Moments and mechanisms of intervention along textual trajectories: norm negotiations in English-medium research writing

Niina Hynninen

doi:10.1515/text-2019-0303

Article

Moments and mechanisms of intervention along textual trajectories: norm negotiations in English-medium research writing

Niina Hynninen
Niina Hynninen received her PhD in English philology from the University of Helsinki, where she currently works as a Senior Lecturer. Her research interests include academic discourse, language regulation and English as a lingua franca. She is co-editor of Language Perceptions and Practices in Multilingual Universities (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) and author of Language Regulation in English as a Lingua Franca (2016, De Gruyter Mouton).

Published/Copyright: October 29, 2020

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From the journal Text & Talk Volume 42 Issue 2

Abstract

Academic text production usually includes various people intervening in the text at different stages of the writing and evaluation process. By focusing on trajectories of English-medium research papers, this article explores the moments and mechanisms of intervention in the text production processes, as well as the associated norm negotiations. The study takes a dynamic approach to text analysis, with focus on tracing the text histories of the research papers from the perspective of how the writing is regulated by different actors and in different ways at various stages along the trajectories. The data include two detailed text histories, covering research interviews with authors and their colleagues, copies of several drafts of the texts, language revisions, written comments from different brokers (reviewers, editors and colleagues), and recordings of research group meetings around writing. The findings illustrate how various evaluation mechanisms and practices function to enable and restrict interventions by specific actors, and how these actors may evoke different evaluating authorities. It is concluded that the moments of intervention serve as sites for (re)negotiating norms and appropriateness criteria.

Keywords: academic writing; broker; intervention; norm; polycentricity; scale; text history

Corresponding author: Dr. Niina Hynninen, Department of Languages, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 40 B (P.O. Box 24), Helsinki, 00014, Finland, E-mail niina.hynninen@helsinki.fi

Funding source: Kone Foundation

Award Identifier / Grant number: 088787

About the author

Niina Hynninen

Niina Hynninen received her PhD in English philology from the University of Helsinki, where she currently works as a Senior Lecturer. Her research interests include academic discourse, language regulation and English as a lingua franca. She is co-editor of Language Perceptions and Practices in Multilingual Universities (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) and author of Language Regulation in English as a Lingua Franca (2016, De Gruyter Mouton).

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by funding received from the Kone Foundation (LaRA project, grant number 088787). My biggest thanks go to the study participants who generously shared their time, texts and thoughts with me. I also thank Anna Solin, Hanna-Mari Pienimäki, Irina Piippo and Jyrki Kalliokoski for their useful comments. Any shortcomings remain my own.

Appendix Transcription conventions

The following conventions apply to the transcribed HCI writing clinic extracts. The interview extracts have been standardised for readability (e.g. repeats removed).

Speaker codes:

W#	Author
CS#	Colleague, U = unclear speaker identification

Transcription symbols:

,	Short pause
“text”	Quotation from a draft of the paper
te-	Unfinished utterances
(text)	Uncertain transcription
(xx)	Unclear speech
<CS#: text>	Minimal feedback when marked within another speaker’s turn
[text] [text]	Overlapping speech, marked to the nearest word
((…))	Text omitted
((text))	Text added for clarity by the author of this paper
{anon}	Text modified for anonymization purposes, specifications given when needed:
	{V-ing} = verb in progressive form {N} = noun {concept} = noun or noun phrase used as a concept in the field/paper {Adj} = adjective Note: each letter after the specification code refers to a specific word, i.e. {V-ing_b} and {N_b} are different forms of the same word.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2019-0303).

Received: 2019-12-20

Accepted: 2020-09-10

Published Online: 2020-10-29

Published in Print: 2022-03-28

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Keywords for this article

academic writing; broker; intervention; norm; polycentricity; scale; text history