Resources and agency in English academic writing socialization: EAL students in Hong Kong higher education

This paper investigates the English academic writing experiences of a group of English as an additional language (EAL) international students studying in an English-medium university in Hong Kong, with a focus on their use of resources for their academic writing socialization and the role of agency in their appropriation of these resources. Informed by the theoretical framework of academic discourse socialization, the study drew on semi-structured interviews with the students as the main source of data. The findings reveal that the students drew on a range of social resources (i.e., institutional and personal social resources) and material resources (i.e., digital and textual resources) to develop their academic writing competence. It is found that these different resources are often inextricably interrelated with each other. The findings also suggest that agency plays an important role in students’ mobilization of these resources and manifests itself in a number of ways, including noticing, selecting, goal-setting and evaluating. It is argued that given its role in students’ strategic and goal-oriented use of resources, agency can be seen as a key element of their self-socialization (or self-directed socialization) into academic writing practices. The findings of the study have implications for maximizing EAL students’ access to relevant social and material resources and enhancing their agency in academic writing development.