Exploring Young Children’s Writer Identity Construction through the Lens of Dialogism

Abstract

Drawing on Bakhtinian dialogism and interactional sociolinguistics, the author explored how young English language learners become writers over time. With a focus on the children's dialogic writing processes rather than their products, the author aimed to trace the children's journey in becoming writers and make evident the evolvement of their identity as writers. In this light, their interactive discourses within and across particular but connected literacy events were studied. Discourse analysis was undertaken on the video segments and transcripts of three literacy events selected from different writing units across an academic year. It was found that the young writers evolved from ''others as authors,'' to ''self as an author,'' and to ''self as a reflective writer'' and the process of becoming a writer was ongoing and actively engaged multiple voices of the children, their teacher, and others. Further, the findings suggested that the dialogic becoming processes opened possibilities for young writers to discover and bring their different voices and selves to their writing and enhanced motivation relative to learning to write and writing to learn.Keywords Young children Á English language learners Á Writer identity Á Dialogism Á Discourse analysis Résumé En se basant sur le dialogisme bakhtinien et la sociolinguistique interactionnelle, l'auteur a étudié comment de jeunes apprentis de la langue anglaise deviennent écrivains au fil du temps. En mettant l'accent sur les processus dialogiques d'écriture des enfants plutôt que sur leurs résultats, l'auteur vise à retracer le parcours suivi par les enfants en devenant écrivains et rend évidente l'évolution & Huili Hong de leur identité en tant qu'écrivains. Dans cette optique, leurs discours interactifs, à l'intérieur et au travers d'événements d'alphabétisation particuliers mais reliés, ont été étudiés. L'analyse du discours a été effectuée à partir de segments vidéo et de transcriptions de trois événements d'alphabétisation sélectionnés parmi différentes unités d'écriture au cours d'une année scolaire. Il a été constaté que les jeunes écrivains ont évolué de « les autres comme auteurs » , à « moi-même comme auteur » , et à « moi-même comme écrivain réfléchi » , que le processus de devenir écrivain était en cours, et qu'il impliquait activement les multiples voix des enfants, de leur enseignant et des autres. En outre, les résultats suggèrent que le processus dialogique en devenir ouvrait des possibilités pour ces jeunes écrivains de découvrir et amener leur propre voix à leur écriture et augmentait leur motivation à apprendre à écrire et à écrire pour apprendre.Resumen Apoyándose en el dialogo Bakhtiniano y en la sociolingüística internacional, la autora explora cómo jóvenes estudiantes de inglés se convierten en escritores con el paso del tiempo. Con un enfoque en los procesos de la escritura dialógica de los niños en lugar de en sus productos, la autora tuvo como objetivo rastrear el viaje de los niños al hacerse escritores y hacer evidente la evolución de su id...

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