Asia-Pacific Languages for Specific Purposes and Professional Communication Association Conference 2017 welcome the following keynote speakers to Wellington, New Zealand:
- Associate Professor Helen Basturkmen - The University of Auckland
- Dr Christine Feak - University of Michigan, USA
- Dr Kazuyo Murata - Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan
- Emeritus Professor Janet Holmes - Victoria University of Wellington
- Professor Brian Paltridge - University of Sydney
- Professor Cynthia White - Massey University, Palmerston North
Associate Professor Helen Basturkmen
| Helen Basturkmen is associate professor at the University of Auckland, where she convenes courses on Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers and Teaching English for Specific Purposes on the MTESOL programme. Her main research interests are in the areas of discourse analysis and ESP and EAP. She has written two books on English for Specific Purposes, Ideas and Options in English for Specific Purposes (Routledge, 2006) and Developing Courses in English for Specific Purposes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and she has edited English for Academic Purposes, in the Critical Concepts in Linguistics series (Routledge, 2015.) She has published articles in a range of international journals, including Language Learning, Language Awareness, Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal, English for Specific Purposes and Journal of English for Academic Purposes. She is an editorial review board member of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Present research projects include a study of EAP/ESP teacher education needs (a collaboration with a researcher in Spain) and a study of discourse features in student essays. Other research interests and topics of publication include pragmatics, learners’ awareness of language and disciplinary differences in writing. ESP Teacher Education Needs English for workplace and disciplinary purposes are demanding areas of teaching. Teaching typically includes investigating learner needs and specialist discourse, developing courses and materials as well as classroom teaching. Thus teachers face a range of tasks which require knowledge and skills and presumably some form of teacher education for practicing ELT teachers who transition into ESP teaching. ESP literature to date has tended to foreground the needs of learners and background the learning and knowledge needs of teachers. This talk reviews themes in the literature on teacher education in ESP, including views on ESP teachers’ need for subject content knowledge and ways of collaborating with members of target discourse communities. I describe two research studies of experienced ESP/EAP teachers. The first asked teachers in New Zealand to share their experiences of developing a particular ESP course and the second inquired into the perceived needs and learning to teach ESP experiences of teachers in university settings in Spain. |
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| Christine B. Feak is a lecturer at the English Language Institute, University of Michigan, where she is the lead lecturer for dissertation writing and writing for publication courses. She is co-author (with John Swales) of Academic Writing for Graduate Students and the new English in Today’s Research World book series focused on the writing of research genres and subgenres. In addition to teaching and textbook writing, she also serves as co-editor of ESP, an international peer-reviewed journal focusing on topics relevant to the teaching and learning of discourse for specific communities. Her current research interests include academic writing in education, medicine, and business; the academic writing and writing for publication needs of scholars in developing countries; and the development of effective academic writing curricula. Collaboration between Disciplinary Experts and ESP Specialists on Materials Development: Making the Most of Separate, but Equal Expertise Collaboration between professional/disciplinary experts and language specialists is a hallmark of the work of ESP (Johns 2013). Inter-professional/disciplinary collaborations with specialist informants are particularly valuable in efforts to verify ESP research findings, as in the case of a move analysis of written texts. They are also critical for validating assessments of language competence in professional settings, as in the case of pilots’ and air traffic controllers’ aviation English proficiency. In addition, they have much to offer in shaping discipline-specific ESP courses in academic settings. In this context, disciplinary experts bring years of experience as well as cultural capital grounded in their research. Likewise, ESP instructors bring expertise to this collaboration that is grounded in an understanding of language, genres, materials development and learner-centered teaching (Hyland 2012). Coupling these two areas of expertise has the potential to enhance the experiences of those participating in ESP courses with the added benefit of opportunities for professional growth (Belcher 2006). It is important to acknowledge, however, that challenges can arise in efforts to merge expert’s different forms of knowledge. Indeed, as has been suggested in much previous work (see particularly the work of Arkoudis), collaborations often entail various acts of positioning that reflect the status of the different disciplines and individuals, which can result in unequal contributions to the endeavor. In order to shed some light on how collaborations can be successful, this presentation centers on a case study focused on the development of a multi-session workshop on writing for publication in surgery journals. Critical tensions along the course of the collaboration will be highlighted together with how these were overcome. The presentation will conclude with recommendations for how to engage in inter-professional collaborations to make the most of the content expertise of all participants. |
| Kazuyo Murata is professor of the Faculty of Policy Science
at Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in 2011. Her research interests include workplace
communication, cross- and inter-cultural communication, citizen-participation
in social decision-making, human resource development, community and university
collaboration, and community based learning. She has written articles in
English and Japanese in the field of workplace communication and community
engagement. She has taught undergraduate and graduate course in sociolinguistics,
communication study, and community based learning. She is research unit chief
of communication design research unit at Research
Centre for the Local Public Human Resources and Policy Development (LORC),
Ryukoku University. http://lorc.ryukoku.ac.jp/english/group2/
Main academic articles in English: “Humor and laughter in Japanese business meetings”, In H. Cook and J. Shibamoto-Smith. (eds.) Japanese at Work: Politeness, and Personae in Japanese Workplace, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (forthcoming).
Taking sociolinguistic research on multi-stakeholder discussions into the real world
With the goal of creating a sustainable local society, it is necessary to create a multi-stakeholder partnership in which people from different sectors (local government, businesses, NGOs, and local citizens) discuss regional issues and create local public policies. This presentation will first introduce the concept of multi-stakeholder partnership, which is required in Japanese local society. Then I will outline the characteristics of discussions for machizukuri, community-planning and town development, and the reasons for developing related educational programmes in universities. Finally, two communication programmes based on the results of empirical sociolinguistic research are introduced. Both focus on developing communication skills for constructive dialogue and discussion between people from different backgrounds. One has been developed for graduate students, focussing on facilitation. The other has been developed for undergraduates, focussing on "participant-ship": i.e. active participation leading to constructive dialogue and discussion.
Overall, then, this presentation examines ways in which we can better prepare students for engaged citizenship in a global society.
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Emeritus Professor Janet Holmes
 | Janet Holmes is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Associate Director of the Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) (www.victoria.ac.nz/lwp/) at Victoria University of Wellington. Her most recent books are the 5th edition of An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (2017), The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality (2014, co-edited with Susan Ehrlich and Miriam Meyerhoff), Leadership, Discourse, and Ethnicity (2011, co-authored with Meredith Marra and Bernadette Vine), Research Methods in Sociolinguistics (2010, co-edited with Kirk Hazen), and Gendered Talk at Work (2006). With the LWP research team, she is currently investigating intercultural discourse in the tourism area. "You're cooking us lunch!": workplace norms and professional identity in New Zealand workplaces Interaction is the main channel through which people establish connections with others at work, but it is also a crucial means of constructing a professional identity and acquiring relevant professional values. While local norms or “ways of doing things round here” are sometimes made explicit by a mentor or workplace buddy, our analyses of workplace interaction in a range of New Zealand workplaces indicate that the rules for appropriate behaviour and the related professional values are often very subtle and inexplicit. This paper examines some of the challenges this raises for workers transitioning from one country, organisation, or workplace team to another and explores the struggles involved in developing an appropriate professional identity as part of the transition from legitimate outsider to workplace insider. |
Professor Brian Paltridge
Looking inside the world of peer review: Implications for graduate student writers
There is growing pressure on graduate students to publish their work, both early and often. This is especially the case with the increased competition for academic appointments across the world. Graduate student writers, however, are often not clear on what the process of peer review involves and, in particular, how they should deal with and respond to reviews of their work. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges that graduate student writers face in this process and suggest ways in which they might deal with them. A proposal will be made for workshopping the peer review process with students so that they can
Brian Paltridge is Professor of TESOL at the University of Sydney. His most recent publications are Ethnographic Perspectives on Academic Writing (with Sue Starfield and Christine Tardy, Oxford University Press, 2016) and Getting Published in Academic Journals (with Sue Starfield, University of Michigan Press, 2016). He has recently completed a book titled The Discourse of Peer Review to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017 and is currently writing a book titled Writing for Research Purposes to be published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. He is co-editor of TESOL Quarterly and an editor emeritus of English for Specific Purposes.
Looking inside the world of peer review: Implications for graduate student writers
There is growing pressure on graduate students to publish their work, both early and often. This is especially the case with the increased competition for academic appointments across the world. Graduate student writers, however, are often not clear on what the process of peer review involves and, in particular, how they should deal with and respond to reviews of their work. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges that graduate student writers face in this process and suggest ways in which they might deal with them. A proposal will be made for workshopping the peer review process with students so that they can
better understand it and, as a consequence, participate more effectively in it.
References:
Paltridge, B. & Starfield, S. (2016). Getting
published in academic journals: Navigating the publication process. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Paltridge, B. (2017). The discourse of peer review: Reviewing submissions to academic journals. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
| Cynthia White is Professor of Applied Linguistics, Massey University, New Zealand and has published widely on affect and identity in online language learning and language use. Her most recent projects include discourses of national identity and belonging as responses to anthems on YouTube, and emotion and agency in teacher narrative accounts of conflict in L2 classrooms and workplaces. She has been plenary speaker at international conferences and workshops in Germany, Thailand, Singapore, China, UK, Hawai’i, Australia and Malaysia and has completed collaborative research projects with Oxford University, Open University UK and Nottingham University. |
