The Academic Enculturation of Chinese Archaeologists: A Study of Disciplinary Texts, Practices and Identities

In the past few decades, sustained and overwhelming research attention has been given to English as an Additional Language (EAL) scholars' English writing and publishing across the world. While this line of research has shed important light on the scene of global knowledge production and dissemination, it tends to overlook the less Anglicized and more locally bound disciplines located at the academic periphery, especially the research and writing practices of academics in these disciplines. The study reported in this book aimed to fill this gap.

Drawing on the notion of academic enculturation, and adopting as a tool the New Rhetorical genre theory, the textographic study examined the academic enculturation experiences of Chinese archaeologists through the lens of their disciplinary writing. The situated genre analysis and multi-case study subsumed under the textography disclosed the immense complexity of the discipline in terms of archaeologists' texts, practices and identities. Important implications were generated for archaeologists/HSS academics, policy-makers, writing teacher-researchers and the general public.

With its carefully constructed conceptual framework, rigorous research design, intriguing findings and insightful discussions, the book would make a valuable reading for researchers in disciplinary writing, academic writing, second language writing and literacy studies. It could be recommended as a reference for graduate courses related to writing. It could facilitate the teaching of disciplinary writing to archaeology and other HSS majors. Archaeologists working in different contexts, especially those in Mainland China, would also find the book useful in informing their writing practices.