Academic Style Proofreading as a Practice of Intercultural Translation and Metalinguistic Awareness

It is increasingly frequent for non-native academics to receive requests to revise and correct papers that have been translated and revised by a native speaker before submission. This proves that “good academic English” is changing in the international academic context, and research in ERPP (English for Research Publication Purposes) has explored the challenges and occasional injustices that non-native academics face when publishing in English, and the international academic community’s perception of their linguistic competence. To realign disciplinary EAP to such a perception, it is necessary to address a gap in ESP and EAP learning and teaching that lies in “style”, a subtle level of communication positioned between language and discourse and detected by reviewers and editors (Nørgaard et al. 2010). “Academic style” differs from “style” in literature and everyday discourse and may be investigated through corpus stylistics (McIntyre and Walker 2019), a methodology that is as flexible and elusive as its object of inquiry, starting from error analysis (Allen and Corder 1974; Corder 1981). It is also connected with an academic’s “mind style” (Jeffries and McIntyre 2010), which is influenced by his or her cultural background and encompasses explicit and implicit deviations from the international community’s expectations. In such a context, “academic style proofreading”, which ensures a manuscript’s suitability for submission and publication, represents a form of linguistic and stylistic translation and mediation (Doerr 2023). This study provides empirical evidence of and explanations for common errors in academic style and their related cultural interferences and transfers. It is based on a corpus of papers on management, corporate governance and sustainable development written by Italian scholars and stylistically proofread before publication in peer-reviewed business journals. The study concludes with reflections on the practical and research implications and advantages of implementing academic style proofreading to improve academic writing and raise awareness of intercultural differences in mind style and academic style.