Writer visibility in L1 vs. L2 argumentative writing: Use of the first person personal pronouns in Croatian
Writer visibility in L1 vs. L2 argumentative writing: Use of the first person personal pronouns in Croatian

Summary/Abstract: Developing writing encompasses acquiring linguistic features, register and style related to text type and genre, and learning to write means learning to express oneself in written form. Involvement of the author in the text, or writer visibility, is characterized by first and second person reference, the speaker’s mental processes, monitoring of information flow, emphatic particles, etc. (Petch–Tyson 1998). Various studies showed that writer visibility depends on discourse type, cultural conventions, language proficiency, writer’s L1, etc. (Ädel 2001; Petch–Tyson 1998; Rodríguez, Vázquez and Guzmán 2011; Zolotova 2014). This paper investigates writer visibility in Croatian L1 and L2 argumentative writing. The main research question is how Croatian L1 and L2 writers differ in the use of I–perspective compared to we–perspective, both quantitatively and qualitatively. For the purpose of this paper argumentative essays in Croatian as L1 and L2 (N=80) are analyzed for their frequencies and discourse functions. The results show that first person personal pronouns are used more frequently in Croatian L2 than in L1 writing. However, only the overuse of I–form is proven to be statistically significant. The qualitative analysis shows that in Croatian L1 and L2 writing, the pronoun I is most frequently used to express discourse functions of writer’s stance and writer’s experience, whereas the pronoun we is used for the same purpose (presenting a general claim), thus to a much lower frequency. Besides similarities of L1 and L2 writing, the study shows the tendency of non–native speakers to use certain discourse function more frequently. The obtained results gave more insight into writing in Croatian, and confirm cultural, linguistic, and language learning influences to writing in both L1 and L2.

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