The author employed critical discourse analysis as a research methodology to better understand how language shapes and positions people as writers. According to the author, CDA can be used to raise awareness of language in its social context and can also help people understand and control their own roles in the use of discourse. The research was done under Gee’s theoretical framework of Discourses.
By examining closely writers’ and speakers’ choices or uses of discourse, it is possible to discover how “people position themselves and are positioned by and construct and are constructed by the linguistic and ideological choices they make”.
The author defined three terms before the introduction to the research design. Here are the author’s definitions.
Identity refers to how does language in the text signal participation, representation, or identification with a group or indicate a relationship regarding who this individual is in the world.
Traditional formal discourse refers to a kind of academic discourse containing varied forms that can be found in different departments across colleges and universities. Typical conventions are structured introductory paragraphs, thesis statement, topic sentences, tightly organized text blocks, and claims supported by detailed explanation.
Expressiveness refers to the discourse that informs pedagogy which privileges individual control over textual meaning and production and is often viewed in opposition to traditional formal discourse.
The author took Mandy, a Korean girl who was raised in America, as a subject of the case study. From the three microanalyses of Mandy’s discourse, namely, Mandy’s response to writer identity prompt, her journal responses to assigned readings and her conference, the author understood how Mandy viewed herself, positioned herself and the social and linguistic reasons why she positioned herself that way, and further more pedagogical implication of this research representing more people like Mandy.
This article is illuminating to me because it addressed the issue of second language learners’ identity as writers. I agree very much with the author’s suggestion that teachers should teach students that they should ask for opportunity to rewrite a paper that has language issues. Thus, students will see themselves as writers “in progress” rather than “bad readers”.
According to my own experiences, this is vital for a second language user to develop her confidence to merge more into the Discourse and better grasp that Discourse meta-knowledge and make further improvement in that discipline.
This article is of special significance to Chinese language teachers whose students are more sensitive to identity and always label themselves as “bad writers”.
I am wondering if CDA could be taught to students to analyze their own discourse so that they better understand themselves and be able to improve their identity as writers.
CDA is something that I want to become much more familiar with. I took a critical literacy course, and we touched briefly on CDA, but definitely CDA deserves its own course. (By the way, my wife, Mikyung [Michelle] says hello! Do you remember her? She met you in the first day of Dr. Becknell's Sociology of Education course, but then I think you dropped the course.)
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