Identity

"Who are you?" said the caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I - I hardly know, sir, just at present - at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
Alice's Adventure is Wonderland, Lewis Caroll

Just allow me, for a moment, to play devil's advocate. Ken Hyland, City University of Hong Kong, has demonstrated a couple of noteworthy points. First, contrary to the rigidity of the 'rules' of academic writing, many published articles (in peer reviewed journals) do include author pronouns. He acknowledges that there are a greater number of examples in the social sciences and humanities than in sciences and engineering - but that even in the latter disciplines there is a presence of author 'voice'. (Hyland, Options, 352)This seems to justify inclusion of identity at the student level. But Hyland doesn't want us to get too comfortable with the idea. He also notes that some students may resist revealing identity: "First person pronouns are a powerful way of projecting a strong writer identity, and this individualistic stance seems to clash with beliefs and practices that value more collectivist forms of self-representation." (Hyland, Authority and Invisibility, 354). And so we are left with the fact of enculturation that comes along with language learning: I want the students to have a voice - they themselves may not see the opportunity to insert themselves in their work as useful or desirable.The path forward - down the rabbit hole - must be through the students themselves. We have accepted the idea of grounded research, at least in principle, for years. That is, we accept that the most useful work comes out of projects where the 'subjects' are intimately involved in designing, performing, and analyzing the results. Now we need to begin to practice 'Grounded Teaching', and empower students to decide the most important questions for themselves.

Thank you Poppa, Janis and Dian for your continued interest and participation. Your meaningful contributions are sustenance.

Refs:

Hyland, Ken "Authority and invisibility: authorial identity in academic writing." Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1091-1112

"Options of Identity in academic writing." ELT Journal Volume 56/4, 2002 351-357.