The role of Academic socialization on PHD students Academic literacy achievement in a discourse community

Statement of the problem: Especially during the past two decades, we have witnessed an increasing interest in advanced academic writing which led to a body of work on various focused areas within the subjectmatter. There are studies that reveal the difficulties international students at undergraduate and/or graduate levels have while writing papers required for content classes (e.g., Angelova & Riazantseva, 1999; Braine, 2002; Spack, 1997). There is also research that presents the process of acquiring disciplinary discourse by international students for whom English is the foreign language (e.g., Belcher, 1994; Li, 2007; Woodward-Kron, 2008; Riazi, 1997). Moreover, there are those which trace the course of scholarly publication (e.g., Cho, 2009; Flowerdew, 1999a; Li, 2006) and the struggles of multilingual scholars to publish in English to get recognized in their fields (e.g., Curry & Lillis, 2004; Flowerdew, 1999b). Analysis of the structures of different sections of research articles (e.g., Holmes, 1997; ztrk, 2007; Samraj, 2005) and doctoral dissertations (e.g., Hasrati & Street, 2009; Hyland, 2004; Kwan, 2006) constitute another body of work within the subject-matter. Clearly, the studies focus on advanced academic writing experiences of international/nonnative graduate students who write papers either as a requirement of content classes or for publication. All the participants in cited studies are international students who study in an English-speaking country. Clearly, a study which takes foreign language users of English who write their dissertations in English in a foreign language context is needed as the outcomes of such a study might be unique. It is also interesting to note that most of the studies are qualitative in nature as few of them rely on quantitative data (e.g., Dong, 1998). In order to discover the challenges faced, strategies applied, and variables in the process of writing a dissertation in the foreign language more comprehensively, a mixed-method study would be most appropriate: a mixed method that combines both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms will be of greatest value. As Hyland (2009) puts it until recently most of the literature on theses writing tended to be heavy on advice and light on analysis (p. 141). And most importantly all the previous studies fail to consider the role of a well designed academic and discourse community on students performance. Hence; this study is to examine L2 learners discourse socialization through their participation in academic Practices. This study aims to fill the gaps in the understudied area of academic writing among advanced foreign language users. Research Questions: 1) What are, if any, the challenges that doctoral students in Education Departments face during dissertation writing in English as a foreign language? 2) How do the focal PHD students negotiate discourse and competence in their specific Academic Communities they participate in their friends and their presentations? 3) What are, if any, the strategies focal doctoral students at Education Departments utilize to overcome those challenges during dissertation writing in English as a foreign language? 4) What is the nature of relation between a. the linguistic and sociocultural challenges? b. the linguistic challenges and previous experiences? c. the challenges and strategies?