Identity Construction in Academic Writing of Student Writers Who Use English as an Additional Language: A Literature Review1

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-524
Author(s):  
Fangzhi He
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Audience Awareness ◽  
Writer Identities

Abstract Academic writing is social interaction between writer and reader, during which writers can employ discursive and non-discursive features to construct their identities. However, many student writers who are users of English as an additional language (EAL) may find it challenging to construct their identities in academic writing. Properly constructed identity in academic writing can help EAL student writers develop a stronger sense of self, exercise their agency, and negotiate the academic discourse. Therefore, this paper reviews empirical studies on EAL student writers’ identity construction when they write in English to investigate the features of identities that EAL student writers construct in texts and the factors that influence their identity construction. The findings show that, compared with expert writers and native-English-speaking (NES) counterparts, EAL student writers tend to present a weak authorial identity. Furthermore, EAL student writers tend to be more engaged with texts than with readers and lack commitment to their claims. The identities that EAL student writers construct in academic writing are also interwoven with EAL students’ English proficiency levels, educational experience, disciplinary conventions, genre affordances, and audience awareness. The findings of this literature review can help teachers and educators raise EAL students’ identity awareness and facilitate students in strategically constructing writer identities in academic writing.

scholarly journals The Prevalence and Frequency of Authorial Identity among Undergraduate Students in Fiji

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Jasbir Karneil Singh ◽  
Ben K. Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
First Year ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
National University ◽  
Authorial Voice

Expressing an authoritative voice is an essential part of academic writing at university. However, the performance of the authorial self in writing is complex yet fundamental to academic success as a large part of academic assessment involves writing to the academy. More specifically, the performance of the authorial self can be complex for English as a Second Language (ESL) student-writers. This research investigated the extent to which ESL first-year students at the Fiji National University perform their authorial voice using interactional metadiscourse in their academic writing. The study employed a quantitative analysis of corpus produced by 16 Fijian ESL undergraduate students enrolled in an EAP course. The research found that the ESL authorial voice was predominantly expressed through boosters and attitude markers, with relatively little usage of other interactional metadiscoursal elements such as hedges, engagement markers and self-mentions. Further, the research showed that this particular cohort expressed their authorial voice and identity through boosted arguments and avoiding language that directly mentions the authorial self. The study concludes that the ESL authorial self for this cohort manifests itself in a selected range of selected interactional metadiscoursal elements, requiring the need to raise the awareness of self-reflective expressions for ESL students. The study also encourages further exploration of ESL authorial identity construction in academic writing at undergraduate level and beyond.

Chinese MA Student Writers’ Identity Construction in Citation Practices1

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-385
Author(s):  
Qingrong Liu ◽  
Liming Deng
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Disciplinary Identity ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
Citation Practices ◽  
Mixed Approach ◽  
Ma Thesis ◽  
Thesis Writing

Abstract Based on Burgess and Ivanič’s (2010) framework of the discoursal construction of writer identity, this paper explores the interaction between citation practices and identity construction in Chinese EFL learners’ MA thesis writing. A mixed approach of textual analysis and interviews was adopted to examine the citation features of MA theses and the identities Chinese EFL learners constructed through citation selection. It was found that students’ selection of citations reflects their linguistic identity, academic and disciplinary identity, as well as novice identity. Their citation practices project different discursive selves to readers. By adjusting the number and relevance of references, they intend to construct a knowledgeable and credible self. The use of ineffective citations and references not only projects an unfavorable impression on readers but reflects a lack of authorial identity. This study has significant implications for the teaching of academic English and the supervision of thesis writing.

scholarly journals Writer Identity Construction in EFL Doctoral Thesis Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-36
Author(s):  
Daping Wu ◽  
Adcharawan Buripakdi
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Writer Identity ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Thesis Writing

Research on EFL doctoral thesis writing is booming. The literature indicates a link between doctoral thesis writing and identity formation. Despite the call for scholarly attention on doctoral thesis writers, writers of doctoral theses in English as a Foreign language (EFL) settings have not been well represented in the previous studies. Moreover, although writer identity has been proposed as consisting of four aspects, most of the research has mainly adopted a corpus approach to discuss the discoursal self or authorial identity. To bridge these gaps, this study explored how multicultural writers at a university in Thailand constructed identity through EFL doctoral thesis writing and how their multiple aspects of writer identity interplayed. With the data triangulated from a questionnaire, written narratives, and semi-structured interviews, the study revealed that 1) multiple identities are developed through writers’ self-adjustment and social acculturation; 2) passive alignment to institutional conventions leads to an actual distancing from discoursal construction of writer identity; 3) self-marginalization as EFL learners, negative external voices, and the role of student writer most hinder the development and representation of the authorial self. The research recommends EFL learners should be explicitly informed of the notions of constructing an authorial voice in the writing of doctoral theses. Keywords writer identity; identity construction; EFL doctoral thesis writing; novice writer; non-native English-speaking context

scholarly journals Analysing authorial identity construction in the review article genre in Applied Linguistics

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Ali Sorayyaei Azar ◽  
Azirah Hashim
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
Review Articles ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Academic Review ◽  
First Person Plural

Authorial identity construction is one of many professional rhetorical strategies employed by authors in academic review genres. Authors usually create a persona to represent themselves, their seniority in the field, and the community to which they belong. The author’s visibility is made possible through several rhetorical devices. Perhaps the most remarkable way of such authorial identity construction in the review article genre is self-mentions. The aims of this research are (1) to find out what types of self-mention are frequently used in review articles, (2) to determine the frequency of use and distribution of self-mentions in the review articles, and (3) to investigate the rhetorical function of self-mentions in the different analytical sections of the review articles. The data, drawn from a randomly selected corpus of thirty-two review articles, were analysed using WordSmith Tools Version 6. The findings indicated that first-person plural pronouns were more frequently used than singular pronouns in the whole corpus except in the two review texts. It was also observed that the frequency of occurrence for the exclusive and inclusive pronouns was very close to each other. Most importantly, the inclusive pronouns were used not only as a politeness strategy to appreciate the readers and keep the writers’ claims balanced but also as a persuasive tool to seek the readers’ agreement in the evaluation of research developments. This study revealed that authors construct various professional personas as a rhetorical strategy to carve their authorial identity and credibility in the review article genre. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications in the field of academic writing in applied linguistics as well as other disciplines. 

scholarly journals Identity (Re)Construction of Female Adolescents with Substance Use Disorders

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 7022
Author(s):  
Danielle Treiber ◽  
Lize A. E. Booysen
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Substance Use Disorders ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Female Adolescents ◽  
Situational Analysis ◽  
Developmental Milestone ◽  
Practical Implications

Identity formation is a developmental milestone for adolescents, and their identities are constructed and re-constructed through their interactions with others and contextual factors in their environment. When considering adolescents with substance use disorders (SUD), often this developmental milestone is misappropriated, misunderstood, and misrepresented. The purpose of this article was to explore how adolescents with substance use disorders form identity and construct a sense of self. Firstly, we explored the identity formation and reconstruction of 20 female adolescents with SUDs based on an in-depth grounded theory methodology (GTM) which included a situational analysis (SA). Secondly, we offered a theoretical model to explain identity construction and reconstruction of adolescents with SUDs that emerged from this research. We conclude this article with practical implications for treatment, and care of adolescents with SUDs.

Occupation and Ethnicity: Constructing Identity among Professional Romani (Gypsy) Musicians in Romania

Slavic Review ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret H. Beissinger
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
East European ◽  
The World ◽  
Boundary Making

Based on fieldwork (primarily in southern Romania), this article treats identity-construction among professional male Romani musicians, investigating in particular the discourse that they generate as they maintain their exclusive vocational niche on the boundaries of intersecting ethnic communities. Seeking to establish the influence of Romani musicians as agents in the construction of their own identity, Beissinger discusses notions that Romani musicians provide of non-Roms and other Roms (including other musicians), as well as how they portray surrounding cultural and political phenomena as expressions of their syncretic occupational and ethnic sense of self. Beissinger argues that Romani musicians are unquestionably enclosed by socially inflicted boundaries but are themselves also agents of boundary-making as they articulate connections with and distinctions from the world around them. Throughout, she draws pertinent comparisons with Romani musicians in other east European countries.

‘Eww wtf, what a dumb bitch’: a case study of similitudes inside gender-specific swearing patterns on Twitter

Corpora ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-61
Author(s):  
Michael Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
The Way

Contrary to the idea which has been widespread for at least a hundred years that women differ substantially from men when they express themselves in English-speaking contexts (e.g., Jespersen, 1922 ; and Steadman, 1935 ), empirical studies have shown that these differences are often minimal and are not due to gender alone (e.g., Eckert, 2008 ; and Baker, 2014 ). This also frequently applies to the way they swear, despite certain preferences which have been documented in empirical studies. With the growing impact that social media now has in our everyday lives, these represent a unique opportunity to study vast quantities of written data. This paper is based on a corpus of about one-million tweets and is an attempt to delve deeper into the analysis of gendered swearword habits. First, the goal is to show that even if there are certain gendered preferences in terms of the choice of swearwords, women and men frequently display similar patterns in using them, thus reinforcing the idea that they are not so linguistically different. Secondly, this paper provides insights into how collocational networks can be used to achieve this, and thus how focussing on differences can be one way to spot similarities across two sub-corpora.

scholarly journals Disciplinary Power, the Oligopticon and Rhizomatic Surveillance in Elite Sports Academies

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 303-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Manley ◽  
Catherine Palmer ◽  
Martin Roderick
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Elite Sport ◽  
Surveillance Networks ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Surveillance Technology ◽  
And Control ◽  
Elite Sports

This article aims to apply a post-panoptic view of surveillance within the context of elite sport. Latour’s (2005) ‘oligopticon’ and Deleuze and Guttari’s (2003) ‘rhizomatic’ notion of surveillance networks are adopted to question the relevance and significance of Foucault’s (1979) conceptualisation of surveillance within an elite sports academy setting. A contemporary representation of bio-politics (Rose 1999, 2001) is further utilised to discern the mode of governance and control effective within such institutions. In so doing, this article seeks to understand the evolving methods of surveillance technology and governance and how they are situated within the setting of a contemporary institution. Such considerations aim to provoke a line of questioning surrounding the normalisation of intrusive surveillance practices and their impact upon identity construction and an authentic sense of self.

scholarly journals Preparing Ell Writers for Becoming Multilingual Writers: Challenges and Strategies

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Lee Jin Choi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Multilingual Writers ◽  
English Speaking

Summary The increasing number of international students enrolled in higher education in English-speaking countries has presented the growing need to support their academic writing development. It, however, has often led to the hasty assumption that English language learner (ELL) writers need to quickly adopt the dominant academic writing conventions in order to succeed in an English-speaking academic community. Even though the growing number of scholars have started to pay attention to ELL writers’ diverse writing styles and multiple identities, little research and discussion have taken place on how language practitioners could engage ELL writers in developing their voices as multilingual and multicultural writers. By analyzing a qualitative interview with ten experienced writing consultants and instructors, this paper explores major challenges that ELL writers experience and different strategies that could effectively help them develop their voices as writers in the academic context where English is dominantly used as the medium of instruction. Findings show that while many colleges and universities in English-speaking countries still adopt a monolithic view and label ELL writers as ‘a troubled non-native writer’, it is crucial for writing consultants and instructors to acknowledge ELL writers’ multilingual background and help them to develop their unique voices and achieve sustainable development and progress.

scholarly journals Effects of Process-Genre Approach on Writing Anxiety among English Academic Writing Learners in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 741-752
Author(s):  
Abrar Ajmal ◽  
Humaira Irfan
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Esl Writing ◽  
Writing Anxiety ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Product Approach ◽  
Writing Instructors

Writing ability is a prerequisite to be successful in academic pursuits. Pakistani student writers experience a range of issues, including psychological, cognitive, social, and linguistic when they write. Writing instructors need to use appropriate teaching strategies and methodologies to tackle writing-related issues (Khan & Zaki, 2018). Most of the Pakistani ESL writing students are educated through the stereotypical teacher-centered Product Approach focuses on the memorization of ready-made answers. As a result, the learners face great challenges; ESL writing Anxiety is one of the major challenges (Gopang, Bughio, & Pathan, 2018). The aim of this quasi-experimental study based on predominantly the post-positivist and the marginally pragmatic philosophical framework is to explore the effects of the Process-Genre Approach (PGA) on writing anxiety among ESL intermediate/pre-university students in Pakistan. The research tools were included to collect data: Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), 22-item multidimensional questionnaire, and interviews to investigate the effects of the experiment on writing apprehensions. Data were collected before and after the designed academic writing module based on the Process-Genre approach and pair sample t-test was applied to yield statistically significant results showing that average writing anxiety score was reduced from 77.17 to 66.72 among control group and from 73.57 to 50.25 among the experimental group. Quantities data collected through interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis also supplement that the treatment was effective to reduce writing anxiety.

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