Researching Plagiarism and Technology in Second Language Writing: “Becomings”
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Researching Plagiarism and Technology in Second Language Writing: “Becomings” Eugenia Vasilopoulos Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in Second Language Education Faculty of Education University of Ottawa © Eugenia Vasilopoulos, Ottawa, Canada, 2021 ii Abstract This dissertation is an experimentation in plugging in the work of Deleuze (1990, 1994, 1995), Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 1983, 1994) to create new concepts and methods in educational research. In doing so, I experiment in ‘the real’ through the process of learning, by designing, conducting, and reporting a qualitative empirical study on how second language (L2) writers in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program engage with technology in their academic writing, and how plagiarism may, or may not, relate to this process. As such, the research objectives of this study can be understood as: 1) to think differently about the interconnections between plagiarism and technology in L2 writing; and 2) to see what happens to the research when we do so. At the heart of this study, and forming the onto-epistemological lens for inquiry, is a philosophy of immanence, transcendental empiricism, difference, and the actual/virtual. Additional concepts -- assemblage, becoming, affect, rhizome, molar/molecular, order-word, smooth/striated, event, learning, nomad, and war machine – are deployed to reconceptualize how plagiarism and technology shape L2 students’ writing, as well as the treatment of plagiarism within academic learning and educational research. In more concrete terms, this study was conducted at a university-affiliated EAP program designed for international students who hold conditional-admission to their respective degree programs. Seven students and their teachers were recruited over the course of two semesters. Data sources include ongoing in-depth interviews, document analysis of students’ drafts, screen-cast recordings of the students’ writing process, and a researcher diary. Rhizoanalysis, a Deleuzian inspired non-method (Masny, 2016), was used to read the data and map connections between elements. Five cartographic mappings in lieu of ‘findings’ are presented. These mappings do not attempt to provide a complete picture of reality represented in the data, but instead seeks to disrupt and problematize, and then create open space to think of what might be happening and how it might be happening differently. Seemingly straightforward ‘data’ is complicated in terms of: 1) the affective force of plagiarism; 2) the conditions for learning; 3) digital-tools and plagiarism detection; 4) the materiality of text; and 5) researcher-becoming. Consistent with the call for concept creation to generate new thinking, I propose the concept of virtual-plagiarism to un-do our habit of tracing texts (as a response to alleged plagiarism) and move towards mapping the elements, intensities, forces, and flows by which plagiarism is actualized. Put to work, the concept of virtual-plagiarism de/reterritorializes both the student writers’ assemblage and the researcher assemblage, and ultimately disrupts the pedagogic and research practices in L2 academic iii writing that have long bound the issue of plagiarism to student ethics and/or student aptitude and intention. Just as this project aspires to rethink how plagiarism and technology shape L2 students’ writing and how this phenomenon can be researched, it also invites the reader to follow suit and reimagine how Deleuze- inspired methods and concepts can affect (their own) teaching and educational research practices. iv Acknowledgements My first and truly sincere thanks go to my supervisor, Francis Bangou, who believed in me enough to introduce me to the work of Deleuze. From the beginning, he has provided invaluable guidance, unwavering support, and more enthusiasm for this project and Deleuze-inspired educational research than I could imagine. In a strange way, as my most vocal supporter, he is also the person who pushed me to the point of agonizing deterritorialization to experiment and think-feel research in ways that I, only years earlier, assumed impossible, implausible, or irrelevant. Indeed, his intellectual rigor, ceaseless curiosity, and steadfast commitment have shaped this dissertation to make it what it has become. I sincerely thank him for contributing to these transformations. I also wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the other members of my thesis committee: Monica Waterhouse, whose scholarship on Deleuze in educational research has served as a benchmark that I will always aspire to; Stephanie Arnott, for her constructive feedback, eye for detail, and leadership; and Richard Barwell, for his astute comments at key moments during this whole process, and constant reminders that while rhizomes can liberate, they can also be oppressive. Generous and genuine thanks to the students and instructor who accepted to be part of the study at the origin of this dissertation. They allowed a view into private or professional aspects of their lives; without their trust in me as a researcher, this study would be baseless. Immense thanks to M., who has patiently listened to me talk about this dissertation for years and never once looked remotely bored. What would this project be if I didn’t have your intellectual and emotional support? Hugs to R., E. and Q., for their more-than-human companionship and what they bring to my life. To my loving family in Toronto, who has given me more than I could ask for, yet still have no idea what I’ve been working on all this time. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my profound indebtedness to Diana Masny, who, despite being a world-renowned scholar of Deleuze and language education, saw the importance in connecting with the most novice in the field, including me back in 2013. For her ground-breaking work and her personal touch, this dissertation is dedicated to her memory. In the assemblage, we never write alone. v Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... xiv List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... xv Plateau 1: Encounters With Problems: Experimentations in Thinking and Learning With Deleuze .............................................................................................................................................1 Problem(s) in/With Learning ........................................................................................................ 1 The Problem of/With/in Plagiarism for L2 Student Writers ......................................................... 6 Learning How to Write ............................................................................................................. 6 Intellectual challenges in American academic writing............................................................. 6 Technological Entanglements .................................................................................................. 8 Own Words .............................................................................................................................. 9 Situating a Problem (and/in Existing Scholarship): Contextualizing the Study .......................... 11 Thinking and Learning in the Here and Now: Research Objective ............................................. 13 Forecasting What’s to Come: Organization of the Study ........................................................... 15 Tracing Plateaus ......................................................................................................................... 17 Intermezzo: A Different Way of Reading ............................................................................... 20 Plateau 2: Encounters with Reading (Literature Review) ....................................................... 22 Second Language Writing in Higher Education.......................................................................... 22 Second Language (L2) Writing in EAP .................................................................................... 22 Approaches to L2 Academic Writing ...................................................................................... 23 Cognitive Perspectives of Reading to/for Writing ............................................................. 23 Cognitive Issues in L2 Academic Reading to Writing and Plagiarism ..................................... 25 Integrating Source Reading Into Students’ Own Writing Is a Demanding Cognitive Task . 25 Socially Situated Approaches to Writing .................................................................................... 27 vi Academic Literacies ............................................................................................................... 28 Digital Disruption and the Reshaping of Academic Writing ...................................................... 30 Writing in the Digital Age: Digital Literacies .......................................................................... 30 A Framework for Digital Literacies in Language Studies .......................................................