Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2010), 30, 169–192. © Cambridge University Press, 2010, 0267-1905/10 $16.00 doi:10.1017/S0267190510000048 Language Socialization into Academic Discourse Communities Patricia A. Duff Although much has been written about academic discourse from diverse the- oretical perspectives over the past two decades, and especially about English academic discourse, research on socialization into academic discourse or lit- eracies in one’s first or subsequently learned languages or into new discourse communities has received far less attention. Academic discourse socialization is a dynamic, socially situated process that in contemporary contexts is often multimodal, multilingual, and highly intertextual as well. The process is charac- terized by variable amounts of modeling, feedback, and uptake; different levels of investment and agency on the part of learners; by the negotiation of power and identities; and, often, important personal transformations for at least some participants. However, the consequences and outcomes of academic discourse socialization are also quite unpredictable, both in the shorter term and longer term. In this review I provide a brief historical overview of research on language socialization into academic communities and describe, in turn, developments in research on socialization into oral, written, and online discourse and the social practices associated with each mode. I highlight issues of conformity or reproduction to local norms and practices versus resistance and contestation of these. Next, studies of socialization into academic publication and into par- ticular textual identities are reviewed. I conclude with a short discussion of race, culture, gender, and academic discourse socialization, pointing out how social positioning by oneself and others can affect participants’ engagement and performance in their various learning communities. INTRODUCTION Academic discourse, and especially English academic discourse, has been ex- amined from a number of theoretical perspectives over the past two decades in applied linguistics, particularly at the postsecondary level (e.g., Hyland, 2006), socialization being one of the more recent. Basic questions this latter work addresses are the following: How do newcomers to an academic culture learn how to participate successfully in the oral and written discourse and related practices of that discourse community? How are they socialized, explic- itly or implicitly, into these local discursive practices? How does interaction 169