Authorial presence in English academic texts : a comparative study of student writing across cultures and disciplines

The book outlines the influences on academic, authorial self-representation in English as a second language. It explores how writer identity is negotiated within socio-cultural and disciplinary contexts. This collective aspect of writer self is formed alongside the individual self with the emergent voice as outcome of the struggle between the two. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Language, culture and identity 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Theories of and relations between text, discourse and genre 1.1.1 Theoretical approaches to text, discourse and genre 1.1.2 Relational connectedness between text, genre and discourse 1.2 Language use in specific cultural contexts 1.3 Theories of culture from a perspective of linguistic anthropology 1.3.1 Culture-nature opposition 1.3.2 Culture and socially constructed knowledge 1.3.3 Culture as a semiotic system 1.3.4 Culture as a system of participation and belonging 1.4 Towards an integrative view of second language writer identity: Selected theoretical and empirical approaches to identity studies1.4.1 Identity and social positioning 1.4.2 Paradigmatic approaches to conceptualizations of identity 1.4.3 Discoursal identity 1.4.4 The rhetorical theory for authorial self-representation 1.4.5 Bilingual identity and discourse practices 1.4.5.1 Identity reconstruction of late bilinguals 1.4.5.2 Participation metaphor: A way to find affiliation and belonging 2 Written communication in a context-sensitive perspective 2.0 Introduction 2.1 Orality, literacy and cognition2.1.1 The influence of orality and literacy on identity construction, thought processing, organization and expression 2.1.2 Differences in writing patterns constituted by cultural preferences for oral or written modes of expression 2.2 Writing as a semiotic media for the social construction of reality 2.2.1 The problem with meaning 2.2.2 The influence of semiotics on teaching literacy skills 2.3 Metadiscourse: Investigating writer-text-reader interaction 2.3.1 Metadiscourse in rhetoric 2.3.2 Metadiscourse in genres 2.3.3 Metadiscourse and culture 2.3.4 Metadiscourse across academic disciplines3 The construction of authorial voice in student writing in English as a second language 3.0 Introduction 3.1 The use of lingua franca English in a globalized academic world 3.2 Cultural values that matter in academic communication and the concept of self 3.2.1 High-/low-context communication: Directness vs indirectness and face saving strategies 3.3 From contrastive rhetoric to intercultural rhetoric 3.4 Thirdspace pedagogy: Critical pedagogy of space for L2 writer identity construction 3.4.1 The theories of Thirdness and L2 literacy education3.5 English academic essay 3.5.1 A brief history of English rhetoric and composition 3.5.2 What is required and expected 3.6 Genre approach to academic writing instruction 3.6.1 Needs/rights analysis and power relations 3.6.2 Genre-based grammatical competence and the teaching-learning cycle 3.6.3 Rhetorical consciousness-raising 3.6.4 Modes of discourse in the composition class: exposition, description and argumentation vs personal narration "This book presents a case study of student-writers from multiple cultural and academic backgrounds. It investigates how writing, as an act of identity, can be analyzed along an axis of individual and social influences. This continuum entails a number of related perspectives, including the ways in which individuals reproduce or challenge dominant literary practices and discourses, and how they occupy the subject positions made available in their discourse communities. The analysis of the findings draws on selected socio-semiotic and more broadly, anthropological views of language, which are then synthesized into a multi-aspect model of academic writer identity"-- Provided by publisher

This book presents a case study of student-writers from multiple cultural and academic backgrounds. It investigates how writing, as an act of identity, can be analyzed along an axis of individual and social influences. This continuum entails a number of related perspectives, including the ways in which individuals reproduce or challenge dominant literary practices and discourses, and how they occupy the subject positions made available in their discourse communities. The analysis of the findings draws on selected socio-semiotic and more broadly, anthropological views of language, which are then synthesized into a multi-aspect model of academic writer identity.

«Lehman's book is timely and fills a gap, and it will be a welcome complement to the small body of literature in the area of authorial self-representation in academic texts. For any scholar seeking to better understand the provenance and development of L2 writers' authorial voice, the book is necessary reading.»(Simon Williams, Journal of Second Language Writing 42/2018)..