Agency, identity and ideology in L2 writing

Abstract

This study reports on how agency, identity and ideology played out in an L2 writing classroom. It investigated 31 L2 writers’ agency, identity and ideology as they accomplished their writing assignments in a required first-year composition class at a large North American university. The data for the study were collected from four different sources: (a) interviews with each participant; (b) process logs kept by each participant for the entire duration of the assignment; (c) class materials; and (d) classroom observation notes. Findings suggest that L2 writers’ portrayal of selves is not static and that it evolves during the course of the writing assignment. L2 writers’ agency leads them to use various writing strategies; perceive different writing activities to be difficult or easy; and adopt various lived experiences in composing. Their identity and ideology, on the other hand, help writers align with the writing tasks; influence their task perceptions; and mediate writing choices that are both rewarding and self-incriminating. Various implications for pedagogy and research are discussed.

Re-Conceptualizing L2 Writing Revision Strategies From an Ecological Perspective: An Interview Based Inquiry

“…The presence of social and/or material resources in the immediate environment was inseparably linked to all of his revision strategies. This is comparable to the findings reported by Lei (2008) and Bhowmik (2016). However, the study further offers an insight into how the writer selected his specific revision strategies.…”

“…As several researchers claimed that writing is a historically situated activity (e.g., Leki, 1995;Prior, 1998), Jiang's specific belief appeared to have been a carry-over from his past successful learning experience in China and preordained the way in which he engaged with the instructor's feedback and employed several revision strategies. The finding is comparable to Bhowmik (2016) which reported the participants actively used their past writing experiences to facilitate the completion of the writing task at hand. Leki (1995) also reported a similar finding that her participants' writing strategy use closely mirrored their past successful writing experiences.…”

“…Thus, it is not an exclusive personal attribute of an individual, but a sociomaterially and sociohistorically constructed temporal state which is always in constant motion and retains possibility for change or transformation. As we recognize the need to act and for what purpose, agency emerges and shapes the ways we act by looking around resources or affordances that can help them to act on and with the world in order to achieve the goal (Bhowmik, 2016). In a similar vein, van Lier (2008) views agency as person-in-context-"an awareness of the responsibility for one's own actions vis-à-vis the environment, including affected others" (p. 17).…”

“…Another example of socially and materially mediated L2 writers' strategy use was reported in Bhowmik (2016). The study specifically addressed the role of agency, identity, and ideology in L2 writers' strategy use and it identified the writers' agency played a significant role in accounting for differences in their strategy use.…”

“…In addition, the writers' identity and ideology manifested as values, beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions of writing tasks which collectively fed into their highly deliberate and purposeful selections of strategy use. Lei (2008) and Bhowmik's (2016) studies were exemplary in the respect that both of them captured L2 writing strategies as deeply immersed in a sociocultural context of writing wherein the writer as a whole person interacts with the environmental resources (i.e., social and/or material) and make agentive and ideological decisions in the process of writing. However, neither of the studies above considered instructor feedback as part of their investigations despite its well-recognized role as an important pedagogical intervention in the process-writing classroom.…”