EXPLORING WRITER ENGAGEMENT IN ESSAY WRITING: A CASE OF FIRST PERSON PRONOUN “WE”

Trinh Ngoc Thanh

Abstract


The paper explores the aspect of writer engagement through the emphasis of first
person pronoun ‘we’ in essay writing written by Chinese student-writers. The coding of
independent and dependent variables on the base of frequency and the classification of
clause from the selected writing samples are analyzed in the combination of quantitative and
qualitative analyses for we and its interaction with the writing topic. While quantitative
analysis mainly measures the association and correlation among the set of variables,
qualitative analysis considers the content analysis of text from the embedded roles of ‘we’
and the embedded role of writing topic. This paper also further discusses findings in
quantitative analysis from the attention to the emphasis of ‘we’ in academic writing as well
as in relevant aspects of text.


Keywords


Writer engagement, sociolinguistics, writing, first-person pronoun

Full Text:

267-279

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