“Cultural Anchors” of Chinese Students’ University Writing: The Learning Culture and Academic Traditions

Résumé En

This chapter takes an intercultural perspective on academic literacy focused on the didactics of French for Academic Purposes. It is linked as well to the long-standing field of sinology and Chinese research on Chinese Writing. This work lies within the scope of the latest research on academic literacy in intercultural perspective, on didactics of French for Academic Purposes, and it is linked as well to the field of long-standing sinology and Chinese national studies research on Chinese writing. This research analyzes a corpus of textual productions, in French and in Chinese, written by Chinese students who have learned French at the university in China, and a corpus of comprehensive interviews in Chinese with those students. The analysis of academic dissertations written by Chinese undergraduate and graduate students studying in several Chinese universities shows a few specificities of the writing of Chinese students completing academic writing tasks. These features are described and linked to the students’ discourse on their writing practices and on their training to writing and to academic writing. The writing of Chinese university students in China has its basis in five main cultural anchors: Chinese culture; learning culture developed in Chinese schools with specific exercises for the acquisition of Chinese characters; western academic rhetoric, which is a part of what China has borrowed from universities in Europe and America since the 19th century; literary writing in the Chinses academic tradition, which can especially be found in the forms and uses of the imperial examination system (keju-zhidu); and the writing of the contemporary scientific community. Through this analysis, it ispossible to approach some of the specific features of academic writing in China (xue-shu xiezuo).