The discursive construction of authorial voice and disciplinarity through citation: when educational research and applied language research articles intersect with decoloniality
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis aims to investigate the ways in which disciplinary knowledge, convention, canonisation, and authorial voice are constructed in Educational Research (ER) and Applied Linguistics and Language Studies (ALS) Research Articles (RA). This will be done in the context of when ALS and ER RAs intersect with Decolonial theory and praxis in response to recent and ongoing ‘#Fallist’ student movements in South Africa. Citation practices have frequently been discussed in the broader context of academic writing and has now become the focus of research in and of itself (For examples see Thompson and Ye 1991; Thomas and Hawes 1994a; Thomas and Hawes 1994b; Buckingham & Neville 1997: 52; Hyland 1999; Hyland 2008; Hyland & Jiang 2019; Peng 2019). Three different types of citation analyses were used to analyse the data. The first two focused on in-text citation practice and the third was a bibliographical quantification. These three methods allowed for a close analysis of citation practice across the data set. Citation presentation type and citation language form patterns across the data mirror those found in other studies for the ‘soft sciences’. High rates of direct quotation and relatively high rates of integral citation suggest an acknowledgement of the role of human agency in the production of knowledge. While both disciplines show high levels of reference to university and governmental policy, and the prominence of language and education literature, ER incorporates more literature often onsidered seminal in the ‘Decolonial canon’. Conversely, ALS seems to rely heavily on theories of multilingualism, specifically translanguaging, when they explicitly address Decoloniality in education. Ultimately, the data shows the importance of recognising both authorial agency and the constraints in which writers operate when constructing authorial voice and navigating disciplinary boundaries. In terms of voice, to discursively construct an authorial voice, a writer must create explicit and rhetorically significant intertextual linkages by negotiating self-representation through the constraints and conventions of their context. In terms of disciplinary construction, writers must make choices about which communities to align with and the degree to which they conform or resist these conventions (Hyland 2008). Writers working in academic contact zones, such as those created when many disciplinary traditions meet and sometimes clash, need to create and implement innovative and novel ways to negotiate rhetorical boundaries.
Author: Lalia Duke
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3138076724