Abbas Zare-ee - University of Kashan
Navvab Hematiyan - University of Kashan
Sajjad Askari Matin - University of Tehran

The present study explored the intensity level of authorial voice in relation to the quality of argumentative writing. ۴۲ undergraduate learners of English as a foreign language (۳۶ girls and ۶ boys) spent ۴۵ minutes to individually complete in-class position-taking writing tasks for three weeks. Their overall academic writing quality scores assigned based on portfolio assessment were studied in relation to their voice expression quantified using a voice intensity rating scale (VIRS). Findings indicated that, among the components of authorial voice, only “assertiveness” showed a positive moderate relationship with academic writing quality (r=۰.۴۵, p≤ ۰.۰۵). In the follow-up qualitative analyses of voice-expression strategies, interviews with participants whose voice intensity had been rated either as the strongest or as the weakest showed nine strategies for voice expression. At the sentence-level, high-voice participants most frequently used intensifiers to express assertiveness, while low-voice writers tried to use other lexico-grammatical tools. At the text-level, both high-voice and low-voice participants were concerned about the effect of the topic on their voice expression. The findings imply that undergraduate English as a foreign language writers do try to express voice and that the required strategies can be one of the targets of EFL writing research and instruction.

EFL writing, English as a foreign language, Authorial voice, second language writing, academic writing