L2 writers in graduate studies

George Braine’s experience shows that the transition to graduate school for non-native-speaking students, at least in the US, can be difficult. Graduate school is demanding and exhausting for most students, and it is unsurprising that stress increases when grad school is in another language.

Based on my observations and Braine’s, it seems that the general perception of multilingual writers in graduate studies is that they are/should be proficient enough in the L2 to maneuver within their own disciplines. Based on ideas like this, I wonder: is it as common for L2 graduate students to seek assistance in their writing? Is there stigma attached to language-specific or writing-specific help (in writing centers or with the instructor of the class)? As Braine points out, though, “a knowledge of one’s chosen field of study, research skills, and good reading and writing skills form only the foundation for the acquisition of academic literacy” (60). That is, there’s more to succeeding in grad school than just academic literacy. He says that even the social culture can affect whether or not a student acclimates.

Along that vein, here are a few other questions (which could make good potential research questions): Do L2 graduate student writers conform more or less to common/accepted rhetorical strategies and writing styles in the L2 than undergraduate writers? Perhaps interviews with L2 writers could provide some insight into that matter, as well as to the next question: Is the attention to format and typing stylistics that Canagarajah mentions in the preface to Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students still prevalent (or more common than comments on rhetorical strategies and thought organization)? Braine, discussing Casanave and Hubbard (1992), says that teachers of grad courses in the humanities “consider global features of writing (such as the quality of content and the development of ideas) to be more important than local features” (64). Do the teachers show or convey that to the students? As Canagarajah rightly points out, “writing involves not just grammatical competence”—but I wonder, do L2 writers’ experiences align with that idea (9)?

Sources:

Braine, G. (2002). Academic literacy and the nonnative speaker graduate students. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. 59-68.

Canagarajah, S. (2002). "Understanding Critical Writing." From Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual students. 1-22.