Tim, Liang, Rajwade

Research and Supervision across
Languages and Cultures
Uwe Baumann, Tim Lewis, Ketaki
Rajwade, Elodie Vialleton, Liang Wang

Researching Multilingually Seminar -
22-23/05/2012 1
University of Manchester

Research and Supervision across Languages and Cultures

Outline
Methodology

Themes
Cultural adaptation
Academic writing
Administrative constraints

22-23/05/2012 2


Methodology
• Online interviews of 4 research students
– Indian, Chinese, French and German
• Interviews transcribed in full
• Critical incident recall (CIR)
• Thematic analysis of transcripts based on CIR
• Personal beliefs, testimonies and experiences

22-23/05/2012 3


Autonomy (i)

My first challenge is knowing how much autonomy I
have, or I should have, because my thesis
supervisor in France, tends to give me a lot of
freedom when it comes to research, whereas I’m
used to a very structured kind of supervision, that I
got when I was doing my research module in
journalism, so yes in India we’re used to being
guided by our supervisors, a lot more than in
France.

22-23/05/2012 4


Autonomy (ii)
… it was a very different way … of learning, to the UK
environment. … when I first started at [N University]
… I was exposed to the environment, the learning
environment in which learner autonomy is greatly
highlighted and we were quite used to the
educational environment in which we were taught
about the knowledge and to remember to memorize
and we needed to follow the kind of correct answers
or something like that, but while we were in the UK,
we were encouraged to change our learning styles to
be more critical, to be more self-reflective and
without necessarily a good, correct answer.

22-23/05/2012 5


Autonomy (iii)
By the time I was doing the field work to collect
data, to visit the universities that I’d contacted in
order to explore the research topic … then the real
side, then I would say that it was a great challenge
for me to apply what I have been trained [to do],
from the university Research School or from the
Faculty … those skills and techniques into the real
field … But, I survived after considering … the
realistic approaches … Overall, I’ve enjoyed the
research experience … because I became more and
more confident … and professional, so it was a way
to learn by doing, so this is very useful.
22-23/05/2012 6


Formality/Familiarity (i)
… it was the same, because it’s the UK academic
…context. So we just call supervisors by names. It’s
quite normal, acceptable, and I’m quite used to that,
now. But in China, it’s impossible. You have to say
Professor, or at least, the literal translation is `Teacher,
for example - my surname followed by teacher,
whether he’s a professor, or he’s a lecturer or not. You
have to at least use the address- address of the
person and: laoshi. That’s the way to show respect
and to show [the] distance between the teacher and
the student, which means we have to use titles in
China...
22-23/05/2012 7


Formality/Familiarity (ii)
In India I would be very formal with my supervisors.
For example, if they say something, I will not
contradict them openly. It’s not considered to be
polite to contradict your supervisor. So yes, I would
try to [avoid] a contradiction. I would never joke
around with them. They will joke with us if they want
to. I would never joke. In France, the others- [ML’s]
other students, for example when we’re having lunch
together would- if you say something which they
don’t agree with, they would maybe say, `Ah non,
Pierre-Henri tu as tort là!’ Whereas I would never in
my wildest dreams think of saying something like
that ...
22-23/05/2012 8


Formality/Familiarity (iii)
I had two very different experiences in France. The first
supervisor I had, who was basically the supervisor I had
chosen, was somebody I had a good relationship with …
It was a formal relationship in the sense that, you know, I
would say `vous’ to him, I would call him by his last
name. But it was also somebody I could joke with… Now,
when I moved to the second supervisor … it was far more
formal. There was definitely, for example, no joking in the
way we talked. It’s somebody I wouldn’t have emailed,
for example. …And I believe that the second experience I
had in France was more typical of experiences.

22-23/05/2012 9


Expectations of Supervisor (i)
We’re generally looking for some kind of authority.
The moment you say something like supervisor or
professor, the Indian students are generally looking
for a kind of parental authority, so yes I’m definitely
looking for paternal authority.

22-23/05/2012 10


Expectations of Supervisor (ii)
That relationship once established, according to the
Confucius culture, that if once you acted as a
supervisor or teacher, that kind of relationship will
exist- will last your life. So that’s what I contacted
you after graduation [in] letters, I used this saying
and I think [J], or somebody … changed it to a `friend
for life, not a master for life’, ... Because in China, as I
explained, [traditionally,] it’s a quite strict
relationship: once you are my teacher you are
responsible for my future, because I belong to your
school.

22-23/05/2012 11


Expectations of Supervisor (iii)
What I expected from you was very [much] what you
offered to me, to help me to establish as an
academic researcher, with confidence and
independent academic research ability. And also to
develop my personality, because I know a lot- have
learned a lot more than the academic traits that-
from you. So it’s very interesting to see that, actually,
I’ve been greatly influenced by the way of you doing
things – three of you differently.

22-23/05/2012 12


Understanding research context
If I do not know much of their research background,
then it was obviously difficult for me to comprehend
what they are presenting, you know, on site, within
such a short time. But if I know them very well and
have read a lot of their research papers, or published
work, then it wasn’t that challenging, so it depends on
the background situation and my familiarity with those
scholars.

22-23/05/2012 13


Taking notes
... because in lectures and presentations, there’s no
way you can go back to a sentence structure and
analyse it without missing what’s being said after that,
so it’s definitely taking notes during lectures that’s
much more difficult. With books I can always go back,
read the whole thing twice. That is what happens most
of the time. I have to read everything twice to be able
to understand the context in French.

22-23/05/2012 14


Thesis structure: literature review
Another big difference, a really big one, is that here I
had to learn how to do a literature review and the
literature review in the thesis is going to be its own
chapter, basically. It’s a proper preliminary to what you
do ... Then … you move on to your own thing. But that
gives it a context. Whereas, in my previous work, you
would kind of weave in background references to your
own chapters, that- There was less the idea that you’d
put all your references in one chapter and then move
on and, kind of, stop quoting, basically.

22-23/05/2012 15


Thesis structure: Footnotes
... I had written, you know, over a hundred pages in the
style that was expected in the French PhD thesis, I was
definitely using far more footnotes than I do currently.
The main use for them was citations ... You would have
a footnote, and in the footnote, either the full
reference, if it was the first time you used it, or a
shortened reference, sending you back to previous
references, if it was a second.

22-23/05/2012 16


Writing: style
And, you know, why say things in a complicated
manner, if you can say them simply, whereas in France
there’s, I think, maybe a- almost an aesthetic
appreciation of a more elaborate style. (E)

French researchers seems to look at their work as an
oeuvre, a piece of work. A piece of art, almost. (K)

22-23/05/2012 17


Writing: Sentence length
… it is one of the things on my check list, basically:
shorten the sentences and, you know, if there’s one
sentence with subordinate clauses, you know, always
see if they could be … cut and presented as two
independent clauses. So that is on my checklist. (E)

... sentence structures in French are very different from
that in English, especially because even in French
academic writing you’re expected to write longer
sentences and make logical links, whereas in English
academic writing I think you are expected to enumerate
facts, A, B,C, which is not acceptable in French academic
writing. (K)
22-23/05/2012 18


Writing: connectors
One thing I’ve noticed about the style here is that, I
think, for example, more colons are used. So you
would juxtapose the statements, with a colon to
indicate that there’s a link between the two, but the
colon is enough, and I suppose the reader uses his or
her own logic to decide on, or know, what the logical
link between the two is. Whereas in French, I don’t
think you would use colons, or even slashes quite so
much. I think you would choose a connector and
make the logical link explicit.

22-23/05/2012 19


Ph.D/Ed.D Regulations
… Very practical issues, for example, I’ve done recordings
of speech samples, which are in French. I’ve not really
thought about whether I will need to quote any of it in
my thesis and if I do, will I have to translate it, or not. I
read books and references, papers, in French as well as in
English. I think though, that if I follow the rules strictly, I
should be translating them.

… the fact that you’re researching in a different country
and also about a different language possibly adds a layer
of complications and of cross-references, in the whole
business of researching multilingually.
22-23/05/2012 20


Research Excellence Framework
Another area which I thought about, which possibly is
less relevant to a research student, but is relevant to a
researcher, which is the whole business of publications
and whether to publish in foreign journals, or only in the
journals of your academic home. For example, the- you
know , the whole business of the REF at the moment,
where clearly the steer you’re given as an academic is
that more value is given to publications in English and
probably also in English Language journals.

5/24/201222-23/05/2012 21


Language/s of Publication
… after the 2011 conference, which I attended, which
was in Nancy, there were two calls for publications …
And basically, there’s going to be one publication in
English, based in England, or in Britain anyway, and
one publication in French, based in France. And, so
there were, I don’t know, it’s almost administrative
constraints. You know, people in France probably need
to publish in France, for their work to be recognized
within their own academic community. And people in
Britain need to publish in Britain for the same reasons.

5/24/201222-23/05/2012 22


National Mapping of Disciplines
… I wonder if there are cases where the borders
between disciplines are possibly not the same, in
different cultures, or maybe they’ve just got different
labels, but- for example, something like Applied
Linguistics is a very strong and well-defined field in
Britain. I don’t think la linguistique appliquée is either
as strongly defined, or defined as the same thing in
France. Now conversely, there is a very strong identity, I
guess, for la didactique des langues in France, which I
don’t think really exists here.

5/24/201222-23/05/2012 23


Future work
Other themes for exploration

– Gifting supervisors
– Feedback (positive & negative)
– Research community
– Multiple supervisors

Thank you and questions for discussion…

22-23/05/2012 24

Tim, Liang, Rajwade

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