HOW TO HELP SERBIAN ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS BECOME QUALIFIED ACADEMIC WRITERS FOR INTERNATIONAL READERSHIP

Savka Blagojevic

Abstract: Academic writing for international readership is almost always done in English, which in turn, may bring about certain di fficulties to non- English academics who are not accu stomed to English academic writing norms. Therefore, some li nguistic researches, conducted in order to find out the differences between the English academic style and those of non-English ones, are aimed at making non-English academics aware of cross-cultural differences in writing styles and help them modify their own writing style to the requirements of the English acade mic norms. Thus, in order to help Serbian academics publish international ly, we have initiated a small-scale research by comparing academic re search articles written by English and Serbian academics: thirty from hum anities (sociology, psychology and philosophy) and thirty from hard sc iences (chemistry, geology and environmental pollution). The research presented in the paper focuses the two most important discourse areas in academic articles written by English and Serbian writers: 1. Disc ourse organization, and 2.Th e choice of rhetoric strategies. The obtained results have pr oven that the two groups of writers display different preferences in their writing styles (which will be presented numerically) and on the basis of this fact certain suggestions have been offered, concerning the form that Se rbian academic articles should have in order to be published for the in ternational discourse community.

Keywords: Academic writing, international readership, non-English academics, writing styles

DOI:

Recieved: 20.01.2011  Accepted: 10.04.2011  UDC: 001.81:82

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