on robert b. kaplan's response to terry santos et al.'s “on the future of second...
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On Robert B. Kaplan's Response toTerry Santos et al.'s ``On the Future of
Second Language Writing''
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Temple University Japan
As a graduate student under Robert B. Kaplan in the late 1980s, one of the first
things I learned was to love and hate `̀ The Boxes.'' `̀ The Boxes'' were an
unassuming set of copier-paper boxes sitting in one corner of Kaplan's office,
filled to overflowing with dog-eared, hard-to-read, usually photocopied but
occasionally typed or mimeographed papers sent to or collected by Kaplan
during his long career. Many had been sent in response to his ground-breaking
`̀ doodles'' article (Kaplan, 1966)Ða work which has had astonishing longevity
and influence worldwide. Others he had collected himself or through his
colleagues and graduate students. For 2 years, I had the onerous task of
watching over `̀ The Boxes''Ðlabeling a folder for each new paper, keeping
the papers in some semblance of order, cataloging new entries, and tracking
down missing items.
`̀ The Boxes'' represented for me at the timeÐand in some senses still
representÐthe state of the art in L2 writing across the world. It was truly a
miscellaneous collection, with no real governing frameworks, common traditions,
or shared notion of a field to hold it together. In fact, the only two things the
materials amassed there had in common were: (1) that many of them were
purportedly about writing in a second language; and (2) that the writers of those
papers had somehow heard tell of Kaplan and his work, or their work had been
ferreted out by Kaplan or his students. Still, `̀ The Boxes'' comprised a rare and
valuable resource for scholars with an interest in L2 writing.
In Kaplan's response to our article `̀ On the future of second language
writing,'' he makes the valid and important point that ours was a limited view,
focusing almost exclusively as it did on the North AmericanÐor, even more
narrowly, the U.S.Ðcontext. In this sense, I agree with Kaplan that the article
was misnamedÐit should have been called something like `̀ On the future of
second language composition in the U.S.,'' though that doesn't quite suffice
either. All of us, it seems to me, must have been thinking as U.S. university
teachers in terms of our daily concerns and realitiesÐnot surprising given that
most of us were dealing with large numbers of international and language-
JOURNAL OF SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING, 9 (3), 317 ± 320 (2000)
Direct all correspondence to: Dwight Atkinson, Temple University 2-8-12 Minami Azabu, Minato-
ku, Tokyo, Japan. E-mail: [email protected]
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minority students who come to the U.S. university needing to survive what is
quite often a writing-intensive curriculum. But none of this is to suggest that
Kaplan's point is not well-taken.
Where I do take issue with Kaplan is in his characterization of the field of L2
writing in general. In Kaplan's description, L2 writing appears as a relatively
well-established international research field with a critical mass of committed
scholars. In fact, I think the truth is rather differentÐsomething more akin to
`̀ The Boxes.''
Consider the evidence Kaplan gives for his argument. He first mentions the
historic Prague School, then goes on to list 13 people in other countries currently
doing work on L2 writingÐeight of these latter in Scandinavia. Next, he avers
that `̀ there is a significant production of research scholars . . . in universities in
Australia, Finland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and
Sweden.'' In the paragraph following that, he spreads his net more widely,
managing to haul in nonnative L2 (i.e., English) literatures and translation
studies as a result. Finally, he cites the Japanese Ministry of Education's
professed interest in Japanese school writers' writing in Japanese, and caps it
all off with the nostrum, `̀ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned
to repeat it.''
Whatever this list is meant to prove, all it really shows to my way of thinking
is that, in a pinch, one can scrape together a fewÐsome of them quite marginally
relatedÐscholars and areas of study, which can be roughly construed as dealing
with something like L2 writing. Certainly, I would not argue that there are no
researchers such as those in Kaplan's list of 13 who, beyond the borders of the
U.S., study L2 writing. But the Prague school has not been active in the area for
some time, to my knowledge, if it was ever more than occasionally interested; the
`̀ significant production of research scholars'' in universities across the world is
not documented; tying in translation studies and L2 literatures is nothing if not a
stretch; and throwing in the Japanese Ministry of Education and their interest in
L1 Japanese writing is pure red herring. If this is what the field of L2 writing
really looks like beyond the confines of the U.S. university, then it certainly does
not merit the epithet `̀ field'' at all.
Fortunately, I think the picture is somewhat less spotty than the one Kaplan
paintsÐin spite of himself. First, as Kaplan suggests, there are in fact a number
of researchers across the world who study writing in a second language.
However, numbers of people studying something does not really tell us much
about a fieldÐwhich is substantially more than a bunch of scholars sometimes
studying something somewhat similar.
To my mind, an organized academic field is a group of scholars who not only
study similar phenomena, but who also share certain common epistemological
assumptions, a reasonably similar vocabulary, common theoretical and practical
concerns (and similar research questions), common markers of disciplinary
affiliation, means of reproducing themselves academically, and common channels
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of communication via established academic foraÐconferences, journals, Internet
bulletin boards, Ph.D. programs, etc. If this is the case, then Kaplan's ragtag
collection seems more like the loose set of often personal relationship-based
networks that comprised early nineteenth-century natural philosophy (not quite
ready at that time to be called what we now call `̀ science''Ðsee Atkinson, 1999;
Bazerman, 1988). Or what Kuhn (1962/1970) called the `̀ natural history'' phase
of a paradigm.
In fact, there is something approaching an organized academic field of L2
writing, or at least its beginningsÐand it is, it seems to me, substantially North
American. The establishment in 1992 of the Journal of Second Language
WritingÐa U.S.-based journal with U.S. coeditors and a largely North American
editorial boardÐwas one milestone in its development; so is the Purdue Con-
ference, now in its second year. Further, publications on the topic of L2 writing are
coming largely out of the U.S.; for example, the three main introductions to
teaching L2 writingÐFerris and Hedgcock (1998), Leki (1992), and Reid
(1993)Ðwere all published there, and are all written by Americans.
I do not mean to belittle the efforts of those beyond the borders of the U.S. and
CanadaÐthey are clearly important ones. Nor am I unaware of the hegemonizing
power of `̀ center'' academic communities over `̀ periphery'' ones, especially in
the area of academic publishing (Canagarajah, 1996). But I am somewhat less
credulous than Kaplan that what exists amounts to a recognizable international
field or subdiscipline. One of the main reasons it does or is on the way to doing so
in the U.S., perhaps, is simply a historical accidentÐthe increasing importance of
composition and writing in undergraduate studies in the U.S. university over the
past half-century, and the corresponding development of a large, active, and fully
institutionalized field of L1 composition. Much in L2 writing research and
teaching in the U.S. has been derivative of L1 compositionÐand only recently
have scholars begun to focus on the potential consequences of differences in the
two contexts.
Kaplan states that `̀ Where one stands depends significantly on where one
sits.'' I believe the arguments in his response are also covered by this statement.
As one of the few pioneers of a recognizable field of L2 writing (or its
beginnings, at least) who did not take their lead primarily from L1 composition,
he has an interest in portraying it as an international movement. In fact, the
contrastive rhetoric hypothesis has held perhaps its greatest allure for those in
nonnative-English-speaking contexts abroad, forced as they are to look EFL
writing in the eye to try to understand why it at least sometimes looks
`̀ different''Ðoften subtly out of sync with what one might expect from a
`̀ native'' perspective. It is thus understandable why Kaplan might want to
configure L2 writing as a robustly international field.
Even in the U.S., however, I believe that the state of the field or the state of
the art is still rather tenuous. To say why is basically to recap what I said in our
articleÐa point that Kuhn first brought academic attention to almost 40 years
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ago: that fieldsÐlike societiesÐwhich do not reproduce themselves across
generations die out. Kaplan takes issue with this notion in his response, pointing
out that academic programs which support things like L2 writing tend to come
and go, that research scholars do not `̀ spring full blown into eminence like
Athena from the head of Zeus,'' and that his own academic biography illustrates
the truth of these contentions. He goes on to argue that even if top researchers in
the field are not producing Ph.D. students, they are producing MA graduates
who can then go on to do Ph.D. work elsewhere. He also states that the
researchers themselves are still producing research, and their MA graduates
frequently are, as well.
I find this a less-than-rosy pictureÐone that is hardly conducive to the
development of an organized discipline of L2 writing. It is something of a
hodgepodge, and though it probably does reflect some part of the current state of
the `̀ field''Ðand certainly Kaplan's own experience in this fieldÐit does not
bode well for the future of L2 writing research. As I said in our article, I have no
solutions, and even more than that I sincerely hope my understanding is wrong.
But the thought of an organized (if penumbrally) L2 writing studies going the
way of the U.S. Shaker community keeps me pessimistic about the future of the
field, and keeps me wanting to share my view with others.
REFERENCES
Atkinson, D. (1999). Scientific discourse in sociohistorical context: The philosophical
transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675±1975. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge. Madison, WI: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). Non-discursive requirements in academic publishing, material
resources of periphery scholars, and the politics of knowledge production. Written
Communication 13, 435±472.
Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. S. (1998). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and
practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language
Learning 16, 1±20.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962/1970). On the structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press.
Leki, I. (1992). Understanding ESL writers: A guide for teachers. Portsmouth, NH:
Boynton/Cook Publishers.
Reid, J. (1993). Teaching ESL writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Regents/Prentice-Hall.
320 ATKINSON