Discoursal Identity Construction in English Language Learners’ Graduate Personal Statements

The graduate personal statement (GPS), one of the key components of a graduate school application in Canadian universities and thus a high-stakes academic genre, is neither explicitly taught in writing classrooms nor practiced by applicants. Since it is a self-promotional genre, positioning of self in discourse, or discoursal identity construction, is crucial in a GPS. Discoursal identity construction may pose a particular challenge to English language learners (ELLs) crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries as they write their GPSs in their non-dominant language, English. Although this genre has been examined by scholars for about two decades, studies exploring identity construction in the ELLs’ GPSs are scarce. This is particularly true for the research set within Canadian educational institutions. My qualitative multiple-case study aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the GPSs written by ELLs who have applied to social science master’s programs in Canadian universities. In particular, the study explores (1) the ELL applicants’ understandings of the genre of a GPS; (2) the most salient identities constructed in their GPSs; and (3) the discourse resources and rhetorical organization employed by the ELLs for self-positioning in their texts. Part of my understanding is gained through a comparison with the GPSs of English-dominant individuals (EDIs) who also submitted a GPS as part of their application to social science master’s programs in Canadian universities. Drawing on questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and successive drafts of the participants’ GPSs, I analyze the data using a social constructionist view of identity (Bucholtz Hall, 2005), Ivanič’s framework of writing as enactment of identity (Burgess Ivanič, 2010; Ivanič, 1998), and two genre theories, Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1985) and Swalesean English for specific purposes (Swales, 1990). My key findings related to the participants’ understandings of a GPS as a genre include, among others, perceived major purposes of a GPS (such as self-introduction and self-promotion) and different assumptions about self-promotion linked to the participants’ (lack of) exposure to Canadian/Western beliefs and values. I also uncover the writers’ assumptions about the program gatekeepers, their perceptions of the requirements for a GPS, and their metalinguistic awareness as reflected in the content and textual features of their GPSs. Emphasizing the emergent, dynamic, multidimensional, yet relational and partial nature of discoursal identities, I identify and describe, across the GPS drafts, eight salient aspects of the ELLs’ and EDIs’ identities and demonstrate multiple identity shifts (and role shifts within the applicants’ academic identities). Finally, I identify and illustrate a wide range of salient discourse resources employed by the writers for their identity construction, along with seven broad genre moves that support the participants’ self-positioning. This dissertation also provides theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications of the study and outlines a genre-based workshop series that can be designed and implemented to teach students how to write a GPS in the Canadian post-secondary context.

Keywords: Discoursal identity construction
English for specific purposes
English language learners
Genre-based writing instruction
Graduate personal statements
Systemic functional linguistics
Advisor: Kerekes, Julie
Rehner, Katherine