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Identity Construction in Academic Writing of Student Writers Who Use English as an Additional Language: A Literature Review1

  • Fangzhi He

    Fangzhi He is an Associate Professor of English (applied linguistics) at Zhengzhou University of Light Industry and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rochester. Her research has foused on social linguistics, pragmatics, and English education.

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Published/Copyright: January 16, 2021
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Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics
From the journal Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics Volume 43 Issue 4

Abstract

Academic writing is social interaction between writer and reader, during which writers can employ discursive and non-discursive features to construct their identities. However, many student writers who are users of English as an additional language (EAL) may find it challenging to construct their identities in academic writing. Properly constructed identity in academic writing can help EAL student writers develop a stronger sense of self, exercise their agency, and negotiate the academic discourse. Therefore, this paper reviews empirical studies on EAL student writers’ identity construction when they write in English to investigate the features of identities that EAL student writers construct in texts and the factors that influence their identity construction. The findings show that, compared with expert writers and native-English-speaking (NES) counterparts, EAL student writers tend to present a weak authorial identity. Furthermore, EAL student writers tend to be more engaged with texts than with readers and lack commitment to their claims. The identities that EAL student writers construct in academic writing are also interwoven with EAL students’ English proficiency levels, educational experience, disciplinary conventions, genre affordances, and audience awareness. The findings of this literature review can help teachers and educators raise EAL students’ identity awareness and facilitate students in strategically constructing writer identities in academic writing.

Keywords: academic writing; English as an additional language (EAL) students; identity construction

About the author

Fangzhi He

Fangzhi He is an Associate Professor of English (applied linguistics) at Zhengzhou University of Light Industry and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rochester. Her research has foused on social linguistics, pragmatics, and English education.

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Published Online: 2021-01-16
Published in Print: 2020-11-25

© 2020 FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Studies of Public Discourse in the Chinese Sociocultural Context Guest Editors: Jianping Chen & Tao Xiong
  3. Studies of Public Discourse in the Chinese Sociocultural Context: An Introduction (Continued)
  4. Interdiscursivity and Promotional Discourse: A Corpus-Assisted Genre Analysis of About Us Texts on Chinese University Websites
  5. Discourse Marker Na (那) as an Interpersonal-Level Compensatory Strategy in Clinical Interviews
  6. The Metaphoric and Metonymic Use of Country Names in Economic News：A Corpus-Based Analysis
  7. Second Language Acquisition
  8. Vocabulary Alignment in the Continuation Task of Translation
  9. Incidental L2 Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading: Concerns, Progresses and Future Directions
  10. Academic Writing
  11. Frequency Effect of Formulaic Sequences on CAF in Academic Writing: Examples from L2 Master’s Theses
  12. Identity Construction in Academic Writing of Student Writers Who Use English as an Additional Language: A Literature Review1
  13. Abstracts
  14. Chinese Abstracts
https://doi.org/10.1515/CJAL-2020-0033
Keywords for this article
academic writing; English as an additional language (EAL) students; identity construction

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Studies of Public Discourse in the Chinese Sociocultural Context Guest Editors: Jianping Chen & Tao Xiong
  3. Studies of Public Discourse in the Chinese Sociocultural Context: An Introduction (Continued)
  4. Interdiscursivity and Promotional Discourse: A Corpus-Assisted Genre Analysis of About Us Texts on Chinese University Websites
  5. Discourse Marker Na (那) as an Interpersonal-Level Compensatory Strategy in Clinical Interviews
  6. The Metaphoric and Metonymic Use of Country Names in Economic News：A Corpus-Based Analysis
  7. Second Language Acquisition
  8. Vocabulary Alignment in the Continuation Task of Translation
  9. Incidental L2 Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading: Concerns, Progresses and Future Directions
  10. Academic Writing
  11. Frequency Effect of Formulaic Sequences on CAF in Academic Writing: Examples from L2 Master’s Theses
  12. Identity Construction in Academic Writing of Student Writers Who Use English as an Additional Language: A Literature Review1
  13. Abstracts
  14. Chinese Abstracts
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