Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland's metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland's metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers' multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities.
TopIntroduction
Blogs have radically altered our relationship with information technology, from information consumers to information creators and contributors (Du & Wagner, 2007). They are identified with their authors through a sense of ownership unlike some other Web 2.0 tools that are mostly collaborative and topic-based. They promote idea generation, information exchange, reflection and meaning negotiation (Godwin-Jones, 2003; Oravec, 2003).
In the first place, it seems clear that the effective use of blogging fosters interconnectivity among learners in contexts beyond the classroom through knowledge sharing and individual accountability in learning through facilitating the individual and critical voice development (Du & Wagner, 2007). The benefits of integrating blogs into foreign language classrooms have been highlighted in various studies regarding writing skills development (Bloch, 2007; Lee, 2010; Sun, 2009), critical and synthesizing skills development (Lee, 2010), and the promotion of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing motivation (Özdemir & Aydın, 2017).
In addition to the aforementioned benefits, blogs facilitate self-expression, self-presentation, a sense of ownership, self-reflection, information exchange, social networking, collaborative learning, and the co-construction of meaning (Lee, 2010). The integration of blogs into EFL classes enhances students’ focus on meaning and fluency (Sun, 2009). Peer feedback on blogs can progressively prompt additional interaction and discussion of ideas, (Lee, 2010).
From another perspective, being blog writers can help students develop their own voices in a community of writers (Bloch, 2007; Quintero, 2008; Rezaee & Oladi, 2008). The blog discourse is intertwined with students’ likes, dislikes, preferences, aspirations, passions, ideologies, opinions, and personality characteristics (Quintero, 2008). Blog posts constitute a channel for students to convey personal meaning and knowledge by reflecting their identities as individuals beyond language learners (Quintero, 2008). Through reading students’ blog posts, it is possible to see their worlds from their unique perspectives by drawing inferences from their lexical choices along with their image, music and video preferences (Blood, 2002). Bloggers develop an emotional attachment to their posts as they reveal their identities through them (Quintero, 2008). As blogs promote sharing and exchanging ideas with others, student blog writers form a community of practice that extends classroom walls.
With their interactive and collaborative features, blogs enable EFL students in higher education contexts to develop their academic writing knowledge through shaping and negotiating their identities as EFL writers (Sun & Chang, 2012). Academic writing is viewed as an interactive process between readers and writers, where the latter are engaged in different forms of identity displays (Hyland, 2005a). In academic writing, writers strive to “negotiate interactional meanings in a text… to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community” (Hyland, 2005a, p.37). Although blogs are now acknowledged to be an integral part of EFL writing classes, the discourse of writers as part of an EFL academic writer identity development on blogs remains to be underexplored via a corpus-based analysis of metadiscourse markers. In fact, ESL/EFL writers are likely to benefit from raising their awareness towards the interactive and interactional dimensions of metadiscourse (Hyland, 2010) while displaying different aspects of their identities in the text: autobiographical self, discoursal self, and authorial self. In fact, writers need to consider not only their organization of discourse concerning their readers’ understanding and interpretation of the text (the interactive dimension) but also their presence in the text as writers and their engagement with content and readers (the interactional dimension while displaying their identities in the text (Hyland, 2005a).