Appraisal Theory: Opportunities for Social Networking Sites' Complementation of Writing Centres

Introduction

One of the most complex academic endeavours is to initiate first year students into the writing practices and academic discourses of their disciplines at university. Literature on language literacy in South Africa higher education (SAHE) underscores academically underprepared students’ (especially English as Second Language (ESL)) problems with academic writing in general (McKenna, 2004; Archer, 2010). More so, the same body of literature also acknowledges students’ inadequate knowledge of how to assert their academic authority due to a lack of familiarisation with academic conventions (Hodges, 1997; Lea & Street, 1998; Read, Francis, & Robson, 2001). Conventions of academic writing in mainstream academia are ambiguous, assumed and often confusing to students (Ballard & Clanchy, 1988; Lea & Street, 1998). As such, novices often struggle to develop, extend and challenge the ideas and arguments of established authors in ways that enact and assert their voice in writing. Hodges (1997) postulates that when novices first encounter theory, they often rely on parrot-speech in their endeavour to ventriloquise the academic voices of the established authors in their fields.

In recognition of this perennial challenge of scholarly writing, the need to increase consciousness of academic conventions and enactment individual voices, South African higher educational institutions (HEIs) have instituted structural interventions such as Writing Centres under the broader ambit of Academic Development Programmes (ADP) to tackle head on these literacy challenges. Among the various mandates of Writing Centres are training and socialising students into their disciplinary discourses (i.e. ways of conceptualising ideas and logical argumentation) and engaging in scholarly discourses through the enactment and development of student voices in writing. The challenge however, is that these Language and ADP created to assist students with their English language skills are often offered as support services situated out of the main teaching curricula within the disciplines (Wingate, 2006; Arkoudis & Tran, 2010). This ‘quick fix’ model contributed to the conception of Writing Centres as “mostly ‘add on’ measures where the weaker students were siphoned off from the mainstream” and “remediation centres to rectify language ‘deficiencies’ in individual students” (Archer, 2010, p. 496). This ‘deficiency-based’ approach seems inconsistent with the highly discipline-specific nature of the discourses that unfold within departments at university. Furthermore, the fact that Writing Centres are physically located as separate entities on the main campuses (and not in different disciplines) presents additional challenges for the delivery of academic support for part time students, students on distributed campuses, distance learners, disabled students who enroll at South African universities. More so, the philosophy of Writing Centres such as their assumptions that scholarly discourses can be articulated and that student voices can be enacted and developed through academic training presupposes students’ clear understanding of the conventions of academic engagement and argumentation of their disciplines. Yet the conventions of academic writing can be seen metaphorically as a type of ‘code’ to be ‘cracked,’ a form of knowledge that students must uncover for themselves (Read, Francis, & Robson, 2001, p. 388). Therefore, academic writing is considered rewarding for students who have identified, internalised and become effective in verbalising this code in academic writing.