Coping with on-the-job writing in ESL: A constructivist-semiotic perspective

Despite a long-standing interest within applied linguistics in the analysis of written genres, few studies have attempted to show how such genres are appropriated by new members in academic or workplace settings. Based on a 2 2-month qualitative study, this article reports on how francophone nurses, who were newly hired in an English-medium hospital in Montreal, Canada, dev eloped skill in writing nursing notes (which differed from the way they wer e done in French) in English. Central to the analysis is the construct of m ediation, explored in terms of how collaborative processes, both overt and covert, shape text production as well as other less visible, taken-for-gran ted aspects of the social context.