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Article published In: The dynamics of academic knowledge production: Text histories and text trajectories
Edited by Theresa Lillis and Mary Jane Curry
[Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes 3:1] 2022
► pp. 109–142

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The dynamics of academic knowledge making in a multilingual world

Chronotopes of production

 | The Open University, UK
 | University of Rochester, U.S.
Published online: 2 June 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jerpp.22002.lil
Abstract
The use of ‘text history’ and ‘text trajectory’ constitutes an epistemological break from historically static approaches to the study of academic writing for publication. However, there is a need to further develop dynamic approaches to professional academic text production in ways which are robustly grounded in scholars’ lived practices. The paper briefly reviews the use of ‘text history’ and ‘text trajectory’, signalling their value and some limitations, and offers a heuristic foregrounding the importance of chronotope (Bakhtin, M. (1981/1935). The dialogic imagination (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; (2018). Are chronotopes useful? Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, Paper 243. University of Tilburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), ‘text cluster’, and multi/translingual practice. Drawing on a range of data relating to 12 multilingual scholars in four national sites from the longitudinal study Professional Academic Writing in a Global Context – interviews, observations, curriculum vitae – the paper foregrounds three key chronotopic dimensions in the dynamics of textual academic knowledge making: micro time, specific moments of text production; meso time trajectories of texts; and macro time, text production practices over scholars’ life trajectories. The paper challenges the widely repeated and taken-for-granted mantra that English is currently the (only) language of science and academic knowledge production and, as such, seeks to contribute to strategies of ‘delinking’ (Mignolo, W. (2007). DELINKING. The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 449–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) in the field of academic writing studies.
Abstrakt
Dynamika tvorby akademického poznania vo viacjazyčnom svete: chronotypy produkcie
Práca s “históriou textu” a “trajektóriou textu” predstavuje epistemologický odklon od historicky statických prístupov k skúmaniu akademického písania určeného na publikovanie. Je však potrebné ďalej rozvíjať dynamické prístupy k profesionálnej produkcii akademických textov spôsobom, ktorý je pevne zakotvený v žitej praxi vedcov. Príspevok poskytuje stručný prehľad práce s “históriou textu” a “trajektóriou textu”, poukazuje na ich hodnotu a niektoré obmedzenia a na základe heuristického prístupu ponúka obraz, ktorý zdôrazňuje význam chronotopu (Bakhtin, M. (1981/1935). The dialogic imagination (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; (2018). Are chronotopes useful? Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, Paper 243. University of Tilburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), “zhluku textov” a multi/translingválnej praxe. Na základe celého radu výskumných dát týkajúcich sa dvanástich viacjazyčných vedcov na štyroch národných pracoviskách z longitudinálnej štúdie Professional Academic Writing in a Global Context – rozhovorov, pozorovaní, životopisov – príspevok predkladá tri kľúčové chronotopické dimenzie v dynamike tvorby textových akademických poznatkov: mikročas, konkrétne momenty produkcie textov; mezočasové trajektórie textov; a makročas, produkčné postupy v priebehu životných dráh vedcov. Príspevok spochybňuje často opakovanú a zaužívanú mantru, že angličtina je v súčasnosti (jediným) jazykom vedy a produkcie akademického poznania, a ako taký sa snaží prispieť k stratégiám “odštiepenia” (Mignolo, W. (2007). DELINKING. The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 449–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) v oblasti štúdií akademického písania.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The PAW study
    • 2.1The data used in this paper
  • 3.Dynamic approaches to academic text production: Expanding the lens
    • 3.1Moving beyond a ‘prescribed trajectory’ lens: Working with multiple chronotopes of production
    • 3.2Text cluster
    • 3.3Multi/translingual practice
    • 3.4A multi/translingual heuristic for exploring chronotopes of academic textual knowledge making
  • 4.Chronotopes of multi/translingual textual knowledge making
    • 4.1Scholars’ multi/translingual knowledge text making practices: Micro lens
      • 4.1.1Working with primary data
      • 4.1.2Entextualising knowledge
      • 4.1.3Interactions in entextualising knowledge
    • 4.2Scholars’ multi/translingual knowledge making across text clusters: Meso lens
    • 4.3Scholars publishing multilingually over time: Macro lens
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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