Authorial voice in master’s dissertations in education

Abstract

This research study is based on the proposition that all academic writing must contain authorial voice that represents writer identity. Through the lenses of socio-constructivism and the Academic Literacies Theory, I explored how master’s writers expressed authorial voice in master’s dissertations in the Faculty of Education at a South African institution of higher education. The research questions that guided this study were: 1. How do master’s students understand the concept of authorial voice? 2. What strategies do students use to develop their own types of authorial voice? 3. What guidance is available to help students develop their authorial voice? The aim of this study was to provide theoretical insight into how master’s students constructed voice in dissertation writing, a topic that has received little attention in scholarly research on academic writing at master’s level. A qualitative case study, which involved 11 dissertations and their writers, was used to examine authorial voice. Ivanič and Camps’ Voice Typology (2001) framework was applied to identify linguistic features that were used to construct authorial voice in the discussion section of the selected dissertations. Also, semi-structured interviews with four writers of the selected dissertations were thematically analysed to determine the participants’ reflections on voice and academic writing. The research findings provide theoretical insight into the construction of authorial voice in master’s dissertation writing and indicate that master’s writers do create authorial voice in dissertation writing with the use of specific linguistic features. Additionally, they also reveal facets of the writers’ dissertation writing journey, with specific emphasis on their understanding of authorial voice. The implications of this study include the importance of master’s writers constructing credible authorial voices to gain membership to academic communities. Pedagogically, this study is important for all in the academic community who are engaged in teaching writing, such as supervisors, teachers of academic writing, students and academic writers. Furthermore, the findings of this study can be integrated into academic language teaching in pre-master’s studies where students are presented with a range of choices available through good academic writing on including and strengthening authorial voice. For further scholarship, I suggest that not only should voice be studied in a larger number of master’s dissertations from more disciplines over a greater number of years, but also research on master’s supervisors’ and examiners’ perceptions and experiences of authorial voice is recommended.