INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGIES Disciplinary frameworks through English for Specific Purposes

OUTLINE Disciplinary frameworks Research questions: Brainstorming Text Analysis: hands-on practice Disciplines through the English Medium

DISCIPLINES = TOOLS OF LEARNING Disciplines provide particular lenses or frameworks through which to explore, understand and act upon the world. They can be conceived of as “tools of learning” each characterised by certain ways of thinking procedures and practices that are characteristic of its community (Kreber 2010 : 15) (Kreber 2009)

DISCIPLINE COGNITIVE SOCIAL

Single paradigm – agreed-upon methods – shared concepts – Validation questions Multiple paradigms – Controversial methods – Controversial concepts HARD (maths) SOFT (education) PURE Theory-building APPLIED Theory application

CRITICAL THINKING TASK 1.Define your discipline and its object of study. 2.What is its declared aim? 3.How does it relate to the wider context?

CRITICAL THINKING TASK Focus on your research area. 1.What is it? Describe it in one phrase. 2. What is the object of study? 3. What is its declared aim? 4. What are the preferred methods? 5. How does it relate to the rest of the world?

CRITICAL THINKING TASK: EXAMPLE Focus on your research area. 1. What is it? Describe it in one phrase. Migration Discourse 2. What is the object of study? European Migration Network Annual Policy Reports 3. What is its declared aim? To analyse the discourse of integration: how does the UK deal with migrants? 4. What are the preferred methods? Quantitative & qualitative analysis of texts 5. Does it relate to context & other disciplines? YES!

THE ‘INVISIBLE’ DISCOURSE is The body of knowledge, assumptions and operating procedures left out of the surface of a discourse but necessary for uderstanding and producing it (Brandt 1990) How do students learn their disciplinary communities’ discourse conventions? ACADEMIC DISCOURSAL AWARENESS RAISING

Analytical reading Student writing – Portfolios – Online groups – ESP classes Epistemology classes? ACADEMIC DISCOURSAL AWARENESS RAISING

TEXT ANALYSIS How do Author(s) refer to themselves? How many nominalizations? Any evaluative adjectives? Any boosters (e.g. certainly)? And hedges (e.g. perhaps)? Use of active/passive voice? What kinds of modals? Is the abstract an im/personal narrative?

FROM TEXT TO DISCOURSE CONVENTIONS Centrality of research = study /paper does everything – Nominalizations – Abstract subject – Prominence of passive – Cautious use of modals – Few evaluative words in key positions

OPEN ISSUES Genre-based conventions objectivity and impersonality in the HARD sciences vs. readers’ engagement in the SOFT-knowledge domains (Bazerman 2000; Hyland 2004) shifting epistemologies

REFERENCES -Bazerman, Charles (2000): Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (1988). WAC Clearinghouse Landmark Publications in Writing Studies. -Brandt D. 1990, Literacy as involvement: The acts of writers. Southern Illinois University Press. -Hyland, Ken (2004): “Engagement and disciplinarity: The other side of evaluation. ” Academic Discourse. New Insights into Evaluation. Eds. Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti/Elena Tognini Bonelli. Bern: Peter Lang Kreber, Carolin ed. (2009): The University and its Disciplines. Teaching and Learning Within and Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries. London: Routledge. -Trowler, Paul, Murray Saunders, Veronica Bamber eds., 2014, Tribes and Territories in the 21st Century, London: Routledge.