Academic Writing in World Englishes: The Asian Context

Abstract

It is evident that children acquire language in the course of their overall development through infancy to pre-teen years unless there are physiological (e.g. total loss of hearing) or environmental causes (e.g. forced isolation of the child) that prevent such acquisition. However, the linguistic competence acquired in natural socio-cultural settings does not necessarily include literacy skills. These skills depend on socio-cultural traditions that include writing in addition to oral performances of various sorts, e.g. in the community (i.e. community meetings), religious events (reading and writing of scriptures, delivering sermons, etc.) and ritualistic acts (performing specific rites according to manuals of the tradition). Competence in writing is acquired with deliberate effort in institutional settings such as the family, the school, the monastery, or wherever. It involves instruction and, usually, practice over a long period of time, and the rate of success in achieving writing competence varies considerably within any given population. Each literate culture has its own conventions of writing, and it is instructive to look at these closely if one is interested in understanding the process of writing, the cultural context of the product, and the cultural value assigned to writing.