A review on: Interdisciplinary Practices in Academia: Writing, Teaching and Assessment
Abstract
The monolingual model does not reflect the multilingual realities of today and research across the cognitive, social and linguistic domains is still limited. In addition, there is an urgent need for a more inclusive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) pedagogy to address the heterogeneity of English academic writing across national, cultural and disciplinary contexts. These gaps are addressed in the edited volume, Interdisciplinary Practices in Academia: Writing, Teaching and Assessment, edited by Buckingham, Dong and Jiang, which investigates how interdisciplinarity affects the teaching and assessment of academic writing in different cultural and institutional contexts. The review critically evaluates how the volume not only examines the challenges and opportunities of this transition, but also points out its limitations for future research. The main contribution of the volume is a systematic mapping of the impact of interdisciplinarity on the linguistic and cultural dimensions of academic writing and a call for EAP/ESP research to break away from discipline-bound frameworks. Its practical orientation will appeal to EAP practitioners, administrators and researchers. Its global perspective demonstrates how local policies and cultural values influence interdisciplinary practices. Some chapters contain practical advice for classroom implementation. But the collection would have been stronger with focused attention on the assessment of interdisciplinary writing, novice writer development, and technology-mediated collaboration.