NNES Doctoral Students in English-Speaking Academe: The Nexus between Language and Discipline
Applied Linguistics, (2010)DOI: 10.1093/applin/amq026
Abstract
Since the mid-20th century, graduate schools in the USA have witnessed a growing participation of international students, many of whom do not speak English as their first language. Previous research has often portrayed non-native-English-speaking (NNES) students in US doctoral programs as disadvantaged because of the presumed primacy of English in their academic pursuits. This study examines NNES doctoral students participation in US academia, and in doing so, challenges this assumption. Drawing on the concepts of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991; Lave 1996; Wenger 1998) and capital (Bourdieu 1977, 1991), the study analyzes how linguistic competence plays out in NNES students participation in three different disciplines. We argue that language competence as cultural capital does not have the same value across different disciplines and may not always be critical to NNES studentsacademic success. Furthermore, despite their keen awareness of their differences from their native-speaking counterparts, the NNES doctoral students in this study had other forms of cultural capital with which they claimed legitimacy and recognition in their disciplinary communities.