A Study Of Authorial Identity Construction In Academic Discourse

Academic writing is a social act of identity. Besides presenting their views, writers interact with readers and construct their identities through a series of rhetorical devices. The study of authorial identity construction in academic discourse has become one of the most prolific areas of academic writing studies over the past few years. Nevertheless, scant attention is given to the study of identity construction in M.A. theses. There has been no comparative study on authorial identities in Chinese and American M.A. theses and research articles (RAs) thus far.This thesis presents a contrastive study aimed to examine the authorial identities constructed in M.A. theses written by Chinese and American postgraduates and RAs in the field of applied linguistics as they are reflected in the deployment of stance and engagement markers. A corpus was compiled comprising 10 Chinese M.A. theses,10 American M.A. theses and 15 RAs from international journals within the field of applied linguistics. On the basis of Hyland’s model of academic interaction (2005c) and academic genre analysis theory, the frequency of stance and engagement markers and their distribution across generic structure were counted with UAM CorpusTool. Then, the authorial identities constructed in the M.A. theses and RAs were compared and analyzed, followed by an investigation of the potential influencing factors of the differences.Results demonstrate that there are great disparities between Chinese and American postgraduates and between student writers and professional writers concerning authorial identity construction. First, as regards the autobiographical self, both Chinese and American postgraduates are influenced by their previous writing preferences, and the writing practices shaped by native language exert relatively prominent negative impact upon Chinese postgraduates. In contrast with student writers, professional writers benefit enormously from their experience in research and academic writing. Second, Chinese students show a weaker sense of readers than American students. Professional writers display more acute willingness to identify and interact with readers than student writers. Third, a collective self and writer’s authority are highlighted by Chinese students while an individual self is stressed by American students and professional writers. Fourth, concerning the professional self, Chinese students tend to present a role as a researcher while neglect the role as a discourse constructor, whereas American students are more concerned with the role as a discourse constructor. Professional writers simultaneously establish the role as a researcher and the role as a discourse constructor in writing. Fifth, Chinese students present a relatively notable institutional self whereas American students and professional writers assume a weak institutional self. The major influencing factors of these differences in identity construction lie in cultural variations, the absence of identity construction in the teaching of academic writing and the differential level of language proficiency. The study offers implications for academic writing and the teaching of academic writing.