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Introduction
A significant factor in students’ success in tertiary studies in Australia is English language competence. This applies to native speakers of English as well as to students from languages other than English backgrounds. The English proficiency of international students is of national concern in Australia (Australian Education International [AEI], 2007). Birrell (2006a) has examined the implications of low English standards among overseas students at Australian universities. Birrell (2006b) has also chronicled professional concerns with English language competence of migrant graduates.At issue are general tests of English language proficiency as assessed on international tests such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System). Proficiency tests assume the transfer of language competence from what are considered typical situations with predictable texts, to different contexts. Although the capacity to transfer knowledge of texts or discourses to new contexts enables people to manage the language demands and expectations in different domains of human endeavor, language serves specific functions with different texts in contexts. Human activity is characterized by different practices, which are carried out with differentiated discourses (Hyland, 2004; Swales, 1990).The conceptual context of the study is a view of disciplinary knowledge or subject content in terms of situated practices, discourses and text types, which characterise subject- specific skills and knowledge, otherwise known as the content of a discipline (Bazerman, 1988; Swales, 1990). In academic contexts, each discipline and branch of a discipline develop discourses appropriate to valued practices which characterize, maintain and re-create discipline knowledge and technical activities. According to Hyland (2005) “Scholarly discourse … is not uniform and monolithic but an outcome of a multitude of different practices and strategies” (196). Single definitions of communicative competence and levels of proficiency are inadequate to account for variations in language use for different purposes. Distinctive social practices and texts (Mickan, 2006a) constitute the particular content of a subject or course. The study of academic literacies in this project is based on the analysis of subject epistemologies-the representation of disciplinary knowledge in course materials and practices. The project assumes that disciplinary knowledge is enacted with discipline specific practices or tasks and academic language in the form of texts.Academic language is characterized by multiple literacies and text types embedded in disciplinary practices. The essential nature of academic knowledge is discourse differentiation-the communication of meanings with distinctive language as texts and practices for subject-specific activities, such as drawing graphs, modeling designs on computers or writing poetry. The practices of a discipline are construed with multiple systems of meanings. In cross-disciplinary courses, students are required to manage multiple literacies across modalities. Okawa (2008) has documented the variety of literacies and modalities faced by a student in a postgraduate nursing program. In interdisciplinary studies the discourses or texts which describe or circumscribe a discipline or a subject are integrated from multiple source disciplines and reconstrued as course content. The question is how to represent the complexity of academic literacies in order to address criticisms of students’ language competence.The strategy in this project is to situate the language experiences of students within the context of disciplinary epistemologies in order to examine texts and tasks characteristic of academic programs. Studies suggest that a significant way of addressing the English language problems of international students is to analyse the actual language experiences of students in subject specific contexts (Hyland, 2004,; Mickan, 2007; Northedge, 2003).
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