This article critically explores the value of ethnography for enhancing context-sensitive approaches to the study of academic writing. Drawing on data from two longitudinal studies, student writing in the United Kingdom and professional academic writing in Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal, the author illustrates the different contributions ethnography can make to researching academic writing, depending on the level at which it is construed, as method, methodology, or “deep theorizing.” In discussing the third level of ethnography, the author draws on recent debates around linguistic ethnography to explore how ethnography as deep theorizing can contribute to refining social practice accounts of academic writing through the specific notions of indexicality and orientation. By working through three levels of ethnography, her aim is to signal the ontological gap between text and context in academic writing research and to open up debate about how this gap can be narrowed.
Agar, M. (1996). The professional stranger. An informal introduction to ethnography (2nd rev. ed.). New York: Academic Press.
2.
Angélil-Carter, S. (2000). Stolen language? Plagiarism in writing. New York: Longman.
3.
Angelova, M., & Riazantsteva, R. (1999). "If you don't tell me, how can I know?": A case study of four international students learning to write the U.S. way. Written Communication, 16(4), 491-525.
4.
Bakhtin, M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination. Four essays by M. Bakhtin (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
5.
Bakhtin, M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds.), Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
6.
Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community . London: Routledge.
7.
Barton, D., Hamilton, M. , & Ivanič, R. (Eds.). (2000). Situated literacies: Reading and writing in context . London: Routledge.
8.
Baynham, M. (1993). Code switching and mode switching: Community interpreters and mediators of literacy. In B. Street (Ed.), Cross-cultural approaches to literacy (pp. 294-314). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
9.
Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
10.
Bazerman, C., & Prior, P. (Eds.). (2004). What writing does and how it does it. An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
11.
Bennett, K. (2007). Galileo's revenge: Ways of construing knowledge and translation strategies in an era of globalization. Social Semiotics, 17(2), 171-193.
12.
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. A critical introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Blommaert, J. (2006). Ethnography as counter-hegemony: Remarks on epistemology and method. Working papers in urban language and literacies (Paper 34). London: Institute of Education.
14.
Blommaert, J. (2007). On scope and depth in linguistic ethnography. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 682-688.
15.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Polity.
16.
Brodkey, L. (1995). Writing permitted in designated areas only. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
17.
Brown, S. G., & Dobrin, S. I. (Eds.). (2004). Ethnography unbound: From theory to critical praxis. Albany: State University of New York Press.
18.
Buroway, M. (1998). The extended case method. Sociological Theory, 16(1), 5-32.
19.
Cameron, D. (1997). Performing gender identity: Young men's talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In S. Johnson & U. Meinhof (Eds.), Language and masculinity (pp. 47-64). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
20.
Canagarajah, A.S. (1996). Nondiscursive requirements in academic publishing, material resources of periphery scholars, and the politics of knowledge production . Written Communication, 13(4), 435-472.
21.
Canagarajah, A.S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
22.
Candlin, C., & Plum, G. (Eds.). (1998). Researching academic literacies: Framing student literacy: Cross cultural aspects of communication skills in Australian university settings. Sydney, Australia: NCELTR/Macquarie University.
23.
Chang, Y.Y., & Swales, J.M. (1999). Informal elements in English academic writing: Threats or opportunities for advanced non-native speakers? In C.Candlin & K.Hyland (Eds.), Writing: Texts, processes and practices (pp. 145-167). Harlow, UK: Longman.
24.
Clintron, R. (1993). Wearing a pith hat at a sly angle, or can writing researchers do ethnography in a postmodern era? Written Communication , 10, 371-412.
25.
Creese, A. (2008). Linguistic ethnography. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (pp. 229-241). New York: Springer.
26.
Crowley, S. (1998). Composition in the university. Historical and polemical essays. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
27.
Curry, M.J., & Lillis, T. (2004) Multilingual scholars and the imperative to publish in English: Negotiating interests, demands, and rewards. TESOL Quarterly, 38(4), 663-688.
28.
Ellsworth, E. (1994). Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. In L. Stone (Ed.), The education feminism reader (pp. 300-326). London: Longman. (Original work published 1989)
29.
Fabian, J. (2001). Ethnographic objectivity: From rigor to vigor. In. J. Fabian, Anthropology with an attitude (pp. 11-32). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
30.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
31.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. London: Longman.
32.
Fishman, S.M., & McCarthy, L. (2001). An ESL writer and her discipline-based professor . Written Communication, 18(2), 180-228.
33.
Flowerdew, J. (2000). Discourse community, legitimate peripheral participation, and the nonnative-English-speaking scholar. TESOL Quarterly , 34(1), 127-150.
34.
Flowerdew, J. (2001). Attitudes of journal editors to nonnative speaker contributions, TESOL Quarterly, 35(1), 121-150.
35.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
36.
Gentil, G. (2005). Commitments to academic biliteracy. Case studies of francophone writers. Written Communication, 22(4), 421-471.
37.
Gosden, H. (1995). Success in research article writing and revision: A social-constructionist perspective. English for Specific Purposes, 14(1), 37-57.
38.
Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press.
39.
Gumperz, J., & Hymes, D. (Eds.). (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics. The ethnography of communication (pp. 35-71). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
40.
Haas, C. (1994). Learning to read biology: One student's rhetorical development in college. Written Communication, 11(3), 43-84.
41.
Hammersley, M. (1994). Introducing ethnography. In D. Graddol, J. Maybin, & B. Stierer (Eds.), Researching language and literacy in social context (pp. 1-17). Clevedon/ Milton Keynes, UK: Multilingual Matters/ OUP.
42.
Hammersley, M. (2006). Ethnography: Problems and prospects. Ethnography and Education, 1(1), 3-14.
43.
Harwood, N. (2006). (In) appropriate personal pronoun use in political science: A qualitative study and a proposed heuristic for future research . Written Communication, 23(4), 424-450.
44.
Headland, J., Pike, K. , & Harris, M. (Eds.). ( 1990). Emics and etics: The insider/outside debate. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
45.
Hewings, M. (Ed.). (2001). Academic writing in context. Implications and applications. Birmingham , UK: University of Birmingham Press.
46.
Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage .
47.
Horner, B. (1999). The birth of basic writing. In B. Horner & M. Zhan-Lu (Eds.), Representing the other: Basic writers and the teaching of basic writing (pp. 3-29). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
48.
Horner, B., & Lu, M. (1999). Representing the other: Basic writers and the teaching of basic writing. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
49.
Hyland, K. (1999). Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20(3), 341-367.
50.
Hyland, K. (2003). Dissertation acknowledgements. Anatomy of a Cinderella genre. Written Communication, 20(3), 242-268.
51.
Hyland, K. (2006). English for academic purposes. An advanced resource book. London: Routledge.
52.
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
53.
Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
54.
Jones, C., Turner, J. , & Steet, B. (Eds.). (1999). Students writing in the university: Cultural and epistemological issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
55.
Juzwik, M., Curcic, S., Wolbers, K., Moxley, K.D., Dimling, L.M., & Shankland, R.K. (2006). Writing into the 21st century. An overview of research on writing 1999 to 2004. Written Communication , 23(4), 451-476.
56.
Kill, M. (2006). Acknowledging the rough edges of resistance: Negotiation of identities in first year composition. College, Composition and Communication, 58(2), 213-255.
57.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1981). The manufacture of knowledge: An essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science. Oxford , UK: Pergamon.
58.
Kubota, R. (1998). An investigation of L1-L2 transfer in writing among Japanese university students: Implications for contrastive rhetoric . Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(1), 69-100.
59.
Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews. An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. London: Sage.
60.
Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart. Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. London: Routledge.
61.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press.
62.
Lea, M., & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172.
63.
Lea, M. R., & Stierer, B. (Eds.). (2000). Student writing in higher education: New contexts. Buckingham, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University Press.
64.
Leung, C. (2005) Convivial communication: Recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15(2), 119-143.
65.
Lillis, T. (2001). Student writing: Access, regulation, desire. London: Routledge.
66.
Lillis, T. (2003). An "academic literacies" approach to student writing in higher education: Drawing on Bakhtin to move from "critique" to "design ." Language and Education, 17(3), 192-207.
67.
Lillis, T. (2006). Moving towards an academic literacies pedagogy: `Dialogues of participation.' In L. Ganobscik-Williams (Ed.), Teaching academic writing in UK higher education: Theories, practices and models (pp. 30-45). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
68.
Lillis, T., & Curry, M.J. (2006a). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: Interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English medium texts. Written Communication, 23(1), 3-35.
69.
Lillis, T., & Curry, M.J. (2006b). Re-framing notions of `competence' in multilingual scholarly writing: From individual to networked activity. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 53, 63-78.
70.
Lillis, T., & Scott, M. (in press). Defining academic literacies research: Issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics.
71.
Malinowski, B. (1923). The problem of meaning in primitive languages . In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (Eds.), The meaning of meaning (pp. 451-510). London: Kegan Paul.
72.
Maybin, J. (1994). Children's voices: Talk, knowledge and identity . In D. Graddol, J. Maybin, & B. Stierer (Eds.), Researching language and literacy in social context (pp. 131-150). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
73.
Maybin, J. (2006). Children's voices. Talk, knowledge and identity . London: Palgrave Macmillan.
74.
Odell, L., Goswami, D. and Herrington, A. (1983). The discourse-based interview: a procedure for exploring the tacit knowledge of writers in non-academic settings. In P. Mosenthal, L. Tamor and S.A. Walsmsley (Eds.). Research on writing. Principles and methods. New York: Longman.
75.
Pickering, A. (1995). The mangle of practice: Time, agency and science . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
76.
Price, M. (2007). Accessing disability: A non disabled student works the hyphen. College, Composition and Communication, 59(1), 53-76.
77.
Prior, P. (1998). Writing disciplinarity: A sociohistoric account of literate activity in the academy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
78.
Prior, P. (2001). Voices in text, mind, and society. Sociohistoric accounts of discourse acquisition and use. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 55-81.
79.
Prior, P. (2004). Tracing process: How texts come into being. In C. Bazerman and P. Prior (Eds.), What writing does and how it does it. An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices (pp. 167-200). New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum.
80.
Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents . London: Longman.
81.
Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity. Interaction in an urban classroom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
82.
Rampton, B. (2007). Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the United Kingdom. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 584-607.
83.
Rampton, B., Tusting, K., Maybin, J., Barwell, R., Creese, A., & Lytra, V. (2004). UK linguistic ethnography: A discussion paper . Retrieved December 14, 2007, from http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/organisations/lingethn/documents/
84.
Rose, M. (1989). Lives on the boundary. New York: Penguin.
85.
Sarangi, S. (2006). The conditions and consequences of professional discourse studies. In R. Kiely, P. Rea-Dickins, H. Woodfield , & G. Clibbon (Eds.), Language, culture and identity in applied linguistics (pp. 199-220). London: Equinox.
86.
Sarangi, S. (2007). The anatomy of interpretation: Coming to terms with the analyst's paradox in professional discourse studies [Editorial]. Text, 27(5), 567-584.
87.
Scott, M., & Turner, J. (2005). Creativity, conformity and complexity in academic writing: Tensions at the interface. In M. Baynham, A. Deignan, & G. White (Eds.), Applied linguistics at the interface (British Studies in Applied Linguistics, Vol. 19). London: Equinox.
88.
Silverstein, M., & Urban, G. (Eds.). (1996). Natural histories of discourse . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
89.
Skillen, J. (2006). Teaching academic writing from the `centre' in Australian universities. In L. Ganobcsik-Williams (Ed.), Teaching academic writing in UK higher education: Theories, practices, and models (pp. 140-153). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave/Macmillan.
90.
Smith, D. (1999). Writing the social: Critique, theory and investigations . Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
91.
Spack, R. (1997). The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language. A longitudinal case study. Written Communication , 14(1), 3-62.
92.
Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
93.
Street, B. (2003). The implications of the new literacy studies for education. In S. Goodman, T. Lillis, J. Maybin, & N. Mercer (Eds.), Language, literacy and education: A reader (pp. 77-88). Stoke on Trent , UK: Trentham Books.
94.
Street, B. (2004). Academic literacies and the new orders: Implications for research and practice in student writing in higher education. Learning and Teaching in the Social Science, 1(1), 9-20.
95.
Street, B. (Ed.). (2005). Literacies across educational contexts: Mediating learning and teaching. Philadelphia: Caslon Press.
Swales, J. (1998). Other floors, other voices: A textography of a small university building. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
98.
Thesen, L., & van Pletzen, E. (Eds.). (2006). Academic literacy and the languages of change. London: Continuum .
99.
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field. On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
100.
Van Maanen, J. (1995). An end to innocence. The ethnography of ethnography . In J. Van Maanen (Ed.), Representation in ethnography (pp. 1-35). London: Sage.
101.
Ventola, E., & Mauranen, A. (1991). Non-native writing and native revising of scientific articles. In E. Ventola (Ed.), Functional and systemic linguistics: Approaches and uses (pp. 457-492). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.
102.
Wolcott, H. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira.
