Discipline-based academic literacy in two contexts

Abstract

This article considers the value of discipline-based academic literacy courses in Management Studies and Science. It outlines the most important genres in these two undergraduate areas of study, before going to describe two discipline-based academic literacy courses located in these two fields. It argues that basing academic literacy courses in the disciplines that students are studying is essential in assisting students to acquire discipline-specific genres, and is likely to be far more effective than a generic course in facilitating students' access into the discourse community of their disciplines. This is in line with the idea that language use is dependent on context and needs to be developed in context.


Keywords: discipline-based language learning, academic literacy, science writing, commerce writing

Journal for Language Teaching Vol. 39(1) 2005: 66-79