Audience, Power, Identity, and Language Ideologies in Graduate Writing Consultations

This project investigates how graduate writers and graduate writing consultants understand, negotiate, and talk about audience (such as advisors and reviewers, as well as the graduate writer and writing consultant themselves) and power during writing consultations, as well as what language ideologies are present in audience talk. This study also asks how graduate writers and consultants understand their own identities (both institutional identities such as writing consultant and graduate student, and demographic identities such as race and gender) as relating to their writing audiences, processes, and experiences in the writing center. Finally, this study considers the implications of these questions for linguistic justice. I recorded four graduate writing consultations, conducted eight personal interviews about audience and identity, and asked participants to complete a survey of their personal identities. Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyzed the consultation transcripts for instances of talk about audience, leading to nine codes for different kinds of audience, such as the writing consultant as audience and specific named audience (i.e. the writer’s individual professor). I found that talk about audience occurs dozens of times throughout writing consultations, across genres and disciplines, regardless of the topics the writer and writing consultant decide to discuss. Therefore, I argue that audience is a central feature of writing consultations and that graduate writing consultants should be trained in strategies of effective and inclusive audience talk. Additionally, I analyzed the power dynamics present in each variety of audience talk that I identified, finding that talk about these different audiences seemed to incorporate varied power dynamics into the session. Furthermore, I identified language ideologies relating to politeness and academic discourse in audience talk and argue that these language ideologies have implications for how writing center talk contributes to White language supremacy. This study also examines the role of speaker identities in audience talk. I argue that an intersectional view is most useful for considering identity in the writing center, as seven out of eight participants named at least one institutional and one demographic identity when asked during the interviews which identities were important to them in their writing consultations. Particularly, I analyze the institutional identities of writing consultant, writer, graduate student, and discourse community, and the demographic identities of gender and race. This study concludes with practical applications, including tips for writing center staff relating to the results of this study as well as two workshops designed for graduate writing consultants to learn about audience, power, identity, and language ideologies. The conclusion also addresses the implications for future study, including implications for methods and methodology, talk studies, identity, and linguistic justice.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kugler, Sarah

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Reiff, Mary Jo

• Rhetoric and Composition
• Sociolinguistics
• critical discourse analysis
• linguistic justice
• politeness
• writing centers

Statement dc:rights

• This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

https://www.proquest.com/LegacyDocView/DISSNUM/31844458

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/37962