Recognizing Academic Literacy; the Nature and Essence

In this paper, the concept "Academic Literacy" will be deeply studied. In this way, we will provide a historical perspective with the roots of the evolution of academic literacy derived from the relevant theoretical literature. Nevertheless, most importantly, in this article, we will seek to define academic literacy by describing very different perspectives, approaches and patterns that implies this very complex term. Then, we will look at the concept "literacy" derived from "New Literacy Studies", we will focus on academic discourses in relation to the scope of academic literacy, and we will focus on the role of "language competencies" in the development of academic literacy. At the end of the paper, later works on academic literacy will be discussed, and we will examine the issue of "the status of academic literacy in Iran's higher education system" with a critical interpretation. Therefore, all the issues discussed in this paper provide an appropriate perspective through which empirical work in this area of "academic development" can be analyzed.