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Introduction
10.4324/9780429317798-1
The field of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) has developed in response to the rise of English as the global lingua franca of scientific research and publication and the need of international researchers to publish in English. The term English for Research Publication Purposes and its ERPP acronym were first used, to our knowledge, by Sally Burgess and Margaret Cargill in a special edition of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes in 2008 (Cargill & Burgess, 2008, p. 75). In the introduction to that volume, they provide a definition of the field as follows:
The special edition brought together papers which had previously been presented at the first PRISEAL conference (Publishing and Presenting Research Internationally: Issues for Speakers of English as an Additional Language) in Tenerife, Spain in 2007. It is this conference and the ensuing special edition which really put ERPP on the map and since then the field has grown exponentially. Another important landmark and a result of the exponential growth in interest in ERPP was the establishment in 2020 of its own dedicated international refereed journal, Journal of Research Publication Purposes (JERPP), co-edited (with Sue Starfield) by one of the authors of this book, Pejman Habibie.
Leading up to these landmarks, there had been a growing realisation that many scholars who used English as an additional language (EAL) had difficulty in participating in the international world of research because of linguistic difficulties or other non-discursive (Canagarajah, 1996) reasons related to being located outside the main centres of knowledge production. Thus, while the initial impetus for ERPP, as indicated in the sub-title of the PRISEAL conference (Issues for Speakers of English as an Additional Language), was to help scholars whose first language was not English, the field has expanded to take in all professional researchers and postgraduate students, that is, Anglophone as well as EAL scholars; this is because it was realised that all scholars may be in need of help in navigating the intricacies of the research and publication āgameā (Casanave, 2002). This broader conception notwithstanding, it is the case that most ERPP research to date has been focused on scholars whose first language is not English. ERPP is thus a specialised approach to English language and literacy education focused on all those writing for research publication, whether they be scholars for whom English is an additional language or Anglophone scholars.
The above developments have meant that ERPP is now an established field of study. In spite of a considerable literature and a dedicated journal, however, there is to date no single book that gathers this work together and tries to make sense of it in an all-embracing and coherent manner. The goal of this volume is therefore to fill this gap and provide a comprehensive overview of what ERPP encompasses as a scholarly field, including its antecedents, its disciplinary boundaries, its competing discourses, and its principal research and practice paradigms. In this introductory overview, we do not intend to present a particular position, but to provide a neutral, balanced, but at the same time critical view. Indeed, as authors, we come from rather different scholarly trajectories, with one of us (Flowerdew) having devoted many years to studying the research and publication activities of plurilingual scholars in Hong Kong and Mainland China and the other (Habibie) having more recently entered the field with a focus on the writing for publication struggles of Anglophone scholars in Canada. The research and theoretical dimensions of the book, we hope, will be of interest to both novice and established researchers in applied linguistics and TESOL in general, and English for Academic Purposes, academic writing, writing studies, and second language writing, in particular. The pedagogical aspect, we hope, will appeal to graduate students, faculty supervisors, doctoral advisors, ESP/EAP/ERPP practitioners, and EAP curriculum and material designers and developers. The book also has implications for those teaching professional academic writing skills, journal editors and reviewers, and authorsā editors.
The scope of ERPP
ERPP constitutes an academic field concerned with the investigation of the nature and use of English in research and publication contexts and at the same time a field of practice focused on the needs of those who wish to publish in international journals. As such, both tendencies are informed by theory ā social theories, theories of discourse, theories of communication, and theories of teaching and learning. In terms of research methods, ERPP employs both quantitative and qualitative methods, including survey (both questionnaire and in-depth interview); naturalistic case study (single or multiple); genre analysis (including corpus-based genre analysis); content analysis; and political and philosophical analysis. It is not noted for experimental research, although, as an eclectic field, it is open to any method. While some research is focused on more theoretical considerations, other work is more directly concerned with the practical constraints of teaching and learning. With many ERPP publications, however, research and pedagogy go hand in hand. Most ERPP research can be described as problem-driven, seeking as it does to address the concerns of professional scholars and postgraduate students, as in Burgess and Cargillās definition above, but in a research-informed manner.
A great deal of ERPP research has been conducted following one of two broad theoretical approaches: genre analysis (a branch of discourse analysis which studies ācommunicative events which are associated with particular settings and which have recognised structures and communicative functionsā [Flowerdew, 2002, p. 183]) and social constructivism (a theory that views learning as primarily taking place in social and cultural settings rather than solely within the individual [Fry, Kettering, & Marshall, 2008]). Although genre analysis takes account of the communicative setting and the community of participants who use a given genre (its discourse community, [Swales, 1990]), the analysis tends to be focused on the product of the communicative event, the text (spoken or written). The goal of this approach to ERPP is to provide descriptions of academic genres which can help better understand how knowledge is communicated and to feed into ERPP pedagogy. Most of this work is concerned with research articles (RAs), but other ERPP-related academic genres have been analysed, including some occluded genres (genres not in the public domain), such as refereesā reports, editorsā letters, and research grant proposals. The main ERPP-related genres in the public domain are RAs, book reviews, conference presentations, and academic blogs. The genre analytic approach to ERPP research is the older of the two, predating the social constructivist tendency, in fact, because there has been an interest in scientific text for many decades (Barber, 1962; Halliday, 2004; Huddleston, 1971; Selinker, Tarone, & Hanzeli, 1981; Tarone, Dwyer, Gillette, & Icke, 1998), although much of this early work did not take context much into account.
The social constructivist approach to ERPP research views text production as a social practice, investigating such issues as scholarsā writing procedures, their interactions with colleagues and gatekeepers (editors and referees), and the pressures brought to bear on them in their various contexts (Canagarajah, 1996, 2002; Flowerdew, 2001; Li, 2006a, 2006b, 2007a, 2007b, 2014a, 2014b; Lillis & Curry, 2010; Mu, 2020). The goal of this approach is to develop an understanding of the modus operandi and practical experiences in going about writing for publication of distinct groups of writers and individuals. Situated accounts of scholarsā practices and of their perceptions, problems, and strategies concerning such practices can serve as exemplars against which other situations can be compared. They may also serve to bring about policy changes at either a local or broader level, and they may feed into pedagogy. The earliest study using the social constructivist approach is St Johnās (1987) investigation into the composing processes of 30 Spanish scientists writing for publication in English at the University of CĆ³rdoba, Spain. St John conducted her investigation because she wanted to find out how her university in the United Kingdom (Aston University) could better design courses to assist her target group of EAL writers. More than this, though, her study provided a baseline against which future researchers and practitioners could measure their own results and practices, respectively.
Given that an important goal of both approaches just outlined is pedagogic, ERPP pedagogy, that is to say, how to teach ERPP, can be considered an important third strand (Li & Flowerdew, 2020; Li, Flowerdew, & Cargill, 2018). Indeed, many practitioners would see this as the most important of the three. In order to be able to provide appropriate pedagogy, a teacher of ERPP requires a deep understanding of the rhetorical practices of the discourse communities the scholars they teach are coming from. In order to arrive at such an understanding, they need the necessary tools to do so. This is hopefully where this book comes in, by establishing a link between the research base of ERPP and the field of ERPP practice ā learning how to teach research English.
There are also other research domains interacting with ERPP, including philosophy and history of science (Atkinson, 1999; Bazerman, 1988; Latour & Woolgar, 1986), policy studies relating to research and publication (Feng, Beckett, & Huang, 2013; Lee & Lee, 2013); issues of linguistic policy and (in)justice (Ammon, 2000; Pronskikh, 2018); language, or domain, loss (Bennett, 2007; Bordet, 2016); World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca (Flowerdew, 2015); predatory journals (Soler & Cooper, 2017); and many others. In the next section, we will provide an overview of the rest of the book.
Overview of the book
In Chapter 2, The background to ERPP, we map out the growing pressure to publish that scholars are facing, commonly referred to as publish or perish, and the exponential rise in international English-medium academic journals and the number of international scholars seeking to publish in those journals. We set the scene by unpacking the global socio-political and socio-economic factors that have contributed to the current situation. We deal with key systems such as globalisation and neoliberalism and how they have resulted in the expansion and internationalisation of higher education and the importance and implications of those concepts for ERPP. Massification of higher education and marketisation of universities are also topics discussed in this chapter. The discussion elaborates on how such phenomena shape the globalisation of scholarship and consequently scholarly publication in English-medium academic journals. Finally, given that EAL scholars are in the majority worldwide, we briefly discuss how scholarly publication in English linguistically disadvantages such scholars and poses challenges to their visibility and participation in global scholarship.
In Chapter 3, From the Scientific Enlightenment to publish or perish, we begin with a historical perspective and look at the emergence of modern empirical science and scientific inquiry during the 17th century Enlightenment, along with the development of academic communication and scholarly exchange since this period. Then, we focus on the RA and explore its emergence and development as the most prestigious scholarly genre in academic discourse. We briefly analyse its rhetorical structure and contours, constituent components and sections, and linguistic properties and features. Again, tracing its history back to the Enlightenment, we discuss the development of the peer-review mechanism as an essential feature of publish or perish, along with the more recent assessment and quantification tools of impact factor, and h-index. We also discuss the issue of authorship assignment and publication output expectations, as these can also affect scholarly performance measurement.
Chapter 4, Discourses and perspectives on English, focuses on various conceptual approaches to the English language and their relevance to ERPP. The chapter contrasts two particular perspectives on English as a Global Language: laissez-faire liberalism and linguistic imperialism (Pennycook, 2000). The first of these approaches sees English as a beneficial, global lingua franca which allows for equal communication between countries and regions, while the second emphasises the socio-political, economic, and cultural agendas of Global English and its extensive and growing hegemonic power. We address the question as to whether there is a middle way between these two highly contrastive discourses on English. Next, we address the issue of domain loss, the loss of language use in certain domains and genres due to them being overtaken by English. We sketch out the ramifications of this concept with regard to ERPP and global knowledge production. With the rise of English as the dominant language of research and publication and the fact that most scholars now use English as an additional language, a question of equity arises. A lot of research in ERPP has addressed this issue and this research is mapped out. More recently, a counter-discourse has developed arguing that all scholars have to deal with the challenges of writing for publication and that more attention should be given to Anglophones. This more recent literature is also summarised. The chapter finally highlights World Englishes (the varieties of English as it is used in different contexts around the world) and English as a Lingua Franca (English as a global means of communication between communities) as conceptions of English which impinge on approaches to ERPP.
Chapter 5, Theoretical orientations in ERPP, focuses on theories and approaches that have been drawn upon or developed in the context of ERPP. The theories covered are genre theory, social constructivist theory, and World Systems Theory. Genre theory has been very important in ERPP because it provides a predictive and analytical lens to explore discursive and generic challenges and problems that...
