Shades of identity
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Date
2020
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Oum-El-Bouaghi
Abstract
Second language learners' identity has been at the core of a plethora of studies; however, there seems to be insufficient research on how such concept is accounted for within the Algerian academic context. This study, informed by work done by John and Tang (1999), aims at exploring how Algerian and foreign students' identities are implemented within the academic and Non-Academic setting of writing in the larger frame of learning and teaching English as a foreign language. This study identified different linguistic and thematic schemes the participants, who are master and doctoral students belonging to Algerian, French and English universities, adopted for the sake of asserting as well as concealing their identities throughout the writing tasks they were provided with. Such mechanisms were examined through the application of document analysis to the participants' pieces of writing which was later followed by discourse-based interviews to appraise whatever level of awareness the participants had in relation to how much authorial presence they emitted through each writing praxis. The results obtained from the analysis of the data generated reveal that, unlike foreign students who make sure to assert a strong authorial presence in both types of writing through their extensive use of personal pronouns projecting powerful authorial roles and their generation of themes related to, among many others, aspects of the autobiographical and discoursal facets of their identities, Algerian students are more inclined to conceal their identities in academic writing. This includes succumbing entirely to academic discursive practices by abstaining from incorporating the aforementioned elements to achieve impersonality; nevertheless, their Non-Academic writing represents the embodiment of their identities. On account of these findings, a set of pedagogical implications are provided to especially teachers along with a reference to the main obstructions that restrained the work from achieving its full potential.
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Keywords
Academic writing, Language learner identity, Authorial presence, Personal pronoun