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Normative approaches to academic writing have mostly focused on the linguistic and discursive aspects of student writing, from text organization and lexicogrammatical correctness to cohesion, coherence and style. In contrast, the academic literacies approach regards writing not simply as a set of skills but as a significant part of the students’ learning process that enables them to develop their own voice, in opposition to well-established academic conventions and institutional constraints. The present paper outlines the old and new directions of the academic literacies agenda in relation to English-medium academic publishing, and explores some of the aspects that could be prioritized to give equal opportunities for publication to junior researchers based in Italy. In particular, the reflective assignments of the postgraduate students at the University of Napoli Federico II and a doctoral students’ survey on writing for research publication were used to investigate their major concerns over practical and ideological issues. The findings also suggest a way of providing novice researchers with a rewarding writing experience throughout their academic careers.

Much has been written about the Our Father (also referred to as the Lord’s Prayer) as it represents a personal and public dialogue with God in daily prayer and liturgy. While its theological and spiritual aspects have been thoroughly investigated, their cultural implications for different speech communities have been disregarded. This study aims to compare the English, Italian, and French versions of the Lord’s Prayer in the Catholic Church in an attempt to examine the role that culture is bound to play in shaping religious response and tracing a preferential interpretive pathway through a sacred text. This comparative analysis is focused on lexical choice and metaphorical imagery and integrated by an examination of the wider co-text, the Bible. The analysis has shown that the versions of the Lord’s Prayer present distinctive features possibly reflective of deeply-ingrained cultural attitudes such as the appeal for elevation in the English prayer, the dual tension between deference and solidarity in the Italian prayer, and the inclination for a grand narrative of heroes and anti-heroes in the French prayer. The study concludes that renewed attention to Christian sources could help bridge the gap between religion and culture, and reconcile our spiritual and social identities in post-secular societies.