Functional perspectives on student theses as cultural contrast (FASAK)
Application in DAAD programme: Hochschuldialog mit Europa 2014/15
In this project (application in German), we discuss conventions, practice and expectations in non-native academic writing, esp BA/MA/PhD theses and related genres written by students from Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. Linguistic topics cover form (modal auxiliaries or conjunctions) and function (hedging or cohesion), metalanguage (reader-orientation in personal pronouns I/we - you), argumentation structures/new rhetoric, text-image correlations (incl. expectations about examples and statistics), etc.
The project consists of three parts:
- a student workshop in November 2014,
- a conference in July 2015 with student and project workshops (fully paid travel, hotel, per diem for registered project particiants), and
- a related publication in our series, REAL9: Graduate Academic Writing in Europe in Comparison.
The project focus is on MA and PhD students, so professors have to collaborate with their students and students have to work with other students from the partner universities in mixed groups. These aspects are the special added value of this international cooperation project, so teachers are clearly resource persons first and conference presenters second, and have to find the right students who can contribute to workgroups as well as to presentations.
Marina Bondi has allowed me to call in a CLAVIER conference in Germany: family atmosphere, supportive discussion, honest constructive criticism, open dialogue, informal dolce vita academica - with measurable results (film, presentation, publication) in terms of the funding application.
I would be really grateful for further ideas, although I cannot promise that they will all appear in the final application.
We need from every partner:
- this on-line questionnaire, possibly with a specific PhD student in mind (it makes our financial calculations easier),
- the professor’s, YOUR brief CV/resume (1-2 pages, with relevant experience, publications, teaching, etc.), and
- the university’s stamp and signature on this form
(it depends on your home university's convention, who signs such fund application supports - if you find that difficult, sign and stamp it yourself - if it is not enough we can add it later)
all 3 as soon as possible, by June 10th at the latest.
Keep your fingers crossed.
