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The academic literacies model of academic writing is concerned with the power of discourse and ideology which prevails among academic communities. It raises the question as to what counts as knowledge for a particular discipline, how the concept of identity is relevant to writing, and how literacy practices are associated with institutional discourses and genres (Lea & Street, 2006). Some other existing approaches to academic writing may also fit into this model and these include systematic functional linguistics (SFL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

Arguing for the academic literacies model, Lea and Street (1998) have showed that what underlies a well-structured and a well-argued piece of writing varies from one academic tutor to another. They gave an account of one student who used standard cohesive ties (i.e., conjunctions and adverbs between sentences such as ‘therefore’ and repetition of key terms) to connect with the essay question in two written assignments. One tutor said that the piece of writing lacked structure and argument because the tutor could not grasp the connection between the ideas presented by the student and as such suggested the student to go to writing clinics to get support in general writing skills. However, the same student received excellent marks in the other written assignment although it was written in a similar manner. This experience caused confusion for the student, implying that the twin concepts of ‘structure’ and ‘argument’ which are focused on in the two previously-mentioned models are not helpful in practice.

Lea and Street (1998) argue that what makes a successful piece of writing involves the issues of epistemology rather than the surface features of form. Their evidence is based on the ways in which the commitment to the truth of a statement—which is referred to as ‘modality’—is expressed in a text. On the margins of the student paper with negative feedback, the tutor wrote many markers such as ‘?’, ‘!’, ‘(…)’ and comments which indicate disagreement, doubt and criticism such as ‘Explain’ and ‘A bit confused’. These markers suggest that the tutor was giving a kind of categorical comment that the student’s point was not correct; hence, the negative feedback for the student. This is an example of how the epistemological issues between tutors and students play a role in a piece of writing but the emphasis of the feedback is often placed on structure and argument rather than modality and literacies.

In order to understand how academic literacies are influenced by epistemological issues as well as discourses and how they influence identity, I draw on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), each of which has its own robust framework for these aspects.

2.1.3.1. Systemic Functional Linguistics

The Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) framework posits that language is a resource for meaning (Halliday & Martin, 1993). When people use language in a

written mode, they are producing a text, or an instance of language which makes sense to those who know the language. Therefore, there is a relationship between a clause, a text and a culture for people to make meanings in their social activity.

Applying the SFL approach to discourse analysis, Martin and Rose (2007) argue that there are three strata of language. The relationship between these strata can be described through ‘realisation’ in which ‘social contexts are realised as texts which are realised as sequences of clauses’ (p. 4). As such, SFL-based discourse analysis is at the interface between the work of grammarians—which involves an analysis of the roles of wordings in the texts— and the work of social theorists—which involves an explanation why such roles become meaningful. For SFL linguists, a textual analysis is based on the assumption that there are patterns of meaning-making in the discourse (i.e., the text) which can be decoded.

Since a text can be considered an instantiation of the higher system in which many variables play a role in the realisation, Martin and Rose (2007) explore genres by looking at the type of social activity a text enacts instead of looking at rhetorical moves in a text as proposed by Swales (1990) in the academic socialisation model. To illustrate, Martin and Rose claim that the argument genre known as ‘exposition’ differs from the argument genre known as ‘discussion’. The ‘exposition’ type has two stages as in thesis and supporting arguments and its social purpose is to persuade an audience of the writer’s point of view—that is, the ‘thesis’. On the contrary, the ‘discussion’ type usually consists of two or more points of view and only one point of view is argued for over the others. Based on this SFL approach, genre is considered to be a ‘staged, goal-oriented social process’ in which writers participate in genres with other people (‘social’) and use genres to achieve the social purpose (‘goal- oriented’) by taking certain steps to realise such a goal (‘staged’) (Martin & Rose, 2007).

Besides, the SFL model of language proposes three general social functions of language known as ‘metafunctions’ which are:

 the interpersonal metafunction to enact social relationships

 the textual metafunction to organize discourse as a meaningful text These metafunctions are related to the social context in which the language is used and this relationship gives rise to register variations as in field, tenor and mode which are embedded in genre and can affect genre as shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 The relationship between metafunctions and social contexts (Martin, 2010, p. 16)

Based on this model, SFL scholars use a shared language to talk about discourse called ‘metalanguage’ to analyse discourse in social context based on these metafunctions and this metalanguage consists of many discourse systems. Martin and Rose (2007, p. 8) propose six discourse systems in relation to metafunctions as a tool for discourse analysis as shown in Table 2.2 below:

Table 2.2 The metalanguage framework based on discourse systems in relation to metafunctions

Discourse system Function Metafunction Appraisal negotiating attitudes interpersonal

Ideation representing experiences ideational

Identification tracking people and things textual

Periodicity information flow textual

Negotiation enacting exchanges interpersonal

From this metalanguage framework, SFL scholars can analyse how a writer encodes their experiences and social events in a text and how different strata of language are bridged systematically, from grammar to text to social activity (Martin & Rose, 2007).

The SFL model of language not only helps linguistic scholars understand how a speaker and a writer encodes and construes their meanings in a text but also proves useful to scholars in composition studies to understand how a writer achieves their rhetorical purpose. Drawing on these metafunctions from the SFL model as their basis, many scholars in composition studies (e.g., Crismore & Farnsworth, 1989; Hyland, 2000; Vande Kopple, 1985) posit that as people write, there are two levels going on during the process of writing. On one level, writers talk about the subject matter or a proposition. On the other level, writers help their readers to evaluate, interpret, respond and react to such material. To do so, writers add a non-propositional element to their ongoing discourse. Therefore, writers use discourse about discourse or ‘metadiscourse’ to interact with their readers. From this adapted framework which sets the ideational metafunction apart on one level and foregrounds the two other metafunctions on the other level, metadiscourse is classified into the non-propositional level of language use and there are two categories as in textual and interpersonal aspects.

Because metadiscourse is related to the non-propositional level of language which involves the writer’s audience awareness, Crismore and Farnsworth (1989) develop a metadiscourse taxonomy as shown in Table 2.3 to analyse two chapters of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. They suggest that interpersonal metadiscourse plays an important role for Darwin to establish his ethos for his readers.

Table 2.3 The metadiscourse taxonomy as proposed by Crismore and

Farnsworth (1989) in which (T) refers to textual aspect and (I) refers to interpersonal aspect

Metadiscourse type Function Example Text connectives (T) connecting blocks of

information

First, Lastly, As I noted earlier

Code glosses (T) helping readers to grasp the meaning

is defined as, the definition of

Action markers (T) marking the author’s

discourse

I hypothesise that, To sum up

Narrators (T) letting the readers know who said/wrote it

Mrs. Wilson announced that, According to Jane

Modality markers (I) assessing certainty of the propositional material

perhaps, might, clearly, It is obvious that

Attitude markers (I) revealing the author’s

attitude

surprisingly, interesting

Commentary (I) drawing the readers into an implicit dialogue

You may not agree, It might be difficult at first

Crismore and Farnsworth’s (1989) analysis indicates that modality markers account for 83% of all interpersonal metadiscourse items in Darwin’s two chapters, implying Darwin’s need to assess the certainty of his statement to prevent an uproar over his argument. By using a higher number of uncertain expressions than emphatic comments, Darwin signals the vastness of human ignorance in order to make a claim based on his limited knowledge as shown in the quote below.

… these facts alone incline me to believe that it is a general law of nature (utterly ignorant though we be of the meaning of the law) that no organic being self-fertilises itself for an eternity of generations; but that a cross with another individual is occasionally—perhaps at very long intervals— indispensable. (Darwin, 1859, Chapter 4 “Natural Selection” of the Origin of Species; my underlining)

Over the past decades, many metadiscourse taxonomies have been developed and based on different theories (e.g., Ädel, 2006; Beauvais, 1989; Hyland, 2005; Ifantidou, 2005). These taxonomies are often used as a tool for

contrastive rhetoric, as mentioned in the academic socialisation model, to highlight the differences among disciplinary discourses and to better understand the relationship between writers and readers for rhetorical purposes.

Due to different theoretical underpinnings, these taxonomies overlap with one another and cover different aspects of textual analysis. To illustrate, Beauvais’ (1989) taxonomy is based on John Searle’s concept of speech act and as such it focuses only on the statement which acknowledges human beings as its interlocutor, i.e. the author (‘I’), the direct reader (‘you’) and third person (‘he’ and ‘she’) and discards statements without an interlocutor at the beginning. Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy is a modified version of Crismore and Farnsworth’s model which is based on Halliday’s metafunctions of language and as such it only focuses on interactional and textual aspects of language use and discards the ideational metafunction. Ifantidou’s (2005) taxonomy is based on Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson’s relevance theory and as such it focuses only on inter-textual and intra-textual features which refer or allude to other statements and discards all code glosses which refer to lexical items (such as ‘e.g.’, ‘i.e.’ and ‘namely’). Ädel’s (2006) taxonomy is based on Roman Jakobson’s reflexive aspect of language and as such it focuses only on the interaction between writers and readers in the text and discards the stances or the attitudes expressed by the writers.

Although all these taxonomies prove useful for our understanding of how academic writers develop their academic literacies in a text, they tend to support the assumption that as language is a resource for meaning, writers can make choices from the available resources to marshal their argument as well as to achieve their rhetorical goal without constraint. However, a power struggle for expression in academic writing is often noted. This issue is usually highlighted in research studies which draw on a critical discourse analysis approach to their textual analysis.

2.1.3.2. Critical Discourse Analysis

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach to language studies attempts to analyse concrete instances of discourse in order to examine why certain linguistic forms are preferred although there are numerous linguistic choices for users.

To give an example, Fairclough (2003) analyses a politician’s account of the global economy and points out such features as nominalisation and the use of inanimate objects as the agents of verbs. He suggests that nominalisation is heavily used in the account to represent the process of change in the world as entity and that statements like ‘technology can migrate quickly’ contribute to a view that human responsibility is absent from the process. Through textual analysis based on a CDA approach, many discursive practices in a text can be unpacked to show how different ideologies shape the way language is used (Weiss & Wodak, 2003). Moreover, there is a growing trend towards a systematic and institutionalised configuration of language use, which Fairclough (1996) calls ‘technologisation of discourse’, to make people more aware of correct ways to produce language according to the orders of discourse established by the social institutions.

In this respect, CDA scholars try to raise awareness of a power struggle for expression, suggesting that discourse conveys more meanings than meets the eye. Generally, SFL-inspired discourse analysts tend to treat discourse as a text but CDA scholars (e.g., Cameron & Panovic, 2014; Ivanič, 1994) acknowledge that there are at least three definitions and conceptions of the term ‘discourse’ as follows:

1. discourse as a text or language ‘above the sentence’ 2. discourse as language ‘in use’

3. discourse as a form of social practice in which language plays a central role

Based on these overlapping definitions of discourse of which the first two are evident in a SFL textual analysis, a CDA approach embraces the issues of power, ideology and identity in its textual analysis. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of academic literacies cannot do without accounting for these issues.

To make a case that literacy is the pivot of social practice, Barton (2007) proposes three relevant concepts as in register, genre and discourse. Registers (or ways of talking in different situations) contribute to the identification of genres (or forms of written language). However, both registers and genres contribute to discourses (or different ways of using language). Although these

three concepts appear similar and might be used interchangeably in certain cases, Barton argues that discourses provide ways for members of different communities to structure knowledge and relationships. Discourse community members generally have a set of common knowledge, interests, values and purposes which can be viewed as literacy. Further, their ways of using such literacy can be considered as literacy practices (Barton, 2007). These literacy practices are almost always linked to wider social practices which require background knowledge. The purpose of literacy practices is that the members can read and write in a similar manner. In short, discourse can identify people of the same community members.

Similarly, Gee (2008) argues that discourse is an identity kit and he moves our focus from ‘discourse’ with a little ‘d’ which is language in use to ‘Discourse’ with a capital ‘D’ in order to appreciate language use in social contexts. To illustrate, Gee argues that it is very unlikely that a motorcycle rider who enters a bike bar will say to his leather-jacketed and tattooed buddy that ‘May I have a match for my cigarette, please?’ because that would be socially ‘wrong’ although it is ‘correct’ English. A biker is likely to say ‘Gotta match?’ or ‘Give me a light, wouldya?’ to his buddy. Therefore, Gee advocates the idea that to be recognised as a certain kind of people requires a ‘right’ way of using language. Moreover, he suggests that there are many ‘Discourses’ and that these reflect many kinds of people because Discourses are ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking and often reading and writing, that are accepted as instantiations of particular identities (or ‘types of people’) by specific groups’ (Gee, 2008, p. 3); hence, Discourses as resources for identification.

Although the distinction between ‘discourse’ and ‘Discourse’ is useful, such distinction can be cumbersome in research studies since many CDA scholars have already acknowledged that the term ‘discourse’ conveys multiple meanings. Therefore, in this research I shall only use the term ‘discourse’ to convey different conceptions of the term.

CDA scholars also argue that identity is not fixed. Rather, identity is multiple. With many discourses available in a society, there are also many identities available. People display who they are to one other in different contexts through

different discourses. For instance, a man is not just a man. He can be heterosexual, Christian and single or he can be homosexual, atheist and married. Alternatively, a man can be a son of a vicar and a father of an atheist daughter. In other words, people do ‘identity work’ in different discursive (or discoursal) environments (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). Therefore, identity becomes ‘performative’ or a discursive construction when a person enters a different context.

Although there can be many discourses in one context, each discourse tends to carry its own ideological underpinning and when one way of linguistic production is preferable in a particular context, it is usually considered a ‘dominant’ discourse (Foucault, 1981) or a ‘privileged’ one if such production contains a certain form of speaking and thinking, becoming a ‘voice’ of the mind (Wertsch, 1991). In academic writing, Ivanič (1994, 1998) argues that higher educational institutions seem to sustain certain patterns of privileging for academic assignments. Although the writer is both free and constrained to select the discourses which are socially available to them, the writer’s choice can cause tension because they might resist it (Ivanič, 1998) or they might do it just to gain favour (Harwood & Petrić, 2012). Therefore, writing needs to be reconceptualised as an act of identity to construct a discoursal self which is privileged in the academic context. Ivanič’s (1998) intertextual analysis of student extracts from many disciplines reveals that each discourse seems to manifest its own lexico-syntactic characteristics. For example, the use of number and quantity expression is obvious in the discourse of natural sciences while the reference to other texts is common in the discourse of literary studies. In addition to textual analysis, many scholars inspired by a CDA approach conduct an interview to get an ‘insider’ perspective on the writer’s struggle with the ‘identity work’ during their writing. Ivanič (1998), for example, notices that her co-researchers often recounted their uncomfortable sense of ‘real’ self when they did academic writing because their real self which valued honesty was lost in their writing. Some of them did not want to ‘own’ academic language if it meant they had to lose a part of themselves, namely, an ability to talk to friends at home. They did not feel proud when their friends started to say that they used ‘big words’ because they did not want to belong to the ‘big word’ club of academia. Gourlay (2009) also points out that undergraduate students who

were new to academic writing requirements at university struggled with their identity work in the process of academic achievement, resulting in their indeterminacy and status ambiguity on the threshold of belonging as a university student. It can be said that these studies have shed light on how discourses have a power relation with the way writers perform their identity during the transition.

Although there is a constraining power relation between discourses and identity work, CDA scholars also suggest that engagement in literacy practices can contribute to spontaneity, empowerment and mastery of the discourses. Writers might be not fully aware of their empowerment but their power can at least be found in the use of ‘metatext’ in which Holme (2004) has given an example of students who express their view both implicitly and explicitly on their sources of reference. Therefore, a CDA framework can help writers to become more aware of their resources when they write an academic paper, making them feel more empowered with the academic discourse.

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It is with this ‘academic literacies’ model that the issues of discourse and