Chapter 7 wraps up the main theoretical and methodological arguments raised in the previous chapters concerning the evolutionary nature of genres in order to set an agenda for future joint research on research genres and languages of science. Some final reflections on ecological diversity, the ‘multilingualisation of science’ and ways of managing language diversity in research communication will validate previous seminal conceptualisations of genre. In closing, the chapter will underline the need to deploy systematic and robust methodologies when conducting genre research, in the belief that this will give greater rigour to the outcomes of future enquiries into research genres across languages.

Chapter 1 situates research genres in today’s rapidly changing technological and social contexts. The aim of the chapter is to set the scene in which research genres enact social actions, particularly through new media environments, and to focus on systems of genres of research that are evolving in response to the multiple accountabilities of scientific knowledge production, dissemination and consumption today. In reviewing some of the consequences of globalisation, this chapter briefly reviews the particular conditions that post-globalisation processes – for example, skilled migration and the boost in researchers’ mobility – have created in academic and research settings. The chapter also briefly describes the effects of such processes on researchers’ socioliterate activity at a time of unprecedented sociocultural and sociolinguistic diversity.

Chapter 2 revises some seminal definitions of ‘genre’ and key conceptualisations in genre theory, such as ‘genres as frames for social action’, ‘intended audiences’ and ‘communicative purpose(s)’. The intention is to introduce and reflect upon recent conceptualisations of web-mediated generified activity – for example, ‘genre remediation’, ‘transmediality’, ‘polycontextuality’ and ‘context collapse’, among others – from the perspective of structuration theory. This chapter also expands on Swales’s understanding of metaphors of genre to critically address the aspects of generic evolution, hybridisation and change. The chapter also critically reflects on the concepts of ‘language collusion’ and ‘language collisions’ and draws on the metaphors of genre(s) and language(s) ecologies to explain the emergence of new genres on the web, the evolution of traditional genres, the interdependence between traditional and new genres and, more importantly, the creation of complex genre assemblages that support multilingual science communication on Web 2.0.

Chapter 6 outlines some specialised language planning and course design proposals involving genre-based approaches to Languages for Academic Purposes (LAP) instruction and/or communication training. Essentially, this chapter sketches out some aspects that instruction should take on board, placing the focus on the language and the rhetoric of traditional genres and on the use of data-driven learning tasks involving multilingual text composing. The chapter includes several tasks involving the text-composing practice of remediated and web-mediated emerging genres, as well as hands-on activities for developing writing skills in ASNSs and social media networking. The chapter also provides some reflective tasks involving both familiarisation and practice with digital resources for multimodal text composing. In closing, the chapter advocates the use of assessment methods and self-assessment reflective tools that can be conceptualised as ‘plurilingual portfolios of genre assemblages’ and ‘portfolios of multiliteracies’. These tools can foster independent, self-directed, lifelong learning and support academics and researchers’ professional development throughout their lifespan.

Chapter 5 expands on Johns’s socioliterate view of writing development to integrate her view within the mutually beneficial fields of genre theory or analysis and broader fields such as Second Language Acquisition, rhetoric and composition studies. Using survey research, this chapter explores researchers’ writing strategies and resources to compose traditional and new digital genres in one or more languages. In acknowledging the pedagogical value of individual experiences accumulated in writing practices, this chapter also attaches value to ‘generic interdiscursivity’, as prior genre knowledge can scaffold the composing process of other genres, both written, spoken and hybrid, through strategies of connectivity across discursive practice. The chapter critically supports Gentil’s important claim of ‘biliteracy’ in genre practices, or the use of previous genre knowledge in one language to compose genres in other languages. Corpus data illustrate aspects of multimodal rhetoric and the construction of visual scientific arguments in multisemiotic genres and in multilingual genre sets.

Chapter 3 frames the role of research genres within the broader social views of Giddens’s structuration theory and Russell’s activity theory to show how genres act within highly articulated social systems. The chapter seeks to validate the assumption that the processes underlying generic forms are paramount for assessing how researchers today draw on language repertoires to communicate their research work locally and globally in the physical and the virtual space. The discussion of this chapter revolves around the interdependence between traditional genres and what Miller and Kelly define as emerging genres in new media environments. Analogies with concepts from the field of literary criticism serve to clarify how emerging digital genres can be conceptualised as ‘generic hybrids’ as they draw on features of existing genres and enhance those genres using the multimodal and hypertextual possibilities of the Internet. The chapter finally addresses transformative practice in science communication to illustrate emerging forms of social interaction between scientists and science stakeholders.

Chapter 4 examines the situatedness of communicative practices to discuss the central role of languages in the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The concept of ‘fluid societies’ and Blommaert’s ‘sociolinguistics of mobility’ paradigm are used to propose a timely definition of academic and research settings as ‘fluid communities’ that engage in translingual and multilingual genre-mediated interactions. A critical review of the status and functions of English in the language ecology of such interactions introduces some reflections on language-related aspects – languaging practices, processes of language macroacquisition and coalescence of languages – that intersect with generified activity. Corpus and ethnographic (survey) data are used to describe ‘glocal’ and ‘translocal’ language use, language variation and change in and across genres. In contesting the monolingual habitus and foregrounding the plurilingual realities, the chapter closes with some final thoughts on the fact that ‘languages are still a major barrier to global science’.