Pedagogical stylistics and concept-based instruction: An investigation into the development of voice in the academic writing of Japanese university students of English

This thesis study examines, through the lens of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of mind, the influence and relationship of pedagogical stylistics (an analytic technique for examining text-based discourse features) and concept-based instruction (CBI) on academic writing performance and authorial voice construction in a high-stakes, essay writing context. Guided by CBI, 7 Japanese university-aged ESL students engaged in stylistics-based analyses of literary texts during a 3-week intensive course designed to prepare participants for the independent writing task of the TOEFL iBT. Participants were asked to consider how authors' lexical choices inform the semantic and pragmatic features of English literary texts associated with 5 target voice features: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, authorial self-mention, and direct reader references. Writing development was traced across 9 writing samples collected prior to, during, and after the intervention. The written compositions were analyzed and then compared, using non-parametric statistics, over time and with the writing of 3 students in a control group (that did not receive the intervention). Post-intervention stimulated recall and semi-structured interviews complemented the dataset. The analyses revealed: (a) statistically significant differences and large effect sizes across the written compositions, indicating improvements in learners' overall quality of writing (p = .002; W = .5) and in learners' overall quality of authorial voice (p = .002; W = .51); (b) authorial voice development involved a nonlinear, iterative process of cognitive uptake derived from classroom-based affordances focused on stylistics; and (c) CBI-informed pedagogy mediated authorial voice development despite limitations in the teaching method. Based on these findings, instructors may consider employing stylistics by using CBI for improving students' overall writing and authorial voice in high-stakes writing contexts, implementing iterative learning environments for developing overall writing and authorial voice, focusing on writers' authorial voices in high-stakes writing contexts, and ensuring learners have sufficient opportunities to develop metalanguage in stylistics-informed contexts; researchers should examine the microgenetic development of authorial voice through the lens of a complex dynamic systems theory of SLA, expand the purview of L2 stylistics using empirically-based studies, and analyze how learners develop and use metalanguage in stylistic contexts.