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This study examines the experiences and motivations of language and linguistics academics who have published in potential predatory journals (PPJs). A questionnaire was administered to 2,793 academics with publications in 63 language and linguistics PPJs, and 213 of them returned their responses. A subsample of the respondents (n = 21) also contributed qualitative data through semi-structured interviews or email responses to open-ended questions. Analyses of the survey data found that the authors were mainly from Asia, mostly had a doctorate, chose the PPJs chiefly for fast publication and/or meeting degree or job requirements, were predominantly of the opinion that the PPJs were reputable, and commonly reported positive impacts of publishing in the PPJs on their studies or academic careers. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed five main themes: unawareness, unrelenting publication pressures, low information literacy, social identity threat, and failure to publish in top-tier journals.

This article reports on an experimental study that set out to investigate and compare the effectiveness of a direct and an indirect approach to data-driven learning (DDL) in facilitating Chinese learners' mastery of a challenging type of lexico-grammatical resource (i.e. hedges) in an undergraduate English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing class. The study adopted a pretest/posttest/delayed posttest randomized two treatment design. The two experimental groups received, respectively, direct and indirect DDL instruction in the use of hedges in English academic writing. The direct approach involved students in conducting guided searches and analyses of target hedges in online corpora, whereas the indirect approach featured the use of corpus-informed, paper-and-pen learning tasks. Within- and between-group analyses of the participants' performances on the three tests yielded evidence of both the strengths and limitations of the two approaches. A questionnaire survey revealed the participants' favorable attitudes toward the incorporation of corpora in classroom teaching, as well as their perceptions of the affordances and constraints of DDL. The article concludes with a discussion of the present study's limitations and recommendations for future DDL research in EFL classrooms.

This study explores Chinese English-major students' intertextual competence and factors shaping their ability to paraphrase in academic writing. Multiple instruments were employed to collect data from 212 English-major students at different academic levels from nine universities in mainland China. The data were analyzed to determine how a range of personal and contextual variables related to their ability to paraphrase an academic text. Two groups of variables were found to be associated with their performance on the paraphrasing task. The first group comprised knowledge and attitudinal variables, including previous training on plagiarism, knowledge of blatant plagiarism, inability to recognize plagiarized texts, and condemnatory attitudes toward plagiarism. The second group consisted of ability measures or their proxy variables, namely English proficiency, instructional context and inadequate academic ability as a perceived cause of plagiarism. The observed relationship between the two groups of variables indicated that the effects of knowledge and attitudinal variables depended on or were mediated by the ability variables. These findings call for a multipronged and coordinated pedagogical approach to developing students' intertextual competence.

While there has been much research detailing how English as a foreign language (EFL) students attending English for academic purposes (EAP) courses struggle with a wide array of challenges when adjusting to university English-medium instruction, how these students use feedback to self-regulate their academic English learning and what contributes to or hinders this remain unknown. This study investigates Chinese university students' feedback behaviour and preferences in academic English course settings and their associations with English language self-efficacy within the context of recent feedback research in higher education. Apart from a dominant preference for teacher evaluative feedback, the students were found to be more likely to act on teacher feedback than to proactively seek feedback. English language self-efficacy was also shown to have significant influence on both feedback behaviour and preference. In the light of these results, this paper argues for a pressing need to extend the notion of feedback in academic English courses from viewing it as information transmission or 'telling' to recognising it as an iterative process whereby students make sense of information from various sources and use it to enhance their academic English learning.

Supervisory feedback on thesis drafts and presentations is arguably the most important source of information for graduate students, particularly those writing their theses in English-as-a-foreign-language contexts, to conduct, complete, report and improve graduate research and benefit from the process. Despite its critical role in scaffolding students' research and thesis writing, supervisory feedback on master's theses has been under-researched, compared with the attention given to doctoral supervision. This is particularly the case in non-Western, developing countries such as Nepal. The present study examined supervisory comments on thesis drafts (n = 97) in four disciplinary areas (education, English studies, physics and engineering). Supervisors' beliefs underlying their practices and students' expectations were explored through interviews with 16 supervisors and 16 students. Analyses revealed that supervisory feedback varied across the disciplinary areas and, in many cases, did not cater to students' needs or expectations. Pedagogical implications of these findings are derived with a view to improving the effectiveness of supervisory feedback.

Teachers' instructional practices surrounding written assignments have been little researched, despite writing remaining the primary means of assessment in higher education, including postgraduate professional development programmes. In this paper, we report a study that explored what a sample of lecturers in a Master of Education programme at an English-medium university in Hong Kong did to support students' assignment writing. We integrate perspectives provided by the relevant higher education literature, the academic literacies approach and North American rhetorical genre studies to shed light on the findings derived from our analyses of interview and documentary data. We showed that our lecturer participants both engaged in direct instruction on assignment writing and provided indirect support. Our study contributed to the existing literature and raised questions for future research.

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems can provide immediate computer-generated quantitative assessments and qualitative diagnostic feedback on an enormous number of submitted essays. However, limited research attention has been paid to locally designed AWE systems used in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom contexts. This study explored the precision of feedback provided by a Chinese AWE programme "Pigai" and students' uptake of such feedback. Data comprising "Pigai" feedback, students' revised submissions, incorporated "Pigai" suggestions and proportions of "good", "neutral" and "bad" revisions were collected from 210 drafts by 30 undergraduate students in an EFL writing class. Results show that (1) the precision rates of AWE feedback differed across categories of feedback (i.e. grammar, collocations and mechanics); (2) students were selective in their utilisation of AWE feedback and able to adjust their uptake of AWE suggestions according to the accuracy of the feedback. Survey and interview data demonstrated that the students were cognisant of the strengths and limitations of the AWE system as a source of feedback for improving their writing. These results indicate that AWE feedback can usefully supplement peer and instructor feedback in the EFL writing classroom but cannot replace the latter, given the low precision and accuracy rates of the former in identifying a range of errors.

Informed by Vygotsky's conceptualization of the Zone of Proximal Development, this case study investigated the benefits of peer feedback on second language (L2) writing for students with high L2 proficiency and the factors that may influence their learning in peer feedback in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language context. Specifically, the study examined whether, what, and how higher-proficiency (HP) English learners can learn when they collaborate with their lower-proficiency counterparts. Analyses of multiple sources of data--video-recordings of peer feedback sessions, interviews, stimulated recalls, and drafts of student texts--revealed that while group peer feedback in the writing classroom can provide learning opportunities for HP students, their learning can be influenced by several factors, including their beliefs about peer feedback, motives and goals for peer feedback, and medium of group discussion. Implications are drawn from these findings for peer feedback practice and research in L2 writing.

Long characterized as a primary form of academic misconduct and a major threat to academic integrity, the issue of plagiarism has been extensively researched from multiple perspectives, including students' and academic staff's perceptions and attitudes concerning plagiarism, measures for detecting and deterring plagiarism and their effectiveness, and the higher education sector's response to plagiarism. Yet knowledge remains patchy regarding this last strand of research. With the aim of bridging this research gap, we examine and compare the plagiarism management policies adopted by a selection of universities in mainland China and Hong Kong, two contexts that have been influenced by different academic traditions. Analysis reveals both similarities and divergences in these universities' communication of plagiarism-related information, mechanism for plagiarism detection, provision of academic guidance and support for avoiding plagiarism, and competing discourses on plagiarism underpinning their mixed approaches to the problem. Implications for institutional policymaking and academic integrity education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a look at English medium instruction (EMI) in Chinese higher education, offers comments on the five articles included in this special issue, identifies challenges and conundrums in EMI, and invites further research on the processes and products of EMI in the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores Chinese English-major students' intertextual competence and factors shaping their ability to paraphrase in academic writing. Multiple instruments were employed to collect data from 212 English-major students at different academic levels from nine universities in mainland China. The data were analyzed to determine how a range of personal and contextual variables related to their ability to paraphrase an academic text. Two groups of variables were found to be associated with their performance on the paraphrasing task. The first group comprised knowledge and attitudinal variables, including previous training on plagiarism, knowledge of blatant plagiarism, inability to recognize plagiarized texts, and condemnatory attitudes toward plagiarism. The second group consisted of ability measures or their proxy variables, namely English proficiency, instructional context and inadequate academic ability as a perceived cause of plagiarism. The observed relationship between the two groups of variables indicated that the effects of knowledge and attitudinal variables depended on or were mediated by the ability variables. These findings call for a multipronged and coordinated pedagogical approach to developing students' intertextual competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic expressions of interest as emotive responses are not uncommon in academic discourse but have hardly attracted any research attention. This paper reports on a study designed to examine how the deployment of such expressions in academic writing is mediated by an academic author's disciplinary background and gender. Drawing on a semantic frame developed for interest markers found in a corpus of 640 research articles sampled from four disciplines, corpus-based quantitative analyses were conducted on the incidence of the various elements of the Interest frame. Text-based interviews were also conducted with 16 disciplinary informants to explore considerations behind their use of interest markers. The corpus analyses found that although discipline and gender did not reliably predict academic authors' overall use of interest markers, they were robust predictors of several frame elements. The analyses of the interview data revealed that the observed quantitative differences were related to disciplinary knowledge-making practices, knowledge/knower epistemological orientations prevailing in the disciplines, gender-preferential discursive practices and an author's relative status in academia. • We examined linguistic expressions of interest in 640 research articles. • These articles were authored by male and female academics from four disciplines. • We developed a semantic frame with four frame elements to study these expressions. • Disciplinary background influenced the use of Trigger, Explanation and Degree. • Gender differences were found in the use of Explanation, Degree and Experiencer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multiple case study explores how and to what extent Chinese English-major students engage affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively with supervisory feedback on their English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate theses, as well as how motivation and second language (L2) proficiency may mediate their engagement. Data were collected from three students through stimulated recalls, interviews, thesis drafts with supervisors’ feedback comments, and audio recordings of supervisor–student conferences. Qualitative data analyses revealed that the three participants differed markedly in their engagement with supervisory feedback on their undergraduate theses. Driven by different motivations and mediated by their levels of English proficiency, the students took different stances and employed different cognitive strategies in their responses to the supervisory feedback. Based on these findings, pedagogical suggestions are proposed for enhancing student engagement with supervisory feedback in the Chinese context of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retraction of published research is laudable as a post-publication self-correction of science but undesirable as an indicator of grave violations of research and publication ethics. Given its various adverse consequences, retraction has a stigmatizing effect both in and beyond the academic community. However, little theoretical attention has been paid to the stigmatizing nature of retraction. Drawing on stigma theories and informed by research on retraction, we advance a conceptualization of retraction as stigma. We define retraction stigma as a discrediting evaluation of the professional competence and academic ethics of the entities held accountable for retraction. Accordingly, we identify seven core dimensions of retraction stigma, consider its functional justifications at both social and psychological levels, and distinguish its various targets and stakeholders. In view of the central role of retraction notices, we also discuss how retraction stigma is communicated via retraction notices and how authors of retraction notices may exercise their retraction stigma power and manipulate the stigmatizing force of retraction notices. We conclude by recommending retraction stigma as a theoretical framework for future research on retraction and pointing out several directions that this research can take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Synergising CDA and stance analysis to examine marketisation discourse of Ghanaian HEIs. 2. Prominent use of boosters and attitude markers in vision and mission statements. 3. Competitive climate and social trends motivating rhetorical choices. 4. Neoliberal ideologies and agendas are discursively manifested in university rhetoric. 5. Differences between institutional types shape marketisation strategies. A key manifestation of market forces permeating higher education is the marketised discourse in universities' vision and mission statements, promoting institutional brands and offerings. This study set out to explore how 59 Ghanaian universities marketise themselves in their vision and mission statements. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and a metadiscourse model of stance, a textual analysis revealed six key marketisation strategies: (1) trumpeting excellence, global aspirations and partnerships; (2) highlighting niche specialisations; (3) declaring commitment to knowledge creation and dissemination; (4) pledging positive societal impact: (5) promising holistic and quality education; (6) emphasising ethical, value-based education. In comparison with the public universities, the private and technical universities adopted a more assertive marketing language replete with boosters, attitude markers and hedging expressions. Thus, the identified discoursal differences align with university types and market orientations. These findings offer important implications for higher education development, policy-making of educational stakeholders and further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been much research detailing how English as a foreign language (EFL) students attending English for academic purposes (EAP) courses struggle with a wide array of challenges when adjusting to university English-medium instruction, how these students use feedback to self-regulate their academic English learning and what contributes to or hinders this remain unknown. This study investigates Chinese university students' feedback behaviour and preferences in academic English course settings and their associations with English language self-efficacy within the context of recent feedback research in higher education. Apart from a dominant preference for teacher evaluative feedback, the students were found to be more likely to act on teacher feedback than to proactively seek feedback. English language self-efficacy was also shown to have significant influence on both feedback behaviour and preference. In the light of these results, this paper argues for a pressing need to extend the notion of feedback in academic English courses from viewing it as information transmission or 'telling' to recognising it as an iterative process whereby students make sense of information from various sources and use it to enhance their academic English learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-intensifying globalization and marketization of higher education are placing increased pressure on doctoral students to publish during candidature. This paper reports a study of Chinese nursing doctoral students' endeavors to publish in English. Drawing on Activity Theory, the study employed a multiple-case study design and collected multiple types of data from six doctoral students and one supervisor from a major research-intensive university in mainland China. Thematic and activity systems analyses of the data revealed a tension concerning the students' dual role as student and expert scholarly writer. The tension was manifested in the students' developing, but still limited grasp and use of some conceptual tools needed to publish their work. The analyses also showed that the students dealt with this tension by relying on mediating resources, such as cultural artifacts and social others that facilitated not only their publishing efforts, but also their socialization into the academic culture and community. These findings point to a deep-seated structural tension in doctoral education that, while constraining doctoral students' scholarly publishing endeavors, could also enable them to acquire the skills of the trade to publish and to be socialized into their disciplinary communities. • Doctoral students seeking to publish face challenges arising from their dual role. • They are expected to be student and expert scholarly writers at the same time. • A tension exists between their developing, yet limited, grasp of conceptual tools. • Cultural artifacts and social others mediate students' overcoming of the tension. • The tension-ridden process brings along learning and socialization opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers’ instructional practices surrounding written assignments have been little researched, despite writing remaining the primary means of assessment in higher education, including postgraduate professional development programmes. In this paper, we report a study that explored what a sample of lecturers in a Master of Education programme at an English-medium university in Hong Kong did to support students’ assignment writing. We integrate perspectives provided by the relevant higher education literature, the academic literacies approach and North American rhetorical genre studies to shed light on the findings derived from our analyses of interview and documentary data. We showed that our lecturer participants both engaged in direct instruction on assignment writing and provided indirect support. Our study contributed to the existing literature and raised questions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plagiarism is a major problem for universities worldwide and has been a constant cause of concern in higher education. Previous research has focused on Chinese students' attitudes toward, knowledge of, and engagement in plagiarism in Chinese and overseas educational contexts, and there is also a growing body of research on Chinese teachers' understandings of and stance on plagiaristic practices. However, little research attention has been given to institutional policies on plagiarism in the Chinese context, though similar research has been conducted in other settings. This paper reports on a study that examines the plagiarism policies made publicly available by eight major universities of foreign studies in mainland China. Both the structure and content of these universities' policy documents are analyzed to identify institutional understandings of, attitudes toward, and sanctions on plagiarism. The analysis reveals that despite inter-institutional variations, the policy documents are dominated by moralistic and regulatory discourses and are characterized by the conspicuous lack of an educative approach to plagiarism. We argue that such an institutional approach to plagiarism is unlikely to be effective because it largely fails to support students’ acquisition of academic literacy and legitimate intertextual practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by Vygotsky's conceptualization of the Zone of Proximal Development, this case study investigated the benefits of peer feedback on second language (L2) writing for students with high L2 proficiency and the factors that may influence their learning in peer feedback in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language context. Specifically, the study examined whether, what, and how higher-proficiency (HP) English learners can learn when they collaborate with their lower-proficiency counterparts. Analyses of multiple sources of data -- video-recordings of peer feedback sessions, interviews, stimulated recalls, and drafts of student texts -- revealed that while group peer feedback in the writing classroom can provide learning opportunities for HP students, their learning can be influenced by several factors, including their beliefs about peer feedback, motives and goals for peer feedback, and medium of group discussion. Implications are drawn from these findings for peer feedback practice and research in L2 writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems can provide immediate computer-generated quantitative assessments and qualitative diagnostic feedback on an enormous number of submitted essays. However, limited research attention has been paid to locally designed AWE systems used in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom contexts. This study explored the precision of feedback provided by a Chinese AWE programmePigaiand students’ uptake of such feedback. Data comprisingPigaifeedback, students’ revised submissions, incorporatedPigaisuggestions and proportions of ‘good’, ‘neutral’ and ‘bad’ revisions were collected from 210 drafts by 30 undergraduate students in an EFL writing class. Results show that (1) the precision rates of AWE feedback differed across categories of feedback (ie grammar, collocations and mechanics); (2) students were selective in their utilisation of AWE feedback and able to adjust their uptake of AWE suggestions according to the accuracy of the feedback. Survey and interview data demonstrated that the students were cognisant of the strengths and limitations of the AWE system as a source of feedback for improving their writing. These results indicate that AWE feedback can usefully supplement peer and instructor feedback in the EFL writing classroom but cannot replace the latter, given the low precision and accuracy rates of the former in identifying a range of errors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although Chinese university students' perceptions of plagiarism have been extensively investigated, those of their teachers have been surprisingly under-researched. This study sought to address this gap by investigating 112 Chinese university English teachers' knowledge of and attitudes towards plagiarism. While 57 participating teachers had overseas academic experience, the remaining ones received all their education in mainland China. They completed a perceptions of plagiarism survey that elicited their knowledge of several common forms of plagiarism in Anglo-American academia, perceptions of various possible causes of plagiarism, and attitudes towards plagiarism induced by different causes and plagiarism in general. The study found that the teachers reported varying knowledge of different types of transgressive textual practices, variegated perceptions of the different causes of plagiarism, but clearly punitive attitudes towards plagiarism. It also revealed significant differences between teachers with and without overseas academic experience in knowledge of and stances on plagiarism. These findings highlight the complexity of plagiarism as an intertextual phenomenon and point to the important role of cultural practices and academic socialisation in shaping perceptions of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative study draws on an interpersonal model of metadiscourse to examine disciplinary and paradigmatic influences on the use of interactional metadiscourse in the post-method sections of 120 research articles. These research articles were drawn from three social science disciplines (i.e., applied linguistics, education, and psychology) and two research paradigms (i.e., quantitative and qualitative research). Quantitative analyses showed that the applied linguistics and education research articles used boosters more frequently than the psychology research articles. Furthermore, the applied linguistics subcorpus deployed more reader references but fewer self-mentions than the psychology subcorpus. Cross-paradigmatic comparisons revealed that the quantitative research articles made more frequent use of hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers as a main type, and directives as a subtype than the qualitative research articles. Qualitative analyses identified additional cross-disciplinary and cross-paradigmatic differences in the choice or function of specific metadiscoursal resources. These observed differences are attributable to the knowledge-knower structures characteristic of the disciplines and the epistemologies underlying the research paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on how higher institutions can better deal with the unacceptable intertextuality in the writings of Chinese students who are learning English as a second language. Topics discussed include the extensive research on plagiarism in ESL academic writing and the influx of Chinese students into higher education institutions in the West. The need for professors to instill academic integrity among students and the use of text-matching programs for detecting plagiarism are mentioned.