COUNTERING COMMODIFICATION IN EAP: THE NEED TO EXPLORE, INNOVATE AND TRANSFORM
INTRODUCTION
Drawing on the requirements outlined by Scharnhorst, Börner and van den Besselaar (2012), we have previously argued that English for Academic Purposes is a bona fide academic field of study – ‘a branch of knowledge, which is taught and researched at the college or university level’, and which is ‘recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments to which their practitioners [researchers] belong’ (p. xi). Given the current state of research, publication and praxis-related presentations at symposia and conferences, it is clear that EAP meets these proposed threshold characteristics of an academic field. Therefore, in considering the current state of EAP, there would appear to be much to celebrate. English for Academic Purposes is now an established discipline that appears
to offer ever-increasing career opportunities for practitioners, the quality of courses is overseen by a professional body; and EAP as a business appears to be booming. However, despite this current, seemingly buoyant state of EAP, Hadley (2015) suggests that many EAP practitioners seem to be suffering from a sense of ‘professional disarticulation’ (p. 57). This arises from change processes affecting people’s professional identities, often involving the transfer of EAP from academic schools or departments to some other ‘third space’ within the university, sometimes as privatized units that have a greater ‘service provider’ and ‘student recruitment’ remit. It seems to be the case that EAP units can often be the victims of their own success. The greater the ‘success’ that EAP units achieve, the more likely it is that they will be assigned a more commercial, service- provider role or even be sold to private
