Iberica 13 Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 ISSN 1139-7241 Abstract This paper describes a situation that suggests an optimistic future for periphery scholars, particularly from Latin America. First it shows a positive evolution of publications in English in Latin America, which appears to be associated to the concomitant evolution of postgraduate programmes. Then, it is argued that such evolution could be improved by a form of EAP instruction that capitalizes on the special characteristics of the Latin American situation, particularly the highly specific needs of learners, the common Latinate L1, the possibility of having homogeneous groups in terms of fields, and the limited set of genres used by researchers in this context. Such features could be exploited to the learners’ advantage through the use of authentic and specific materials. Both authenticity and specificity will increase motivation and reduce comprehension problems, while allowing participants to contribute their knowledge of science to the course. Keywords: EAP, specificity, authenticity, periphery publishing, Latin American context. Resumen Capitalizando las ventajas de la situación latinoamericana del Inglés con Fines Académicos: Uso de materiales auténticos y específicos en la instrucción en escritura académica Este trabajo describe una situación del Inglés con Fines Académicos que sugiere un futuro optimista para investigadores de la periferia, particularmente para latinoamericanos. El trabajo primero muestra una evolución positiva de las Capitalizing on the advantages of the Latin American EAP situation: Using authentic and specific materials in EAP writing instruction Iliana A. Martínez Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto (Argentina) imartinez@hum.unrc.edu.ar 31 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 31 Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 ILIAnA A. MArTínEz publicaciones en inglés en Latinoamérica, la cual parece estar asociada a la evolución concomitante de los programas de postgrado. Luego se argumenta que dicha evolución puede mejorar con una forma de instrucción en Inglés con Fines Académicos que capitalice las características especiales de la situación latinoamericana, particularmente las necesidades altamente específicas de los alumnos, la lengua materna de origen latino, la posibilidad de contar con grupos homogéneos con relación a los campos disciplinares, y la limitada cantidad de géneros que emplean los investigadores en este contexto. Estos aspectos pueden explotarse en beneficio de los alumnos mediante el empleo de materiales auténticos y específicos. Tanto la autenticidad como la especificidad aumentarán la motivación y reducirán los problemas de comprensión, y a la vez permitirán que los alumnos aporten sus conocimientos de ciencia al curso. Palabras clave: Inglés con Fines Académicos, especificidad, autenticidad, publicación en la periferia, contexto latinoamericano. Introduction The growth of English as the language of scientific communication has directly related the success of scholars’ academic careers to their ability in the use of English, be they native or non-native speakers of the language (Hyland, 2006). This fact has led different researchers to express their concern regarding the advance of English to the detriment of other languages, and to acknowledge the consequent disadvantageous position of non-Anglophone periphery scientists (Swales, 1990, 1997 & 2004; Flowerdew, 2000; Salager-Meyer, 2008). In spite of this, the world tendency is to continue turning to English, as reflected both in the increase of publications in English in the Science Citation Index (SCI) to about 95% of its journals (Hyland, 2006), and in the shift to English of journals from Europe and Japan (Swales, 1997 & 2004; Hyland, 2006). This shift to English, however, is not restricted to central countries only; it is also evident in periphery countries. In Latin America (LA), for example, as far back as 1999, prestigious local publications had already switched to English, with journals having 100% of their articles written in that language. Such was the case of the journal Biocell from Argentina, and the journals Brazilian Journal of Genetics and Archives of Medical Research from Brazil (Gómez et al. (1999) as cited in Ortiz, 2009). The advance of English has been accompanied by different suggestions to facilitate the access of peripheral scholars to central journals in English. 32 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 32 Flowerdew (2008: 84), for example, suggests that editors should accept manuscripts that meet intelligibility standards, even when they may not conform to what is considered as “standard English”. Also Salager-Meyer (2008) reports on initiatives based on solidarity and cooperation, through which non-native scholars could have access to different forms of assistance in the process of manuscript production. But in my view, the most effective form of empowerment for non-Anglophone scholars is the provision of instruction on academic writing in English, as occurs through courses for non-native speakers of English implemented in different parts of the world (Belcher & Braine, 1995a; dudley-Evans, 1995; Jacoby, Leech & Holten, 1995; Tardy, 2006; Holmes & Celani, 2006). The assumption underlying these courses is that all writers, be they native speakers of English (nESs) or non-native speakers of English (nnESs), need to be aware of the norms and expectations of the community of practice that they wish to address, and such awareness can be raised through explicit instruction on these issues. In this respect, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has developed resources to equip non-Anglophone scholars, both with conscious knowledge of the conventions and expectations of specific academic communities, and with linguistic and rhetorical resources that may allow their confident participation in academic contexts (Swales, 1990; Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). Instruction based on the knowledge and expertise accumulated by EAP in the last twenty years may contribute to balance the inequalities faced by non-Anglophone scholars when they have to communicate in a language other than their own. Flowerdew (2002: 7) justifies EAP pedagogy in the following terms: ... whether one likes it or not, English as World Language, at least in the academic field, is more or less a fait accompli. While it is important to make people aware of the potential for hegemony in the use of English and the issues of power and access which accompany this potential, and while it is important to encourage cultural and linguistic plurality, to deny people access to the linguistic, social and educational capital that English represents is irresponsible. Indeed, English is – ironically – a vehicle by means of which voices arguing for linguistic diversity can be heard loudest. This paper is concerned with the status of publication in English in Latin America, with a focus on the situation of Argentina. It shows an evolving reality, manifested in the increasing number of papers published by Latin American researchers in high-impact journals. The paper also highlights CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 33 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 33 some features of the Latin American context that could be exploited to the learners’ advantage through the use of authentic and specific materials. The situation described and the advantages of the characteristics of the context suggest a promising future for Latin American scholars, and anticipate a central role for EAP instruction. Latin American publications in Science Citation Index: The case of Argentina The Science Citation Index (SCI), the database known to cover about 6,650 prestigious journals of the world, is one of the most consulted indexes produced by scientometrics. Its prestige is mainly due to the high standards of evaluation of the journals that it includes, and to the services that it provides. Among other services, the SCI offers information for the classification of scientists according to their productivity, the ranking of publications at national and international level, the ordering of citations received by journals and authors, and the hierarchization of postgraduate programmes and universities. The information is used worldwide, and serves as a basis for the administration of intellectual capital and investment (Ortiz, 2009). Although the SCI is viewed as representing world inequalities because of the poor presence of research from periphery countries (Hyland, 2006; Salager- Meyer, 2008; Swales, 1990), recent research reviewed by Swales (2004) has provided evidence that indicates that the number of non-Anglophone researchers who publish in English is increasing. The evidence indicates that six of the top ten most productive countries in SCI are countries where English is a foreign language: Japan, Germany, France, russia, Italy and the netherlands. There is also evidence of a steady increase of European and Asian articles in particular fields. Furthermore, about 45% of the first authors of articles in the reputed journals Nature and Science have been shown to be non-native speakers of English. Similar tendencies have been observed in Latin America, as revealed by recent information from the Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica (CAICYT), an official Argentinean centre providing scientific and technological information based on SCI. Their data inform on the production in SCI between 2000 and 2008 of the five most productive Latin American countries, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and venezuela. Table 1 ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4834 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 34 shows that all these countries increased their production in the eight years reported, but, while Argentina and venezuela only reached a 50% increase, Chile doubled, and Brazil and Mexico almost trebled their production in the same period. What is interesting is that just these five Latin American countries produced 60,931 articles in 2008, which represents 4.2% of all the articles in SCI in the same year, with 1,432,296 articles published (see Table 2). This percentage is twice the figure reported by Abdelrahim (2004, as cited in Salager-Meyer, 2008) for all peripheral countries in 2004, a fact which attests to the increasing tendency mentioned. As for Argentina, Table 1 informs that the country published 7,928 papers in SCI in 2008, which may suggest that it is underrepresented, as it is only 0,55% of the number reported for the whole world. These numbers, CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 35 Year Argentina Brazil Chile Mexico Venezuela 2000 5,124 12,643 2,283 5,211 1,180 2001 5,313 13,442 2,363 5,660 1,131 2002 5,584 15,741 2,659 5,503 1,226 2003 5,646 16,285 2,977 6,635 1,233 2004 5,499 17,304 2,988 7,158 1,120 2005 5,698 18,765 3,262 7,541 1,234 2006 5,935 20,862 3,604 7,758 1,202 2007 6,468 23,098 3,881 9,361 1,321 2008 7,928 34,215 4,447 12,758 1,583 Table 1. The top five Latin American countries in scientific production (source: CAICYT, updated 26/06/2009). Year Argentina Total SCI 1990 2,284 685,171 1991 2,176 706,087 1992 2,174 720,440 1993 2,422 761,459 1994 2,665 799,838 1995 3,115 858,970 1996 3,763 900,303 1997 4,219 938,021 1998 4,439 945,768 1999 4,869 974,937 2000 5,124 988,156 2001 5,313 980,109 2002 5,584 1,028,445 2003 5,646 1,070,005 2004 5,499 1,134,688 2005 5,698 1,173,438 2006 5,935 1,212,188 2007 6,468 1,322,242 2008 7,928 1,432,296 Table 2. Argentinean production in SCI (source: CAICYT, updated 26/06/2009). 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 35 however, may also be interpreted in a different light. Authors such as Swales (2004) and Ortiz (2009) have criticized the interpretation of the importance of the research production of a particular country solely in terms of the raw numbers of articles published. These authors note that, if raw numbers are related to the population of the country, many countries would be relatively better positioned in terms of scientific contributions. Both Ortiz and Swales provide examples of Scandinavian countries, which, in relative terms, would be better positioned than France or Germany, and even proportionally better than the United States. The evidence resulting from this form of interpretation has led Swales (2004: 40) to observe that: Indeed, if there is a message here, it is that research, largely communicated through English coming from countries in which English is largely a foreign language, such as Japan, Germany and France, would appear not to be greatly disadvantaged by that very fact. Following this line of interpretation, Argentina would be relatively better positioned with respect to Latin American countries with a higher number of papers published, as for example Brazil, and would be in a similar situation with respect to a country with a lower number of publications, such as Chile (see Table 1). Thus, Argentina’s production, which in raw numbers is about a fifth of the Brazilian production, turns to be as important as the Brazilian production, if not more important, since, although Brazil has four times more articles, it also has a population almost five times larger. In relation to Chile, the situation is the reverse. The Argentinean production is numerically higher, because in this case, the number of articles is twice the number of Chilean articles, but Argentina also has more than twice the population, making the production similar in relative terms. relative numbers may allow a different evaluation of countries, and the assessment of the impact of the role of English in scientific communication from a different perspective. Also the positive evolution in terms of articles published by Argentina between 1990 and 2008 is worth highlighting. In this period Argentina had a three-fold increase of articles published in journals indexed by SCI, moving from 2,284 articles published in 1990 to 7,928 articles in 2008, while the world production only doubled in the same period (see Table 2). These and the above figures present a panorama that appears optimistic with respect to the possible visibility of periphery research. ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4836 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 36 The role of postgraduate education A particularly interesting situation emerges from the information on Argentina’s production by discipline provided by CAICYT (see Table 3). The data reveal a great disparity in the distribution of publications, which, in my view, may be associated to the research and publication tradition of the different sciences in the country. In the data, two aspects stand out: great differences among sciences, and a generalized gradual increase in production. As for the differences among sciences, the data show that 95% of the total number of publications in 2008 were produced by the exact sciences, life sciences, and health sciences, whereas the social sciences and the arts and humanities contributed a meagre 5% of the country’s publications in SCI. Although it is known that academic writing is more demanding for L2 writers of the soft sciences than for writers of the hard sciences (Swales, 2004), the dominance of the sciences may also be associated to the fact that these fields have a relatively long, robust and uninterrupted research CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 37 Y e a r L if e s c ie n c e s P h y s ic s , c h e m is tr y a n d s o il s c ie n c e s A g ri c u lt u re , b io lo g y a n d e n v ir o n m e n t C li n ic a l m e d ic in e E n g in e e ri n g , c o m p u ta ti o n a n d t e c h n o lo g y S o c ia l a n d b e h a v io u ra l s c ie n c e s M u lt id is c ip li n a ry s c ie n c e s In s tr u m e n ts A rt s a n d H u m a n it ie s N o t a s s ig n e d 1990 884 881 466 548 189 82 21 11 1 9 1991 797 846 436 519 231 55 15 9 1 29 1992 834 856 495 519 203 69 15 15 19 1993 969 974 506 601 208 72 19 24 14 1994 984 1,060 583 641 243 61 18 41 1 28 1995 1,231 1,186 693 809 258 79 17 21 3 25 1996 1,477 1,481 820 896 333 100 22 28 2 34 1997 1,597 1,521 955 1,107 366 95 20 41 2 43 1998 1,663 1,665 1,049 1,128 347 108 21 18 52 1999 1,874 1,775 1,043 1,277 391 135 20 35 3 63 2000 1,860 1,942 1,169 1,350 429 129 26 33 4 44 2001 1,888 1,959 1,226 1,399 487 113 38 57 2 48 2002 1,978 2,057 1,366 1,395 474 147 32 42 1 87 2003 1,928 1,983 1,363 1,567 533 141 37 43 2 57 2004 2,055 2,048 1,425 1,335 450 168 39 51 6 71 2005 2,034 2,136 1,534 1,261 528 181 36 52 11 128 2006 2,103 2,199 1,753 1,284 578 192 46 50 6 0 2007 2,281 2,233 1,824 1,604 522 200 61 57 12 0 2008 2,872 2,743 2,283 2,142 740 366 121 50 16 0 Table 3. Argentinean production by discipline in SCI (source: CAICYT, updated 26/06/2009). 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 37 tradition in the country, with postgraduate programmes in central universities, some programmes dating as far back as the late 1890’s (Jeppesen et al., 2004). On the other hand, the modest presence of the soft sciences may be explained by the incipient research tradition and the recency of a generalized promotion of postgraduate programmes in the country. In fact, only as recently as 1995 did government legislation provide a framework for the development, promotion, accreditation and evaluation of postgraduate education and research (Jeppesen et al., 2004), which has given a great impulse to masters and doctoral programmes, particularly in the social sciences. It is possible, then, to infer that there is an association between postgraduate education and the quality of research and publication of the country. The information in Table 4, based on data provided by rama (2006) and by CAICYT, clearly attests to this association. It shows that the four Latin American countries with the greatest number of postgraduate programmes are also the four countries with the greatest production in SCI. Still, despite the marked differences observed between hard and soft sciences in Argentina, it is interesting to note that all fields showed a generalised increase in their scientific production. In the period between 1990 and 2008, some fields trebled their production, such as those grouped under life sciences, and those grouped under physics, chemistry and soil sciences. Others had a four-fold increase in their production, such as the fields of clinical medicine, and of engineering, computation and technology. The fields of agriculture, biology and the environment and the social and behavioural sciences had almost five times more production. As for the Arts and Humanities, the number of publications moved from just one article in 1990 to sixteen articles in 2008. This increase may be attributed to a number of factors. One may be the reduction of distance between centre and periphery resulting form recent advances in technology and the generalized ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4838 L2 situation Doctoral programmes Papers in SCI 2008 Brazil 1,056 34,215 Mexico 406 12,758 Argentina 291 7,928 Chile 103 4,447 Cuba 95 n/d Peru 91 n/d Colombia 56 n/d Venezuela 48 1,583 Table 4. Relation between the doctoral programmes and publications in SCI in Latin American universities (source: CAICYT, 2009, and Rama, 2006: 46). 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 38 access to internet use in all Argentinean universities. Government policies have also contributed to a positive evolution in terms of number of publications. Among the policies implemented, those destined to improve the quality of libraries should be highlighted. These have materialized in the installation of a network for all universities and research centres of the country, providing access to an electronic library with full-text journals, many of them in SCI (http://www.biblioteca.mincyt.gov.ar/). Another policy that has certainly contributed positively is the creation of official evaluation committees with international standards of accreditation, such as the Comisión Nacional de Acreditación Universitaria (COnEAU) (Jeppesen et al., 2004). Further, government-dependant scientific research agencies not only promote publication in SCI, but also evaluate the scientists’ careers and provide access to official grants based on the scientists’ contributions to international journals. The increasing tendency of the number of articles produced in Argentina suggests that it is possible for periphery nnESs to actively participate in the dialogue of science. But clearly the possibilities of non-Anglophone scholars would be greatly increased if they had access to academic writing instruction. Some sporadic efforts are in progress (e.g. Martínez, 2002; Salager-Meyer, 2007; Aranha, 2009), despite the scarcity of human and economic resources for such a demanding task. The increase in international publications, however, would be greater if there were institutional policies for the development of academic writing in English, which are not yet present in Argentina, and have also been reported as a need for other LA countries (Salager-Meyer, 2008). In the next section I will characterize the LA context and will describe the type of materials that I have found useful in my experience: authentic and specific texts. Authentic and specific materials are, as I will argue, highly adequate to optimize the characteristics of this particular EAP context. EAP in the Latin American context The LA context has some characteristics that, although at first sight may appear as disadvantages, may be turned into advantages through a form of instruction that capitalizes on such characteristics. My experience in EAP comes from a course on academic writing for researchers and doctoral candidates of the experimental sciences, taught in Argentinean universities since 1996. The participants in these courses have different levels of CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 39 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 39 proficiency in English, but they are all expert readers of papers of their fields of specialization. The course, described in detail in Martínez (2002) and updated yearly, aims at developing genre awareness, leading to writing research for publication in indexed journals. In the course, awareness is raised at three levels: cultural, rhetorical, and linguistic. The cultural level is informed by the contributions of the new rhetoric (e.g. Bazerman, 1988 & 1994; Myers, 1989, 1990 & 1996; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Freedman, 1994; Freedman & Medway, 1994a; Miller, 1994a & 1994b); the rhetorical level is based on the contributions of the school of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (e.g. dudley-Evans, 1986 & 1994; Swales, 1990, 1996 & 2004; Thompson, 1993; Brett, 1994; Kanoksilapatham, 2005); and the linguistic level is based on the contributions of different schools, such as Systemic Functional Linguistics, ESP, and corpus linguistics (e.g. Thompson & Ye, 1991; Halliday, 1993 & 1994; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Berry, 1995; Hyland, 1999 & 2001; Martínez, 2001 & 2005; Cortés, 2004; Hyland & Tse, 2007). The course is developed in a particular ESP context, one of the contexts identified by dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) in their characterization of the different EAP situations in the world. According to these authors, EAP course contents and methods are determined by the language in which content courses are taught. From this perspective, these authors identify four situations: in three of them, the language of all or most content courses is English, which I will call here the L2 situation. This is the case of English speaking countries, countries where English is a second language, or countries where some university courses are officially taught in English. In the fourth situation identified by dudley-Evans and St. John, content courses are taught in the national language, and English is an auxiliary language. Within the fourth situation, a particular case is the Latin American countries, as these countries share characteristics which, in my view, may positively contribute to facilitate academic writing instruction. I will call this the Latinate situation. The L2 situation and the Latinate situation have contrastive characteristics, synthesized in Table 5. ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4840 L2 situation Latinate situation NS practitioners NNES practitioners Heterogeneous groups Homogeneous groups Variety of L1 backgrounds Latinate L1 background Need of various skills simultaneously Specific needs (one skill at a time) Wide variety of genres used Limited set of genres used Table 5. Characteristics of two different EAP situations. 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 40 In the L2 situation, the context on which most research has focused, EAP has the advantage of having practitioners who are mostly native speakers of English. They mainly impart instruction to heterogeneous groups, usually with a wide variety of academic interests and different scientific backgrounds. These learners also have different mother languages and require instruction in a variety of genres (dudley-Evans, 2002; Hyon, 2002; Swales & Lindeman, 2002). due to the heterogeneity of these contexts, it makes sense to focus on general EAP (Spack, 1988), and to use materials prepared ad hoc, as has been suggested in the literature (Swales, 2009). The fourth group (the Latinate situation) may appear as the most disadvantaged, as the practitioner is usually a non-native speaker of English, and teaches, in the native language, how to manipulate texts to be read or written in English. Still, I argue that it is possible to exploit many of the characteristics of the situation to the learners’ benefit. In this context, and due to the generalized demand for instruction in EAP, it is possible to have groups of learners that come from the same postgraduate programme, and hence, share the same theoretical background and scientific interest. The groups are also homogeneous in terms of L1, as in Latin American countries the dominant language, and specifically the language of instruction, is a Latinate language. The fact that the L1 is a Latinate language is itself advantageous, and needs to be capitalized on, as its exploitation greatly facilitates the manipulation of the language of science in English, whose origin is mostly Latin (Coxhead & nation, 2001). Another advantage is that the learners need specific skills, mainly reading and writing, and it is a common practice in the region to teach one skill at a time (See Holmes & Celani (2006) for reading, and Martínez (2002) for writing). Thus, the Latinate situation offers a special context for the use of authentic texts, specific to the interests of the group. In the next section, I will argue how the practitioner in a Latin American context, usually non-Anglophone, may motivate learners by using authentic texts of their specific fields of interest, and may thus capitalize on the contributions of the learners in terms of knowledge of their fields of study and of doing research (dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Martínez, 2002). CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 41 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 41 Using authentic and specific texts in writing instruction different authors with teaching experience in countries representative of the L2 situation have highlighted the benefits of having diversity in their courses, as, among other reasons, they offer the learners the possibility of exposure to discussions on differences by fields, and allow learners to have access to across-campus socialization (Hyland, 1999; Swales & Lindemann, 2002). The Latin American situation, on the other hand, allows for focused instruction, being it possible to concentrate on specific needs in terms of skills, genres and fields. The main advantages of the context are the identification of highly specific needs, a common L1, and the possibility of having highly homogeneous groups. First, a focus on a clear need, e.g. to write for international publication, results in high motivation, as the learners can maximize their use of time by concentrating on the set of science-related genres (Swales, 2004), focusing on the research article, the genre needed in most doctoral programmes in the sciences. It must be noted that having papers published is a requirement for graduation in most doctoral programmes of the sciences in Argentina. Second, a common L1 and language of instruction of Latinate origin allows the possibility of capitalizing on the similarities between Latinate languages and the language of science. Many of the linguistic aspects that may seem problematic in scientific English for novice learners who are native to English, such as lexical density and nominalization (Halliday, 1993), do not appear to be so for speakers of Latinate languages that are experts in their research fields. Lexis is mostly transparent, as the vocabulary of science is mainly of Latin origin. Left branching may be a problem and there is a good amount of left branching in science for the construction of complex concepts, designating a highly specific referent. Still, complex noun groups do not seem to pose a problem for these specialists, as they generally recognize the referents of the noun groups when they are concepts of their own research fields. To illustrate, I will resort to examples from a text (Anil et al., 2002) that I used in a course where there were veterinaries working in meat processing plants and slaughterhouses. Complex nominal groups like “a penetrating captive bolt gun (CBG)”, “a pneumatically activated penetrating CBG”, and “a cartridge-operated conventional penetrating CBG” posed no problem to these students, because, although their level of ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4842 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 42 English was low, they were familiar with the referents. Thus, the words served to successfully identify the instruments they referred to without the need to analyse the nominal structures. As for nominalization, this process involves right branching, which is the main way Spanish modifies nouns. The similarity of nominalized structures in English and Spanish facilitates their interpretation. Furthermore, “-ation”, the highly productive suffix for nominalization in scientific English, is of Latin origin. note the following cases, where the nominalizations are in italics: “the injection of anaesthetic agent”; “by application of 250 v for 3 s”; “a continuous infusion of a mixture of xylazine”; “the risk of transmission of BSE prions to humans through meat consumption”. Third, the possibility of having L1 homogeneous groups as well as discipline specific groups calls for the use of specific and authentic materials. Specific materials allow to concentrate on the specific vocabulary that the researcher needs, which has been shown to be highly restricted (Sutarsyah, nation & Kennedy, 1994; Chen & Ge, 2007; Hyland & Tse, 2007; Martínez, Beck & Panza, 2009). Specificity increases motivation, reduces comprehension problems, and, at the same time, allows participants to contribute their knowledge of science, creating an atmosphere of confidence. In relation to the use of texts for exemplification in courses, Swales (2009: 5) presents what he calls “the practitioner’s dilemma”, which implies that, in the process of selecting class materials, and after having unsuccessfully browsed for a text that can act as a good model, the practitioner is faced with three possibilities, “keep on looking, editing or go somewhere else” (Swales, 2009: 5), where this “somewhere else” implies that the practitioners themselves should write the texts for course practice. This suggestion is certainly adequate in the L2 situation, where EAP courses integrate learners from different disciplines and L1 backgrounds, making it difficult to find a common and at the same time appealing text. Such courses are usually taught by native speakers who can write their own texts. Writing scientific texts to be used as course materials does not seem possible in the Latin American situation, where practitioners are mostly nnES, like myself, and for whom constructing interesting scientific texts in different scientific fields would probably be an overwhelming task, beyond many nnESs’ language skills. In Latinate contexts, authentic materials, which are in fact what the researchers actually use as literature for their studies and what they need to write for publication, are not only appropriate in relation to teachers and students, but also increase motivation. CAPITALIzInG On THE AdvAnTAGES Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-48 43 02 IBERICA 21.qxp:Iberica 13 09/03/11 18:04 Página 43 Conclusion As a conclusion, I would like to emphasize some aspects that suggest an optimistic future for periphery scholars, particularly from Latin America. The information of databases shows a positive evolution of Latin American scholars’ participation in mainstream journals. This information indicates that, although there may be marginalisation of periphery scholars due to economic or other factors (Canagarajah, 1996 & 2003), international participation is possible. The presence of Latin America can be furthered by providing EAP instruction that capitalizes on the aspects of the Latin American situation described here as advantages, particularly the possibility of having participants with a common linguistic and scientific background. In our role as non-native EAP practitioners and researchers we may contribute to redress the imbalance produced by the need to publish in a language other than one’s own. As practitioners, we should capitalize on those aspects of scientific language that are common to English and Latinate languages and on the scientific knowledge that the learners possess. As researchers, we should contribute descriptions and contrastive studies that may unveil the linguistic similarities, which will facilitate EAP instruction for non-Anglophone graduate students and researchers. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the members of my research team, the anonymous reviewers and this journal editor for their careful reading of the manuscript and insightful comments. This study was supported by a grant of SeCyT UnrC (Secretaría de Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad nacional de río Cuarto, Argentina). [Paper received April 2010] [Revised paper accepted September 2010] References ILIAnA A. MArTínEz Ibérica 21 (2011): 31-4844 Anil, M.H., S. Love, C.R. Helps & D.A. Harbour (2002). “Potential for carcass contamination with brain tissue following stunning and slaughter in cattle and sheep”. Food Control 13: 431-436. Aranha, S. (2009). “The development of a genre- based writing course for graduate students in two fields” in C. Bazerman, A. Bonini & D. 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