Academic Writing in an ELF Environment : Standardization, Accommodation - or Transformation?

“I know that the natives must suffer every now and then”: Native / non-native indexing language ideologies in Finnish higher education

This article examines the construction of“native”and“non-native”English use in Finnish higher education. Previous studies on the Finnish situationimplicate not just language ideological but political hierarchies which favour stu-dents from the traditional, hegemonic“Inner circle”countries such as the UnitedKingdom, United States, Australia, Anglophone Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.This hegemonic position of the inner circle variants is being challenged by anemerging normative ELF ideology. Our article tackles the meeting point ofthese ideological positions. We aim to understand how native English speakerideologies might be changing as a result of globalization. We have combineddata from o…

Describing the voice of online bullying: An analysis of stance and voice type in YouTube comments

Abstract In this article, I analyze the expression of stance in YouTube comments responding to a speech by Greta Thunberg addressing the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit. I use quantitative and qualitative analysis of explicit stance features (including attitude markers, boosters, hedges, self-mentions, and reader addresses) in order to characterize the voice type that commenters construe and examine how this voice type potentially functions as a tool for social influence. The analysis shows that the comments include continual emphatic and emotive attitude marking, almost exclusively evaluating Thunberg herself (e.g., her authenticity, cognitive ability, gender and youth), rather t…

What Counts as ‘Good’ Academic Writing? The Interplay of Writing Norms in International Higher Education

English medium instruction (EMI) programmes have become common contexts of English use for academic purposes worldwide. They tend to combine students and teachers with very varied linguistic, national and academic backgrounds who use English as a lingua franca rather than the official language of the institution. In this chapter, I discuss literature on the interplay of different kinds of norms for academic writing relevant to EMI contexts (e.g. linguistic, cultural, disciplinary), whilst providing examples from an ethnographically oriented study of academic literacy on an international master’s programme in Finland (reported on previously e.g. in McCambridge, Norms and ideologies of academ…

If you can defend your own point of view, you're good : Norms of voice construction in student writing on an international Master's programme

Abstract This ethnographically oriented study followed the writing experiences of four students on an international masters programme in Finland. Gathering a range of data, the study set out to examine what counts as good writing on a programme with a very diverse student body in which English is used as a lingua franca. Both teachers and students emphasised the importance of arguing one's ‘own point of view’ in academic writing, and teachers often formed impressions of students on the basis of their texts, drawing attention particularly to their use of metadiscourse markers (e.g., self-mentions, attitude markers and hedges). The present article therefore combines a quantitative analysis of…

Linguistic and cultural identity : Finns who have been through English immersion education

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of English immersion education on the linguistic and cultural identities of Finns, with a view to understanding the interaction between English second language acquisition and identity. In-depth, semi- structured interviews were conducted with seven graduates from the English School in Helsinki, all of whom have Finnish parents and studied through English for most of their childhoods. The study addresses the question of whether acquiring and speaking English as children causes Finns to identify with non-Finnish linguistic and cultural communities, such as native English speaking communities. This is particularly relevant considering the …

Norms and Ideologies of Academic Writing on an International Master’s Programme in Finland

This ethnographically-oriented study followed the experiences of six (later four) students on an international master’s programme in Finland. Programmes such as this combine culturally, linguistically and often academically diverse students, using English as a lingua franca for course completion and evaluation, rather than the official language of the institution. My aim was to explore the norms and ideologies of English academic writing on the programme, or, in other words, what counts as ‘good’ writing for participants in this increasingly common context of English use for academic purposes. Over three years, I collected a range of data, including students’ texts, instructions for and fee…