CC BY
156
ISSN 1991-9468 (Print), 2308-1058 (Online)
http://edumag.mrsu.ru
ТОЧКА ЗРЕНИЯ / POINT OF VIEW
УДК 81'42
DOI: 10.15507/1991-9468.091.022.201802.311-323
Russian Scholarly Publications in Anglophone Academic Discourse: The Clash of Tyrannosaurs
I. B. Korotkina
The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Moscow, Russia, irina.korotkina@gmail.com
The predominance of English in scholarly publications, recently defined as linguistic imperialism, is no longer considered a threat for multilingual scholars, but a shared linguistic code essential in creating and communicating knowledge. A more significant threat for Russian scholars is the Russian tradition of scholarly writing, which originates from the Soviet period and affects the quality of their national and international publications, especially in humanities and social sciences. The solution is seen in developing writing for academic and research publication purposes in both English and Russian within the umbrella framework of academic literacy. The pioneering role in overcoming the resistance of the deeply rooted tradition and promoting academic writing as a discipline, Russian university writing centers, recently united into the National Consortium, play the central role. Explicit bilingual programmes are especially effective in countries with low level of English, and can be applied to various cultural contexts. They can be further developed into trilingual programmes in post-Soviet states, who experience similar difficulties and for whom Russian remains the lingua franca of academic communication.
Keywords: academic writing, academic discourse, scholarly publication, international scientific communication, English for academic purposes, methods of scientific communication
For citation: Korotkina I.B. Russian Scholarly Publications in Anglophone Academic Discourse: The Clash of Tyrannosaurs. Integratsiya obrazovaniya = Integration of Education. 2018; 22(2):311-323. DOI: 10.15507/1991-9468.091.022.201802.311-323
Pоссийские научные публикации в англоязычном научном дискурсе: схватка тираннозавров
И. Б. Короткина
Московская высшая школа социальных и экономических наук, г. Москва, Россия, irina. korotkina@gmail. com
Доминирующая роль английского языка в международных научных публикациях не так давно характеризовалась как «лингвистический империализм» и отражалась в метафоре «тираннозавр рекс». Однако исследования последних 10-15 лет выявили существенные изменения в научном дискурсе и согласие ученых с необходимостью использования английского языка как единого языка научных исследований. Сложности, с которыми сталкиваются российские ученые при подготовке зарубежных публикаций, связаны не столько с английским языком, сколько с российской традицией научного письма, сложившейся в советское время и глубоко укоренившейся в отечественной публикационной практике. Тексты ученых, особенно в гуманитарных и социальных дисциплинах, часто многословны, невнятны и опираются на принципы цитирования, неприменимые с точки зрения международных норм. Анализ проблемы показывает, что ее решение лежит во внедрении в российскую систему подготовки кадров академического письма как дисциплины в рамках более общей методологии академической грамотности. В условиях низкого уровня владения английским языком обучение должно быть двуязычным,
© Korotkina I. В., 2018
что предполагает развитие теории и методики академического письма на русском языке. Ключевую роль в преодолении старой традиции и становлении новой дисциплины играют университетские центры письма, которые уже применяют двуязычный подход и оказывают существенную помощь научно-педагогическим кадрам в подготовке публикаций. Создание Национального консорциума центров письма позволяет объединить усилия центров и поддержать их развитие. Двуязычный подход на основе академической грамотности будет способствовать повышению качества отечественных публикаций и может быть использован в странах с низким уровнем владения английским языком, а также служить основой для разработки трехъязычных программ в постсоветском пространстве, где русский язык продолжает оставаться языком научной коммуникации.
Ключевые слова: академическое письмо, научный дискурс, научная публикация, международная научная коммуникация, английский язык для академических целей, методы научной коммуникации
Для цитирования: Короткина И. Б. Российские научные публикации в англоязычном научном дискурсе: схватка тираннозавров // Интеграция образования. 2018. Т. 22, № 2. С. 311-323. DOI: 10.15507/19919468.091.022.201802.311-323
Introduction
In the 1990s, the dominance of English as the language of international scholarly publications became a major concern for multilingual scholars. The slogan publish or perish, which expressed institutional and political pressure on academics, urged them to publish in high-ranked scholarly journals and communicate with anglophone editors and reviewers in English. This trend, along with the spread of international academic programmes in English as a medium of instruction, was interpreted by some scholars as discrimination of non-English-speaking members of the academic community. The debates rose to a peak in the late 1990s, after Robert Phillipson [1] coined the term 'linguistic imperialism', and John Swales published his article English as Tyran-nosaurus rex [2], in which he described English as "a powerful carnivore gobbling up the other denizens of the academic linguistic grazing grounds" [2, p. 374]. Suresh Canagarajah referred to scholars in non-anglophone countries as periphery opposing them to anglophone scholars in the Western metropolitan center, who control knowledge production and create regulations for international publications [3]. Social, political and economic disadvantages of linguistic imperialism for multilingual scholars and students were described in multiple publications which reported evidence from various geolinguistic regions [2; 4-12].
The threats of linguistic imperialism for Russian scholars are discussed in the Integration of Education by Natalia Popova and Thomas Beavitt, who consider its mani-
festations in formal, cliche-based writing provoked by the spread of the IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) format, the diminishing role of the Russian language in higher education due to the spread of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), and the spread of the anglophone tradition of writing through establishing university writing centers by the US model [7]. Although the study provides a consistent argument on the matters of the formalized use of English by Russian scientists, which is supported by the research implemented within the corpus of chemistry papers, and a critical insight into teaching disciplines in English through CLIL, the authors only briefly refer to English for specific purposes (ESP) and English for academic purposes (EAP), and do not consider the issues of academic writing, academic literacy and English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP, the recent branch of EAP [8]), which are essential in discussing the issue. The authors give little reference concerning writing centers in Russia, disregarding Russian publications on the topic [e.g. 9-11; 12]. These limitations to the study can be partly explained by the fact that the authors implemented their research beyond university context and were concerned with natural sciences. Scholars who write in humanities and social sciences use other cognitive styles, their research is more embedded in local contexts, and their rhetoric and citation habits are different from those in STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) [13]. Because of this, the
problems of scholars in these areas need special consideration.
The paper contributes to the discussion by considering the problems of multilingual scholars in terms of academic discourse and literacy, focusing on the solutions provided by EAP, ESP and ERPP, with special regard to non-STEM sciences. The purpose of the study is to analyze the factors that impede publications by Russian scholars in international journals by comparing the impact of the English language and international writing and publishing conventions with that of the Russian formalized and obscure scholarly writing tradition that formed in the Soviet era. In the context of institutional and political pressures, it is the national tradition that affects Russian scholars, limiting their ability to express ideas in their own, clear and honest voices. Thus, the Russian academic community faces the problem of fighting their own 'tyrannosaur' rather than the English-speaking one.
The most effective way to overcome both problems is to introduce academic writing and ERPP programmes within the more general framework of academic literacy, developing similar programmes in Russian. Academic literacy can be viewed as an umbrella framework for developing academic writing and publishing in both English and Russian and can serve as an efficient model for overcoming the diversity between the two scholarly traditions and facilitating the process of international academic communication between Russia and the West. The first steps towards establishing this approach are made by Russian EAP and academic writing practitioners and directors of the first few university writing centers united by the recently created National Writing Centers Consortium.
English as the common core
linguistic code of global academic communication
For over two decades, the domineering role of English in scholarly publications has been the focus of numerous research articles in which it is considered a limitation, or discrimination of multilingual scholars. Some researchers discuss the idea
of 'linguistic imperialism' [1] and claim that the dominance of anglophone writing tradition diminishes the roles of other cultures in knowledge creation [4-6]. Swales' metaphor of English as Tyrannosaurus rex presents a most vivid representation of this threat [2]. Hewings emphasizes the great significance of the fact that "within different cultural contexts academic texts have different patterns of rhetorical organization", and non-English writers develop "rhetorical habits different from those that have become conventional in a largely Anglo-American dominated publishing world" [14, p. 11]. Canagarajah concludes that these Western academic publishing conventions constitute international academic discourse and mark multilingual scholars as periphery scholars, who are rejected from publication [3]. Developing the idea of linguistic imperialism even further, Popova and Beavitt refer to Kobenko's interpretation of English as an imported metalect, the language aggressively spread by a colonizing power [7, p. 57].
However, the more recent studies have revealed a contradiction between the discrimination of multilingual scholars and the need for a shared linguistic code of academic communication. Tardy questions Swales' metaphor by investigating Chinese and South Korean academic writers' attitudes to English and finds out that most respondents consider it acceptable and necessary to master in order to participate in knowledge production [5]. From this lens, English is no longer a language of any one culture and does not represent the Western metropolitan centre or threaten to straitjacket international scholars into the anglophone rhetorical conventions. Researchers also admit that journal editors are changing their attitudes to multilingual scholars [6; 14-16].
The concept that levels geolinguistic differences among scholars and helps understand the processes connected with the globalization of academic discourse is the idea of "the third space" developed by Bhabha [17]. He represents the context of writing for publication in a model of three overlapping communities to which scholars
belong: the national scientific community, institutional scientific community and international scientific community. These spaces are not geographic, but virtual, which challenges the idea of traditional notions of space, such as location or country with a stable 'either/or' construct, replacing them with a fluid concept of 'both/and'. The concept of the third space provides an efficient model for understanding global academic discourse and the functioning of academic English. On the one hand, multilingual scholars tend to hold on to their social, national and disciplinary discourses; on the other, they contribute to the development of a unified language to which all participants are expected to conform.
These two controversial forces were originally defined by Mikhail Bakhtin as centripetal and centrifugal, which are ever present in communication and influence interpretation and inference of meanings by representatives of different socio-linguistic communities [18]. According to Bakhtin, scholars in different academic and disciplinary contexts will always view the world differently, but they will always strive to create the unified language to communicate as one community.
Last, but not least, the strife for effective academic communication is urged by the changes in postmodern society with its high educational potential and access to information. Academic literacy is now inseparable from multiliteracies, which involve technology and the media [19; 20], and research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, which means that texts are more often read by non-specialists. Graff argues that scholars should avoid the overuse of academese (the heavily terminological, specific language) and balance it with vernacular so that the main research results are made clear to other scholars and educated public at large [21]. The growing public demand for wider comprehensibility of research articles is therefore one more influential factor in developing a common core linguistic code.
This makes the idea of linguistic imperialism disputable, and the focus of research is shifting towards the issues of
international academic writing and publishing conventions, and ways of assisting multilingual scholars in international publishing. Investigating these issues can shed light on the trends in the global academic communication and specify the problems of multilingual scholars so that they can be properly addressed within national contexts, such as Russia, where the level of English is generally low.
Russian scholars under pressure: the clash of writing traditions
According to the EF EPI survey (2017), Russia is a country with low level of English (the 38th position among the 80 surveyed countries). The national survey conducted by the Levada-Center in 2015 shows that only one of five individuals with higher education can communicate in a foreign language, which is not necessarily English, and if so, not necessarily good enough for writing. The number of researchers capable of writing research articles in English is therefore extremely low. The only 'positive' outcome of it is that Russia is not threatened by the spread of English as a "metalect".
The low level of English does not mean that Russia is preserving the native language better than Germany or the Nordic countries, where English has become the main language of academic discourse. On the contrary, the language of Russian scholarly writing is often made intentionally obscure, wordy and incomprehensible. Many Russian academics write clearly, but en masse knowledge production on the national level is buried under this tradition. The problem is not the national language, but the lack of academic literacy and academic writing skills, as well as the attitude to the quality of language, which is traditionally connected with philology and neglected by other scientists. Similar problems were successfully overcome by Western academic communities when academic writing started to be taught in relation to disciplines.
The obscurity of writing results from the lack of academic writing in education. Russian students and scholars develop as writers by imitating the patterns and styles they encounter in disciplinary texts.
As freshmen at university typically start with the classical 19-century books, many start writing in an unnatural elaborate manner, imitating opaque structures, which they think will please their professors [22-24]. Day notes that Western scholars who developed their writing before the 1970s also "learned only to imitate the prose and style of the authors before them - with all their attendant defects - thus establishing a system of error in perpetuity" [25].
To make Russian texts clear and comprehensible, it is essential to develop academic writing and academic literacy in the native language. Deprived of writing programmes in education, the Russian academic discourse uses formats which are more prescriptive than logical. Educational standards demand clarity without explaining how it ought to be achieved; some dissertation requirements recommend to "divide the text into five or six paragraphs per page so that it is more convenient for the reader to follow"1 without any reference to paragraph structure. As materials on academic writing in Russian are inexistent, the requirements cannot be properly followed.
The prescriptive nature of the Russian tradition results in adopting formal requirements rather than the logic of international publishing conventions. For instance, to be indexed in international databases, all Russian scholarly journals are recommended to use the IMRaD format. Unsurprisingly, it was imposed on all the journals regardless of their mission and scope, which fully corresponds to Canagarajah's statement that "the hegemony of Western academic journals is so complete that the superiority ascribed to them has been somewhat internalized by periphery scholars themselves" [3, p. 37]. In case of Russia, the IMRAD format was internalized by administrative regulations2, which along with the institutional pressure on scholars led to a wave of opposition [e.g. 26; 27]. This was probably the reason why Popova and Beavitt viewed the IMRaD format as a manifestation of linguistic imperialism.
The opposition to the IMRAD format appears reasonable when disciplinary differences are concerned. The format is aimed at the needs of STEM sciences, based on experiments and their reproducibility. Day defines IMRaD as the simplest way to communicate experimental research results, for it saves space, and its simplistic logic makes life easier for editors and reviewers [25, p. 5-6]. It is certainly useful in sciences which emphasize reproducibility of research, but publications in social sciences and humanities are more complicated in logic and use a variety of cognitive styles and approaches, persuading the reader by argument [22; 23]. International journals in these areas use more flexible formats, which can be illustrated by the sources used in this paper.
Another negative factor is the institutional pressure on Russian academics and researchers to publish internationally. Although similar pressure is described by researchers in other geolinguistic regions [2; 5; 15], Russian scholars in social sciences and humanities are in a more vulnerable position because of the national disciplinary context in which they are used to publish. Unlike STEM sciences, which have always been of immediate mutual interest between Russia and the West, social sciences and humanities (especially education and pedagogy) endured a long period of isolation in the Soviet era and developed their own rhetorical and publishing traditions that formed within highly ideological environment. These traditions not only contradict the international rhetorical and publishing conventions, but create enormous impediments for Russian scholars when they start writing for international journals.
The major differences that emerge between the international and Russian rhetorical and publishing conventions in social sciences and humanities can be summarized as follows:
1. Title and abstract
English: Titles and abstracts are of major importance; they contain key words and present the focus of the paper clearly
1 The quote is deliberately left anonymous.
2 Методические рекомендации по подготовке и оформлению научных статей в журналах, индексируемых в международных наукометрических базах данных / под ред. О. В. Кирилловой. М. : Наука, 2017. 160 с.
and concisely; abstracts present research results and implications.
Russian: Titles are often wordy, too general or ambiguous; abstracts are sometimes too short, written formally before submission and only prompt at results.
2. Format and organization
English: Format requirements are strict;
the length of the text and number of references depend on the subject and target audience of the journal; sections are required, each section and paragraph being explicitly organized.
Russian: Format requirements are sometimes vague; papers can be too short or contain few references; texts are often unstructured; no special requirements are provided to organization of information within sections or paragraphs.
3. Originality
English: All publications are original.
Russian: The same papers or considerable parts of previously published research can be published in different journals.
4. Purpose
English: The text is written to inform the discourse community; the purpose is to increase the quality of research.
Russian: The text is often written to report a publication to the institution; the purpose is to increase the number of an author's publications.
5. Focus
English: Content is focused on the topic; the argument is easy to follow.
Russian: Frequent deviations from the main topic occur.
6. Support
English: Each argument is supported by evidence or references; definitions are provided in the beginning of the text.
Russian: Some statements remain unsupported as self-evident; definitions can be omitted or appear in the middle of the text.
7. References
English: References are listed in alphabetical order without numeration; inside the text references are given with authors' names and dates of publication.
Russian: References are listed in numerical order according to their occurrence in the text; inside the text only numbers are given.
8. Sources
English: Sources are selected according to the topic and support the argument; paraphrase helps provide critique and keep the writer's voice.
Russian: Sources are sometimes excessive or irrelevant; multiple direct quotations are common; long quotations are not elicited by format (font, paragraph).
9. Style
English: The argument is presented in a consequential, clear and persuasive manner with respect to non-specialist audience and other viewpoints.
Russian: Texts are often wordy and academese (overloaded with terminology and formal phrases); some statements can be subjective or emotional.
10. Language
English: Language is economical and easy-to-follow; nominalization and passive structures are avoided; drafts are thoroughly polished.
Russian: Language is often obscure, with excessive nominalization, ambiguous impersonal structures and complicated, sometimes erroneous syntax; polishing the language is considered insignificant.
The formulation of the ten differences is the result of comparative analysis of Russian and English (anglophone) publications, which I continuously implemented as an editor and translator, teacher of academic writing, and in the last decade a researcher in academic literacy and international publishing. The differences can be roughly divided into two categories according to who is affected by or responsible for the changes to be made: the editors or the scholars, although most often both are concerned. Some of the problems refer to academic literacy and writing, and can be overcome by introducing the appropriate courses.
The traditional multiplication of the same papers in different journals is well illustrated by the number of retracted papers presented on the Integration of Education web site. What seems especially striking is that Russian scholars consider this practice normal, explaining that a scholar keeps working on the same problem continuously, and has a right to make his or
her ideas more visible to the community. If the retraction procedure is accepted by all Russian journals, many professors and academics will be affected. Nevertheless, the process has started.
Another major problem is referencing. The tradition of listing sources in numerical order in the text and bibliography impedes reading and complicates the work of the writer. Typically, writers apply the more convenient international referencing practice while writing, and then rearrange the sources as required. Notably, more and more Russian publishers and journals are introducing the international format.
Multiple direct and overlong citations, typical of many Russian papers in humanities and educational research, make opaque texts completely unreadable. In my teaching practice, I make this fault explicit to my students by referring to Saint-Exupery's picture of a boa who swallowed an elephant (or rather, parts of various animals) [28]. The international requirement to elicit long quotations by separate paragraphs in smaller font [29] can make such citations more visible and help overcome this tradition.
The listed faults along with nominaliza-tion, wordiness and the lack of drafting and polishing reflect the purpose of publication, which is often to add more papers to the author's institutional report rather than address the discourse community.
The tradition is deeply rooted in the national publishing and academic conventions, which creates more problems for Russian scholars than the necessity to publish in English. As the international experience has shown [5-6; 8; 15], Russia can join the global academic discourse if the educational policy fosters the development of academic writing, and the most efficient model is to introduce it in both English and Russian.
Developing writing for academic, disciplinary and research publication purposes: the urge for an umbrella framework
Central to research and education, academic writing is a discipline [14; 22; 23; 24; 30; 31], encompassing writing across
the curriculum (WAC) and writing in disciplines (WID). WAC [14; 23; 24] follows the conventions of academic discourse relevant in all disciplines and provides the basis for university education, while WID [22] focuses on specific conventions within disciplinary discourses and is mostly the responsibility of the faculty, although its goals are best achieved in collaboration with teachers of WAC [30]. In the USA, academic writing at university level is known as rhetoric and composition [31], and some US universities provide master and PhD programmes in the field; professionals in rhetoric and composition are called compositionists and work in WAC programmes and writing centers.
The publication process however requires more complex skills than mastering the rhetoric of research writing in WAC and specific disciplinary conventions obtained in WID, for writers need to negotiate with gatekeepers (editors and reviewers) and infer the meanings of messages from reviewers, which are not always transparent and need to be properly interpreted [8; 15]. To incorporate these competences into a teaching paradigm, courses and programmes of ERPP started to emerge as a new branch of EAP [8; 32]. Flowerdew defines writing for research publication purposes as a "situated social practice, involving various networks and communities" [8, p. 307]. The goal of ERPP is therefore to assist researchers in coping with social and political interests and motivations, which are inherent in publishing conventions.
Referring to research conducted by Kwan [32], Flowerdew [8, p. 313] formulates the following key competences developed in ERPP: command of schematic structure; command of discipline specific citation language; and metadiscourse, which according to Kwan [32, p. 57] "signals one's degree of commitment to statements made". Other publication-specific skills offered to be included into ERPP (called "discursive task") involve communication with gatekeepers, ability to find the "niche" and choose the target journal, and strategic management of research and publishing. The three types of key compe-
tences and the discursive task supplement the command of generic writing skills (e.g. argumentation, coherence-building and abstracting), thus incorporating EAP, ESP, WAC and WID into a more complex system focused on research publication.
The metalinguistic nature of most competences developed in ERPP demonstrates that academic English is just the 'clothing' for presenting various scholarly arguments to the global academic community. Terefore, the methodology of academic and scholarly writing developed by anglophone experts can be applied to other linguistic contexts without pioneering a totally new field of study. The core competences of academic writing can be taught in another language and influence the writing and publishing tradition in another country. Accepting the international rhetorical and publishing conventions, scholars will produce clearly written, focused, well-organized and well-supported papers regardless of the language of publication. Clarity and comprehensibility will allow to translate papers into English (or another language) without confusions or misinterpretations. Only then will it be possible to apply machine translation, as Popova and Beavitt recommend - unless Bakhtin's centrifugal forces impede the process, which is more than possible in humanities and social sciences, where language matters more.
Developing academic writing skills is a life-long individual process. The more effort writers make to organize, focus, draft and polish their texts, the better writers they become, and the more impact they have on the developments in the field and the discourse community. However, this process can be considerably alleviated by explicit teaching of WAC, EAP, ESP and ERPP and similar courses in the native language. I fully agree with Popova and Beavitt that bilingual programmes are more effective, but the emphasis should be made on fighting the Russian tradition and introducing the best Western methods and practices of teaching academic writing into the Russian education. This can only be effective under the umbrella framework of academic literacy.
Teaching writing for research publication purposes is already spreading in Russia under this umbrella, although this is not yet understood conceptually. The most active promoters of academic writing and ERPP are university writing centers. Unlike US or Scandinavian writing centers, Russian writing centers are aimed at assisting academics in writing for publication in international journals [9-11; 33], and some apply bilingual approaches to ERPP, communicating academic and publishing conventions in Russian. Apart from tutorials for academics or PhD students, they organize seminars, workshops and lectures, invite international editors and anglophone professors, share good practices by exchanging workshops, and hold conferences. Some centers also assist students, but probably the most remarkable practice is to help academics with their Russian scholarly papers.
The differences between US and Russian writing centers in audience, purpose and methods show that Russian writing centers are developing their own models and approaches. In 2015-16 Eve Smith, a US expert, helped establish the writing center in the Samara National Research University; she gave workshops in some other universities and eventually published a workbook [34]. However, the US model could not be followed because of the mentioned above differences. In my research [12; 33, p. 170-180], I analyzed the applicability of the US model to the Russian sociocul-tural context by applying the dysfunction theory of economic systems and institutions developed by Russian economist Oleg Sukharev [35]. The analysis demonstrated potential dysfunction by all the seven Sukharev's principles [33, p. 173] and proved that the approaches used by Russian university writing centers are more effective in meeting the needs of their target audiences and the specificity of the national socio-cultural environment. Thus, Popova and Beavitt's concern about the spread of writing centers in Russia as a manifestation of linguistic imperialism is not supported by evidence.
The process of establishment is slow and difficult in the country where academic writing is a totally new discipline.
The first two academic writing centers were launched in 2011 in Moscow at the Higher School of Economics [9] and the New Economic School [10]. By 2015, there were two more [11], and today there are twelve functioning writing centers in seven cities, and the figure can reach 16 if some formally or currently established centers are taken into account [33, p. 167-168]. Thus, writing centers in Russia did not emerge in a couple of years, nor are they "numbered in their tens" as Popova and Beavitt [7, p. 64] claim. However, in 2017 we created the National Writing Centers Consortium, the mission of which is to provide a network for writing centers and support them methodologically and politically. While cadre and methodology are scarce, writing centers can become the melting pot of methodologies and good practices on the way to spreading academic writing in Russia in the bilingual format.
The network may also be useful for establishing writing centers in the trilingual format in the post-Soviet space, where Russian is still a lingua franca for multilingual scholars. The recent example is the request to the Consortium for assistance from the Arabaev Kyrgyz State University, Kyr-gyzstan. They consider the trilingual model especially effective because many Kyrgyz scholars were educated in Russia and value publishing in Russian journals. Many young researchers also choose to study in Russia, whereas others, who master English better than Russian, prefer European and North American universities. Stating international membership, the Consortium can help establish a wider network, developing collaboration with the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA), European Writing Centers Association (EWCA), College Composition and Communication Conference (CCCC) and other international organizations.
In the meanwhile, the most essential issue is to introduce academic writing in Russia as a discipline. Those who are involved in the process, encounter major problems, the biggest of which is the cadre. As there are no special educational programmes, there are no professional compositionists,
and we are facing the vicious circle of having too few Russian experts to teach teachers. The number of EAP teachers is increasing, but being traditionally discriminated in non-linguistic universities [33; 36], they are not motivated to engage in developing academic writing and ERPP; moreover, their own writing and publishing expertise is typically lower than that of academics in non-linguistic disciplines.
Another problem is the lack of materials in Russian. Courses provided by Russian teachers belong to other disciplines, mostly the Culture of Speech, Discourse Analysis or Methodology of Research. The first refers to specific language features of academic texts, the second to reading-based text analysis, and the third to the formal requirements to theses and dissertations. Some experts in these disciplines use the institutional pressure to their advantage and publish traditional materials under the new title of "academic writing", which distracts the idea of the new discipline. My manual [28] and recent monograph [33] is a contribution to a more systematic approach to academic writing methodology to the Russian context.
The theoretical and methodological bases of academic writing developed by international, mainly anglophone experts should be thoroughly investigated and made known to the Russian academic community. Today, it is the most urgent issue, which can help promote academic writing in Russia.
Conclusions
The changes in international publishing and attitudes to multilingual scholars have shown the decline of Phillipson's idea of linguistic imperialism, and the geopolitics of academic writing has lost the diversity between the Western 'center' and 'periphery' described by Canagarajah. Some formerly 'peripheral' countries have increased their contribution in knowledge creation, and the very borders between discourse communities have blurred, involving multilingual scholars into a variety of international, institutional and national scientific communities in Bhabha's terms.
The processes of globalization and the raise of the informational society have triggered the centripetal forces of international academic communication and urged scholars to accept English as the common core linguistic code of the global academic discourse. Because of these trends, English must be mastered by all the members of the community regardless of their native tongues.
However, the problem of writing in English is not the only impediment for multilingual scholars. Aimed at producing and communicating knowledge, academic English follows rhetorical and publishing conventions of inherently social and political nature, which can significantly differ from those accepted in other states. In Russia, the deeply rooted tradition of opaque and wordy writing that developed in the period of the Soviet isolation, creates more problems for scholars than the lack of English. The clash between the two writing traditions affects Russian scholars and prevents them from publishing internationally, especially in social sciences and humanities. Urged to publish by the institutional and political pressure, they face two 'tyrannosaurs', the English language and the Russian tradition, of which the latter appears more difficult to fight.
EAP, ESP and recently developed ERPP provide methodology for scholars to socialize into the global publishing conventions; however, a much shorter way to adopt
these conventions in nations with low level of English is through developing similar methodologies in their native languages, which can be achieved within an umbrella framework of academic literacy and a bilingual, or in case of some communities, a trilingual approach. The umbrella framework encompassing writing for research publication purposes in English and the native tongue can foster raising the quality of publications in both languages. It is especially important for educational studies, arts, humanities and social sciences, the production of knowledge in which is less formal and strict than in STEM sciences. The requirements to texts produced by scholars in these areas should follow the logic and publishing conventions appropriate for the various cognitive styles and modes of argument used in the discourse communities.
Developing academic writing and writing for research publication purposes under the umbrella of academic literacy is a great challenge for Russian university writing centers, but the challenge that offers unique opportunities for Russian EAP and ESP experts to demonstrate the value of their professional competences. Publishing research results in the new field of ERPP is essential to inform the Russian academic community, editors and educational policymakers about the centrality of academic writing in academic publishing and university education.
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Submitted 16.02.2018; revised 13.04.2018; published online 29.06.2018.
About the author:
Irina B. Korotkina, Dean of Interdisciplinary Department of English, The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (82/2 Prospekt Vernadskogo, Moscow 119571, Russia), Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (82/1 Prospekt Vernadskogo, Moscow 119571, Russia), Ph.D. (Pedagogy), Associate Professor, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7942-7741, irina.korotkina@gmail.com
Author have read and approved the final manuscript.
СПИСОК
ИСПОЛЬЗОВАННЫХ ИСТОЧНИКОВ
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Поступила 16.02.2018; принята к публикации 13.04.2018; опубликована онлайн 29.06.2018.
Об авторе:
Короткина Ирина Борисовна, заведующая межфакультетской кафедрой английского языка Московской высшей школы социальных и экономических наук (119571, Россия, г. Москва, пр-т Вернадского, д. 82., корп. 2), доцент Института общественных наук ФГБОУ ВО «Российская академиия народного хозяйства и государственной службы при Президенте РФ» (119571, Россия, г. Москва, пр-т Вернадского, д. 82, стр. 1), кандидат педагогических наук, доцент, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7942-7741, irina.korotkina@gmail.com
Автор прочитал и одобрил окончательный вариант рукописи.
