{"title":"Thorny issues with academic language: A perspective from scientific practice","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.linged.2024.101334","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A debate over the construct of academic language (AL) has engendered significant polarization in the field of language education. The issues at the heart of the AL debate are thorny and persistently elusive to resolve. Yet they are not unpredictable, particularly when viewed from the perspective of how scientific communities advance knowledge. In this article, we highlight two thorny issues with AL from the perspective of scientific practice: (a) the modeling issue and (b) the paradigm issue. For each issue, we discuss methodological and pedagogical implications using examples from research on language use in STEM education. Further, we analyze how the two thorny issues have manifested in other contentious debates in language education (cognitive-social debate, translanguaging vs. codeswitching). Finally, we propose ways forward in light of the thorny issues toward advancing our collective knowledge as a community of researchers and practitioners committed to the education of language minoritized students.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47468,"journal":{"name":"Linguistics and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Linguistics and Education","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589824000676","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A debate over the construct of academic language (AL) has engendered significant polarization in the field of language education. The issues at the heart of the AL debate are thorny and persistently elusive to resolve. Yet they are not unpredictable, particularly when viewed from the perspective of how scientific communities advance knowledge. In this article, we highlight two thorny issues with AL from the perspective of scientific practice: (a) the modeling issue and (b) the paradigm issue. For each issue, we discuss methodological and pedagogical implications using examples from research on language use in STEM education. Further, we analyze how the two thorny issues have manifested in other contentious debates in language education (cognitive-social debate, translanguaging vs. codeswitching). Finally, we propose ways forward in light of the thorny issues toward advancing our collective knowledge as a community of researchers and practitioners committed to the education of language minoritized students.
期刊介绍:
Linguistics and Education encourages submissions that apply theory and method from all areas of linguistics to the study of education. Areas of linguistic study include, but are not limited to: text/corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, functional grammar, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, conversational analysis, linguistic anthropology/ethnography, language acquisition, language socialization, narrative studies, gesture/ sign /visual forms of communication, cognitive linguistics, literacy studies, language policy, and language ideology.