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Sultan Ayed Alanazi

University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

 

Abstract

This qualitative critical case study evaluates the experience of three Saudi graduate students in their experience with authorial voice and identity in the United States academic environments. The study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine two academic papers and one comprehensive interview from each of the three participants: Manea (English Literature), Ali (Curriculum & Instruction), and Saleh (Educational Foundations). They are all U.S. PhD students who have lived there for 3 to 5 years. The results show that there are two different but strategically useful types of voice: a postcolonial voice (Manea), which challenges Western epistemic dominance through personal and theoretical positioning, and a critical pedagogy voice (Ali and Saleh), which draws on Freirean critical theory and other frameworks to critique educational practices in Saudi Arabia. Rather than fixed traits, participant voices emerged as dynamic performances shaped by disciplinary socialization, their anticipation of how readers within their academic communities would receive their arguments, and how they negotiated their transnational identities. The findings point toward a "pedagogy of voice" and the idea of "pedagogical safe houses" to help second language (L2) writers from underrepresented backgrounds find their own critical but strategic academic voices.

 

Keywords

L2 writing, voice, identity, Saudi students, critical discourse analysis