As a matter of fact: The changing ideology of authorship and responsibility in discourse

ABSTRACT: One of the most troubling aspects of non‐native writing in English is the attribution of authorship. Taking a writing conference, an MA thesis and a transcript of a new story as illustrations, it is argued that in academic writing the facts presented are inseparable from who is taken to have presented those facts. Because academic writing is as much the construction of an authorial self as the presentation of fact, the attention of English teachers to the mechanics of attribution and reference may mask this deeper discourse process. It is suggested that the original, creative, rational and individualistic authorial self expected in English academic writing represents a construct of Utilitarian ideology which is likely to be in conflict with both current changes in English and with the culturally constructed selves of non‐native speaking students of English.