
Prf Theresa Lillis
Professor (English Lang/app Linguistics)
School of Languages & Applied Linguistics
Biography
Professional biography
I am Professor Emeritus of English Language and Applied Linguistics at The Open University.
My main research area is writing. I have been researching writing for some 25 years from a perspective that can be summarized as the politics of access, location, production and participation. I’m committed to using ethnography as an overarching research methodology and have an ongoing interest in developing ‘text oriented ethnographic approaches’, using a range of methods. I've written about what we mean by 'writing' , for example in The sociolinguistics of writing, EUP (2013) and 'Resistir regímenes de evaluación en el estudio del escribir: hacia un imaginario enriquecido', Signo y pensamiento, (2018) 36 (71) 66-81.
I have been involved in three main areas of empirical study.
STUDENT WRITING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
ACADEMIC WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
WRITING IN SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Research interests
Current research and writing centres on:
- Academic literacies
- Academic writing for publication in a global context
- Professional social work writing
- Multi/translingual writing
Teaching interests
I am not currently involved in teaching.
Impact and engagement
My main impact work centres on writing practices in professional social work. For the past 3 years I have been working on the WRAM project- Write Right About Me- a multi agency project aimed at improving the writing and record making about children and youing people, co-ordinated by Miriam Smith, Aberdeen City Council.
Publications
Book
Global academic publishing: policies, perspectives and pedagogies (2017)
Working With Academic Literacies: Case Studies Towards Transformative Practice (2016)
The Politics of Language and Creativity in a Globalised World (2016)
The Sociolinguistics of Writing (2013)
A scholars’ guide to getting published in English: critical choices and practical strategies (2013)
Academic Writing in a Global Context: The politics and practices of publishing in English (2010)
Applied linguistics methods: A reader (2009)
Why Writing Matters: Issues of access and identity in writing research and pedagogy (2009)
A dictionary of sociolinguistics (2004)
Teaching Academic Writing: A Toolkit for Higher Education (2003)
Language, literacy and education: A reader (2003)
Book Chapter
The language of social work (2026)
Academic literacies: a critical lens for a global academy (2025)
Prefacio. Herramientas para construir una pedagogía inclusiva de la escritura (2021)
Problematizing English as the Privileged Language of Global Academic Publishing (2017)
Academic writing for publication in a multilingual world (2016)
Academic Literacies: a critical lens on writing and reading in the academy (2016)
Creativity in political discourse (2016)
Learning from lecturers: What disciplinary practice can teach us about ‘good’ student writing (2015)
Bringing writers' voices to writing research: Talk around texts (2009)
Writers and meaning making in the context of online learning (2009)
Academic writing in English (2007)
'Academic Literacies' Research as Pedagogy: Dialogues of Participation (2006)
Communicative competence (2005)
Student status and the question of choice in academic writing (2005)
Voices, intertextuality and induction into schooling (2003)
Planning the assessment of student writing (2003)
Academic writing in an electronic environment (2003)
Introduction: mapping the traditions of a social perspective on language and literacy (2003)
Dataset
Writing in professional social work practice in a changing communicative landscape (WiSP)
Journal Article
Direct quotations in social work writing: multi-functionality and double voicing (2025)
Multilingualism in academic writing for publication: Putting English in its place (2024)
Professional written voice ‘in flux’: the case of social work (2023)
The dynamics of academic knowledge making in a multilingual world: chronotypes of production (2022)
Writing as a critical moment in professional discourse (2021)
Time, the Written Record, and Professional Practice: The Case of Contemporary Social Work (2020)
Exploring the core ‘preoccupation’ of social work writing: A corpus-assisted discourse study (2020)
‘Academic literacies’: sustaining a critical space on writing in academia (2019)
Book Review of 'On Writtenness: The Cultural Politics of Academic Writing' by Joan Turner (2019)
Unpacking the lore on multilingual scholars publishing in English: A discussion paper (2019)
Gender and academic writing (2018)
Resistir regímenes de evaluación en el estudio del escribir: hacia un imaginario enriquecido (2017)
Strategies and tactics in academic knowledge production by multilingual scholars (2014)
A case study of a research-based collaboration around writing in social work (2011)
Academic research networks: Accessing resources for English-medium publishing (2010)
Defining academic literacies research: issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy (2007)
Reframing notions of competence in scholarly writing: From individual to networked activity (2006)
Student Writing as 'Academic Literacies': Drawing on Bakhtin to Move from Critique to Design (2003)
Student writing in higher education: contemporary confusion, traditional concerns (2001)
Writing in professional social work practice in a changing communicative landscape (WISP)
Presentation / Conference
Writing in contemporary social work: texts, technologies and trajectories (2017)