Books in the New Perspectives for English f series

This book highlights the centrality of political and ideological issues as they relate to the positioning and practice of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), demonstrating that EAP cannot flourish as a profession or a discipline without an awareness of the macro- and meso-level political shifts that impact the wider university. The volume states that the practices of EAP are, in fact, political acts and examines these as yet unexplored power dynamics. The volume begins by considering key influences that have shaped universities and their governance and management over the last three decades and how these relate to the role and practice of EAP. These influences include neoliberal economic policies, governmental demands for widening participation, globalization, entrepreneurial approaches to higher education, students as clients and therapeutism in universities. Following consideration of these broader contextual issues, specific chapters focus on politics and policies surrounding the recruitment and participation of international, fee-paying students, their positioning and identity within English-medium universities, including issues relating to English language, standards and academic integrity. Further chapters then consider more local influences that shape EAP programmes, such as their strategic roles within universities, their management, their teaching and wider academic impact.

This book, written by pioneering architects of original social theory in educational/linguistic fields as well as expert practitioners, systematically exposes the sociological commitments of mainstream ideas and theories in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), commitments which are very often not fully examined by the discipline, but nonetheless shape practitioners' ideas and their praxis.The initial chapters outline what social theory is; the normative, critical, descriptive, social and generative purposes it serves; the scope and limits of social theory, and tracing the major historical traditions and recent currents. This mapping of social theory is followed by a detailed argument that makes the case for the centrality of social theory for EAP practitioners and praxis and the need to develop a sociological imagination to enhance knowledge and agency of practitioners. The contributions reveal the sociological foundations and commitments that underpin established theories in EAP, such as genre theories, systemic functional linguistics, and academic literacies. Each of these three major research streams in EAP is subject to critical analysis, linking each of these streams to the sociological commitments that underpin them. Finally, the book explores the social theories and approaches that have yet to make a full or significant impact on EAP research and practice, but would enable practitioners and researchers to understand educational contexts, texts, structures, culture(s), knowledge production and producers, and social agents with greater sociological clarity and sophistication. Topics covered include: social realism, legitimation code theory, critical realism, ethnography, feminism and Bourdieusian concepts for EAP. The overarching aim of this volume is to position social theory much more centrally to frameworks and conceptions of the (unstable and contested) knowledge-base for EAP practitioners and to promote a 'sociological imagination' among and for EAP practitioners.