Premium
Coping with On‐the‐Job Writing in ESL: A Constructivist‐Semiotic Perspective
Author(s) -
Parks Susan,
Maguire Mary H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9922.00073
Subject(s) - covert , psychology , semiotics , coping (psychology) , social constructivism , linguistics , applied linguistics , qualitative research , pedagogy , french , sociology , social science , philosophy , psychiatry
Despite a long‐standing interest within applied linguistics in the analysis of written genres, few studies have attempted to show how such genres are appropriated by new members in academic or workplace settings. Based on a 22‐month qualitative study, this article reports on how francophone nurses, who were newly hired in an English‐medium hospital in Montreal, Canada, developed skill in writing nursing notes (which differed from the way they were done in French) in English. Central to the analysis is the construct of mediation, explored in terms of how collaborative processes, both overt and covert, shape text production as well as other less visible, taken‐for‐granted aspects of the social context.