Digital social reading: Exploring multilingual graduate students’ academic discourse socialization in online platforms

Burhan-Horasanlı E.

Linguistics and Education, vol.71, 2022 (AHCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 71
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.linged.2022.101099
  • Journal Name: Linguistics and Education
  • Journal Indexes: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Communication Abstracts, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), Linguistic Bibliography, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Psycinfo
  • Keywords: Academic discourse socialization, Digital social reading
  • TED University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores academic discourse socialization in a digital social reading (DSR) platform through which nine multilingual doctoral students in a second language acquisition program in the U.S. annotated 11 scholarly articles asynchronously over four months. Data included students’ DSR annotations, demographic information questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews and were analyzed via thematic analysis (Glesne, 2015). Through participating in the DSR activity, the students were socialized into: 1) discipline-specific terminology; 2) conventions of academic writing; and, 3) educational research design. To grasp the disciplinary terminology (e.g., agency), the students referenced the definitions of terms and concepts in the articles and built intertextual connections. Annotating the academic language use in the studies, the students became socialized into word choice and citation practice. Additionally, collaborative reading activity facilitated the students’ socialization into data collection procedures. The study offers implications for implementing and exploring DSR platforms in higher education with multilingual learners.