Volume 42, Issue 3

This article traces the evolution of the field of second language acquisition/development (SLA/SLD). It chronicles the evolution in terms of different disciplines and theories that have been influential, beginning with the origin of SLA/SLD in linguistic thinking and expanding its scope of inquiry to psycholinguistics. It has developed further with the disciplines of anthropology and sociology holding sway. More recently, newer cognitive theories have been influential. The article discusses the recent call for a transdisciplinary approach. More specifically, the author promotes the adoption of complex dynamic systems theory, in keeping with non-reductionist systems thinking. Not only is this sociocognitive theory an interdisciplinary theory, but it also highlights the dynamic, variable, nonlinear nature of second language development. This it does within an ecological conception of development, which insists on the relevance of context. It also maintains that SLA/SLD is not a matter of input becoming output, but rather that language patterns emerge from the interaction of its users, given the affordances that they perceive. The article concludes with a discussion of several instructional issues.

In the process of China’s dynamic social changes over the past decades, the young-parent identity construction of an emerging middle class and the resulting changes of social-cultural values in this context have attracted the attention of academic research in recent years. With the focus on the discursive construction of parent identity, this study examines the utilization of first-person pronouns in three different interactional contexts, namely, parent-teacher interaction, parent-parent interaction, and parent-child interaction. The study further explores the patterns of alignment between the parents and their children, parents and teachers of their children, and peer parents during the process of identity construction, followed by a discussion of the implication that young, emerging middle-class Chinese parents fundamentally shape themselves as “concerned” and “involved” parents and the change of values between collectivity and agency. The study not only demonstrates the dynamic and pluralistic nature of parent identity but also deepens our understanding of the indexical roles of first-person pronouns in the discursive construction of emerging middle-class Chinese parent identity and its relationship with the recent social-cultural changes in the Chinese context.

Neoliberalism has emerged as a keyword that captures some core features of global economic and educational reforms in recent years. This paper reports a linguistic ethnographic study of how a Chinese language teacher was engaged with neoliberal discourses on language education in and out of the classroom in a suburban public middle school in China, with an attempt to illuminate the complexity of language education in a neoliberal context. The analysis shows three general identity positions—as an opponent, a conformist, and a pragmatist—across the identification trajectory of the focal language teacher through the fieldwork period, in relation to neoliberal exam-oriented education and her various ways of engaging with exam discourses in her language classrooms. This inquiry argues for the perspective of unpredictability and complexity as an alternative that goes beyond the current “deterministic neoliberalism” in understanding the dynamics of neoliberalization in language education, language teaching, and teacher identity formation.

Recent research on academic discourse has revealed the intersection of writing and writer identity construction. However, some terms that are being used in writer identity study are sometimes not only interchangeably used without making an explicit connection between them but also used in a way that may cause misunderstanding. The paper is intended to tease out four key terms, namely, stance, voice, self, and identity so that the respective role that each plays in academic written discourse can be differentiated on the one hand, and their interrelationship can be clarified on the other. It is hoped that such a panoramic picture can offer some pedagogical implications for academic writing teaching and research and provide some insights into the research on writer identity construction in academic written discourse as well.

For years, personal and social voices have been the issue of discussion on voice construction in written discourse (e.g., Elbow, 1999; Flowerdew, 2011; Hyland, 2002, 2010a, 2012b; Mauranen, 2013; Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999; Tardy, 2005). However, there is a lack of an integrated examination of the dimensions which determine voice construction in writing from personal and social perspectives. This article re-examines the issue of voice construction through a critical review of previous literature on identity in written discourse. It is argued that there are five major dimensions for the construction of voice in written discourse. How writers appropriate their voice according to such five dimensions as genre, transition, culture, discipline and audience will be discussed. This paper lends further support to the view that voice in written discourse is both personal and social. As it is known, good writing expresses both personal and social voices. However, based on the dominant dimension(s), voice construction should be adjusted. Sometimes personal voice is boldly expressed; sometimes social voice is; and some other times the boundary between the two is unnoticeable. The study provides an integrated framework as well as pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing within L1 and L2 contexts.

Based on Burgess and Ivanič’s (2010) framework of the discoursal construction of writer identity, this paper explores the interaction between citation practices and identity construction in Chinese EFL learners’ MA thesis writing. A mixed approach of textual analysis and interviews was adopted to examine the citation features of MA theses and the identities Chinese EFL learners constructed through citation selection. It was found that students’ selection of citations reflects their linguistic identity, academic and disciplinary identity, as well as novice identity. Their citation practices project different discursive selves to readers. By adjusting the number and relevance of references, they intend to construct a knowledgeable and credible self. The use of ineffective citations and references not only projects an unfavorable impression on readers but reflects a lack of authorial identity. This study has significant implications for the teaching of academic English and the supervision of thesis writing.

Authorial stance has attracted increasing attention in the study of second language writing. Many studies have focused on certainty in students’ academic writing, but little attention has been paid to generality in students’ academic stance. Employing a corpus-based approach, this study investigates features of generality in Chinese EFL students’ stance in academic writing through comparison with the writing of international scholars. Results show that the Chinese EFL students employed significantly more generalization markers than international scholars in their academic writing, while the international scholars used more qualified generalizations. Moreover, clear differences in the focus of generalization markers and in the distribution of qualified generalizations were found, though the two groups exhibit similar tendencies in the functions of these generalization features. The findings suggest that Chinese EFL students tend to generalize their claims to a larger scope in order to make their academic writing more persuasive, leaving an impression of exaggeration and overstatement, whereas international scholars are more likely to restrict the use of generality markers in their academic writing, making more circumscribed claims. The results have practical and pedagogical implications for second language academic writing instruction.