How do culturally situated notions of `polite' forms influence the way Vietnamese postgraduate students write academic English in Australia?

Le Ha, Phan

This paper explores how the Vietnamese culturally situated notions of `politeness', which are embedded in Vietnamese postgraduate students' performance at different Australian universities, influence the way they write academic English. The data of this qualitative study were collected from in-depth interviews with four Vietnamese postgraduate students from different universities in Melbourne. The paper also makes suggestions to Australian academics on how they can best help Vietnamese postgraduate students' writing at universities.

Introduction

With the increasing number of Asian students enrolled in Australian tertiary institutions, cross-cultural issues in learning have drawn great attention in the literature, for example, Ballard (1984), Ballard and Clanchy (1984, 1988, 1991a, 1991b, 1997), Barrett-Lennard (1997), Burns (1991), Chalmers and Volet (1997), Felix and Lawson (1994), Kennedy (1995), Liddicoat (1997), Samuelowicz (1987), San Miguel (1996), Watkins and Biggs (1996). Such issues relate to a variety of academic performances of Asian students, among which academic writing seems to cause most trouble.

Cross-cultural issues, in general, arise when `the non-native speaker has to learn to communicate in a specialist community in another language' (Liddicoat, 1997, p. 13). When shifting from more traditional eastern backgrounds to an open western environment, cross-cultural adjustment is vital to survival, adaptation and development for every single easterner. For Asian students who are enrolled in tertiary institutions in Australia, an English-speaking country, cross-cultural issues challenge them right from their arrival. The culturally situated notions of `politeness' which are embedded in these students' academic performance have been explored (Farrell, 1994, 1997a, 1997b; Liddicoat, 1997). Such cross-cultural issues also sometimes act as gatekeeping events, such as exclusion from courses on the basis of `unsatisfactory' writing.

With a large population in different Australian universities, Vietnamese students have contributed to the multicultural environment of university life in Australia. However there are seldom any studies conducted specifically with Vietnamese students to see what difficulties they have had in their academic writing performance at universities. For this reason, I conducted a study with Vietnamese postgraduate students from different universities in Melbourne to explore how the Vietnamese culturally situated notions of `polite' forms influence the way they write academic English in Australia.

Culturally situated notions of `polite' forms

Since language and culture are closely connected to each other and one's culture influences one's writing (Farrell, 1994, 1997a, 1997b; Hall, 1997; Liddicoat, 1997; Purves, 1988), `actual discourse is determined by socially constituted orders of discourse, sets of conventions associated with social institutions' (Fairclough, 1989, p. 17). Purves (1988) contends that `the ways in which we express thought in writing are very strongly influenced by our experiences with discourse generally and written text specifically and the related conventions that govern each of these within our own social and cultural contexts' p. 178). Such arguments help to explain the relationship between the Vietnamese culturally situated notions of politeness and Vietnamese postgraduates' academic writing in English.

The notions of politeness in English writing, as Farrell (1997b) argues, `reflect a relatively high value placed on combativeness and individualism, and a relatively low value on community identity and traditional forms of knowledge' (p. 69). In order to be polite in a test, particularly in academic writing performance, candidates are advised to enjoy an equal relationship with the examiner who is reading their essays. Nevertheless they should not be considered `aggressive' or `arrogant' or `rude' in arguing in favour of a point of view or against another point of view. Politeness formulation is embedded in the relationship between the candidate and the examiner in the aspects set out below:

* relationships between students and teacher (including whether it is considered insulting for a student to contradict a teacher or an examiner);

* the extent to which it may be appropriate for students to question or reformulate knowledge they have learnt;

* the extent to which explicit, or direct, intellectual dispute is tolerated, even among equals. (Adapted from Farrell, 1997a, p.146)

Partly sharing a common cultural background with other Asian nations, such as China, Thailand, and Japan, Vietnamese writing traditionally enjoys a hierarchical relationship between students and teachers. Students automatically behave in such a manner that they place themselves in a lower position by addressing themselves `em' (a way Vietnamese students are taught to address themselves to teachers). It is expected that they should not contradict a teacher or an examiner publicly. Instead it is expected that they should follow wisely the already-known `proper moral norms'. These norms are sets of social practices constructed by the long-standing tradition of `respect for teachers and the teaching profession' proudly practised by Vietnamese people. These norms regulate how students should behave to the teacher and imply that they are willing to be instructed by teachers' perspectives, or the ideology existing in the society. This partly explains how and why teachers are highly respected in the Vietnamese society and being a teacher is considered noble.

This tradition is warmly welcomed by Vietnamese people who, since the very beginning of their personality formation, are injected with `respect for father's moral instructions, mother's love and sacrifice, and teacher's knowledge, education and training'. Undoubtedly, this tradition contributes to the close and responsible relationship between teachers and students and one may easily sense that a teacher plays a role of a parent with children who are his/her students/pupils. At the same time, belonging to the educational system that is judged in terms of these norms, students often perform as expected at schools, although they may not be satisfied with the given knowledge. They may discuss and question ideas with their friends, parents or even with teachers who have presented the knowledge. It sounds contradictory, but one should realise that, in Vietnamese society, even the teacher is controlled by a certain political ideology which serves authority. The point is that Vietnamese students are very critical privately but they show it differently. Their critical orientation is not necessarily the same as that of Australian students. If one knows about Vietnamese history of constantly struggling for independence and its geographical position in the Asian region, one may realise that `being flexible or compliant' is just a mask to protect the country and its people from being invaded or assimilated by bigger nations (Phan Ngoc, 1998; Tran Ngoc Them, 1999). The history of thousands of years has formed distinctive cultural characteristics among the Vietnamese people with conditioned compliance/flexibility on the outside, but rebellion near the surface. This has influenced the writing style and formed a habit of `pretending' to be unquestioning. This also creates approaches marked by `indirectness', `implicitness' and `circularity' in writing. The habit really affects Vietnamese students' performance in Australian universities, where they are viewed as having a `lack of confidence' or being `passive learners' or `rote learners' who are good at only memorisation, reproduction and plagiarism (Ballard & Clanchy, 1984,1991a, 1991b; Barrett-Lennard, 1997; Samuelowicz, 1987).

Collectivist values borrowed from Confucianism are practised in Vietnamese society but have been filtered to become Vietnamised. Thus Nguyen Xuan Thu's (1988) views that Vietnamese students `considered intelligent were the ones who learnt by heart the most words and sentences from books ... what Confucius had said was the truth, requiring no doubt or discussion' (p. 20) are misleading. This practice was largely true with students learning Chinese characters in the past (Phan Ngoc, 1998) but it cannot be applied in modern Vietnamese society. Such students would be complimented for having a good memory, or brightness in terms of memorisation, but not knowledge. At the same time, memorisation does not always mean simple learning-by-heart or rote-learning. It can be a form of learning which also leads to deep understanding (Biggs, 1996). An intelligent student, in current Vietnamese society, is the one who does not need to be bookish or a bookworm but one who nevertheless can comprehensively understand the knowledge and interpret it personally.

In Vietnamese writing, students are expected to express their own identities and also their identities as students; for example, one should be able to tell that a paper is a student paper, so that it can be judged alongside others for its academic performance. On the other hand, the Vietnamese student needs to build a distinctive `style' or `identity' to be different from others and to perform well. Creativity is valued, and this enables a `self in one's writing. Creativity may occur in the use of words, the development of an essay, and the use of metaphor. This, however, should follow the rules of politeness in writing as discussed above.

As I have argued so far, questioning or reformulating knowledge is often avoided. Those who do so may be regarded as rude or rebellious and this may result in unexpected prejudices. Things, however, have been changing and Vietnamese students in Australia have become more familiar with the western style of teaching and learning without giving up their own writing norms. They have been proudly successful in academic performance in universities throughout Australia and many of them are top ranked.

Method

The study was conducted with four Vietnamese postgraduate students from education and business courses at different universities in Melbourne. These students were international students who stayed in Australia for a period of time, ranging from one and a half years to two years during their postgraduate courses. These students had to write many essays (between at least 3000 and 5000 words) in their courses. In-depth interviews were mainly used to collect data. The interviews, conducted in Vietnamese with occasional contributions in English, were semi-structured, based on specific questions, and audiotaped. The interviews first took place with an individual participant. After I interpreted and analysed the data from the interviews, I sent transcripts to the interviewees. Informal conversations with individual participants then followed.

The audiotaped interviews in Vietnamese were first transcribed in the original Vietnamese, then translated into English. I numbered each line to permit clear references to the data during analysis and discussion. For the purposes of preserving their anonymity, the participants were given pseudonyms. The two male education postgraduates were Nam and Hai. The male MBA postgraduate was Kien, and the female MBA postgraduate was Mai.

I identified the main themes for analysis on the basis of the literature, my own experience as a postgraduate student at an Australian university, and the data themselves. These themes are: `expression of critical analytical thinking'; `conventions--referencing'; and `problems in English writing now and before'.

Following are the participants' comparisons of Vietnamese and English academic writing in terms of politeness, focusing on the above themes.

Expression of critical analytical thinking

A Vietnamese essay

Nam, Hai, and Kien all said that Vietnamese writing is not very critical, or at least less critical than English writing. Nam's explanation was that Vietnamese or Asian people often show respect rather than criticise. He also thought that it was not right to criticise. Hai added that Vietnamese writing is developed uncritically. People write only one side of a story. He felt that this is due to Vietnamese culture. Vietnamese people feel reluctant to criticise or diminish anything. They assume that `what is written in a book is the truth and those who write books must be knowledgeable'. Thus they are often advocates for the knowledge already written. According to him, this is also because of the fact that students are not taught how to write essays.

Kien explained very thoroughly why Vietnamese writing is less critical. From his point of view: different cultures and social norms influence the way we write. In Vietnam, if one thinks differently from other people, one often does not write one's thinking. One has to write what all people or the majority think and value. One often places one's individuality behind and follows common behaviours. If one proposes all idea and a lecturer rejects it because it is wrong, then the idea is wrong. This encourages students not to say `wrong' ideas. `Right' is what is accepted by everybody or most, and `wrong' is what is thought by ally single person or a number of people. Therefore, one often thinks one is wrong when other people say one is wrong. One has to say what one's society values. What one thinks is tied to what people think. Only one answer is correct. The standard of right or wrong is more important. For example, if a person says "life is beautiful' and successfully supports his/her argument, but another person says `life is boring' and also supports his/her argument well, then only one is correct, the other one must be wrong.

Moreover, as he saw it, `power distance' in the society is much expected. One often places oneself 'down' to show that one is a student and the reader is one's lecturer. In addition, if a student interrupts a lecturer when he/she is giving lectures, the student is regarded as `rude' or `disrespectful'. In particular, Kien remarked that `Vietnamese people are not willing to debate at all'. The society `avoids' directly arguing or debating. It is better if one does not hurt others by arguing with them about their points of view. The relations with them may be worse if one debates with them. One may agree or disagree but one is advised to pretend to agree. Kien alluded to a Vietnamese expression `di hoa vi quy', which, in this case, roughly means that everybody is right, and whether one is right or wrong, it does not matter or does not affect anyone.

An English essay

Nam, Hai and Kien all reported that English writing is more critical than Vietnamese writing. Nam raised the point that English writing is generally critical by nature: `Don't think you can be always critical. Be critical whenever you think you can support your arguments or when you can say things better than others can'. Hai commented that English-speaking people view things very critically. There are two sides to every question. What is written in books is regarded as a writer's opinions. One may agree or disagree but the most important thing is that one has to support one's own opinions.

English writing is very critical, as stated by Kien. He explained that English people do not seek whether one is right or wrong, but what they seek is whether one can successfully support one's arguments. One can write whatever one thinks, provided one can support it. The important thing is that one contributes something to a discussion, then develops it. There is no right or wrong. Furthermore, `power distance' is not emphasised in Australia; on the contrary, `individualism is more important'. People can express their ideas freely and openly. They are willing to debate. Their culture is a `debate culture'. Particularly, this society encourages everybody to discuss and argue. That is why students can interrupt lecturers without feeling hesitant or afraid.

Conventions--Referencing

This section will look at the notions of `conventions - referencing' in a Vietnamese essay and an English essay.

A Vietnamese essay

Nam, Hai and Mai all reported that Vietnamese writing does not strictly require referencing. As a result, students can copy other people's ideas without having to indicate where the information comes from or who the author is. Nam's explanation for that was that Asians generally do not think it is important to indicate sources of information in their writing. That is why in Asia, `copyright' is `not respected' and there are `no rules' for it. Hai described the question of referencing in Vietnamese writing in detail. He said that Vietnamese people often `rely on books'. They like to quote from books as much as possible, but the problem is that they do not often tell readers where the information comes from. Vietnamese writing does not expect students to indicate references clearly. Consequently, given an essay topic, students are expected to read as much as they can and what they have read is assumed to be their knowledge. They just have to give a bibliography rather than reference their own texts. The more they read and copy (maybe paraphrase), the better. They may think that their teacher only teaches them one thing from one textbook but they can refer to ten readings, for example, then they know more than what they have been taught. This view may be due to Vietnamese culture, according to Hai. Since Vietnamese people feel reluctant to criticise or diminish anything, they often assume that what is written in books is the truth. Another reason is that students are not explicitly taught how to write essays. Expectations from lecturers also influence the way they quote or copy from other people's ideas. Mai admitted that it is fine if students copy other people's ideas without indicating whose ideas they are because lecturers accept this.

An English essay

Nam, Hai and Mai all reported that referencing is strictly required and there are rules for it. Everybody has to follow the rules to write essays. Nam commented that, in the west, there is a law for copyright and everybody has to respect it. Hai agreed that English writing requires very strict rules for referencing because English has clear-cut standards for essays at universities. He then described the way his students in Vietnam wrote English. They often had referencing problems. They wanted to refer to as many readings as possible and they copied as much as they could in the hope that their lecturers would not know where they got the information. They copied good sentences, good arguments, and even good paragraphs written by native English speakers because they thought that native speakers must write better than them. The way they wrote as described had its reasons according to Hai. First, they may not be competent enough in English, so they copied as much as they could to make their writing look English. Secondly, and more importantly, when writing in Vietnamese at universities, they were not taught how to write an essay, so they just applied the way they wrote Vietnamese essays into the way they wrote English essays.

Mai stressed the importance of following the rules for referencing in English writing by saying that if students just paraphrase an author's ideas and do not quote exactly these ideas, they are required to indicate clearly the source of information.

Regarding referencing, Kien did not say exactly what he perceived but he gave some examples about how some Australian academics stereotyped Asian students. He said that he had heard some assumptions that Asian students are `rote-learners', `lazy-thinkers' and like copying from books. As far as copying is concerned, he explained that this is more due to the lack of language proficiency. Asian students study in Australia and understand what is taught to them but they have not mastered the language yet. Thus they are not always sure that they use words correctly or express ideas correctly in all situations. From his experience, to be safe, if he knew that somebody had already written about what he wanted to express, then he tried to express it similarly but not to copy. He did not see paraphrasing as a problem. If he followed strictly the rules for quotation, then his writing would be `full of many of Mr Somebody's ideas'. Thus, if he could change somebody's idea a little to make it his, he did it. To tell the truth, he said, there were 'not many new ideas' in his writing. First, he was not willing to debate. Secondly, he did not read much as he was not sure how much reading was enough. Thirdly, he did not have much time to read and think carefully about an essay topic. Consequently, instead of following strictly the rules for referencing, he made some changes from other people's ideas and assumed these ideas as his own without indicating their source.

Problems in English writing now and before

This section will look at the participants' reports on their problems in English writing now and before.

Before

Nam reported that he used to show much respect in his writing by providing little criticism.

Hai said that he was taught how to write essays in his first degree so he did not have problems. But he noticed that beginners in English are much influenced by the way they write Vietnamese. For instance, they do not answer an essay question directly. Instead they write everything around the topic. He added that the way these beginners write English means that they want to show `respect' and `politeness' by not discussing the topic straightforwardly.

Kien admitted that when he first wrote English, he was much influenced by the way he wrote Vietnamese. But before commencing the course in Australia, he was taught about academic writing, so he knew how to write well. His first essay had some grammar problems but not serious ones. He did not have any stylistic problems.

Mai did not comment on her writing in English before studying in Australia.

Now

Nam reported that his writing is still slightly influenced by the way he wrote Vietnamese. Earlier, in English, he was not very critical. This was not because he did not know how to criticise, but he thought it was not right to do it. But gradually when he became aware of the nature of English writing, he grew more critical.

Hai confidently stated that he knew how to write an English essay. Generally when writing English, he thought in English and followed what he was taught to write an essay. But as a Vietnamese person, sometimes his writing was slightly influenced by the indirect approach of Vietnamese writing, which he saw as `tactfulness' or `politeness'.

Kien described the way he wrote English at present. He tended to write very simply because he preferred simplicity and he did not have complicated words to write. It was his writing style. He had to make everything clear for readers. He tried to be as critical as possible. He sometimes modified other people's ideas and made these ideas his own ideas.

Mai stated that she did not see her English writing as a problem. Her lecturers did not complain at all about her writing. She often brainstormed directly in English and wrote. She could not think first in Vietnamese then translate into English because there are many different economics and business theories that she did not learn in Vietnam. There are also many business and economics English terms that do not exist in Vietnamese or have no equivalents. Thus she wrote essays based on her thinking in English. She strictly followed the rules for essays.

Discussion

Expression of critical analytical thinking

In addition to the suggestions from the literature discussed above, the interview data provide further insight into the issue of critical analytical thinking. Critical thinking is understood as being free to analyse and evaluate the ideas of others, but is also very often referred to by the participants as being simply critical (that is, negative). The participants reported that Vietnamese writing is less critical than English writing because of cultural factors. This supports the contention in the literature that writing is influenced by cultures. However there are various reasons for this. One reason is that being uncritical is a socio-political discourse convention, caused by the ideological homogeneity of the particular society. Such ideological homogeneity occurs to a degree in every society because one's knowledge is to a certain extent shaped by one's society's shared values (Hall, 1997). Another reason is the fact that students are not explicitly taught how to write essays. They are not required to be critical.

The interview information confirms the view expressed in the literature that collectivism is essential and expected in Vietnam whereas individualism is more important in western countries. However one participant questioned the idea of 'critical thinking' in English writing, which he construed as `being critical of ideas'. He said that one can only be critical, provided one can support one's arguments or present better arguments than those of others. The literature on politeness sheds light on the fact that publicly critical analytical discourse may or may not be regarded as indicating over-confidence in one's own judgement and wisdom and thus be tolerated and encouraged to different extents. The data from this study help us to explore the relationship between culture, the socio-political context, and critical analytical thinking.

Conventions--Referencing

The information given by the participants suggests that referencing conventions differ greatly between Vietnamese and English writing. They commented that referencing is not strictly required by Vietnamese writing. Copyright is not made a rule and people often trust knowledge written in books. Moreover people may reference in different ways. Instead of giving a list of references, they provide a bibliography. Different referencing systems require different performance.

By contrast, English writing has very strict rules for referencing because it is a matter of law. Because individualism is more important, copyright is more emphasised so as to protect the individual creation. Nevertheless even the participant who said he changed authors' ideas a little to make these ideas his own shared the understanding that ideas are generated by individuals.

Problems in English writing now and before

As reflected in the findings, before commencing the courses in Australian universities, these participants had been thoroughly taught about English academic writing. For this reason, they knew very well how to write good English essays and did not have any serious problems. They were all well aware of how their English writing was influenced by Vietnamese writing style. For them, this often occurred in the indirect approach, and in the degree to which they directly expressed their use of critical analytical thinking. They also gave reasons for that, among which cultural and socio-political reasons seemed to be dominant. As one of the participants stated, ideas are generated by individuals. He thus paraphrased others' ideas to make them his own ideas and did not think that this was plagiarism. Such problems and strategies may have misled certain authors to the hasty conclusion that Asian students are uncritical people who do not know how to write essays (Ballard & Clanchy, 1997; Barrett-Lennard, 1997). When talking about this issue in final conversations with the researcher, the participants questioned the stereotype by asking such rhetorical questions as, `If you say that we don't know how to write, why have you given us Distinction and High Distinction?'. The stereotype created by some Australian academics implies that Asian students are not aware of how their cultures or education systems influence their writing in English. But the findings of this study suggest this is wrong. In addition, not all students have problems in writing and not all problems are equally serious, as reflected by the participants.

Conclusion and recommendations

This paper has discussed how the Vietnamese culturally situated notions of `polite' forms influence the way Vietnamese postgraduate students enrolled in different Australian universities write academic English.

This study suggests that it is important and necessary to introduce English academic writing to students before they commence their courses in Australian universities. For the participants in this study, as soon as they were aware of how they were expected to write, they were able to adjust. Another suggestion is that Australian academics should not at first assume that non-English-speaking background students have problems in writing and treat these problems as if these problems would exist forever.

This study has found that cultural differences are not the only reason influencing how students write. Socio-political factors and educational systems also have an influence on writing styles. Different societies allow their citizens to speak within particular sets of ideology, based on which a society develops its socio-political practice. Australian academics need to be aware of this to help students coming from a different background.

This study did not explore the perceptions of Vietnamese postgraduates in varying disciplines, or varying levels of study. The suggestions made here are intended to provide generic strategies and understandings that might be useful across disciplines. These strategies and understandings relate specifically to Vietnamese postgraduate students, but might also be relevant for students from cultures with similar approaches to knowledge and its exploration in texts. Assumptions about such similarities should not, however, be lightly made.

Understanding about valued practices

There are values that are shared in different cultures. There are other values that are more or less valued (or even not valued) in one culture than they are in other cultures. Australian academics should recognise that tactfulness and indirectness are valued in Vietnamese writing, as influenced by its culture. If there are only `you' and T among first and second pronouns in English, there are dozens of different words for `you' and `I' in Vietnamese language because of the Vietnamese kinship system. These words are used to show respect to elder people, relatives, and hierarchical relations. This culture of kinship influences the way Vietnamese students approach knowledge, not critically and directly but circularly and indirectly to show respect and tactfulness. In addition, they tend to create a `flow' in their writing, rather than make everything explicit for readers as if readers know nothing about what they are writing, as required in English academic writing. The English approach does not constitute respect in Vietnamese writing.

If Australian academics insist that Vietnamese students must follow the Australian way of writing, they need to consider that it is impossible to exclude cultural factors that are both consciously and unconsciously absorbed in every single student's writing habits, habits which are more or less influenced by a different culture. Even if Vietnamese students, like the participants in this study, do follow the standards for English academic writing, they tend to maintain some characteristics of their native language styles. They are bound by their culture to do certain things. This is their voice, their confidence. They own their writing. If their voices are not to be silenced, their writing should be assessed with recognition of the validity of cross-cultural variation.

Knowledge of individual students' writing experience

Australian academics should have a greater understanding of the prior writing experience and knowledge of students in both their native and English languages, in order to assist their writing and give them fairer assessment of their writing. One of the ways to obtain such data is by giving overseas students questionnaires concerning their writing experience, for example during orientation weeks. Such data can help academics and staff arrange their support system, and assessment criteria. Lecturers could also ask students directly what kind of things they expect to include in an academic essay, and collect their answers. This would be a most useful way to get closer to students' writing experience. Another solution may be that language and learning staff in universities should be divided into different teams to help different groups of overseas students who share some similarities in academic writing in the first language. Finally inservices for academics regarding cross-cultural elements in writing should be provided to all staff and academics.

Due to time constraints and the limited length of this study, it was impossible for the researcher to research the perceptions of other Vietnamese postgraduate students in various disciplines and Vietnamese undergraduate students. Further research along these lines would be useful. Until such research is done, I leave the reader with a letter that could be presented to teachers of postgraduate students from Vietnam, in the hope that it would facilitate a greater understanding of the ways in which such students might prefer to write, and understanding of what they need to know about in order to write successfully in their courses. The letter is presented as one that might come from an individual student (Phan, 1999).

Dear Lecturer,

I am an overseas postgraduate student from Vietnam. I would like to share with you the way I wrote academic Vietnamese essays in my first degree, so that you would have a general understanding of how I write in my language, and would give me explicit instructions about how you expect me to write in your subject.

In Vietnamese universities, we are generally not taught how to write an academic essay. We follow the general structure of an essay with the introduction, the body, and the conclusion but we have to find our own ways to develop it. Vietnamese writing values the qualities of `indirectness' and `implicitness', which contribute to the `tactful' characteristic of our people. These are also considered `respect' and `politeness' in writing as expected by the society.

For this reason, Vietnamese students do not often show criticism in their writing because of cultural and socio-cultural reasons, which expect students not to reformulate existing knowledge as a sign of respect and politeness. Also, collectivism is important in social relations with the emphasis on `us' and `ours', but not `me' and `my' as reflected in western individualism.

Referencing is not strictly required in Vietnamese writing, so Vietnamese students do not provide detailed and sufficient references in their writing. This is not considered as `plagiarism' since the society does not set its own rules for people to write.

Above is how I normally write in Vietnamese. I may employ some of these characteristics when I write English. You may even enjoy some of them, especially those which give my writing an individual `flavour'. However, you may need to tell me which characteristics conflict with the features of academic writing you most value. I would be very grateful if you could give me detailed guidance of how you expect me to write in your subject.

Yours sincerely, Vietnamese postgraduate student

Keywords

cross cultural studies cultural background graduate study English for academic purposes student writing models writing skills

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Rosemary Viete, Lesley Farrell, Margeret Gearon, and Tern Seddon for their helpful comments on the earlier draft of this paper.

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Author

Phan Le Ha is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria 3168.