L2 English Student Writers’ Authorial Presence in Research Articles: The Interplay of Linguistic and Cultural Factors

This study is designed to examine to what extent L2 English (L2E) student writers of research articles (RAs) project their authorial presence explicitly or implicitly in entire texts or by RA sections compared to L1 English (L1E) and L1 Korean (L1K) academics with an aim to explore what factors trigger their use of personal and impersonal authorial references. The study constructed an L2E corpus of applied linguistics single-authored RAs published by Korean postgraduates and two reference corpora, an L1E and L1K corpus of RAs written by expert writers. For the study, a corpus-based quantitative analysis was conducted on the frequency and use pattern of two types of explicit and personal authorial references (first person singular and plural pronouns) and two types of implicit authorial references (third-person NPs and inanimate NPs). The results of the study reveal Korean L2E student writers’ use pattern of implicit authorial references shared with L1E and L1K academics, such as predominant use of inanimate NPs, particularly in the discussion and method sections, and more use of third-person NPs in the method section. Yet they also shed lights on L2E student writers’ salient underuse of explicitly personal authorial references, first-person singular pronouns, similar to L1K academics but contrary to L1E academics, which demonstrates the strong impact of their L1 linguistic and cultural background over RA language-related factors, as a transfer of L1 culture-based rhetorical norms is denoted.