Well done John!
--Paula

**************************************
Paula Haapanen
Coordinating Lecturer - English
Language Centre
Lappeenranta University of Technology

PO Box 20
53851 Lappeenranta
Finland

Phone: + 358 (0)5 621 2213 (direct)




-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing -
discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Harbord
Sent: 28. helmikuuta 2011 16:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: PhD in African English

Dear John and All,

This is a knotty problem. If we assume for the moment that your
university is in a position to specify that theses should be written in
standard academic UK or US English (ours does, for example), it is then
possible to argue that this thesis does not meet that standard, quite
regardless of whether or not it may be an adequate sample of Zimbabwean
English.

Much more difficult is the next question of whether or not the student
should be required to demonstrate mastery of one of these 'prestige
dialects' as a requirement to being awarded the degree. Arguably the
answer is yes if he is going to be accepted as a member of the academic
community and publish (at least outside Zimbabwe). I consulted with an
Indian colleague on this and he said that while Indian English is a
recognised different variety of the language at the spoken level and in
creative writing, in academic writing, the standards would be very close
indeed to those of academic US/UK English and would not tolerate any
significant grammatical deviation. 

Another key indicator a linguist would bring to the analysis is the
regularity of the 'non-standard' grammatical structures. Certain
varieties of English, eg. some US black dialects, or Norfolk dialect -
which I speak - have no third person 's' (eg. She go). Yet that third
person 's' is consistently absent unless the code is switched (the
speaker changes to a more formal variety due to some sociolinguistic
contextual change related to topic, audience, location or whatever).
Within a PhD thesis, there should be no occasion for the code to switch,
therefore, all grammatical 'errors' should be fully consistent
throughout. If they are not, the student simply does not master the
code, or to put it in lay terms, he is not in control of his own
language.

The Russians, the Brazilians and the Indonesians are all required to
meet certain high standards of English as academics if they complete a
PhD in English - it is not clear that because someone speaks a variety
of English that is accepted as being distinct from UK/US English they
should be exempt from meeting this requirement. Unfortunately,
universities do tend to fudge the issue because it does not look good if
their PhD candidates (that they probably should not have taken in the
first place) fail. This means that someone gets employed to 'polish up'
the English. 

Writing support should have been on the ball with this student from the
word go. He should have been referred to a writing center or some other
kind of help after his very first written assignment and coached all the
way so that he could graduate with the skills he lacked on entry. That
hasn't happened. If I was God right now I would hurl a thunderbolt and
fail him, and the university and the student should both suffer the
consequences. That, however, isn't going to happen because it is a lot
easier and cheaper to ask someone else to rewrite the whole thing for
him - he passes, the university is happy, money is saved because about
700 euros spent on rewriting a thesis is a lot cheaper than actually
providing an effective writing support program, and the copywriter makes
a fairly good living. Low standards and academic sloppiness and
indifference about authorship is a win-win situation; if it wasn't,
writing support would be a lot more extensive in every university in
Europe.

In the present situation I would say two things: 
1. Proofreading should be charged at commercial rates, whether the
student or the department pays. 
2. Proofreading should deal with nothing other than " grammar,
punctuation and syntax" - there should be no effort to rewrite the text
into a more coherent argument. In other words, it should lay bare the
relative inadequacy or otherwise of the written argument.

I'm in a savage mood today, aren't I?

John