Voice and Stance across Disciplines in Academic Discourse

Abstract

For decades the study of voice has been the privileged domain of literary criticism. The question of understanding ‘who speaks’ (Genette, 1980) in the complex workings of narrative fiction, amidst myriads of characters, narrators, implied authors, etc., undoubtedly poses serious problems for the reader. It may, for this reason, seem paradoxical that such a concern should be central to academic writing, which distinguishes itself epistemologically from narrative fiction precisely for its need to present new knowledge as credible or true. But taken in another sense, I would affirm that the rhetoric of downplaying the interpersonal while foregrounding complex contents, characteristic of academic discourse, makes the need to interrogate voice all the more pressing in written academic texts.