Writing : texts, processes and practices

English for Specific Purposes 20 (2001) 387±393 www.elsevier.com/locate/esp Book reviews Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices Edited by Candlin, C. and Hyland, K. Essex, UK: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd. 1999, 330 pp. £18.99. ISBN 0-582-31750-9 (www.awl-he.com). In the ever-growing literature on writing, we seem to ®nd an overarching agreement, albeit not always explicitly stated, about the socially situated nature of written texts. Across theoretical, cultural and national boundaries, we are beginning to accept that texts are shaped by the social, political, cultural, and professional contexts within which they operate; and that these contexts largely determine what we include in a text and how we include it. There is a variety of critical accounts of academic discourses (e.g. Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Canagarajah, 1998; Zamel & Spack, 1998); a growing body of work on workplace discourses (e.g. BargielaChippini & Nickerson, 1999; Martin & Christie, 1997); and a literature on the practices of speci®c discourse communities, as many of the articles in English for Speci®c Purposes exemplify. In an attempt to provide broad coverage of these areas of work, the editors of this volume, Chris Candlin and Ken Hyland, undertake a rather ambitious yet timely and much-needed task. Given the nature of applied linguistics as a discipline and the general move towards interdisciplinarity in education, this book breaks new ground by bringing a variety of perspectives together into one volume. Within the rich variety of chapters, a range of issues have been addressed Ð issues that are likely to capture the attention of interested outsiders and classroom practitioners as well as experienced writing researchers. The book is divided into four parts, each matching an aim delineated in the lengthy and comprehensive introduction. The ®rst part, entitled ``Expression: focus on text,'' starts with a broad brushstroke on genre work by Vijay Bhatia. A large number of issues are discussed in this chapter, although this ``broad vision'' (p. 39) may be interpreted as all-encompassing and thus somewhat amorphous. The additional two chapters in this section consist of a pragmatic analysis of two texts, one a lea¯et and the other an opening of an academic article within their speci®c contexts by Greg Myers, and an interesting and in-depth look at how disciplines frame literacy by Mary Lea and Brian Street Ð a chapter that resembles an earlier article (Lea & Street, 1998). The second section, entitled ``Interpretation: focus on process,'' contains three chapters. The ®rst, by Patricia Wright, looks at a range of functional texts in health care, from medical lea¯ets to information on medicine containers, and reviews the 0889-4906/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0889-4906(00)00027-2 388 Book reviews / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 387±393 existing literature in order to describe the cognitive skills required to produce such texts. Ken Hyland's chapter, on the other hand, is based on corpus data and represents a fascinating e€ort to get at writing processes through counting stance features in written products Ð in this case of 56 research articles from seven leading journals in eight di€erent academic disciplines. The third chapter, by Ian Malcolm, looks at process broadly in terms of cultural identity and domination, providing a rare look at less well-known cultures. The volume's third part, entitled ``Explanation: focus on research,'' has the only section title that is not linked directly to the title of the book. This section provides a useful look at research from various interrelated Ð though mainly socialconstructionists Ð perspectives. Noteworthy in this section is a chapter on writer± reader relationships by Roz IvanicÏ and Sue Weldon that features a dialogic account (i.e. a written dialogue between two co-researchers with di€ering perspectives on their work) of two converging yet distinct writer identities. Two additional chapters allow the readers to examine research in action Ð one by Yu-Ying Chang and John Swales combining a text-analytic framework with community interpretation, and the other by Chris Candlin and Gunther Plum demonstrating how some of the common concepts we use to examine academic literacy may need a broader research framework. The last section, entitled ``Realisation: focus on practice,'' includes three chapters. John Milton's chapter focuses on the pedagogic value of electronic access to various texts, while Sandra Gollin's chapter provides a useful look into the nature of collaborative writing in professional contexts. The third chapter, by Robert Barrett, charts the connection between spoken interaction and writing in clinical psychology, and has relevance for all of us who use interview and classroom discourse data. This last section will be extremely useful to imaginative and committed teachers for the glimpses it provides of how the issues discussed in this volume might be applied in di€erent contexts. However, one needs to be able to make the connections on one's own as neither the editors nor the chapter writers really foreground the praxis connection. This volume is ambitious in that it tries to make multi-faceted connections between di€erent strands of writing research. By their own admission, the editors try to bring together work within an ``overarching perspective on texts seen as situated in cognitive, social and cultural contexts'' (p. 4). Their aim is to provide an approach that integrates theory and practice within three central dimensions of writing Ð ``expression, interpretation and explanation'' (p. 5). Thus we see two interrelated strands running together in this volume Ð that of making connections among theoretical perspectives; and that of trying to connect texts, processes, and research with re¯ective praxis. In every sense, therefore, it is an ambitious project requiring much work from the editors in ensuring that the multiple connections are visible to the readers Ð even specialist readers. And in many signi®cant ways, the editors have succeeded in this venture. However, such integrative approaches by their very nature tend to evoke thoughts of the ¯ower-picking metaphor (Harste, 1992), where readers may sometimes wish for a clearer focus, or be left feeling slightly overwhelmed. This does not, however, in any way diminish the value of this book. Book reviews / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 387±393 389 This volume is an important addition to the growing body of work on texts, and compliments other volumes, such as Martin and Christie (1997), that attempt to bring together, under one theoretical umbrella, perspectives on the discourses of di€erent communities of practice. It is a ``must read'' for all teachers who are in the business of teaching any kind of writing for speci®c communities and purposes Ð especially tertiary level teachers Ð and students and researchers as well. References Bargiela-Chippini, F., & Nickerson, C. (1999). Writing business: genres, methods and language. London: Addison Wesley Longman. Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin, T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Canagarajah, S. (1998). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harste, J. (1992). Foreword. In R. Beach, J. L. Green, M. L. Kamil, & T. Shanahan, Multidisciplinary perspectives in literacy research (pp. ix±xii). Illinois: National Conference on Research in Teaching of English and National Council of Teachers of English Publication. Lea, M. A., & Street, B. V. (1998). Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23, 157±172. Martin, J. R., & Christie, F. (1997). Genre and institutions: social processes in the workplace and school. London: Cassell Academic. Zamel, V., & Spack, R. (1998). Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Sima Sengupta Department of English The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hung Hom, Kowloon Hong Kong E-mail address: egsima@polyu.edu.hk PII: S0889-4906(00)00027-2 Other Floors, Other Voices: a Textography of a Small University Building John Swales; Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, N.J., (www.erlbaum.com) 1998, US$29.95. Simply put, John Swales' new book is one that, having read once, I feel I have hardly dented. It is quite clear that a second, a third, and a fourth reading would be amply rewarded, and it is equally clear that I will indeed read this volume again. It is just that kind of book. Swales calls this book a ``textography,'' which he de®nes (p. 1) as something less than an ethnographic study but something more than text-focused discourse analysis. In fact, although he does try to marry aspects of these two approaches to understanding academic discourses in their expansive community contexts (Swales