27.813, Review: Applied Ling; Socioling: Hyland (2015)

Fri Feb 12 17:07:16 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-813. Fri Feb 12 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.813, Review: Applied Ling; Socioling: Hyland (2015)

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 12:06:47
From: Pejman Habibie [phabibie at uwo.ca, habibiepezhman at gmail.com]
Subject: Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of Knowledge

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-1309.html

AUTHOR: Ken  Hyland
TITLE: Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of Knowledge
SERIES TITLE: Oxford Applied Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Pejman Habibie, University of Western Ontario

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

 SUMMARY 

“Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of knowledge”
presents a multifaceted picture of some of the key issues surrounding
knowledge production and dissemination through scholarly publication in the
current academic context. The book consists of nine chapters which are
thematically independent but all together weave a narrative about scholarly
publication as the focal point of the book. The book begins with a preface
that provides an overview of the significance and imperative to publish in
English-medium scholarly journals in current academia and outlines the
author’s approach to data collection and ethical issues in writing this
monograph.  

In Chapter One, Hyland focuses on the “publish or perish” ideology governing
current scholarship and its social and intellectual implications for the
professional lives of academics. More specifically, he deals with the
underlying reasons for scholarly publication. He highlights the fact that,
traditionally, inspirations for scholarly publication mainly came from the
classical mission of academia, as well as the scholarly and ethical
responsibilities of academics for knowledge construction and dissemination.
However, in today’s global context of scholarship, material rewards,
instrumental motivations, and assessment regimes justify academic productivity
of institutions and scholars to a greater extent. 

In the next chapter, the author highlights the fact that although the
participation of peripheral English as an additional language (EAL) scholars
is increasing in global scholarship, the knowledge production and
dissemination industry is still controlled by a gatekeeping system dominated
by the Anglophone centre. He explains that this screening system defines and
hierarchically categorizes knowledge as local versus global and determines
what knowledge is worth dissemination through prestigious international
journals. Consequently, peripheral EAL scholars face serious challenges in
meeting the agendas set for them and participating in the practices of the
so-called core community. 

In Chapter Three, Hyland focuses on the language variable in knowledge
production and dissemination in current academia. He addresses the rise,
spread, and significance of English as the default language of scholarship and
its implications for other languages and for the scholarly publication
practices of EAL scholars. He discusses the attitudes of EAL scholars towards
publishing in English and examines evidence for linguistic inequality imposed
on EAL scholars as a result of the current status of English. More
interestingly, he problematizes the Anglophone/non-Anglophone divide and the
supposed linguistic advantage of Anglophone scholars in publication in
English-medium international journals.  

In the following chapter, the author points out that academic authoring is a
social practice that involves engagement in both the research practices and
the rhetorical discourses of a discipline. He explains how discipline-specific
rhetorical conventions provide the framework for presentation and validation
of disciplinary knowledge. Focusing on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
collaborative research and multi-authored publishing, he discusses the pros
and cons of co–authorship, the differences across disciplines with regard to
authorship, and the problems and threats that multi-authored publishing can
generate for knowledge production and dissemination. 

In Chapter Five, Hyland underlines the key role of community in knowledge
production. He indicates that discourse communities and communities of
practice provide a social framework which shapes and develops researchers’
expertise in academic text production. He discusses how novice scholars,
especially EAL emerging academics, get initiated into the discourses of their
communities, negotiate scholarly identities, and develop expertise. He also
highlights the key role of participation in the practices of one’s community
and expert mentorship in learning scholarly publication. However, he stresses
the power dynamics inherent in an expert-novice relationship and the fact that
not many novice scholars learn scholarly publication through participation in
the practices of their communities and in an apprenticeship-like situation. 

In the following chapter, the author focuses on academic genres, especially
the journal article genre, and their role in the construction of knowledge. He
explains genre chains and networks, connections among academic genres, and how
some of them can transform into others. Highlighting the role of online
platforms in transforming the presentation of traditional genres and promoting
the emergence of new online genres, he discusses how digital technologies have
changed scholarly publishing and the challenges and affordances that they
offer for knowledge production. He also underlines the fact that both writers
and readers need to adjust and reorient themselves to digitally transformed
genres in new ways. 

Chapter Seven concerns the role of academic journals as venues for academic
communication where “scholarship is adjudicated and new knowledge
orchestrated”. (Hyland 2015, p. 137). The author discusses how the prestige
and impact factors of journals have become the main criteria for judging the
value of the knowledge produced and how scholarly journals project the
efficiency of everybody associated with them including publishers, editorial
boards and contributors. He highlights how bibliometrics and evaluative
systems in current academia have oriented knowledge production process and
authors towards quantity rather than quality. Focusing on commercial and
promotional aspects of the practices of scholarly journals, he also discusses
predatory publishing, and explains how open access as an initiative can
promote a more equitable approach to knowledge dissemination. 

Chapter Eight deals with the significance of the gatekeeping process in
knowledge production and dissemination and its implications for academic
institutions, the academic lives of individual researchers, and the research
orientation of different disciplines. Hyland discusses the purposes, practices
and challenges of the review process and how this evaluative system is a major
marker of the prestige and reputation of a scholarly outlet. Drawing on
current literature and research, the author discusses different aspects of the
review process including focus, framework, and feedback. Focusing on the
negotiation process, he provides useful advice on communication with journal
gatekeepers, especially for novice scholars. He also discusses criticisms of
and threats to the current review process and presents suggestions  for making
it more accountable.   

In Chapter Nine, the author presents an overview of English for Research
Publication Purposes (ERPP) as a fast-growing area within English for Academic
Purposes (EAP) and the issues and opportunities facing teachers and students
in ERPP courses. He discusses the underlying assumptions, curricula, and
textbooks of such courses. Focusing on the pedagogy of ERPP, he highlights the
fact that ERPP instruction addresses both writing and publishing processes and
informs novice researchers of discursive and social practices involved in
scholarly publication. He also stresses that further research is needed in
order to gain a better understanding of the specific needs of students
attending ERPP courses.  

EVALUATION 

In a time when knowledge construction in the form of scholarly publication is
the major marker of the “efficiency of both individual scholars and academic
institutions” (Belcher, 2009,p. 2), Hyland’s book provides a comprehensive
account of both conceptual  issues and empirical evidence on key
socio-political aspects of scholarly publication including: the status of
English as the lingua franca of global scholarship, the Anglophone-dominated
gatekeeping system, scholarly publication in digital era, the pedagogy of
scholarly publication, and controversial issues such as scholarly publication
in Kachru’s (1985) Inner, Expanding, and Outer Circles and the geolinguistic
advantage (Lillis & Curry, 2010) of Anglophone scholars in the construction
and dissemination of knowledge. 

What distinguishes this book from other publications in this domain is that it
is one of the few publications that examines scholarly publication at this
scale and summarizes thirty years or so of literature and research in this
domain. Moreover, it draws on a diverse range of areas such as bibliometrics,
applied linguistics, the philosophy of science, library studies, the sociology
of science, publishing, and language education as well as Hyland’s personal
experiences as an established scholar, a prolific author, and an experienced
editor. Most importantly, it presents an impartial and research-informed
approach, rather than a speculative or a biased one, to issues involved in the
construction of knowledge in the form of scholarly publication . Hyland’s
impartial approach crystallizes to a great extent in Chapters Two and Three
where he discusses publishing from the periphery and the language variable in
global scholarship and problematizes the Anglophone/non-Anglophone dichotomy.
Unlike a lot of researchers who have jumped on the “desperate EAL scholar”
bandwagon, and interpret the current status of English as a conspiracy plot
for linguistic hegemony or cultural imperialism, he adopts a critical stance
towards this accepted orthodoxy. That is, he does not portray Anglophone
scholars in the Inner Circle as an undifferentiated population who is “endowed
with economic, cultural and symbolic capitals, and thus able to respond to the
demands of the core academic discursive practices with relative ease” (Uzuner,
2008, p. 261). Neither, does he present a deficit model of EAL peripheral
scholars’ academic literacy competency and depict them as “an undifferentiated
mass which is handicapped by a lack of proficiency in English,” “at greater
risk,” and therefore “in greater need” of help (Hyland, 2015, p. 186). Drawing
upon empirical evidence and reliable statistics, he provides a fair picture of
the realities of scholarly publication. He stresses that in spite of the
Anglophone-dominated gatekeeping system, the participation of EAL peripheral
scholars in both production and evaluation of scholarship is on the rise,
academic literacy competence is nurtured not natured, and non-discursive
issues play a more determining role in the construction and dissemination of
knowledge. 

Considering that the pedagogy of scholarly publication is one of the
underrepresented and under-researched areas in this domain, another
strong-suit of the book is that it presents a theoretically-informed
educational approach to the pedagogy of scholarly publication in higher
education  in the last chapter. In spite of pedagogical practices and
techniques presented in other publications which usually divorce the writing
component from the publishing component, this approach frames both aspects of
scholarly publication, proposes well-organized curricular activities, and
highlights the fact that the pedagogy of scholarly publication needs to step
beyond technical and discursive issues and address the social dimension as
well.  

“Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of knowledge”
is a must-read  reference book for those involved in research into scholarly
publication, especially novice researchers. The book has successfully provided
a timely contribution to the knowledge base on scholarly publication and
presented a state of the art survey of the literature and research in this
domain. There is no doubt that a book of such a high caliber can only be
produced by stellar scholars such as Ken Hyland, whose distinguished status is
clear to anyone within  the field of EAP and whose invaluable insights have
always triggered disciplinary discussions and pushed the boundaries of
disciplinary scholarship forward. 

REFERENCES 

Belcher, W. L. (2009). Writing your journal article in 12 weeks: A guide to
academic publishing success. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.  

Hyland, K. (2015). Academic publishing: Issues and challenges in the
construction of knowledge. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 

Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The
English language 
in the outer circle. In R. Quirk & H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World
(pp. 11-34). 
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Lillis, T. M., & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic writing in global context: The
politics and practices of publishing in English. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.  

Uzuner, S. (2008). Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global
academic communities: A 
literature review. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7(4), 250-263.
doi:10.1016/ 
j.jeap.2008.10.007

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Pejman Habibie holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and is currently a part-time
faculty in the Faculty of Education at The University of Western Ontario,
Canada. His research interests include English for professional academic
purposes, academic writing and publishing, genre analysis, and doctoral
education.

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