Author-Related Concepts in Academic Writing Revisited: A Scoping Review
Abstract
Introduction: Various linguistic mechanisms and devices are applied in academic writing to communicate the opinion and valuations of the authors and engage with their readers. The concepts of author’s voice, stance and identity stand out among numerous notions describing various aspects related to the author in the written academic discourse. The scoping review aims to synthesize the knowledge on those concepts in the international publications with a view to defining frequently and interchangeably used terms.
Method: This scoping review sticks to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for Scoping Reviews, the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and PСC framework.
Results: The review synthesized 40 publications on the author-related concepts indexed in the Scopus database. The documents were distributed among three thematic clusters: Cluster 1. Identity in academic writing and author-related concepts. Cluster 2. Authorial voice in academic discourse. Cluster 3. Author’s stance. The data extracted from the documents under review on the key author-related concepts in academic writing – author’s voice, stance and identity – allowed to sum up the definitions and major features supporting the understanding of those concepts.
Discussion: The review proved that the terminology in the field is rather unclear and ambiguous. The key concepts tend to be used interchangeably. The limitations of the review were incorporated in some eligibility criteria, including publications in other languages, geography, and types of publications. Future reviews may focus on the publications dwelling upon authorial engagement with readers indexed in databases other than Scopus to give a more realistic picture.
Conclusion: The findings may become the background for future research on authorial voice, stance, identity in academic discourse as well as other author-related concepts.
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