On 15–18 June 2016, Anna Solin and Niina Hynninen enjoyed four days of academic programme in Murcia, Spain, where the 21st Sociolinguistics Symposium was held. Together with Janus Mortensen from the University of Copenhagen, we organised a colloquium entitled "Regimes of Academic Writing – Towards a sociolinguistics of writing practices in academia". The presentations in the colloquium (see below for a list) explored academic writing from different perspectives and in different settings, but with a shared approach to writing as a process that is influenced by both institutional value systems and local negotiations of what counts as valuable, functional and acceptable. The presentations were commented on by our discussant Theresa Lillis (The Open University), who we would like to thank for sharing her experience and perspectives on the topic. Thank you also to our presenters and audience for making the colloquium such an inspiring event!
The colloquium presentations:
- Karin Tusting (Lancaster University): "What counts as high prestige writing: Implicit and contradictory value systems in academics' talk about their writing practices"
- Niina Hynninen and Anna Solin (University of Helsinki): "The regulation of English-medium research writing: The dynamic between top-down mechanisms and situated practices"
- Anne Mäntynen (University of Jyväskylä): "'Accept with revisions': Regulating writing in teacher-student interaction"
- Janus Mortensen (University of Copenhagen): "Language policing in collaborative student writing"
Website of the conference: http://www.um.es/web/sociolinguistics-symposium21/
Photos from the visit: