"I" In "You" Exploring Writer Identity Of Chinese College Students Through Personal Pronoun Use In L2 Argumentative Writing

Based on the theory of "Individualism/Collectivism" (Triandis 1995) and self construal (Markus & Kitayama 1991; Kashima & Kashima 1995), this article explored writer identity of Chinese college students through the identity marker, the first person singular "I" and one of its substitutions, i.e., the second person pronoun "you", in their L2 argumentative writing. The pronouns were studied both quantitatively and qualitatively, by using a parallel corpus of L1 (sampled from free writings of the Internet) and L2 (sampled from Chinese Learner English Corpus, Gui & Yang 2003), and by examining their discourse functions in relation to the semantic references (Kuo 1999). The study shows, compared with L1 writers, Chinese student writers use far fewer explicit "I" in arguing (1:4). Conversely, they tend to use "I" implicitly so as to universalize their own claim as common sense, general rules, or unquestionable truth. Meanwhile, they seldom (13.41%) use "you" to address the readers only but mainly (82.93%) to address readers and writers as a whole, so as to assume shared knowledge or understanding. This indicates that Chinese student writers, influenced by their collective identity, tend to emerge themselves with others in arguing and efface their individual identity, thus forming a "collectivized voice" in argumentative writing.