Abstract Artist Xu Dongdong

TALKING with Xu Dongdong is a pleasure.His gentle voice with its authentic Beijing burr is easy on the ear.Occasionally laughing out loud,he reveals a frank and free personality.Our topics of discussion ranged from the arts and philosophy to quantum mechanics,from traditional Oriental culture to the industrial revolution in the West,and from his early years in painting studies to the Chinese-style abstract paintings that he now

Personal and Social Voices in Written Discourse Revisited

For years, personal and social voices have been the issue of discussion on voice construction in written discourse(e.g., Elbow, 1999;Flowerdew, 2011;Hyland, 2002, 2010 a, 2012 b;Mauranen, 2013;Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999;Tardy, 2005). However, there is a lack of an integrated examination of the dimensions which determine voice construction in writing from personal and social perspectives. This article re-examines the issue of voice construction through a critical review of previous literature on identity in written discourse. It is argued that there are five major dimensions for the construction of voice in written discourse. How writers appropriate their voice according to such five dimensions as genre, transition, culture, discipline and audience will be discussed. This paper lends further support to the view that voice in written discourse is both personal and social. As it is known, good writing expresses both personal and social voices. However, based on the dominant dimension(s), voice construction should be adjusted. Sometimes personal voice is boldly expressed;sometimes social voice is;and some other times the boundary between the two is unnoticeable. The study provides an integrated framework as well as pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing within L1 and L2 contexts.