This paper investigates the development of writing initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, an area where prior to 1989, writing in universities played a very minor role. Using data gathered from eight institutions that currently have writing programs of some sort, I identify three typical paths writing initiatives…

Although much research has now accumulated on the dominance of English in world science, attention to the specific reality of Southern European countries has been comparatively scarce. This paper intends to partly redress this imbalance by reporting on survey data gathered at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Data were collected by…

Background: An important issue in the discourse on language rights is the degree to which they influence the development and implementation of language policies or perpetuate inequalities in many language situations. Skutnabb-Kangas (1996, 2002a, 2002b) and May (2000), for example, have argued that language rights offer a reasonable framework for…

This article reports the findings of part of a major study exploring the disciplinary writing processes and perceptions of 15 Chinese graduate students in sciences and engineering at a major Canadian university. The findings relate to the thinking languages of the participants in writing disciplinary assignments. The study reveals that whether an…