Academic Literacies in Theory and Practice

Abstract

The term “academic literacies” provides a way of understanding student writing, which highlights the relationship between language and learning in higher education. It draws upon applied linguistics and social anthropology for its theoretical framing and its orientation toward the social, cultural, and contextualized nature of writing in the university. The work on academic literacies sits broadly within a body of research called New Literacy Studies (NLS), which takes a social and cultural approach to writing, in contrast to more cognitive perspectives. The use of the plural form, “literacies,” signals a concern with literacy as a range of social and cultural practices around reading and writing in particular contexts, rather than individual cognitive activity. Research findings suggest that in order to understand more about student writing, it is necessary to start from the position that literacy is not a unitary skill that can be transferred with ease from context to context. The research points to the requirement for students to switch between many different types of written text, as they encounter new modules or courses and the writing demands of different disciplinary genres, departments, and academic staff. It has unpacked this diversity primarily through ethnographic-type qualitative case study research, looking at students’ and faculty experiences of writing for assessment and the gaps between their expectations of the requirements of writing. In foregrounding the relationship between writing and learning, writing is conceptualized in terms of epistemology – rather than cognitive skill – and what counts as knowledge in the different contexts of the academy.