Unpacking advising: Boundaries as a key resource in academic supervision

Zhang, Yan (Olivia) and Hyland, Ken (2025) Unpacking advising: Boundaries as a key resource in academic supervision. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. ISSN 0802-6106

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Abstract

Supervisory advice-giving is a dynamic yet delicate activity that helps to build boundaries of thinking and acting within which students acquire and articulate their academic knowledge. While research has examined features of advice-giving in academic contexts, it remains unclear how participants co-construct different boundaries to reshape knowledge through advice exchanges. Drawing on detailed case studies using observations, interviews and discourse analyses of supervisions offered to two master’s students, this study explores how multi-layered boundaries (cognitive, epistemic, role, practice, knowledge) help convey supervisors’ and students’ authority and independence. Findings show students balance the supervisors’ epistemic authority with their own knowledge claims. Negotiating this tension helps to recreate an interactional space where both parties introduce or exclude resources to diminish the knowledge imbalance and shape writing decisions.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability Statement: All data analyzed in this study are included in this published article. They are not publicly available due to the confidentiality of the data (i.e., participants’ research project information).
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Language in Education
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Sep 2025 09:30
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2025 09:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100555
DOI:	10.1111/ijal.12806

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