STATEMENT OF GRANT PURPOSE

Trista Rappert-McGetrick, Ukraine, Applied Linguistics

Multilingual Academic Writing in Southern Ukraine
In order to be successful, todays multilingual scholars need training not only in their
fields of study, but also in the use of English for academic purposes. Unfortunately, scholars in
many locales have difficulty accessing the training and assistance required to write effectively in
English. In Eastern Europe, the assistance of native speaking tutors and editors can be especially
hard to find and difficult to afford (Yakhontova, 1997). In an effort to assist such scholars in
getting their work to an international audience, my Fulbright independent research project will
identify and address the challenges currently facing multilingual academic writers in Ukraine.
There are several reasons why it is particularly important to study the writing of
Ukrainian scholars. First, scholars in regions where Russian and Ukrainian are both official
languages lead uniquely multilingual lives, communicating locally and regionally in Ukrainian
and Russian, and in English internationally. Second, according to Tatyana Yakhontova 1 (1997),
students and scholars from states of the former Soviet Union may have little training in academic
writing, even in their native languages, since academic writing has not traditionally been taught
in these regions. Third, Yakhontova further reports that publication in English-medium journals
serves to establish contact with international scholars as well as to qualify Ukrainian academics
for promotions. Moreover, many Ukrainian journals require that scholarly articles include
abstracts and annotations written in English. In spite of their advanced language skills, the
majority of scholars that Yakhontova interviewed claimed to have difficulty communicating their
ideas effectively in English. Yakhontova 2 hypothesizes that their trouble with accurate use of
rhetorical structure and linguistic organization has to do with their unawareness of genre
conventions in English-language academic writing. As a result, in order to publish
internationally, most require additional training in English academic writing.
By analyzing the academic writings of scholars at Petro Mohyla Black Sea State
University in Mikolayiv, Ukraine, I will identify the challenges these scholars currently face in
writing for local, regional, and international audiences; the strategies they use to get their work
published; and what resources and connections can best help them in their unique situation.
Innovatively, my project will be descriptive, analytical, and practical, as it will involve
interviews, textual analysis, and the piloting of workshops that aim to address scholars needs.
By both examining multilingual academic writing from a scholarly perspective and actively
finding ways to improve the ability of multilingual writers to communicate in English, my work
will provide an often-missing link between scholarly research and pedagogy-in-action and will
bring valuable scholarly projects to the attention of international audiences.
Due to the time constraints of the Fulbright program, I will be conducting my preliminary
research on rhetorical strategy and authorial identity in Eastern European multilingual scholarly
writing during the last year of my MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Lantuages
1

Yakhontova, T. (1997). The signs of a new time: academic writing in ESP curricula of Ukrainian
universities. In A. Duszak (Ed.), Culture and Styles of Academic Discourse (pp. 103-112). New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.
2
My extensive citing of Yakhontovas work is due to the fact that she is one of the only scholars to have
done significant research in this area, which fact confirms the necessity of my planned research. In many
ways, my project will follow up on some of the work she did in the late 1990s.

Study/Research Statement Page 2

(TESOL) at Penn State. Having completed my review of the relevant scholarly literature to
departure, months one through four of my Fulbright year will be spent interviewing Ukrainian
scholars who are doing academic writing in one or more languages (i.e. Ukrainian, Russian,
and/or English), and gathering sample texts in all three languages. I will employ discourse
analysis to examine gathered texts for rhetorical features such as authorial presence, directness,
ways of making knowledge claims, and linearity. Inspection of the texts at the micro level of
vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure, along with analysis at the macro level of text
organization and content, combined with anecdotal data collected during interviews, will allow
me to answer four key research questions:
1) What challenges do these authors face in working with multiple languages?
2) How do the multilingual texts of given authors differ from and resemble each other?
3) How do these authors approach their challenges? Are their strategies effective?
4) What resources and skills could help these academics reach their target audiences?
By examining texts written by individual authors in multiple languages, I will gain insight into
what writing strategies are language-bound, which ones carry over between languages, and
whether authors seem to translate their ideas appropriately. By interviewing scholars about
their multilingual writing practices, I will be able to identify their perceived needs. Integrating
information from these two areas will allow me to develop workshop curricula that address
student and scholar needs in a well-rounded, holistic way.
In the second phase (months five and six) of my Fulbright independent research project, I
will focus on how best to address the needs of multilingual scholars identified during months one
through four. At this point, I will develop curricula and materials for several EAP workshops to
be held at Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University in the spring of 2015. I am especially
interested in using contemporary technologies, such as online corpora and social media, as
learning tools that will continue to assist students and scholars after my departure.
During the third phase (months seven to nine) of my independent study, I will teach the
Academic English workshops developed during months five and six. This workshop series will
engage and assist the local scholarly community and contribute to my research by providing
further material for analysis. By analyzing participant feedback, I will be able to assess and make
adjustments to my workshop curricula and materials.
The final goal of my research project is to compile and reflect upon my work in the form
of a research paper. This paper will contribute descriptive information about the multilingual
writing practices of scholars at Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University, along with an analysis
of these scholars needs, and practical recommendations for how these needs can best be met. I
will make my research and revised curriculum available to the Philological department at Petro
Mohyla Black Sea State University, so that scholars can continue to benefit from my work. Upon
my return to the US, I plan to develop and publish this research paper and a sample curriculum.
My long-standing interest in language education and Eastern European languages and
cultures has given me the educational background necessary to pursue the Fulbright independent
research project described above. In order to further prepare for my Fulbright year, I will
continue my self-study of Ukrainian and take two Ukrainian language courses during the 20132014 academic year. Because of my advanced knowledge of Russian, and because my project
requires primarily a reading knowledge of Ukrainian, I expect that these measures will bring my
Ukrainian to a level at which I am able to effectively conduct my research and assist Ukrainian
scholars in sharing their expertise with an international audience.