Over the years, research on writing has increasingly emphasized the value of adopting a sociocultural perspective to understand how social context and social interaction relate to writing regulation. Using the theoretical lens of participatory appropriation, this study investigates the self regulatory behavior of three successful Bachelor essay writers in literature, and how the interaction with their supervisors supported students' development of writing regulation in disciplinary relevant ways. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews at three key moments in the term; Pintrich's self-regulation framework was used as coding heuristic to trace participants' self-regulation behavior over the term. Self-regulation data was cross-analyzed with data coded as participatory appropriation to identify the overlap between students' self-regulation of writing and their social experiences, especially the dialogue with their supervisors. Our results show how the supervisors acted as agents of socialization, providing frames for adoption of disciplinary-relevant ways of thinking and doing, as well as indirectly sustaining the students' motivation and re conceptualization of the writing experience. Overall, this investigation responds to calls for inquiries of self-regulation against the backdrop of the social context in which it is embedded.

This study investigates the uses and functions of laughter and humour in a corpus of nine PhD defences/vivas. The data include the PhD defences in their entirety, including monologic and dialogic talk by participants from a variety of research cultures. The defences were video-recorded and transcribed, and laughter episodes analysed according to who laughed, who the source of “the laughable” was, what the reason for laughing was and at what point laughter occurred. The analysis reveals that a majority of laughter was non-humorous, produced by one person, and had the function of mitigating face threats to speakers and others. Humorous laughter was usually produced by more than one person and had the function of relieving tension, creating a non-adversarial atmosphere and building a community. These results are connected to the communicative purposes of the participants; the participants’ mutual aim is to examine an academic work and confirm the candidate’s membership in their chosen specialisation, which requires cooperation from all parties. Furthermore, although the participants come from different research cultures where humour can have a different presence and function, this study shows that laughter and humour are frequent and fill an important function in ELF interactions in high-stakes academic situations.

Denna studie undersöker användning och funktioner för skratt och humor i en korpus av nio disputationer. Materialet omfattar disputationer i sin helhet, inklusive monologiska tal och dialogiska samtal med deltagare från en mängd olika forskningskulturer. Disputationerna filmades och transkriberades, och skrattepisoder analyserades enligt vem som skrattade, vem som var källan till det man skrattade åt, vad skälet till att man skrattade var, samt vid vilken tidpunkt skratt uppstod. Analysen visar att en majoritet av skratten var icke-humoristiska, producerade av endast en person, och hade funktionen att mildra hot mot talarens och andras ansikte. Humoristiskt skratt producerades vanligtvis av mer än en person och hade funktionen att lindra spänningar, skapa en positiv atmosfär och bygga en gemenskap. Dessa resultat är kopplade till deltagarnas kommunikativa syften. Deltagarnas ömsesidiga mål är att undersöka ett akademiskt arbete och godkänna kandidatens medlemskap i sin valda specialisering, vilket kräver samarbete från alla parter. Även om deltagarna kommer från olika forskningskulturer där humor kan ha en annan närvaro och funktion visar den här studien att skratt och humor är frekventa och fyller en viktig funktion i ELF-interaktioner i akademiska situationer med avgörande betydelse.

In some academic settings where English is not the first language it is nonetheless common for reading to be assigned in English, and the expectation is often that students will acquire subject terminology incidentally in the first language as well as in English as a result of listening and reading. It is then a prerequisite that students notice and engage with terminology in both languages. To this end, teachers’ classroom practices for making students attend to and engage with terms are crucial for furthering students’ vocabulary competence in two languages. Using transcribed video recordings of eight undergraduate lectures from two universities in such a setting, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of what teachers ‘do’ with terminology during a lecture, i.e. how terms are allowed to feature in the classroom discourse. It is established, for example, that teachers nearly always employ some sort of emphatic practice when using a term in a lecture. However, the repertoire of such practices is limited. Further, teachers rarely adapt their repertoires to cater to the special needs arguably required in these settings, or to exploit the affordances of multilingual environments.

This study investigates humour in PhD vivas/defences. Laughter episodes in 15h of video recordings were analysed according to who and what makes people laugh, at what point laughter occurs, and what the function of these humorous episodes might be. The study shows that humour is frequent and fills an important function in ELF interactions in high-stakes academic situations.

In settings in which English is used as a medium of instruction (EMI) in parallel with another language, a common expectation is that students will acquire subject terminology incidentally in the L1 as well as in English as a result of listening and reading. It is then a prerequisite that students notice and engage with terminology in both languages. To this end, teachers’ classroom practices for making students attend to and engage with terms are crucial for furthering students’ vocabulary competence in two languages. Using transcribed video recordings of a sample of lectures from two courses in a partial EMI setting, in which the lectures were in Swedish and the textbooks were in English, this paper will present a comprehensive picture of what teachers ‘do’ with terminology during a lecture, i.e., how terms are allowed to feature in the classroom discourse. It is established, for example, that teachers nearly always employ some sort of emphatic practice when using a term in a lecture. However, the repertoire of such practices is limited. Further, teachers rarely adapt their repertoires to cater to the special needs arguably required in partial EMI settings, or to exploit the affordances of these learning environments.

Apprenticeship in academic prose is a transformative experience (Hayot, 2014); this paper investigates the development of self-regulation (SR) in three bachelor (BA) literature essay writers using the theoretical lens of participatory appropriation by Rogoff (1990), explaining how individuals’ cognitive development stems from social interaction. Research on writing instruction shows that students who learn to self-regulate towards concrete goals achieve better text quality (Rogers & Graham, 2008; Graham & Perin, 2007). Furthermore, research with learners of academic writing suggests that metacognitive skills are integral to the development of genre knowledge and rhetorical effectiveness (author). In this study, we investigate how interaction with a supervisor supports students’ development of self-regulatory and metacognitive skills towards alignment with the stakeholders’ (the examiners) evaluation of the quality of writing. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews at three points in the term; interview data was also collected from the examiners. Data was analyzed in NVivo, using Pintrich’s (2000) SR framework to code the comments by the students. The coded data shows their individual development in SR over the course of the essay writing term. Results show a strong role of the interaction with their supervisor in planning and monitoring their writing. Participatory appropriation thus seemed to help the students plan towards genre-relevant aspects such as what the essay should aim for (genre goals) and what would be the expectations to meet (genre criteria), or monitor some key aspects of essay writing that they would otherwise have not paid attention to. Overall, this investigation responds to calls for context-sensitive inquiries of self-regulation and metacognition, where individual development is highlighted against the backdrop of the social context in which it is embedded (Pieschl, 2009).

This study investigates the reading strategies used by academically novice, but high proficiency L2 students of English enrolled in a teacher education programme at a major Swedish university. Data were obtained from personal reading blogs kept by the students as they undertook course reading at home. An analysis revealed that students employed various reading strategies; however, there was limited evidence to suggest that students employed these strategies routinely. The most common strategy reported was connecting to short-term writing task. While students reported reflecting on their reading, they did not appear to amend unsuccessful strategy use, or re-use successful strategies. The study reveals the difficulties and limitations of high proficiency L2 students who lack experience of reading academic literature in English, and discusses pedagogical implications for reading blogs.