Стаття.

Наталія Крамар

УДК 81`42: 811.111

TOWARDS AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

У статті розглянуто stance («позиція», «ставлення») та voice («голос», «тон») як два взаємодоповнюючі теоретичні конструкти для вивчення авторської особистості у науковому дискурсі. Здійснено спробу синтезувати позиційно-центричний підхід К. Гайленда та тоно-центричний підхід Р. Іваніч для якнайповнішого і водночас чітко структурованого аналізу авторської присутності у науковому тексті. Обґрунтовано доцільність розгляду засобів вираження категоричності/некатегоричності (boosting/hedging) у рамках інтерперсонального позиціонування (взаємодії з читачем) замість текстуального позиціонування (ставлення автора до пропозиційної інформації).

Ключові слова: авторська особистість, саморепрезентація, ставлення, тон, позиціонування.

Over the last two decades, the statement that academic discourse is subjective and imbued with authorial presence in just the same way as any other type of discourse has gained universal acknowledgment. Scientific writing is inherently persuasive and focused on negotiation of scientific truth by all means available (i.e. emotional as much as logical) rather than its construction purely with rational argumentation. As Hyland put it in his trend-setting 2005 paper, “Writers seek to offer a credible representation of themselves and their work by claiming solidarity with readers, evaluating their material and acknowledging alternative views, so that controlling the level of personality in a text becomes central to building a convincing argument” (Hyland, “Stance and Engagement” 173). Viewed from this perspective, the issue of authorial identity assumes critical importance in scientific communication, so it is not surprising it has recently come to the forefront of academic discourse studies. However, while a wealth of research exists on individual elements of self-representation in scientific writing (particularly, hedging and boosting, self-reference, attitude markers), there is no agreement on comprehensive and feasible approach that would encompass all (or at least, most of) the numerous facets of identity construction^[1] in academic discourse.

Identity in scientific communication has been most extensively studied through the lens of stance and related concepts, such as “appraisal” and “evaluation”, with the focus on the writer’s attitude to their propositions, to the readers and to themselves (D. Biber, B. Gray, S. Hood, S. Hunston, K. Hyland, J. Martin, M. Silver). A smaller camp of researchers has employed the metaphorical concept of voice to provide a broader insight into how the writer’s individual qualities carry over to their writing style (A. Hirvela, R. Ivanič, P. Matsuda, C. Tardy). The greatest attention so far has been paid to hedging and authorial pronouns as the most conspicuous manifestations of identity in academic discourse (e.g., B. Lewin, E. Hinkel, K. Hyland, P. Crompton, O. Ilchenko, L. Kim, F. Salager-Myer, T. Yakhontova), which, however, places more weight on the social aspect of identity rather than the personal one. There have been very few efforts to devise a comprehensive and multi-layered framework for the analysis of self-representation in academic discourse. The most authoritative of them belongs to Hyland, who offered the model of stance and engagement as two facets of identity in academic discourse (Hyland, “Stance and Engagement”). More comprehensive theory has been put forth by R. Ivanič and D. Camps (Ivanič and Camps), who employ the framework of voice while viewing stance as one of its components.

While most researchers in the domain of academic writing tend to agree that stance denotes attitudinal dimension of interaction, whereas voice is a broader phenomenon encompassing more of the author’s individuality, the agreement seems to end there. The scopes of these concepts, as well as the nature of their interrelations, remain unclear, primarily due to the wide disparity of various frameworks devised so far. The situation gets even more complicated due to the multifaceted nature of human identity per se, and vastly differing views on its components and layers. There is a strong need to establish which elements constitute the scientists’ identity-in-writing and, perhaps more importantly, which of them are truly worth investigating in light of the overarching purpose of facilitating academic communication and improving the teaching of scholarly writing.

The existing literature being so discordant and copious, the aim of the present paper is to provide an overview and analysis of currently the most influential frameworks for researching identity construction in academic discourse, while showing a way for their synthesis. We hope to prove that Hyland’s concepts of hedging and boosting, as well as his engagement model, could be integrated into Ivanič’s and Camps’ tripartite model of voice as positioning, thus providing a comprehensive approach to self-representation in academic writing. The subject matter of the article is linguistic means whereby identity is constructed in scholarly writing, while the scope encompasses the English academic discourse. This particular scope is warranted with the indisputable status of English as lingua franca of the modern science, alongside the fact that most existing frameworks for identity construction in academic discourse are based on English, whether used by L1 or L2 speakers. However, the notions of stance and voice have also been successfully applied to other languages and have been valuable in highlighting variations in authorial presence in academic discourse across cultures (Fløttum; Sheldon; Vassileva; Yakhontova; Yang).

The analysis of identity construction in academic writing requires answering the question “what is identity?” in the first place. Admittedly, identity is a broad concept that eludes clear definition despite the numerous and ongoing efforts of linguists, philosophers and psychologists alike to tackle it. This word is typically modified by adjectives such as “national”, “religious”, “political” etc. However, it would be an extremely reductionist approach to view it just as the sum of a person’s social affiliations and relations as reflected in a text. In contrast, modern research tends to construe identity not as some fixed and essentialized thing-in-itself , but rather a work-in-progress that depends on the interplay of social, cultural and, not least, linguistic factors. As stated by Matsuda in his recent review, “Identity in written discourse is a complex phenomenon that involves both empirical reality that can be described and measured (e.g., demographics and textual features) and phenomenological reality that exists in people’s perceptions (e.g., social constructs)” (141). The latter is not projected, but rather constructed, in a written text by means of interaction of various linguistics features as well as the interaction between author and reader (Bucholtz and Hall; Ivanič; Matsuda). Though people usually have a unified sense of self, their identity is multifaceted and subject to constant change: “It includes the “self” that a person brings to the act of writing, the “self” she constructs through the act of writing, and the way in which the writer is perceived by the reader(s) of the writing” (Burgess and Ivanič 232). It is recognized that identity has both individual and social dimensions to it, and they are inevitably intertwined.

Identity in academic writing has been studied through the conceptual prisms of stance, voice and (to a lesser degree) style. Stance is most commonly associated with the linguistic expression of the author’s position and assessment in relation to the status of proposed knowledge, the reader and/or the author themselves. Apart from “stance,” there is a wide range of other terms that have been suggested by various researchers with roughly the same ideational content in mind. The most significant of them are: “evaluation”, “appraisal”, “posture”, “attitude” and “metadiscourse” (Hyland and Jiang 252). Positionality is an immanent feature of all human communication, though some forms or genres of communication can manifest it more broadly than others. Academic discourse often seems preoccupied with the demonstration of neutrality and objectivity, but, on the other hand, “neutrality is itself a stance” (Jaffe 3). While stance-taking is the primary mechanism of self-presentation in written discourse, it is firmly grounded in context and is socially determined to a certain extent.

Stance-related meanings can be expressed in writing with a number of linguistic and paralinguistic features. Linguistic features are represented by a wide range of linguistic devices, such as stance adverbials, modals and semi-modals, complement clauses controlled by nouns or adjectives, prepositional phrase constructions and word choice in general (Gray and Biber 19). The most authoritative theoretical frameworks of stance (at least, as far as academic discourse is concerned) draw the distinction between evidentiality (epistemic stance) and affect (affective or attitudinal stance) (Hyland “Stance and Engagement”; Biber and Finegan; Gray and Biber). Evidentiality is related to the author’s evaluation of the credibility and reliability of their own propositions (e.g. certainty vs. uncertainty), whereas affect covers more personal and emotional attitudes towards the stated information (e.g. hope, joy, surprise). On the other hand, some recent approaches conceptualize stance in a different way, placing an emphasis on its interactional, or intersubjective, nature and drawing attention to the author’s attitude to their interlocutors (Keisanen; Scherer; Kiesling). In particular, Scott F. Kiesling distinguishes between epistemic stance (the author’s attitude to their propositions) and interpersonal stance (the author’s attitude to their interlocutors). It should be noted, however, that Hyland’s (“Stance and Engagement”) theoretical framework also accounts for interactionality, though placing it not within the scope of stance, but engagement, which is regarded as another element of the author’s positioning in writing.

No matter how broadly stance may be conceptualized, it is obvious that self-representation cannot be reduced to positionality. The broader concept of voice, though quite vague and contested due to its “literary and aesthetic overtones” (Tardy 34), has been productive in highlighting the unique personal stamp the author brings to writing and in trying to catch its elusive essence. Voice is often placed within a Bakhtinian perspective, with the focus on social, historical and cultural meanings as appropriated by authors in their discourse construction (Ivanič and Camps; Sperling and Appleman). Just like stance, voice is an inherent and inevitable feature of all kinds of writing, however faceless it may seem at first glance. Voice has both individual and social dimensions, which were strictly dichotomized in early research; however, the currently predominant social-constructivist view of voice regards them as mutually constitutive and interdependent (Matsuda 147). A person constructs their individuality in discourse by choosing specific lexical, grammatical and syntactical means, but this choice is limited with the socially available repertoire and is suited to the particular social context and conditions. Naturally, the individual voice of an author would differ depending on the audience they address, on the level of formality appropriate in this situation, on the author’s status and many other factors. Ivanič’s authoritative theoretical framework of writing identity classifies the social aspect of voice into “discoursal self” and “possibilities for selfhood”, and the individual aspect into “autobiographical self” and “self as author”, thus emphasizing the multi-layered nature of authorial identity.

Voice is closely related to stance, but it also incorporates other elements that convey the writer’s individuality. The identification of these elements is, however, contentious. By far the most influential approach to self-representation in academic discourse – that of Ken Hyland – views voice as comprised of stance and engagement^[2]. In this perspective, stance is represented with hedges and boosters (aligned with evidentiality), attitude markers (aligned with affect), and self-mentions (aligned with presence), while engagement is marked with reader pronouns, personal asides, directives, questions, and references to sharedness. Hyland’s framework has gained enormous popularity in academic writing research over the last decade, in part due to its clear structure and relative simplicity enabling corpus-based approach with comparative design. While this approach is tenable and well-thought-out, it still has a few weak points that we would like to address here:

1. As convincingly demonstrated by Tang and Jones, Starfield and Ravelli, and Sheldon, self-mentions are far from being homogeneous and can perform an array of different functions. Thus, Tang and Jones identify six roles of first-person pronouns in academic discourse ranging from “I as representative” to “I as originator”, while Starfield and Ravelli, as well as Sheldon, include the category “Reflexive I” as the most powerful authorial role. Hyland’s framework fails to account for the multiple functions of self-mentions. Moreover, self-mentions in this scheme are categorized under stance only, though they can also be incorporated into engagement markers (especially questions, personal asides, and references to sharedness).

2. In a much similar way, Hyland identifies the category “reader pronouns” without accounting for difference in their functions. Moreover, this category should not be regarded separately from other engagement markers as there is a natural overlap between them.

3. As argued by P. Matsuda, the definition of voice should necessarily incorporate non-discursive elements as much as discursive ones, since visual elements and document design convey much valuable information about the author’s individuality (Tardy 40). Hyland's framework is focused solely on discursive elements, thus leaving important semiotic features aside.

4. The framework is restricted to positionality as it only covers the author’s attitude (to their propositions, to the topics they are talking about and to the readers), without embracing the ways in which the author categorizes and conceptualizes the world. Also, it says nothing about the author’s beliefs with regard to knowledge construction and scientific truth, though these features are of critical importance in scientific communication.

We suggest that, in large part, these deficiencies can be redressed by drawing upon the theory of voice as positioning, elaborated by Ivanič and Camps. The researchers conceptualize voice as represented with ideational, interpersonal and textual positioning, in alignment with three macrofunctions of language postulated by systemic-functional linguistics (Ivanič and Camps 10-11). Ideational positioning refers to the ways whereby the author represents the world and constructs or reproduces knowledge. It encompasses, first, various interests, objects, and methodologies (as represented with lexical choice); second, different stances taken by the author (as represented with evaluative and classificatory lexis, syntax, and generic reference); third, views of knowledge-making, or epistemic beliefs (as represented with verb types, generic vs. specific reference etc). Interpersonal positioning concerns the extent of the author’s authoritativeness in building relationships with their readers. On the one part, it encompasses the author’s certainty as expressed by modality, self-mentions, and evaluation; on the other part, it also includes the writer’s power relationships with readers marked by self-mentions and mood. Finally, textual positioning is related to the author’s preferred ways of text construction, exemplified by semiotic mode, linking devices, complexity of words chosen etc. It is noteworthy that, within Ivanič’s and Camps’ framework, first person pronouns are not a separate category but merely a linguistic representation of different elements spanning both ideational and interpersonal positioning. Obviously, this approach is much more comprehensive than the one proposed by Hyland as it accounts for the author’s choice of topic and object, as well as epistemic beliefs, which are a critical component of the writer’s identity as a researcher. Moreover, it pays particular attention to syntax and textual positioning, which are disregarded by Hyland altogether. However, in terms of interpersonal positioning (engagement), Hyland offers more detailed and lucid structure than Ivanič and Camps.

Based on the comparison above, we would like to suggest a framework that seeks to blend the two approaches together (see Table 1). In this synthetic structure, Hyland’s stance would be roughly aligned with Ivanič and Camps’ ideational positioning, and engagement would be roughly aligned with interpersonal positioning. However, we believe that hedges and boosters should be construed within interpersonal positioning as they are more reflective of the author’s authoritativeness in regards to readers than their own position towards the issue at hand. E.g., when a researcher writes it seems likely or perhaps (which are considered typical examples of hedges), it does not necessarily mean that he/she has doubts as to his/her claims: rather, it means that he/she wants to come across as a considerate and careful scientist in the eyes of his/her intended audience. Likewise, boosters such as in fact, really, indeed convey not as much the author’s attitude to the proposition as his/her desire to emphasize it for this particular audience, in contrast to attitude verbs (suppose, think, doubt etc.), which do mark the author’s stance to the information he/she shares. In Kiesling’s terms, hedges and boosters would be aligned with “interpersonal stance” (Kiesling 174). Hyland, too, acknowledges an important role of these instruments in establishing relationships with readers, stating that they “allow writers to strategically engage with colleagues, affecting interpersonal solidarity and membership of a disciplinary in-group.” (Hyland, “Boosting, Hedging” 5). Therefore, we consider it reasonable to construe hedges and boosters within interpersonal positioning as the markers of authorial certainty and authoritativeness.

The primary category included into ideational positioning is “attitude markers”, to use Hyland’s term (Hyland, “Stance and Engagement” 180): Ivanič and Camps label it more broadly as “stances” (10). As stated by Ivanič and Camps, it is linguistically marked by evaluative lexis, classificatory lexis, generic vs. specific references, and syntax; another linguistic realization, which is only noted by Hyland, is attitude verbs (such as prefer, believe). Ivanič and Camps place an emphasis on the ways whereby people are referred to in an analyzed piece of writing, whether their agency is recognized or not. For example, in the following sentence, taken from student writing, people are referred to in a rather impersonal way:

This capability derives from careful management of three key assets: highly competent IT human resource, a reusable technology base, and a strong partnering relationship between IT and business management. (Ivanič and Camps 15)

The lexical choice in IT human resource (rather than “IT professionals”, “IT experts” etc.) diminishes humans’ agency by reducing them to a resource, while nominalization in IT and business management further decreases the role of human actors in the stated relationship.

The next category is the choice of topic, object and methodology. What warrants particular attention here is the extent of appropriation of the terminology specific to the field and/or attempts of the author to devise their own terms or to digress from the conventional methods. The third category, accentuated by Ivanič and Camps (18), is views on knowledge-making as represented by verb types, passive or active voice, generic or specific references. This refers to whether the authors regard knowledge as objective and universally true or subjective and dependent on experience. In the Hyland’s perspective, the markers of these epistemic views are not regarded per se, but are merged with the category of hedges, for example:

1) Our results suggest that rapid freeze and thaw rates during artificial experiments in the laboratory may cause artifactual formation of embolism. (Hyland, “Boosting, Hedging” 2)

2) Recently, however, there have been suggestions by brand theorists that a link may exist between product judgments and organizational associations (Aaker 1996) or secondary associations, one of which is the company that produced the product Keller 1993). (Hyland, “Boosting, Hedging” 29).

Hyland classifies our results suggest in Example 1 as a hedge, while Ivanič and Camps would also regard it as an indicator of the author’s beliefs of knowledge as objective and dependent on the data itself rather than the observer. In Example 2, the nominalization there have been suggestions (by brand theorists) places more weight on the ideas themselves than on the people behind these ideas.

Interpersonal positioning comes in two forms: self-positioning in relation to readers and establishing relationships with readers. According to Ivanič and Camps, the former is manifested in evaluation, modality and first person reference, whereas the latter is projected through mood and first person reference (11). In his conceptualization of engagement, Hyland offers more narrow and structured categories, such as directives, questions, references to sharedness, and personal asides. Moreover, hedges and boosters (that he places within stance) are convenient terms that incorporate evaluation, modality and first-person reference to a large extent. Therefore, drawing upon Hyland’s concepts, self-positioning in relation to readers would be expressed through the extent of certainty (hedges/boosters) and personal asides. It should be noted that most academic papers employ both hedges and boosters to modulate the level of conviction and authoritativeness depending on the claims, often in close proximity to each others, for example:

Although it is clear that some group II introns are spliced efficiently under physiological conditions only if aided by trans-acting actors, it remains plausible that others may actually self-splice in vivo. Our results indicate that the splicing of nearly every pre-mRNA intron in the maize chloroplast genome requires either chloroplast ribosomes or crs2 function. The splicing of this intron may require nuclear gene products not yet identified in our genetic screens. (Hyland, “Hedging, Boosting” 3)

In this example, it is clear and indicate are boosters, while plausible, may (used twice) are representative of hedging. Therefore, it is important that the use of hedges and boosters as indicative of the writer’s self-assurance should be evaluated based on their prevalence in the sample (with the use of quantitative methods), not individually on small sections of the sample (which is the approach Ivanič and Camps adopt in their analysis of L2 academic writing).

Personal asides refer to the author’s comments in mid-flow of an argument, for example:

And – as I believe many TESOL professionals will readily acknowledge – critical thinking has now begun to make its mark, particularly in the area of L2 composition. (Hyland, “Stance and Engagement” 183)

If used frequently enough, personal asides can be a salient indication of the author’s self-assurance and willingness to impose his/her authority upon the audience.

Another facet of interpersonal positioning – establishing relationships with readers – comes in the form of questions, directives, and references to sharedness. The particular form and wording of questions and directives is highly representative of the power relationships the author seeks to build with his/her audience. For example, the same ideational content can be expressed by the directives It is important to consider this point and Just think about it, but the extent of authoritativeness projected will obviously be higher in the latter case. References, or appeals, to sharedness implicitly request the audience to accept the proposition as familiar or indisputable by disguising it as common knowledge; they may be represented with the same lexical units as boosters (e.g. of course, obviously), but their primary function is to make the audience identify with certain statements, not to project the author’s confidence, for example:

Of course, we know that the indigenous communities of today have been reorganized by the catholic church in colonial times and after… (Hyland, “Stance and Engagement” 184).

The category of textual positioning is borrowed from Ivanič and Camps without any modifications: it can be expressed through semiotic mode, sentence length, linking devices, visual elements etc. The use of diagrams and tables, their particular structure can be highly reflective of the author’s personal ways of conceptualizing the data and the world at large: tools or the analysis of these features can be drawn from semiotics and visual rhetoric.

While this framework seems rather complex, so is authorial identity; hence, there is no room for simplification as long as one is interested in all-sided analysis of how the author’s self is represented and constructed in academic discourse. It should be admitted that the complexity of this model makes corpus-based approach to authorial voice rather problematic: however, it is quite feasible with relatively small scope of texts or with a single author that has to be researched in depth. The broad conceptualization of voice in academic writing can be particularly useful when analyzing student academic papers and works by renowned scientists because these are less dependent on the field conventions than average contributors to scholarly journals. This approach emphasizes that academic writing has the author’s identity shining through all of its layers and elements, even if the author strives to communicate their research results in the most faceless and objective manner.

In summary, self-representation in academic discourse has been approached from numerous and disparate perspectives, with stance and voice being the predominant conceptual frameworks. In large part, this disparity can be attributed to the complexity and nebulosity of the term “identity” itself. In the bulk of modern research, self-representation (or identity construction, following the social-constructivist perspective) is essentially equated to voice. While Hyland’s theoretical model of voice as stance and engagement has gained the greatest acknowledgment among researchers, it has a number of deficiencies and, in terms of comprehensiveness, is inferior to Ivanič and Camps model of voice as ideational, interpersonal and textual positioning. Still, in our viewpoint, Hyland’s binary of hedging and boosting can be instrumental in capturing the extent of the author’s authoritativeness, so we suggest incorporating it into Ivanič’s and Camps’ model within interpersonal positioning in lieu of the broad realizations of modality and evaluation.

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[1] In the body of literature, the terms “identity construction” and “self-representation” (as well as “authorial presence”) are often found to convey identical ideational content. We prefer the term “identity construction” in alignment with the social-constructivist theories, which regard identity as a malleable phenomenon subject to constant change (Bucholtz and Hall 585; Matsuda 141). However, since “self-representation” is currently predominant in academic discourse studies, we will use the terms interchangeably throughout the present paper.

[2] Hyland put forward this framework in his 2005 paper “Stance and Engagement”, but it’s only in 2008 that he explicitly associated it with voice (in the article “Disciplinary voices”).