A Textual and Contextual Comparison
of Voice in Student Writing in the EAP Preparatory Course
and Two Undergraduate Courses at the University of Botswana
Presenter: Boitumelo Tiny Ramoroka ( Research student)
Centre for Applied Linguistics
University of Warwick
e-mail: b.t.ramoroka@warwick.ac.uk
Overview of developments in ESP Approach
to Genre Analysis and Academic Writing
 Genre- communicative events with a particular purpose
which is identified by its discourse community.
 In the earlier work on genre analysis much interest was on
macro-structures of texts and the move structure was
central to work in this tradition.
 Main proponent for this tradition is Swales (1990) known
for ‘moves analysis’.
 Bhatia (1993) work showed how genres are constructed
within specific discourse communities e.g. job applications,
sales promotion letters, case studies
Overview of developments- contd.
 The move analysis provided a very helpful tool in describing schematic
structures of texts and the relationship between form and function of
each move.
 Knowledge derived from analysis was used to provide insights for
material designers (description of the argumentative essay developed
by Hyland (1990), Henry and Roseberry (1997) .
 This approach (linguistic/textual) has been criticised ( New Rhetoric)
that it does not pay enough attention to the context in which the texts
have been produced.
 NR focuses on ethnographic methods of genre analysis rather than
linguistic methods & explores the beliefs, attitudes and the values of
DC that engages in the genre . They stress fluidity of genres , that they
are ever changing and can be manipulated by participants.
Overview of developments- contd.
 Recent developments show a shift from working purely
with textual analysis to examine the socio-cultural contexts
in which specific genres are produced. “Text are but one
aspect of the broader context of situation” (Flowerdew
&Wan 2010: 81).
 Genre theory has gone beyond
“ textual analysis of linguistic data in order to
incorporate a multi-dimensional and multiperspective framework for analysis of academic,
professional, institutional and other work place
genres” (Bhatia 2008: 166).
Overview of developments- contd.
 For instance, in terms of methodological approaches there is increasing
use of ethnographic methods such as interviews with insider
informants, participants observations, and other analytical methods to
enrich the data and to uncover values, beliefs, attitudes of the members
of the discourse community within which a particular genre is
produced.
 Examples of research
Bhatia 2008; Flowerdew and Wan 2010; Nesi and Gardner 2006;
Gardner 2008.
Overview of developments- contd.
 Research has moved on to look at rhetorical features that might
differentiate various genres.
 Work has examined the interpersonal dimension of academic writing
Examples:
Use of personal pronouns in writing (Kuo 1999; Tang and John 1999;
Sheldon 2009)
Use of hedges and attitude markers (Hyland 2005; Luzon 2009;
Mur Duenas 2010)
 Some of these studies have reinforced the view of discourse variation
and that each discourse community has ways of doing things which are
related to their practice.
Overview of developments- The
notion of metadiscourse
 Over the last decade there has been a shift in the way
academic writing is perceived based on the view that
writing is a social communicative engagement
between the writer and the reader .
 There is wealth of studies with interest in this notion
from both a theoretical and practical perspective
 Metadiscourse has emerged as one of the tools to
explore the interactional nature of texts and textual
‘voice’
The concept of voice
 The concept of ‘voice’ is used to refer to “expressions of the
writer’s own views, authoritativeness and authorial
presence” in writing. (Ivanic and Camps 2001:7)
 Other terms that are used for the same concept are ‘writer
identity’ (Ivanic 1998), ‘self representation’ (Ivanic and
Camps 2001).
 Another term associated with this concept is the notion of
‘interactional metadiscourse’ (Hyland 2005)
 All these terms are related to the concept of voice “in the
sense that they often identify similar discursive features
associated with individualism found in written texts”
(Stapleton 2002:178).
The notion of metadiscourse
 “ A cover term for self reflective expressions used to negotiate
interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer to express a
viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular
community (Hyland 2005:37).
 Metadiscourse is organised under two functional headings (it draws
insights from SFL description of language-based on Halliday’ macro
functions of language- ideational, textual and interpersonal)
Textual
interpersonal
Organization of discourse
reflects writer stance
towards both proposition
and the readers
Analytical Framework – Hyland’ (2005)
interactional metadiscourse features
 …The ways the writers conduct interaction by intruding and
commenting on their message. The writer’s goal is to make his or her
views explicit and to involve readers by allowing them to respond to
unfolding text. This is a writer’s expression of textual “voice” (Hyland
2005:49 )
 The interactional MD features “impart an interpersonal tenor to a piece
of writing: signaling the level of personality a writer invests in a text
through self-mention, hedges, attitude and the markers of reader
involvement...” (Hyland 2008: 155).
• Expressed through a range of rhetorical features which perform
specific functions – hedges, self mention, engagement markers,
boosters , attitude markers and use of evidentials.
Hyland’s interactional metadiscourse model
 Self mention- refers to degree of explicit author presence in




the text- realized by use of 1st person pronouns, the author,
the writer
Hedges- used by the writer to recognize alternative
viewpoints and so withhold commitment to the
proposition- might, possible, may, perhaps
Boosters- help writers to express with certainty what they
have to say- in fact, definitely, It is clear, indeed
Engagement markers- used to explicitly address readers
and engage them in a dialogue- you, ? And inclusive we
Attitude markers-indicate writer’s affective attitude to
proposition- Unfortunately, I agree, surprisingly
Hyland’s interactional metadiscourse model
 Evidentials –attribution of propositional content to another source
(how students signal citations in their writing so that there is a clear
distinction between their ideas and those of the sources)
 Use of evidentials may be viewed as a key aspect of how writers
manage voice
the production of a text is populated with one’s point of view or ‘voice’
as well as ‘voices of other texts’ and as such writing ‘can be regarded as
inevitably acts of intertextuality, in a generative rather than simply
reproductive way’ (Viete and Phan Le Ha 2007: 42-43).
T4: You cannot just write an essay without consulting sources, but
can you stand there and argue a point…Can I hear that this is a
person who has their point of view…
Analysis of Self mention- Tang and John’s
(1990) taxonomy
 Typology of possible identities behind 1st person pronouns
in academic writing
Least Powerful
Authorial presence
Most powerful
authorial presence
…I as guide I as architect…. I as opinion holder / originator
Thomas and Hawes (1994) classification for
reporting verbs
 Used this classification to analyze the use of evidentials.
 Done according to the function the reporting verb
performed in a sentence.
 Informing verbs- associated with neutral passing of
information from source to reader- writer doesn’t comment
or interpret information being reported.
 Argumentative verbs- the verbs don’t signal neutrality in
the communication of information as the writer’s voice
clearly intervenes
The study-Aims and Research questions
 The main aim of this study is to explore and compare
the presentation of writer voice in EAP and discipline
specific writing by undergraduate students.
1. Are there any variations in the use of interactional
metadiscourse features in the writing produced in
the EAP preparatory course and two disciplinary
courses which are Media Studies and Primary Ed.?
2. Are there any variations in the use of IMD
features in writing produced by undergraduate L2
and L1 (BAWE) writers working on similar essays?
The study-Aims and Research questions
3. Are there any patterns about where in the text IMD
features occur more frequently? For instance, can we
find evidence that certain features are more frequent
in the introduction, body or conclusion of the essay
and does it vary by corpus?
4. What do EAP tutors and tutors in the two
departments consider as good writing?
Corpus
I made use of the following corpora
Corpus Size
No. of texts
L2
EAP texts
28 872
55
33 825
20
u/graduate
Media
Studies
texts
writing
Primary
Education
texts
36 572
20
L1
u/graduate
BAWE texts 45 753
28
Methodology
 The study can be characterized as mixed methods-
both quantitative and qualitative comparisons were
made. (textual and contextual analysis)
 Qualitative decision were made to label features as
interactional metadiscourse and were coded in Nvivo
MD is a relative concept in that text items only
function as MD in relation to another part of the
text. So what might be MD in one rhetorical
context may be expressing propositional material
in another (Hyland 2005:24).
Methodology
 Made use of frequency counts and wordsmith 5
concordance tool. The concord tool provides
quantitative data for comparison e.g. Frequency of
each item per 1000 words and how many times a
particular feature appears in the whole corpus.
 Independent t-tests were performed where means of
each feature across the different corpora were
compared to determine whether there were any
significant statistical differences.
 Interviews with students and tutors (26)- analyzed
using Nvivo 7 software (contextual analysis)
Findings- Quantitative textual comparison
Frequency Distribution of IMD Features in EAP and Media Studies Writing
per 1000 words
S/Mention
Hedges
N f/1000 N
f/1000
Boosters
A/markers
E/Markers
Evidentials
N f/1000 N f/1000
N
f/1000 N
f/1000
MS
40
1.18
49
1.45
36
1.33
9
0.27
14
0.42 39
1.1.6
EAP
63
1.62
69
2.39
31
0.26
8
0.26
12
0.41 68
2.17
Frequency Distribution of IMD Features in EAP and Primary Education
Writing per 1000 words
S/Mention
Hedges
N f/1000 N
f/1000
Boosters
E/Markers
Evidentials
N f/1000 N f/1000
N
f/1000 N
0.06
9
0.24
0.26
12
PE
29
0.78 32
0.86
16
EAP
63
1.62
2.39
31
69
A/markers
0.45 2
0.26
8
f/1000
158
4.26
0.41 68
2.17
Findings- Quantitative textual comparison
Frequency Distribution of IMD Features in L2 (MS and PE) and L (BAWE)
Writing per 1000 words
S/Mention
Hedges
N f/1000 N
f/1000
Boosters
A/markers
E/Markers
N f/1000 N f/1000
N
Evidentials
f/1000 N
f/1000
L2
69
1.96
81
2.31
52
1.56 11
0.33
23
0.66
197
5.42
L1
80
1.74
146
3.19
42
0.82 18
0.24
38
0.82
43
0.92
Qualitative textual comparison
Use of Self-mention
 Students used 1st person pronouns in the different stages of the essays
mainly in ‘non controversial contributions such as stating discourse
goals’ (‘I as the guide’ and ‘I as the architect of the essay to organize the
overall structure of the essay, to signal a counter argument or refer the
writer to what has already been said.
e.g. In this essay I am going to argue that…
I will focus on…, I will express my opinion…
 The results show that L1 writers were more comfortable with the
assertive role and did not only present themselves as architects of the
essays but also formulated ideas and thoughts in their writing- used
the role of ‘I as the opinion holder’ with cognitive verbs like think and
believe and in my opinion.
Quantitative and Qualitative textual comparison
 Where students did not overtly signal their presence thru
use of 1st person pronouns they used other strategies where
they removed themselves as agents ( this increased
objectivity and detachment)
 Other forms of author reference used were the writer, the
researcher, the author, the exclusive we (PE students)
e.g. The researcher believes…, in this argument we shall
indicate…, But below we shall list…
 Where they did not use the first person pronouns students
were still present as architects of their essays
e.g. This paper is going to focus on… Finally the paper will try
to provide useful suggestions…
Quantitative & Qualitative textual comparison
Use of evidentials
 There were differences in use of evidentials between L1 and
L2. “use of citation for knowledge display and for
demonstrating one’s ability to apply a theory may be a more
prominent function of citation in students’ writing” (Petric
2007:239).
 The L2 writers generally maintained a neutrality in the use
of evidentials which did not incorporate the perspective of
the student writer.
the source authors state, say, call refer
Quantitative & Qualitative textual comparison
Use of evidentials
 Use of sources was associated with plagiarism- tutors were
concerned that students’ essays lacked originality and a
personal voice
T10- what is called plagiarism is a result of students
not being able to distinguish the academic voice
(voice of sources) and their personal voice… They tend
to mix them and at times it is difficult to identify the
students’ voice.
 Integrating sources into writing is supposed to “reflect
both the utterer’s voice and the voices from whom s/he has
borrowed” (Scollon et.al 1998:228)
Possible causes of variations in MD use
 Qualitative findings did not only reveal how students used
the IMD features in their writing but also revealed
variations in use in each department.
 EAP writing showed higher frequency of occurrence of
IMD features than the two dept. Adel (2006:199) discussing
the issue of personal essays argue that “they have a very
high involvement factor, and are narrative rather than
argumentative in character.”
Possible causes of variations in MD use
 Students lacked the confidence to present their voice “as
they feel they are not able to challenge the opinions of
established academic’ (Read 200:394).
 Tang (1999:S34) students can be intimidated by using 1st
person pronoun to originate their ideas because they see
themselves to be at the “lowest rungs of the academic
ladder.”
 Differences between L1 and L2 and between MS , PE and
EAP could be because of the writing conventions for each
group of students with respect to writer visibility and
interaction with an imagined audience (Adel 2006)
views of students & disciplinary tutors
 It seemed that students’ choice of whether to use or to avoid 1st person
pronouns and engagement markers like ‘you’ was defined by their
tutors’ beliefs, preferences and practices in their departments.(
discourse community based preferences Hyland 2002: 124)
When it is a general essay I don’t have to use ‘I think that…’ I can
say ‘one may think…’ (S2- PE)
You talk about ‘the researcher did this… we don’t use I’ (S2- PE)
Yes, as in ‘I’, yes sometimes I use them but I am scared knowing
the lecturer…If its prof. I sometimes can do that. ‘In this essay I
am going to… I think, in my opinion’. Yes words like that but if it
is T2 I would rather put myself away from the essay… (S5-MS)
…yes they have personal opinions on some of those things but
really they cannot say those things with authority. I have always
encouraged them to say ‘one would… and this takes the blunt
personal thing out. (T6- PE)
Conclusion
 Interviews provided a fuller understanding of the
tutors’ beliefs about what constitute good writing
 What are perceived to be appropriate conventions…
vary depending on specific contexts
 This has implications for students who have no other
source of support other than the EAP preparatory
course and they seem to use what they learn in the
EAP course in their disciplines.
 Students need to be made aware of disciplinary
preferences in their EAP writing.
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