“I Think When I Speak, I Don’t Sound Like That”: The Influence of Social Positioning on Rhetorical Skill Development in Science

Abstract

Negotiating membership within a disciplinary community is as much an exercise in rhetorical facility as it is content expertise. Where individuals reside in the hierarchy of membership is determined by not only what they talk and write about, but how. Yet, there are many factors that can impact newcomers' acculturation into a disciplinary community on a rhetorical level. In this article, I use positioning theory and intersectional identity to examine how Anne, a woman of color participating in undergraduate research in science, learned to read and write as a scientist and the ways her social position as a woman, person of color, and low-income and first-generation student influenced her perception and adoption of the discourse as her own. I argue that social positioning influences students' views of scientific discourse and affects their rhetorical skill development as scientific writers. Because recognition as a group insider is heavily influenced by discourse, this research has potential implications for those interested in retention and persistence of women of color in STEM, as well as for those interested in changing learning cultures and incorporating writing instruction into disciplinary arenas.

Threshold Genres: A 10-Year Exploration of a Medical Writer’s Development and Social Apprenticeship Through the Patient SOAP Note

“…Grumbach and Mendoza (2008) note the lack of diversity within the health professions, while Acosta and Skorton (2021) discuss the institutionalized racism present in medical education and health care. While data from Ron’s experience do not offer insights into the privileges and affordances he experiences because of his status, research has demonstrated that STEM students with less privileged identities have challenges in adapting to the dominant discourse of the field (Falconer, 2019). Thus, we recognize less privileged students may experience social apprenticeship and learning these genres in different, challenged ways and we call for more research in this area.…”

Responding to Supervisory Feedback: Mediated Positioning in Thesis Writing

“…Added to this, we have to consider a writer's social positioning (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, class) which can influence his/her perceptions of a discourse and whether he/she feels able to authentically speak within it (Falconer, 2019). Falconer, for example, reports the case of Ann, a young African American woman who chose to speak using authoritative disciplinary language, representing a confident stance and her developed positioning.…”

“…Falconer, for example, reports the case of Ann, a young African American woman who chose to speak using authoritative disciplinary language, representing a confident stance and her developed positioning. The multiple positions a student occupies are inevitably brought into an interplay with discourse demands, which shapes, but does not determine, how the writer sees those norms (Falconer, 2019). The process of negotiating rhetorically appropriate positions leads the writer to recognize the characteristics and attributes of a social group and to perform a socioculturally grounded, mediated identity.…”

English for specific playfulness? How doctoral students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics manipulate genre

“…The success of cognitive apprenticeship as a pathway to writing expertise is riddled with hurdles. Firstly, learning via socialization is vulnerable to the influence of perceptions about gender and race (Falconer, 2019) and geopolitical and situational variables (see McMullan, 2018). On an emotional level, doctoral students have been shown to experience anxiety as they develop their writing expertise (Russell-Pinson & Harris, 2019).…”