used words/phrases for all the categories are strikingly similar in both subcorpora, though thefrequencies at which they are used changes. Thus, the preliminary findings suggest that the distribution of LAsappears to change and matches more closely with published academic prose (cf. Liu 2008) as ESL students gainmore experience with academic writing; however, the specific linguistic LA devices used do not seem to markedlychange. The paper begins by reporting and discussing the results, followed by implications for L2 writing researchand pedagogy.

Appropriate use of linking adverbials (LAs) is a key feature of successful academic writing because these devices (e.g., furthermore, however) enhance meaning and establish textual cohesion explicitly (e.g., Shaw, 2009). In fact, studies have shown that academic writing includes more LAs than other registers (Liu, 2008). Despite their importance in academic writing, second language (L2) learners of English have been reported to struggle with LAs, frequently overusing, underusing, and misusing these devices (e.g., Appel & Szeib, 2018). Despite the growing interest in L2 students’ use of LAs, little attention has been given to whether L2 students’ use of these cohesive devices in their writing changes over time. Using corpus-based methods, this study presents an analysis of the developmental trajectory of L2 university students’ use of LAs. Specifically, adapting Appel and Szeib’s (2018) semantic framework, the study examined the extent to which L2 university students’ use of LAs changes over time. Data consist of a specialized corpus of 80 argumentative essays written by 40 L2 undergraduate students at two different points in time. The first subcorpus (ESL-1) includes 40 argument essays (~40,000 words) written by these students in the first of two first-year writing courses, while the second subcorpus (ESL-2) consists of 40 essays (~58,000 words) written by the same student writers in the second writing course. Preliminary analysis reveals changes in overall frequency of LAs, with ESL-2 consisting of fewer LAs than ESL-1. Furthermore, the results show that some semantic categories decreased in ESL-2, yet little to no change was observed for other semantic categories. Upon closer analysis, specific types of LAs decreased while others increased in ESL-2, thus demonstrating students’ changing use of LAs as they gain more experience over time. The presentation begins by reporting and discussing the results, followed by implications for L2 writing research and pedagogy.

Disciplinary writing requires students to become familiar with the reporting verbs commonly employed in their fields to incorporate other writers’ ideas in their texts. This lesson raises students’ awareness of the breadth of reporting verbs used in academic writing, encourages them to find out the verbs which are most commonly used in specific disciplines, and assists them in the use of discipline-specific verbs in their writing.