Authorial voices in journal articles: A contrastive rhetoric study

• Main Author: Villegas, Sydney Gonzales
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Authors > Style; Academic writing; Applied Linguistics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/279
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study examined authorial voices in journal articles written by authors from different cultural backgrounds. Specifically, the study analyzed the authorial voices identified in the Results and Discussion, Conclusion, and Recommendation sections of journal articles representing four cultures where English is used as the language of scholarship, namely, Japanese English, Singaporean English, Korean English, and Philippine English. An empirical study on authorial voices was conducted which resulted in a proposed model for identifying authorial voice in academic writing necessary in understanding the text. Using 30 journal articles as data, the study was anchored on Y. Kachrus (1999) Contrastive Rhetoric Hypothesis (CRH). The study investigated the way in which writers express authority, interpersonal negotiations, and solidarity with the reader through specific linguistic features and textual properties that represent the writers authorial voice. Moreover, the study devised a set of types of voice that are found dominant in each article from the four cultures and constructed a rubric for analyzing authorial voices in texts. Quantitative and qualitative methods of analyzing data revealed the linguistic and textual features that signal the authors manner of emphasizing their ideas, negotiating with the readers, and owning the text. Furthermore, the methods of analysis allowed for the identification of the dominant types of voice evident in the text. These are the assertive, authoritative, objective, reflective, commentative, and tentative or detached voice. The study concluded that different English varieties use culturally-available linguistic resources in revealing authorial voices in texts. More importantly, the journal iv articles revealed that writers adopt an authoritative type of voice in the presentation of their research findings. Based on the above mentioned findings, a model is proposed to guide teachers in making their students develop their own voice in academic writing. By exploring the linguistic and rhetorical features of journal articles and devising a set of types of voices, the study hopes to contribute to the growing literature in second language writing. It also hopes to promote further research and publication on discourse and text analysis, thereby encouraging students to find and write with their own distinct voice to express their ideas.