Perhaps one of the reasons that in UK Higher Education 'Academic' English
has become so important is that we all seem to be required to speak
various dialects of this to survive!

It may be helpful to explain some of these dialects.

BIDSPEAK: a dialect used to gain funding, believed to have originated in
business schools or management centres.

QAAHILI: a dialect used in interactions (interventions?) with the Quality
Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

HEACADEMESE: a recently formulated dialect of Academese, but where it
seems necessary to include the word 'scholarship' in most sentences
(taking due care not to be particularly clear exactly what may be meant by
'scholarship' in any given context).

ASSESSPERANTO: the term is believed to have been coined by James Wisdom,
for the dialect which needs to be learned by students if they are to
succeed in assessments - particularly those requiring advanced competences
with academic English.

ACCREDITIONIAN: a more advanced form of the above, designed to ensure that
teaching staff continue to develop their academic English.

WIPARTESE: a dialect used to wax lyrical about how different the student
population is as it nears 50% of the 18-30 age group, and to express what
a good thing this must be.

SENDANIAN: a special dialect for discussions of how unlawful it has become
not to cater for special educational needs and disabilities.

I hope that the recognition of these dialects of Academic English may help
to simplify the task of using the right one in the right circumstances.

I hope even more that readers of this missive may share some further
dialects they have discovered or invented.

Phil Race

www.phil-race.com