PSmith2021a
| PSmith2021a | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | PSmith2021a |
| Author(s) | Paul Vincent Smith |
| Title | Abduction in the academy: The mysteries of academic writing as a pragmatic problem for students in higher education |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Academic writing, Education |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2021 |
| Language | English |
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| Month | |
| Journal | Ethnographic Studies |
| Volume | |
| Number | 18 |
| Pages | 75-98 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.5281/zenodo.5805452 |
| ISBN | |
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Abstract
This article addresses academic writing as an occasionally “mysterious” phenomenon for students. This phenomenon has been well documented in educational and applied linguistic work, in which student talk has been understood as evidence of states of affairs in the world that the educationalist can then problematise and investigate. Using ideas from pragmatist philosophy as a heuristic, particularly Peirce’s notion of abduction, I conduct an EM/CA alternate study. This approach allows for a series of conversational techniques for talking about mysterious writing phenomena to be identified. Two longer analyses demonstrate social aspects of the problems of learning from experience, and of the possibility of identifying general explicatory, but informal, rules for academic writing. Treating student talk as accounts providing versions of events allows for different results than a transparent or representational conception of language. I conclude by noting that the tension between a researcher emphasis on situated practice, and the participant tendency to wish to find generalities, can continue to be a productive field for research if carefully framed.
Notes
