Exploring L2 graduate writers’ identity construction in research writing practices: a symbolic interactionism perspective

1 Introduction

Over the past two decades, the issue of identity has garnered significant attention in the field of applied linguistics, particularly in the topic area of English research writing. The construction of an appropriate disciplinary or academic identity plays a vital role in the success of research writing and the writers’ scholarly career development (Flowerdew and Wang 2015; Hyland 2015). Previous research has examined the identity construction of academic writers from various perspectives, including the textual representation of writer identity (Burgess and Ivanič 2010; Hyland 2012; Ivanič 1998), readers’ perception and construction of writer identity (Jeffery 2011; Matsuda and Tardy 2007), and the dynamics of identity formation within the social processes of academic writing (Canagarajah 2015; Mochizuki and Starfield 2021). Studies among English as a Foreign Language learners have also pointed out the essential role of interaction in their ongoing identity construction (e.g., Guan 2021). Nevertheless, relatively few studies have delved into the microprocesses of writing to explore how identity construction is shaped by writers’ ongoing interactions within their communities of practice, recognizing that different writers may interpret and derive meaning from these interactions in diverse ways.

Furthermore, while existing research has explored the identity construction of early-career scholars (e.g., Starfield and Paltridge 2019), it has predominantly focused on doctoral students, with relatively little attention given to master’s students. For master’s students, their engagement in English research writing at this stage may be pivotal in shaping their early decisions or judgment about whether they can establish and maintain an academic identity through research writing. Therefore, this study adopts a symbolic interactionist approach (Blumer 1969; Turner 1990) to examine how two L2 graduate writers constructed their identities during the thesis proposal writing process through intensive interactions with academic peers, their seminar instructor, and advisors. This study offers practical insights into how master’s programs and research writing courses may effectively support the development of academic identities among master’s students.

2 Literature review

Around the early 2000s, research on writer identity was influenced by postmodernist views (Ivanič 1998; Matsuda 2001), which conceptualized identity as shaped by social practices (González et al. 1994; Leary 1994). These socially shared concepts and practices often manifest in the discursive features of written texts (Gee 1990). Ivanič (1998), through a study of eight native English-speaking writers, identified four dimensions of writer identity: autobiographical self, discoursal self, self as author, and the possibilities of selfhood. Similarly, in the studies of language learning, it was found that learners might use semiotic resources and their lived experiences to make sense of and engage with the target language and culture (Chen and Zhou 2024). Researchers have also analyzed the discursive features of writing in disciplinary and professional contexts to examine how writers constructed their identities. For instance, Hyland (2008, 2012 used corpus-based methods to examine the lexico-grammatical features of written texts, uncovering patterns of disciplinary identity construction through recurring lexico-grammatical features in academic genres specific to certain fields. His studies, by comparing individual written texts with a corpus representative of writing in a particular discipline, allows for an understanding how writers balance expressing their individuality while adhering to the conventions of the disciplinary discourse communities.

In addition to studies examining the construction of scholarly or authorial identity through the choice of textual resources, identity research in writing has also explored how writers negotiate and develop their academic identities within the social practices of writing, such as classroom writing, supervisory guidance, and peer review activities (e.g., Mochizuki and Starfield 2021; Starfield and Paltridge 2019). According to Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986 theory of dialogism, academic identity is constructed through dialogues, emerging from dialogues with other members of the community. Canagarajah (2015) used a narrative approach to describe the process through which a master’s student negotiated meaning and constructed voice by leveraging rich teacher–student and peer-to-peer interactional resources in a classroom setting. He framed the construction of the student’s desired voice along four dimensions: identity, role, subjectivity, and awareness. In the context of his study, identity refers to an individual’s personal experiences and background that exist beyond the written text. Role relates to the responsibilities and identities a person holds within academic, institutional, professional, or familial settings. Subjectivity involves the ideological influences on one’s voice, conveyed through established genre conventions, communication norms, and value systems. Awareness represents an individual’s capacity for reflective understanding, enabling them to strategically and consciously choose language while distancing themselves from social, historical, and ideological constraints (Canagarajah 2015; Tardy 2012). While Canagarajah (2015) highlighted how L2 writers navigated predetermined responsibilities and social expectations in constructing their voices in writing, his work also underscored the interplay between social structure and individual agency. His findings align with the broader understanding that identity construction is shaped by both external expectations and writers’ internalized responses to these expectations.

Although empirical studies on writer identity have explored the psychological and agentive dimensions of writer agency (e.g., Canagarajah 2015), relatively few have explicitly examined how writers actively negotiate and redefine socially prescribed roles during the microprocesses of writing. One notable exception is Ho (2017), who observed that doctoral students demonstrated agency while responding to reviewer feedback, particularly when navigating tensions between their supervisors’ advice and journal reviewers’ expectations. In these instances, students acted as role-makers, strategically persuading their supervisors and challenging conventional hierarchies to reconcile feedback with their evolving scholarly identities. Such findings illustrate that role-making can occur within the nuanced interactions of academic writing and may often manifest as strategic decisions during specific microprocesses, such as revising and negotiating feedback. Role-making, as theorized by Turner (1962, 1990), denotes actively negotiating and redefining socially prescribed roles to align with one’s evolving self-concept. This perspective expands our understanding of identity as not merely a reflection of societal expectations but also a process of creative agency.

In summary, research on identity in academic writing has extensively examined textual and discursive expressions of identity, often emphasizing the influence of social structures on writers’ choices of linguistic and rhetorical resources (e.g., Hyland 2012; Ivanič 1998). However, while empirical studies provided evidence of the agentic, iterative process by which writers engage with and shape their roles (e.g., Canagarajah 2015; Ho 2017), there remains still a paucity of focused inquiry into writers’ adoption of socially prescribed roles and their agentive redefinition of those roles. Understanding how writers navigate this dynamic process requires examining how they interpret the meanings embedded in their interactions during the microprocesses of composing and revising, and how these interpretations contribute to their identity construction, yet this remains a challenge within existing research frameworks.

3 Theoretical perspective: symbolic interactionism

To explore how graduate students construct their identities through their interpretation of social interactions during the microprocesses of English research writing, this study adopts symbolic interactionism as its theoretical framework. Symbolic interactionism provides a lens for understanding the interplay between social structures and individual agency in identity construction. Blumer (1969) developed symbolic interactionism based on Mead’s (1934) foundational ideas about the interplay between self and society. While Mead emphasized the interconnectedness of self-identification and the enactment of social roles, Blumer introduced his own view of human behavior as a process of symbol manipulation and meaning negotiation (Carter and Fuller 2015). Blumer, deeply influenced by Mead as his former teaching assistant, expanded upon Mead’s ideas and formalized the core principles of symbolic interactionism. He outlined three key premises of symbolic interactionism: 1) Individuals act toward objects based on the meanings those objects hold for them; 2) Identity construction emerges through individuals’ participation in social interactions and is shaped by the roles they take on in these interactions; and 3) The meaning assigned to objects evolve through ongoing interpretation of social reality. Blumer also advocated for the use of a qualitative approach to studying the nature of human actions, underscoring the importance of clearly defining concepts, and using them to interpret the participants’ actions.

A key aspect of symbolic interactionism is the interplay between role-taking and role-making in identity construction. Role-taking refers to individuals adopting socially prescribed responsibilities or expectations (Mead 1934). However, this process is not entirely passive, as individuals may choose whether to adopt certain roles or challenge the expectations associated with them. Role-making, on the other hand, refers to the active creation or modification of roles based on individuals’ interpretations of the role demands in relational terms while they interact with the corresponding roles in social structure (Turner 1962, 1990). For example, understanding what it means to be a student requires understanding the corresponding role of a teacher. This perspective underscores that roles are shaped by societal expectations yet open to reinterpretation by individuals (Carter and Fuller 2015). Role-making thus enables individuals to transcend societal constraints at behavioral or cognitive levels, as they redefine or reimagine their roles. As Scott (2024: 151) explains, “The definition of the situation provides the cast with a template set of roles to perform and scripts to follow,” yet how individuals perform these roles can vary depending on their subjective interpretations and alignment with socially desirable values. This dynamic duality is particularly relevant for understanding how L2 graduate writers navigate the complexities of research writing, as they balance societal expectations with their agency in constructing their scholarly identities. Identity in this study is conceptualized as both a social and personal construct. Mead (1934) and Blumer (1969) emphasize the evolving nature of identity, which is continuously shaped through role-taking, role-making, and interactions with others. From this perspective, identity is not merely an individual attribute but a fluid, dynamic process that reflects the interplay between external social structures and internal self-concepts (Scott 2015, 2024).

The emphasis of the symbolic interactionism perspective on the subjective interpretation of social realities aligns with the focus of the present study. In the context of research writing, as graduate writers interact with peers, advisors, and disciplinary conventions, they may engage in role-taking and role-making to shape their scholarly and personal identities, often adapting to or challenging the expectations placed upon them (Ho 2017). While some theoretical perspectives may be more directly related to identity research, they may not be well-suited to the specific context of the present study. For example, while Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment has offered valuable insights into how learners’ investments in language are shaped by ideologies, capital, and social positioning, the model is primarily designed to examine language learners’ identity construction through the lens of broader, often macro-level social and ideological forces. In contrast, symbolic interactionism, with its focus on the micro-level, allows for a more nuanced exploration of the dynamic, everyday interactions between graduate writers and their immediate communities of practice. The focus of symbolic interactionism on the continuous negotiation and interpretation of roles within specific social situations aligns more closely with the aim of the present study to understand how graduate writers actively construct their identities through specific acts of role-taking and role-making in the writing process. By focusing on the evolving interactions between writers and their communities of practice, the perspective of symbolic interactionism allows for an exploration of the dynamic processes underlying graduate writers’ identity construction.

While symbolic interactionism has not been extensively applied in L2 writing research, its use in L2 learning highlights its potential for examining diverse engagement patterns. For example, Peng (2023) developed a model based on symbolic interactionism to examine English learners’ engagement in the Chinese higher education context. Her findings revealed that the meanings learners associated with English learning, ranging from its material attributes (as a subject) to its social attributes (as a vital skill) and abstract attributes (as an area of interest), resulted in variations in learners’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. This study revealed how students’ agency emerged through their interpretations of social meanings across these three dimensions. Building on this, the present study extends symbolic interactionism to explore how L2 graduate writers engage with textual and social practices while constructing their identities through the microprocesses of composing and revising.

4 Conceptual framework

This study posits that English research writers function as identity symbols, from which social roles, self-awareness, and identity may emerge. Writers’ role choices encompass both their perception of self-identities and the social construction of their identities. In other words, the interaction between subjective interpretation and social construction generates meaning for student writers’ textual and practical practices. As illustrated in Figure 1, this study conceptualizes the identity of L2 graduate writers as continuously shaped through their interactions within the community of practice during the thesis proposal writing process. Through role-taking and role-making, writers negotiate, reconstruct, and refine their identities at different stages of thesis proposal writing. Symbolic interactionism thus provides a robust theoretical framework for understanding how these dynamic interactions contribute to the ongoing development of their identities.

Figure 1:

Conceptual framework of the present study.

In the present study, a role refers to the socially defined expectations, behaviors, and norms associated with a particular status or position in society. Roles are often externally assigned and carry expectations for how individuals should behave in particular situations. Identity, on the other hand, is the individual’s internal sense of who they are, which emerges from a combination of social roles and personal experiences. Role-taking is the process by which an individual adopts the perspective of others to understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Role-making, on the other hand, emphasizes the agentic aspect of social roles, where individuals actively shape and modify the roles they assume, rather than merely occupying the social positions with predefined expectations (Turner 1962). While role-taking involves understanding and internalizing societal roles, role-making allows individuals to add their own personal touch to roles, making them more flexible and dynamic (Turner 1990). In the context of L2 graduate writers, identity construction involves cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions as they engage with textual and social practices during the thesis proposal writing process. Identity construction is the ongoing process through which individuals develop a sense of self based on their social interactions, experiences, and the roles they take on or modify. Together, these concepts constitute a framework for this study, illustrating how L2 graduate writers continuously shape and reshape both their identities through interactions with social and textual practices.

The analytical focus of this study centers on how these interactions involve multidimensional engagement across cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. The inclusion of these engagement dimensions is grounded in the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism, which emphasizes the interplay between individuals’ internal processes and their social contexts. Symbolic interactionism views emotions, cognition, and behaviors as key mechanisms through which individuals interpret and negotiate social meanings. As Wiest (2024: 278) observes, “membership in particular communities and groups, along with their location in relevant social stratification systems, influence what they notice and acknowledge in and about social life, what rouses their emotional and cognitive processes, and what meanings they ultimately derive from environmental signals.” Emotions, in particular, are deeply social and represent how individuals exercise agency in responding to their social worlds, helping them “navigate dilemmas, constraints, and ambiguities” (McCarthy 2024: 232). Similarly, cognition and behavior are shaped by social situations, as these situations form the preconditions for self-consciousness and thought (McCarthy 2024). Thus, understanding how social meanings influence individuals in specific situations, such as interactions in research writing practices, requires exploration at cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels. These dimensions collectively allow for a nuanced analysis of how writers interpret and respond to social practices during their writing processes.

5 The study

This study employs a qualitative case study approach (Yin 2009) to document the dynamic process of two L2 graduate students’ identity construction during the writing of their thesis proposals over 18 weeks in an academic semester. By examining two individual cases, the study explores both similarities and differences in how these students assume roles and construct their identities. This approach provides insights into the complexity of identity formation in the specific context of graduate-level English research writing.

5.3 Data collection

This study developed a data collection framework centered on student behavior, cognition, affect, social practices, and textual practices. Data were collected over the 18-week semester from multiple sources, including four semi-structured interviews with each participant, audio recordings of seminars and thesis proposal defenses, the researcher’s field notes, and WeChat conversation histories. Seminar recordings, along with written feedback from their advisors, were used to document the feedback received by the participants. Additional data sources, such as multiple drafts of their thesis proposal and recordings of their defense presentations, were used to track their revisions and to triangulate the interview transcripts and observation notes. At different points during the study, I collected different types of data in correspondence with the participants’ revision progress. The timeline of activities related to Daisy’s and Yvone’s revisions, as well as the corresponding data collection procedures, is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2:

Timeline of data collection.

I conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants at locations of their choice, including the library, their dormitory rooms, or the campus café. The interviews, which lasted between 15 and 45 min, were conducted in Chinese, the first language of both the author and the participants. The interview questions were used to elicit the interviewers’ retrospective verbal reports on the revision process in details. Interviews conducted prior to revision focused on the participants’ attitudes toward and perceptions of the feedback they received, their concerns regarding the thesis project, the proposal writing, and the feedback, their understanding of their roles, and their plans for future actions. Interviews conducted after the revision centered on the revision changes they had made, their motivations for different types of revisions, the challenges they faced during the revision process, and their affective responses toward thesis proposal writing. Additionally, participants were encouraged to discuss any reflections they had regarding their roles and identities during the interviews.

6 Findings

The two graduate students, in their respective identity construction trajectories, employed distinct strategies for choosing roles during their thesis proposal writing. Through their interactions with textual and social practices, they interpreted the meanings of their roles as scholarly writers, researchers, and graduate students. Engaging with peers, instructors, and advisors within their communities of practice allowed them to shape their identities in different ways.

7 Discussion

The findings of this study underscore the dynamic and interactive nature of L2 graduate writers’ role-taking, role-making, and identity construction in the microprocesses of English research writing. The interactions experienced by the participants, along with their textual and social practices, were imbued with symbolic meanings that shaped their evolving identities as scholarly writers and graduate students. These interactions transcended mere mechanical exchanges of feedback and revision but encompassed two primary types of role negotiation: role-taking and role-making. How these roles are not merely adopted or performed in isolation, but are actively negotiated and reshaped through continuous social interactions, reflects the fluidity of identity formation in the academic context. By foregrounding the symbolic meanings embedded in feedback, interactions, and textual practices, this study enriches the theoretical understanding of academic identity as a fluid, negotiated construct shaped by social exchanges and individual agency.

A central contribution of the present study lies in extending the application of symbolic interactionism to academic writing research. Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the interpretive process through which individuals assign meaning to social interactions and negotiate their identities (Blumer 1969). This study illustrates how graduate writers, through role-taking and role-making, continuously interpret and redefine the symbolic cues conveyed through interactions with peers, advisors, and disciplinary conventions. Unlike models such as Darvin and Norton’s (2015) investment framework, which situate identity at the intersection of capital, ideology, and imagined futures, symbolic interactionism highlights the micro-level negotiation of meaning within specific writing practices. This approach provides a nuanced lens for examining the agentive and interactive processes by which writers navigate the often-competing expectations of academia.

During the process of writing their thesis proposals, Daisy and Yvone demonstrated distinctly different trajectories of identity construction and role negotiation. This contrast can be understood through the lens of symbolic interactionism, which asserts that “[t]he meaning of objects for a person arises fundamentally out of the way they are defined to him by others with whom he interacts,” and that “[a]n object may have a different meaning for different individuals” (Blumer 1969: 11). Daisy’s role-making illustrates an agentive process of interpreting feedback not as fixed directives but as symbolic resources for constructing her scholarly identity. This dynamic engagement enabled her to align her academic pursuits with personal values, illustrating how role-making fosters agency and self-direction. Daisy’s growing confidence as a researcher, from a dependent student to a more autonomous scholar, illustrates the evolving and agentive nature of identity construction. In contrast, Yvone’s role-taking reflects a more passive acceptance of externally imposed roles, shaped by her adherence to genre conventions and reliance on external validation. As members within a cultural group can understand shared symbolic meanings through codes and words (Liadi 2024), student writers who undergo similar research writing practices can also interpret symbolic meanings through genre features and feedback exchanges. Yvone, for example, adhered closely to the genre conventions outlined in her thesis proposal, adopting the social roles expected by others without actively reshaping them. Through role-taking, Yvone adopted the perspective of the generalized other (Mead 1934), which represents the academic community shaping her evaluation of her academic writing and research capabilities (Wiest 2024). Meanwhile, her role-taking showed the tension between individual agency and social expectation, as adopting a socially prescribed role may stifle the development of a more self-directed academic identity.

The findings also contribute to the theorization of identity by highlighting the interplay of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions in role negotiation. For Daisy, the affective enjoyment of qualitative research and the cognitive alignment between her methods and research questions motivated her to resist the passive role of a dependent student. Behaviorally, her use of innovative textual features, such as unconventional subsection titles, further reinforced her agency. Conversely, Yvone’s emotional disappointment and cognitive limitations constrained her ability to challenge external expectations, leading her to adopt the socially prescribed role of a compliant graduate writer. This interplay of affect, cognition, and behavior provides a holistic understanding of identity construction within academic writing, revealing the mechanisms through which writers navigate the tension between individual agency and social expectation.

Furthermore, this study contributes to the growing body of research on writer identity by emphasizing the symbolic significance of feedback interactions. While prior studies have highlighted the role of feedback in shaping academic writing practices (Ho 2017; Li 2006), this study demonstrates how feedback functions as a symbolic medium through which roles and identities are negotiated. By interpreting feedback as more than technical advice and viewing it instead as a site of symbolic exchange, this research offers a conceptual bridge between the micro-level dynamics of writing and broader frameworks of identity. These findings align with Peng’s (2023) study on students’ English learning engagement, which is also grounded in symbolic interactionism. Peng’s research suggests that the different meanings students attached to English learning during subject–object interactions can account for differences in their motivations to learn. These differences in motivation subsequently lead to varying emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement, ultimately influencing their academic achievement. Consistent with Peng’s findings, this study further explains the distinctions in students’ interpretations of meaning within the context of English research writing. Additionally, echoing Guan and Xu’s (2024) study, which explored the identity construction of an EFL student, this study emphasizes the significance of social interaction. However, while Guan and Xu interpreted the dynamic construction of the student’s identities using Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment, this study elucidates the potential for role negotiation within the microprocesses of writing through participants’ role-taking and role-making.

The findings of this study suggest that academic writing instruction for L2 graduate students should emphasize fostering agency and promoting role-making in their textual and social practices. By highlighting the symbolic meaning embedded in interactions pertaining to academic writing, writing instructors and advisors can encourage students to engage actively in their identity construction process. Empowering students to negotiate their roles within the academic community can lead to more meaningful revisions and a stronger sense of ownership over their work. Educators should be mindful of the interactions that occur during feedback sessions and within the broader academic environment. It is essential to ensure that students are not merely passive recipients of advice but rather active participants in shaping their own identities. This aligns with Zhu and Li’s (2023) assertion about the significant role of multilayered contexts in fostering collective resilience. Just as teachers in “less stressed marginalised contexts” (Zhu and Li 2023: 17) mobilized personal and contextual resources for professional growth, student writers in master’s degree programs have the potential to do the same. Unlike doctoral students, who face considerable high-stakes writing pressures (Li 2006), master’s students can leverage feedback and social interactions to enhance their writing capabilities. By promoting agency and critical engagement with these symbolic cues in the academic community, educators can help L2 writers develop into more confident and self-directed scholars.

8 Conclusions

The study employs symbolic interactionism as a theoretical lens to explore the role choices and identity construction of two L2 graduate writers engaged in English research writing. The findings reveal how individuals’ affect, cognition, and behavior are shaped through social interactions and the meanings they derive from these interactions. By interpreting these meanings, student writers assumed multiple roles and demonstrated ongoing identity construction within their textual and social practices, particularly in the context of thesis proposal writing. The study employed a case study approach and does not aim to generalize about the identity construction trajectories or writing practices of all L2 graduate writers. Nevertheless, the study shows how a symbolic interactionism perspective can provide insights into the complexity and fluidity of individual writers’ role negotiation within the communities of practice. Future research could focus on more experienced scholarly writers or investigate writers’ social interactions in different writing contexts to enrich our understanding of identity construction in academic settings.