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Identity in Written Discourse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2015
Abstract
This article provides an overview of theoretical and research issues in the study of writer identity in written discourse. First, a historical overview explores how identity has been conceived, studied, and taught, followed by a discussion of how writer identity has been conceptualized. Next, three major orientations toward writer identity show how the focus of analysis has shifted from the individual to the social conventions and how it has been moving toward an equilibrium, in which the negotiation of individual and social perspectives is recognized. The next two sections discuss two of the key developments—identity in academic writing and the assessment of writer identity. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications and future directions for teaching and researching identity in written discourse.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015
References
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davila, B. (2012). Indexicality and “standard” edited American English: Examining the link between conceptions of standardness and perceived authorial identity. Written Communication, 29 (2), 180–207.
This study explores the relationship between the indexicality of textual features—those that are associated with standard and non-standard edited American English—and the perceived identity of the writer—particularly the writer's ethnic background. The researcher interviewed composition instructors and found that the influence worked both ways—the perception of non-standard textual features shaped the readers’ perceptions of the author while the perceptions of author's ethnic background influenced the readers’ identification of non-standard texts. This study offers an additional way of exploring author identity that goes beyond the analysis of textual features by highlighting the reader's role.
Hyland, K. (2012a). Disciplinary identities: Individuality and community in academic discourse. New York: Cambridge University Press.
This book explores textual manifestations of writer identity in academic contexts by bringing together a series of corpus-based studies. Adapting the perspective that identity is constructed through the negotiation between individuals and social conventions, this book examines textual features are used to construct writer identity in academic contexts. Using corpora of various academic genres such as thesis acknowledgments, web pages, biographical statements, undergraduate reports and journal articles, this study shows individual identity is constructed through the use of various socially shared conventions.
Hyland, K., & Sancho Guinda, C. (eds.). (2012). Stance and voice in written academic genres. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
This edited collection brings together represent various theoretical and methodological traditions to explore two key terms that have come to play an important role in the understanding of identity in academic writing: stance and voice. It begins with overviews of recent conceptions of stance and voice, followed by examinations of these concepts in various academic genres—including both professional and student genres. Professional genres examined in this collection include academic and medical research articles, biographical statements and textbooks. Student genres include PhD theses, undergraduate students’ final year reports, student essays, and graph commentaries. The final section explores variations in stance and voice across various media, disciplines and cultures.
Jeffery, J. V. (2011). Subjectivity, intentionality, and manufactured moves: Teachers’ perceptions of voice in the evaluation of secondary students’ writing. Research in the Teaching of English, 46 (1), 92–127.
This study examined how voice, an aspect of writer identity, is manifested in writing assessment, focusing on how students’ identity was constructed in secondary-level writing teachers’ assessment of student writing. The researcher conducted a series of interviews with nine secondary school teachers as they read narrative and expository texts, and identified which textual features were associated with voice and how those perceptions varied across genres and individual readers. The results suggested the importance of writer's intentionality as perceived by the readers, which is associated with literary description and appraisal features that amplify the subjectivity of the writer.
Matsuda, P. K., & Tardy, C. M. (2007). Voice in academic writing: The rhetorical construction of author identity in blind manuscript review. English for Specific Purposes, 26, 235–249.
Drawing on Matsuda's (2001) definition of voice as the “amalgamative effect of the use of discursive and non-discursive features that language users choose, deliberately or otherwise, from socially available yet ever-changing repertoires” (p. 40), this study examined the construction of author identity in the blind review process of a manuscript for an academic journal. The study established the importance of writer identity in academic context and showed that writer identity is constructed by the readers not through a pre-determined set of textual features but through the use of discursive and non-discursive features that became salient in the process of reading and evaluating an academic manuscript. The finding of this study, was later verified in a survey study of editorial board members for various international journals.
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