Academic literacy services: capital manipulations in the higher education field

This paper focuses on the linguistic landscapes and practices within the Australian higher education (HE) field, in particular the experiences of students within the academic literacy support services. These services are often... [ view full abstract ]

This paper focuses on the linguistic landscapes and practices within the Australian higher education (HE) field, in particular the experiences of students within the academic literacy support services. These services are often typified as remedial units, offering triage treatments to remedy the students’ perceived language difficulties.The paper draws on our recent qualitative study of the practices of academic literacy support services and utilises Bourdieu’s field theory to examine the linguistic practices within the services, processes of acculturation and perceptions of the scope for change in the logic of practice of the HE field, a field which is both dominated and dominating within the broader national and international fields of power, and is itself a contested, uneven space. In this paper we explore how the services are positioned within the HE field, how the students’ capital is valued in the field and how the students exercise agency.Within the HE field students can struggle to accumulate the necessary capital to secure a legitimate place within the university. When students come to an Australian university from backgrounds where they may be unfamiliar with the university’s cultural content, linguistic practices and assumptions, or be the first to attend university in their extended family, what provisions are made for students to become aware of ‘how things are done here’? Many of the students who use the academic literacy services are often identified as learners of English, however in their studies at university the students’ identity shifts to learners who are learning academic content in English.