A Study Of Authorial Voice In English Argumentative Writing Of Non-English Major Graduate Students

In the process of second language acquisition,the improvement of writing proficiency is particularly important.Authorial voice,as an important way for an author to present his writing proficiency in an article,has attracted wide attention in the academic circle.More and more experts and scholars begin to focus on how to improve the writing proficiency of the author by increasing the overall strength of authorial voice in the article.Today,with the accelerating development of globalization,international exchanges are deepening day by day.With the development of various international academic activities,more and more scholars hope to show their academic achievements on the international stage,and graduate students are no exception.More and more students are eager to stand on the international stage to express their personal views and show their personal positions.This requires students to have a high English writing proficiency,and know how to express their personal ideas clearly and accurately in English writing.Compared with undergraduates,graduate students have the higher English writing proficiency,and they need to write more English essays.It is one of the issues that graduate students need to pay attention to how to better present their personal views,clarify their own positions and show their own attitudes in English essays.Based on the knowledge and learning notion of social constructivism,this study used a combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis to explore the relationship between authorial voice and non-English major graduate students’ English writing proficiency in English argumentative writing.This study selected 85non-English major graduate students from a university in Northeast China as research subjects,research subjects were required to complete the propositional composition according to the instructions.With the help of the analysis rubric,this research rates and measures the writing proficiency and authorial voice of the essays written by the research subjects.Then,qualitative research data are obtained through semi-structured interviews with raters and some students in order to analyze authorial voice of non-English major graduate students in English argumentative writing.Specifically,this research attempted to answer the following three questions:1.How strong is the authorial voice of non-English major graduate students in their English argumentative writing?2.What is the relevance between the overall strength of authorial voice of non-English major graduate students in their English argumentative writing and their English writing proficiency?3.What elements of authorial voice will effect non-English major graduate students’ English writing proficiency?This research find that there is a strong authorial voice in non-English major graduate students’ argumentative writing.From the results of data analysis and semi-structured interviews,it can be concluded that central point articulation,boosters,and attitude markers have a greater impact on the overall strength authorial voice,while hedges have little impact on authorial voice strength.This is closely related to the way students express their personal views in the essay.Secondly,in the argumentative essays written by research subjects,the overall strength of authorial voice is significantly correlated with the writing ability.Compared with the overall strength of authorial voice obtained from the total score of the seven linguistic elements,the overall strength of authorial voice rated by the raters’ impression has a stronger correlation with writing proficiency.This is because in the rating of authorial voice based on raters’ impression,non-linguistic elements related to writing proficiency,such as the use of grammar,the richness of vocabulary and the neat handwriting,will be included in the rating scope.At the same time,for some templated compositions,although they contain linguistic elements related to authorial voice enhancement,they do not reflect the author’s construction of authorial voice and cannot reflect the author’s writing proficiency.Finally,among seven linguistic elements that construct authorial voice,the central point articulation,boosters,attitude markers,and the overall strength of authorial voice which rating according to subjective impression are significantly related to writing proficiency.The results of multiple regression analysis show that the combined explanatory degree of these four linguistic elements to the author’s writing proficiency is 87.8%(adjusted R squared =0.878).This shows that the firm tone,clear attitude,and the reasonable expression of the main idea not only enhance the strength of authorial voice in the article,but also reflect authors’ writing proficiency.According to the results of the semi-structured interview,whether students with good writing proficiency or poor proficiency all attach great importance to the richness of the writing content,and hope to express their personal positions and subjective attitudes through multiple linguistic elements to enrich the content of essays.However,students have little understanding of how to use hedges reasonably in English writing.The reasons are mainly as follows: One is due to the restriction of Chinese writing thinking,the other is about the lack of relevant knowledge learning.In the process of English acquisition,students have not received relevant teaching and training on how to use hedges reasonably to enhance their personal opinions.On the basis of summarizing the results of this study,some suggestions are put forward for the teaching of English writing for non-English major graduate students.First of all,English writing teaching should raise the awareness of the importance of authorial voice.In college English writing teaching,teachers should not pay more attention to the accuracy of grammar,the appropriateness of words and the appropriateness of cohesion between sentences in English writing.College English writing teachers should strengthen the recognition of authorial voice and strengthen the output of authorial voice,so as to achieve the goal of improving students’ writing proficiency.Secondly,in the teaching of English writing for non-English major graduate students,teachers should pay more attention to the output of relevant training about how to correctly use hedges in English writing.Teachers can raise students’ awareness about the use of hedges through comparison between Chinese and English and writing sample learning,so as to reverse the negative effects of Chinese writing mode.Finally,the use of template should be avoid in non-English major graduate students’ English writing.The use of templates will restrict students’ writing thinking,make it impossible for students to reasonably present their personal views in English writing,and even affect the overall strength of authorial voice,which cannot truly reflect students’ real English writing proficiency.For graduate students,they should pay more attention to the presentation of personal views rather than the routine expression in English writing.English writing teachers should urge students to reasonably learn other people’s expressions in English writing,rather than copying them completely.The results of this study enrich empirical research of authorial voice in the Chinese context and provide some reference for the teaching of English writing for non-English major graduate students.