Academic criticism is a fundamental feature of scholarly discourse. It plays a key role in scientific theory building, whereby ideas are iteratively challenged and redrafted (Kuhn, 1962, 1970). It is also how individual scholars create a research space (see the CARS model, Swales, 1990) and establish themselves as members of the research…

Analyzes essays and responses to cloze passages by second language learners to determine how speakers of various backgrounds establish a past-time discourse frame. Argues that speakers of Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, and Japanese may conceptualize time domains differently from English speakers and that students must learn that objective time and…