English for Academic Purposes: The Challenge of Paraphrasing

Abstract

Over the past two decades, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has experienced an important growth becoming a central element of L2 students’ higher education. These students seem to find in citation, a vital area of EAP, great challenges to overcome, being paraphrasing the most demanding strategy. The present dissertation aims to delve into L2 paraphrasing practices by reviewing relevant research on this issue. These show the struggles that L2 students undergo before paraphrasing successfully, most of them dealing with linguistic and academic literacy. With the lack of understanding of the purpose of paraphrasing being the most relevant of these problems, students also have to face the fear of being accused of plagiarism and confidence issues that prevent them from using their own words. Besides, this dissertation will deal with the role of teachers throughout the learning process of this citation strategy. In order to examine the aforesaid issues, I will carry out a brief case study about L2 students’ reporting verbs use to introduce paraphrases, which, in some cases, creates a conflict with the reported author’s original idea.