CLAVIER 2010: Transferring Knowledge across Disciplines and Academic Communities, International Seminar (Modena, 7-8 June 2010)

The interest demonstrated by linguists for forms of knowledge dissemination across academic communities has stimulated a variety of studies in applied linguistics. The role of scientific writing in the social construction of science has contributed to founding numerous historical studies on genres of scientific communication. More recently, a number of studies have combined linguistic and rhetorical analysis and explored variation across disciplines. In a similar way, there has been an attempt to tie textual structures to social and cultural factors which may influence linguistic use, along with increased interest by analysts for knowledge dissemination between experts and non-experts for didactic purposes. The Seminar brought together the latest research of scholars engaged in the analysis of forms of knowledge dissemination across disciplines and academic communities. This is also the main interest of the CLAVIER research group (Corpus and Language Variation Research Group), a research centre recently founded by the Universities of Bergamo, Firenze, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Rome “Sapienza”, and Siena, and currently based in Modena. One of the purposes of the CLAVIER seminar 2012 was to reinforce national and international cooperation with scholars and research centres that can widen and complement the interest in knowledge dissemination from a theoretical, descriptive and applied perspective. The seminar brought together different perspectives on knowledge dissemination across disciplinary communities. Plenaries and papers gave a special insight into the following topics: 1) comparison of academic genres, disciplines and linguistic-cultural contexts; 2) argumentation in academic genres; 3) intercultural communication and academic communities; 4) English as lingua franca in expert/non-expert communication; 5) using corpora as an innovative tool in exploring academic language; 6) implications for language teaching for academic purposes. Plenaries by Ken Hyland (City University of Hong Kong) and Paul Thompson (University of Birmingham). Papers by Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli (Università di Firenze), Vanessa Leonardi (Università di Ferrara), Franca Poppi and Gillian Mansfield (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia / Università di Parma), Micheal Glenn Alessi (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Giuditta Caliendo (Università di Napoli, Federico II), Julia Bamford (Università di Napoli, L’Orientale), Silvia Cacchiani (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Davide Simone Giannoni (Università di Bergamo), Maximillian Gold and Claire Wallis (Università di Cagliari), Anthony Baldry and Rosalba Rizzo (Università di Messina), Maria Teresa Musacchio and Giuseppe Palumbo (Università di Padova / Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia) Ágnes Sándor (Xerox Research Centre Europe, France).