Multiple Metaphors in an Understanding of Academic Literacy

This article describes understandings derived from work in a first-year Systematic Philosophy class at a historically black South African university that challenge the assumptions on which the writer has based her practice as a teacher of English as a second language for many years. These assumptions focus on the perception of problems related to the production and reception of academic texts as solely, or even mainly, linguistic in origin. Analysis of writing and interviews with students suggests that the problems in the writing stem mainly from their unfamiliarity with academic discourses in spite of the fact that all are speakers of English as an additional language.