An Investigation Of The Cultural Identity Of Lebanese University Students
As Manifested In Their Argumentative Essay Writing
In Arabic And In English And Some
Implications For Teaching

By
Dr. Siham El-Hassanieh

When I first began studying early in my college career, I was mesmerized by language and its components. However, with time I began to realize that what was once so straightforward and clear began to have new, more complex divisions. Culture was one of these  areas covered in language study. Many of the articles and books I was reading dealt with culture in writing. Author’s voice emerged as a combination of not just experience and persona but also of society and culture. This was something interesting and new to me. Being a Lebanese teacher of English, teaching Lebanese students (native Arabic speakers) in the Lebanese University (L.U.), I began to ponder how this ‘Lebanese culture’ (which was the factor common to all the variables) affected the writing my students were producing.
Having taught English for academic purposes to university native speakers of Arabic in Lebanon for 26 years, I have become more interested in researching the teaching of writing and composition in Arabic and English with a view to considering the diverse findings in this field with particular reference to the issue of cultural uniformity (Hofstede, 1980) versus cultural diversity (Norton, 1997; Ivanic,1998; Atkinson,1999). I will argue that diversity and uniformity are two faces of the same coin. We are uniform in one sense. As human beings we are born, we live, and finally we die following the same life cycle which applies to all creatures on earth. We basically differ from other living organisms, however, by possessing a personal history which consists of an intellectual and cultural heritage reflected in the language we use. This heritage does not only differ from one group to another, but it also differs from one individual to another.
Whereas quantitative researchers have been mostly engaged in uniformity and generalizing to the maximum number of cases, qualitative researchers are now greatly interested in diversity, in particular cases in defined social contexts. This phenomenon is reflected in new research findings in the social sciences in general and educational research in particular. When a student learns a foreign language, learning takes place at a particular time, in a particular social situation and under circumstances, which may change from one place to another. When acquiring the new language, the student brings along with him the cultural heritage which constitutes his cultural identity and which consists of the values, beliefs, norms, rules, and rhetorical patterns shared by his community. I have two incentives for researching the problems students face while writing. The first one is related to the relevance issue, which Ivanic (1998) considers one of the basic criteria for applying theory to research. My students have always complained about difficulties in writing. Whenever I asked them to write, they felt uncomfortable and even annoyed by the mere idea of writing especially writing under pressure within a certain time limit. The second one is personal and it also supports what I felt as a novice post-graduate writer, as in Ivanič (1998). Since I was a university undergraduate student, I have many times felt unable to find the right expressions for what I want to say not realizing the reason for that. After reading and critically reviewing the related literature on writing and identity, I realized that it is not the choice of expressions or the meaning I wanted to convey. It is the problem of what impression of myself I have wanted to portray. As Ivanič (1998) says,

I have come to see every act of academic writing
as, among other things, the writer’s struggle to
create a discoursal self which resolves the
tension between the autobiographical self and
the possibilities for self-hood available in
the academic community (p. 336).

I am going to use the term ‘ academic writing’ as used by Ivanic (1998) as inseparable from its social context and as used by Street (1984, 1995) “who claims that literacy is not autonomous but ‘ideological’,  that is,  shaped by the values and practices of the culture in which it is embedded” (cited in Ivanic, 1998, p. 59). As I see this issue, it is the struggle between  an individual’s personal history which consists of the past practices based on a person’s cultural and ideological heritage which Ivanic refers to as the ‘auto-biographical’ self and the new desirable ‘discoursal’ self which should be reconstructed according to the new cultural and ideological heritage. With respect to me as a native speaker of Arabic, it’s the struggle between academic writing in Arabic which is based on the Arabic ideology, the theories of knowledge, the cultural religious heritage based on the holy Bible and Koran on one hand and academic writing in English based on a different ideology (different theories of epistemology and ontology), a different Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage on the other. Similar to Ivanic (1998), my concern with identity as an absolutely important factor in academic writing is the result of recognizing the contextualized and ideological nature of literacy.
I also realized that writing text types such as argumentation, while they may appear straightforward and clear are actually directly related to the socialization and cultural development of the individual. However, my students might understand the basis of argumentation through the course of my teaching sessions, even though they have not mastered that text type in their L1. They tend to present both sides of the argument, but they try to avoid showing preference for either side, or refute the counter argument. My reading of Hatim (1997) made this area clearer and I could better understand why my students had a less-than-direct manner of argumentative writing in English.
Another question which I contemplated was to what extent the L1 affected the writing which was produced in the L2  and vice versa.
A third area I deliberated was the number of cultural criteria which became evident in the L2 writing and just how precise the second language  was in representing the cultural norms of the students.
Many factors to be taken into consideration sent me searching in various directions. I became most affected by the writings of Ivanič (1998) and Hatim (1997). Ivanič’s work focuses mainly on the different voices of the writer. I could see this in my students’ writing, and I wanted to investigate it more thoroughly. Ivanič (1998) also discusses the issue of identity being constructed, thus opening the issue of identity  to change. I could relate the work to what I was seeing in my student’s writing. To be able to better understand my students through their writing became my quest. I believe it to be important because this understanding clarifies if and how different languages have an effect on different identity positions.
In my research, through a study of cultural effects, an analysis of voice and identity development, and a look at L1 and L2 writing development, I am hoping to achieve a better understanding of cultural identity in Lebanese University students’ writing  by investigating the following issues:

1. Whether, based on Ivanič’s theory of voice, academic writing (which is mainly argumentative) in my own particular context reflects the identity of my students. If yes,
2.  How the reflection of identity is manifested in my students’ writing?
3. Whether my students’ identity positions are reflected differently in Arabic and in English in academic essays which are mainly argumentative.
4. Whether my students argue their points in the same way in Arabic and in English, a question which emerged as a result of analyzing the data.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of culture

The widely accepted definition of culture considering it a set of rules and patterns shared by  a given community   permits an individual to be regarded  as a member  of different cultural communities. The culture of a society is not that which is biologically inherited but rather a structure of learned mannerisms. What people actually “say and do” is based on how they have learned to “say and do” it in a socially acceptable manner (Goodenough, 1964, p. 36). This definition of culture implies that an  individual can adapt to different cultures by reorganizing, modifying  and changing his way of  looking at  things to conform  to the norms and patterns of the target culture or other cultures. This may mean  changing his identity  or having more than  one identity.
Cultural Identity
Language and culture are inseparable entities. Most researchers agree that there is an important relationship between the two but disagree on the nature of this relationship. Halliday and Hasan, for  example, describe language “as one among a number of systems of meaning that taken all together constitute human culture” (1989, p.4). Their definition of learning illustrates the integrated and inseparable relationship between language, social institutions, and culture.
Learning is, above all, a social process… Knowledge is transmitted in social contexts, through relationships like those of parent and child, or teacher and pupil or classmate, that are defined in the value systems of ideology of culture” (p. 5).
I will look into this when I examine the impact of religion on the Lebanese students’ writing.
              The field of TESOL has contributed a lot in carrying the culture of the target language to the discipline of teaching English as a second language by showing its importance in understanding and using the language by non-native speakers. For the teacher, knowing the culturally acceptable ways of using the language is very important because it facilitates the teaching of the foreign language in general and the teaching of writing in particular. Some cognitive strategies used in the native language may be similar to those used in the foreign language such as organization according to certain patterns of behavior although there may be slight variations in organizing certain items. We need to consider both uniformity and diversity, being two faces of the same coin. I think there are some basic concepts common to all languages and cultures such as the concept of life and death. However, the way each culture looks at life and death may be similar in one sense or different in another. Being familiar with these views can make a foreign language teacher more successful in teaching the foreign language. Based on my long teaching experience, relating teaching activities to students’ cultural background enhances students’ interests, motivates them, and facilitates learning by recognizing and appreciating their cultural identities. The teacher’s role is to somehow manage different identity positions and meet the demands of multilingual students who may have multiple identities. This will be illustrated in the analysis section.
Investigations carried out by many researchers such as, Norton (1997), Ivanič (1998), and Atkinson (1999) indicate that a person’s cultural identity may change from one social context to another and/or a student may acquire multiple identities invested differently in different social situations.
The nature of social identity has been socially and scientifically debated. The main concern is with the way this identity “…is constructed socio-culturally, discoursally, and through mechanisms of social interaction” ( Ivanič, 1998, pp. 11-12). I am going to adopt Ivanič’s conceptual framework which is based on both the social constructionist paradigm and Goffman’s Social-Interactionist Theory because I think that may enable us to account for both the social and the psychological effects on the learner’s writing identity as will be illustrated with reference to my data.
The significance of the writer’s identity in writing has been greatly emphasized by Ivanič  who considers this concept of central importance for any theory of writing in two ways: “[w]hat  writers bring to the act of writing, and how they construct their identities through the act of  writing itself” (1998, p. 94).
Analyzing the essays of students, I will focus on the way language constructs identity in the process of writing and how identity constructs writing. This can be  related  to what Ivanič calls ‘possibilities of self-hood’ which she describes as follows:
The three aspects of identity [‘auto-biographical self’, the discoursal self’, and ‘the self as author’]…are all concerned with actual people writing actual texts. The fourth meaning of ‘writer identity’ is concerned with prototypical possibilities for self-hood which are available to writers in the social context of writing: ‘social’ identities in the sense that they do not just belong to particular individuals. In any institutional context there will be several socially available possibilities for self-hood: several ways of doing the same thing. Of these some will be more privileged over others, in the sense that the institution accords them more status(1998, p. 27). ( The words in the brackets are mine)
Believing that writing is a social act in which, in addition to other things, we can give descriptions of ourselves, it is possible to use it actively to affirm those values, beliefs and practices which we want to keep, and to reject those ones we see as harmful because as Ivanič says, “…writing contributes toward showing future possibilities for self-hood” (p. 337). Ivanič discusses the following three aspects of ‘writer identity’ indicating how they are different but interrelated as discussed before.

1. auto-biographical self
2. the discoursal self
3. the self as author

The discussion reflects how these aspects of identity differ and how they are interrelated. For example, discussing subject positioning requires focusing on socially available possibilities for self-hood and would also include paying attention to the writer’s sense of who s/he is and where s/he is coming from (auto-biographical self) of being as relatively authoritative, and of the discoursal self which each participant writer could be building in their own writing.
After defining her terms clearly, Ivanič states why she has chosen ‘mature students’ as her participants for research, describing them as those who joined higher education over the age of 25 after delaying the opportunities they had for doing post-graduate work. Ivanič explains how her mature students feel “the onus is on them to change in order to identify with the institutions they are entering” (1998, p.8). She draws attention to the social conditions of modern times which support the whole practice of returning to study. She thinks that this change of attitude towards returning to college by her mature students means that when people are expected to move into new contexts this will necessitate re-negotiation of their identities.  I wonder how much a student should or could change to adapt to a new learning situation. In spite of the existing differences between Ivanič’s mature participants and my participants, these are typical problems faced also by the Lebanese university students. One manifestation of this re-negotiation is that they always complain about difficulties in doing their writing assignments, as will be discussed in the analysis section. It is because of the difficulty of this skill as reported by my participants that I also focused on writing rather than any other aspect of their communication skills.
Lebanese students struggling for alternative definitions of their identities play different role, choosing the language which they feel helps them play the role more efficiently. As business persons they may choose English as most students do, as management students some  may choose Arabic because this subject is taught in Arabic.
Again the three selves are reflected in Lebanese university students’ writing as they write Arabic and English argumentative essays. Their personal identity is shaped and reshaped according to the social situation they  encounter. Every written assignment is set in a context different from the other which influences their identity and  may change  it to suit the requirements of this particular learning situation as will be illustrated in the analysis section.
This study is rather challenging  because, as Nickel in his book review  of Hatim’s  Communication Across Cultures:  Translation  Theory  and  Contrastive Linguistics  states, most  aspects  of culture  are not  explicitly seen, but rather implicit or hidden  (Hatim 1997;  cited in Nickel 1998). The influence  of culture on an individual  has been compared to   an iceberg where the  part of culture  which creates  cross-cultural   difficulties is not the one exposed above water such as  language, food, and appearance. It is the one hidden under water.  It includes aspects such as communication style, beliefs, attitudes, values and perceptions, which have important effects on behavior  and communication  with others (Levine and Adelman, 1993).
I will rely on Ivanič’s theory of voice (1998) to help clarify the findings of my research. Discussing identity in relation to writing, Ivanič (1998) reports that people may be referring to one or more of the following ‘selves’: ‘auto-biographical self, ‘discoursal self’, and ‘self as author’. Thinking about the  identity of a person in the act of writing, it is possible to show that the ‘auto-biographical self is shaped by the writer’s past experiences. The ‘discoursal self’ is that which the writer constructs in the act of writing. It is the impression “-often multiple, sometimes contradictory” of himself which the writer consciously or unconsciously expresses in a particular written text. Ivanič has called  this aspect of identity ‘discoursal’ because it is built or created through the discourse features of a text, which are related to values, beliefs and power relationships in the social contexts in which they were written. The ‘self as author’ is related to the writer’s ‘voice’ meaning the writer’s position, opinions and beliefs; it refers to  ‘the writer’s relative authoritativeness’ a different meaning of ‘voice’ from the one linked with the discoursal self. “These three  ‘selves’ are all socially constructed and socially constructing in that they are shaped by and shape the more abstract possibilities for self-hood which exist in the writer’s socio-cultural context” (Ivanič, 1998, p. 24).
As I see this issue, it is the struggle between the past practices based on a person’s personal history which includes his cultural and ideological heritage which Ivanic refers to as the ‘auto-biographical’ self and the new desirable ‘discoursal’ self which should be reconstructed according to the new cultural and ideological heritage of the target language. With respect to me as a native speaker of Arabic, it’s the struggle between academic writing in Arabic which is based on the Arabic ideology, the theories of knowledge, the cultural religious heritage based on the Holy Bible and Koran on one hand and academic writing in English based on a different ideology (different theories of epistemology and ontology), a different Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage on the other. Similar to Ivanic (1998), my concern with identity as an absolutely important factor in academic writing is the result of recognizing the contextualized and ideological nature of literacy. When Hatim talked about the  ‘discoursal values’ encouraged  by a given socio-cultural setting (e.g .Arab-Islamic society) having a noteworthy influence on the way texts are negotiated and text norms established, these values belong to the ‘discoursal self’ (Ivanič, 1998).
Hatim has clarified important issues with respect to argumentation in Arabic versus in English. In addition to distinguishing between the two types of argumentation: Counter-argument and Through-argument, Hatim (1997) contrasted this with exposition which he defined as ‘a text type which sets a particular scene and presents it through formats such as description, narration or exposition by induction or deduction, all done with varying degrees of detachment’ (Hatim,1997, p. 171). According to Hatim (1997), through-argumentation may offer a solution whereas an expository text ‘sets the scene’ using description or narration without suggesting  a solution. An expository text exists in form gradually changing to serve an argumentative function. He identified two kinds of audience that the producers of the two texts assume: counter-arguments  would be addressed to the skeptical (the  ‘uncertain’ in Arabic rhetorical terminology),  through-arguments, on the other hand, typically assume a supportive audience changed into momentary ‘deniers’ for persuasion purposes.
Contributions of The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) 
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has also contributed  a lot to the teaching and learning of writing. This is a cooperative research association which has been carrying out international surveys for almost  30 years. The main purpose of this organization is to examine the teaching and learning of written compositions in the schools of 14 countries. The IEA was planned to achieve  many tasks the most important of which with respect to my research study is
to identify factors which explain differences and patterns in the performance of written composition and other outcomes, with particular attention to cultural background, curriculum, and teaching practices (Takala; cited in Gorman et al (eds.), 1988, p. 8).

The aim of the researchers was to detect changes in the argumentative approach across time and to find cultural differences in argumentative style (Gorman, Purves, and Degenhart, (eds.), 1988). The researchers used a number of continua to determine “ what segments of discourse and what aspects of discourse are formulaic for writers in different cultures” and “ what model or models of text exist for a given writer in a given culture” ( Purves and Purves, 1986, p. 181). To examine my own students’ writing, I attempted a functional analysis of their argumentative essays in Arabic and in English based on two of the continua suggested by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The continua as defined by the researchers  are: Personal –Impersonal and Ornamented-Plain.
The IEA researchers came to the following conclusion considering writing as one of the primary demonstrations of a person’s acculturation.
Research dealing with the activity of writing must therefore take into account the writer’s needs, belief systems, knowledge structures, and vocational, professional, and social identities - all of which form the writer’s cultural experiences ( Purves and Purves, 1986, p. 195).
This shows that argumentation as a text type presents discourse features which students are expected to show in their writing , similar to the ‘discoursal’ self which Ivanič (1997) refers to. The writer brings along with him/her the beliefs and ideals which constitute his personal history, what Ivanič (1997) refers to as the ‘auto-biographical’ self. As Purves and Purves suggest throughout their essay,
Learning to write is… a part of learning to be a member of a culture, whether it be a narrow academic or vocational culture or a broader national or ethnic culture. When an individual is transplanted from one culture to another culture, the individual has a great deal both to unlearn and to learn if he or she is to be accepted as a writer in that culture…(1986, p. 194).
Their argument is that learning to write subsists within a structure of contradictory and complementary social and cultural forces.
Research Methodology

Reasons for Using the Qualitative Approach, Particularly ActionResearch and Case Studies

This study sits within a qualitative paradigm. Being concerned with using methods such as interviews, participant observations along with field notes, and the collection of site documents, a qualitative methodology does so in order to interpret “immediate and local meanings of actions from the actors’ point of view” (Erickson, 1986, p. 78). Qualitative methodologies are interpretive methodologies in contrast to positivist or quantitative analyses. They consider or look at the social world as being of a much “…softer, personal and humanly-created kind…” than the objectivist or positivist approaches which deal with the social world “…like the world of natural phenomenon as being hard, real and external to the individual…” (Cohen and Manion, 1994, p. 7). Therefore, the participants in this study are looked at as active individuals  who play their role in generating social reality through their communication with their environment and through the situation in which they find themselves. In this sense, they manage their environment. However, individuals are also fashioned by their environment because they subsist as part of a community and do not stand alone as some kind of cognitive device;  they are also shaped by others and the situation around them, that is, by their environment. It is this  which allows for exchange in any situation, for outcomes to be discussed and for change to take place (Giddens, 1993).
Action research is one of these qualitative approaches. Many researchers have attempted to define action research starting as early as Lewin (1947), Corey (1953), proceeding to Gummesson (1991),Glickman (1992), Calhoun (1993), Takala (1994), Garner (1996), and  Hughes (2001). I agree with Gummesson (1991) who noted that within the process of  action research, data collection, analysis, action, decision making, implementation, and change often take place concurrently. This is what I did in my research. I entered the field looking for similarities and/or differences in my students’ identity positions in their academic writing in both Arabic and English. After some observations,  analysis and reflections, I concentrated on their argumentative writing in Arabic and  in English. I kept on formulating and reformulating my research questions until I ended up with the ones stated above. The fourth one emerged from the data analysis. The four questions are represented by  spirals, and the different phases of research will be presented in  charts which will be attached to this CD.
The process and materials which I used consisted of semi-structured interviews followed by in-depth interviews following Ivanič’s model (1998), observations and a functional analysis of four cause/effect essays and four argumentative essays in Arabic and English looking for cultural identity features in both languages such as Personal –Impersonal and Ornamented-Plain (Purves and Purves, 1986, p. 181) referred to in the literature review chapter. I chose these two features  because they may reflect the students’ subjectivity in writing, thus telling me something about their ‘authorial voice’, their thoughts and feelings. The support I got was from the directors of both the first and second branches of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the Lebanese University. The data was qualitative collected by a questionnaire, argumentative essays, semi-structured and in-depth interviews, and observations. Although the primary audience is my students and myself, the research and discussion I think  is of much wider interest and value. The effects of individual teacher research may or may not reach outside the classroom (Calhoun, 1993). My research was mainly restricted to the classroom except for in-depth interviews which took place  in different locations depending on the availability of a quiet place for this purpose, but it is hoped its effects will be far ranging.
This study uses  case studies of four participants  within an action research framework. This was the most appropriate methodology  for this research for three reasons. First, it lends itself to a functional analysis examining the students’ academic writing, mainly argumentative, based on two of the continua suggested by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) as mentioned above. 
Second, I was able to use interviews to get new information, for triangulation purposes and, most importantly, to take the perspective of the participants themselves.  I interviewed them three times (using the same interview schedule: individually  (face to face , and on the telephone); in groups of three and four; and  going into in-depth interviews with each one of them to uncover their attitudes and beliefs which would tell us more about their cultural identities, what subject matters they write in Arabic and in English, and what strategies they use to write in both languages. Doing case studies also enabled me to apply Ivanič's and Hatims classifications in an in-depth analysis.
Third, observing my students for a year as I was working with them, gave me the chance to explore the difficulties they were facing particularly while writing. This perspective was easy to incorporate because I was both practitioner and researcher, in spite of some limitations which will be discussed later.
I think that case studies which greatly depend on in-depth interviews in being ‘the main road to multiple realities’ (Stake, 1995, p. 64) are useful in many ways in contrast to other data collection methods. First, I got information which cannot be collected  otherwise especially that which uncovers the opinions, attitudes, and beliefs of the participants. Second, it is a flexible technique suited to a wide range of research purposes in education and it can give high quality data because as an interviewer I can explain any ambiguities and correct misunderstandings of the questions by probing for clarification. Moreover, I got new information which I had not anticipated in planning the interview (Miles and Huberman, 1994, Drever, 1995). Third, case studies, in this context through interviews along with other methods such as participant observation, are used for triangulation purposes to check previous findings (Mcdonough, 1997) and to uncover new information about the participants’ attitudes and beliefs which mold their identities: the different identities as reflected in their writing and when interviewed. In my research study on the cultural identity of Lebanese University students, examining the four participants’ text types, observing the students while writing, and going into in-depth interviews with the participants helped me understand the perceptions of my participants and learn more about their cultural identities as they write Arabic and English essays.  The importance of case studies for the language teacher has been stressed by Stake (1995) who equates the roles of teacher-learner with those of researcher-reader. He says that teaching is more than lecturing and delivering information. The following quote illustrates the importance of case studies to language teachers. Case studies help teachers know more about the students by uncovering for the teacher the students’ weaknesses and help them ‘anticipate’ the problems which may arise  in a learning situation.
… it is the arrangement of opportunities for learners to follow a natural human inclination to become educated…It is important to realize that even though students do not learn all they are taught, they learn considerably more than  they are taught…The competent teacher anticipates unanticipated learning…The classroom teacher soon knows  each individual face and something about the mind behind it, but all too little (1995, p. 92)
Using case studies, I was able to find out the weaknesses of my students. Discussing the problems which they faced while writing argumentative essays, some students complained about difficulties in developing the counter-argument andthe refutation. As a result of my research, I gave them good argumentative samples, indicated the main argument, the counter-argument, and the refutation. I also gave them more practice in writing a counter argument and refuting it using logical reasons, facts, statistics, and other concrete support to convince the reader of their point of view. Hence, the research was able to lead to a change in practice.
Participants
The research was carried out on two groups of second year Lebanese university students, 25 students from the first branch  and 25 from the second  of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration for the academic year 1999-2000. They were all  native speakers of Arabic. Each student had a good command of at least one foreign language (English) and some had a command of two languages (English and French).
To start with, ten case studies were carried out on ten  participants who were  multilingual males and females, five from the first branch and five  from the second branch chosen in the following manner: the first, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth student on an alphabetical list were chosen, and  their identity in academic writing, mainly argumentative essays, as they write in English and Arabic was analyzed . The kind of discourse analysis used requires in-depth analysis of features of students’ writing. It was, therefore, felt more appropriate to study fewer subjects in more detail and more holistically than more in less detail. Initially, ten students were chosen but, this number was reduced to four students (participants one and two from the second branch; participants nine, and ten from the first branch) for the in-depth analysis. These students (all ten) were also observed while writing and were interviewed after writing their essays. Some interview questions were modified after the first interview session for two reasons: either because they were not clear to the students or because they were not well structured, or because they were ambiguous. The interview questions were rephrased to get the maximum amount of truthful (correct) information to answer the research questions.
Methods of Data Collection

Entering the Field and Establishing the Research Questions

In both branches, I made contact with the directors and informed them about my investigation which would be part of my regular teaching load. They welcomed the idea and were helpful. I collected the data as I was teaching in the academic year 1999-2000.
Since writing always occurs in a certain context, the topic and the context of the situation affect the writing of the students in general and argumentative writing in particular. Writing text types such as argumentation is actually directly related to the socialization  and cultural development of the students. As  students practiced this text type, I got more interested in studying the cultural effects on their argumentative writing in both Arabic and English . More precisely, being greatly influenced by Ivanič’s theory of voice, I formulated the  research questions stated in the introduction to investigate the following issues:
a.   Whether, based on Ivanič’s theory of voice, academic writing (which is mainly argumentative) in my own particular context reflected the identity of my students. If yes,
b.   How the reflection of identity is manifested in my students’ writing?
c..  Whether my students’ identity positions are reflected differently in Arabic and in  English in academic essays which are mainly argumentative.
d.   Whether my students argue their points in the same way in Arabic and in English, a question which emerged as a result of analyzing the data.
In doing the ten case studies, I drew upon four sources of data to support the conclusions arrived at. These were as follows:
*    Questionnaire collecting bio-data in class from both sites (Group I: East Beirut, Group II: West Beirut)
*    Argumentative Essays: Task I: East Beirut in class Arabic essay first, English essay second Task II: West Beirut in class, English essay first, Arabic essay second.
*    Interviews: semi-structured and in-depth interviews (individual, face-to-face, on the telephone, and in groups of three and one group of four).
*    Observations
However, collecting different kinds of information does not make up data in itself. As put by Erickson more clearly,
..the corpus of materials collected in the field are not data themselves, but resources for data. Field notes, videotapes, and site documents are not data. Even interview transcripts are not data. All these are documentary materials from which data must be constructed through some formal means of analysis (Erickson, 1990, p. 161).

Methods of Data Analysis 

In both the interviews and functional analysis of the argumentative essays,  language is analyzed with a view to examining how  it  links or interconnects  with the social context in which it is used. Although discourse analysis can occur at different levels using various analytic procedures, it is fundamentally used to interpret the interaction between language and society. As used in applied linguistics, discourse deals with the communicative forces which operate in a text, and discourse analysis attempts to indicate how discoursal forces and other elements of the language, together with grammar and lexis, adhere to give meaning (Halliday and Hasan, 1989). By looking at some specimens of written argumentative discourse in Arabic and in English and finding differences related to the different social situations under which they were written, I have understood an important educational matter with respect to the teaching of essay writing. Halliday has explained this issue by emphasizing that constructing texts is a matter of social experience saying that the early stages of  essay writing are perhaps quite difficult.
One learns to make texts by making texts, in much the same way as  one   learns to speak a language by speaking that language. Familiarity with different genres does not grow automatically with growing age, just as language does not simply happen because you are two to three or five years old. For both you need social experience (1989, p. 68).
I am going to adopt Ivanič’s conceptual framework for discourse analysis which is based on both Halliday and Hasan’s (1976, 1989) and Fairclough’s (1989, 1992a and 1995; cited in Ivanič, 1998) for analyzing the expressions which reflect different or similar identity positions. I am also going to adopt Hatim’s (1997) conceptual frame work for analyzing the  argumentative essays in Arabic and in English.
Findings and Data Analysis
In this section, I will give evidence for participant one only to illustrate the findings with respect to the answers to the four research questions stated before.
Participant one is a Lebanese male student who is twenty years old. He is bilingual. He learned both Arabic and Armenian in childhood, and he speaks both languages at home. He has studied Arabic and English for sixteen years, and graduated from a high school where English is the medium of instruction.  He uses English more often than Arabic for reading and writing purposes.
In his essays on ‘Merciful Killing’, this participant showed a consistent religious identity in expressing his attitudes about ‘life and death’, and his writing  reflected  a strong religious affiliations as will be illustrated below giving extracts from both texts, Arabic and English.

This participant referred to Christ, the Bible and other religions to support his argument against merciful killing in both texts (Arabic and English). His strong affiliation to his religious social group can be observed more strongly in the Arabic text when he quoted what Christ had said,

He who hasn’t sinned can throw a stone at her  Extract 1.a (Arabic text)
and in many other contexts.
This participant’s self representation is consistent in both texts (Arabic and English) showing his strong religious belief in Christ and Christianity. This student plus a couple of others had Christ’s photo with Virgin Mary in front of them while writing both essays.
His definition of life and death, as being both gifts from God, is related to his  ‘auto-biographical’ self (Ivanič 1998). This is also stated in his English essay:
Life is the first of all gifts granted by God, and physical death is the last…Extract 2.a (English text)
In presenting his main argument, his ‘auto-biographical self’ shaped by the writer’s past experiences, as described by Ivanič (1998), reflects his cultural heritage manifested in his strong belief in God and referring to God as the only one who has the right to end a person’s life.…
only God has the right to take the life of a person because He is the one who can accurately decide the right time for each one to die. Extract 2 d (English text)
He referred to various religious authorities which forbid legislating death such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and gave other reasons arguing that
…every patient, no matter how bad his condition might be, has the right to be given the chance to recover. Extract 2.e (English text)
He concluded his essay reflecting more of his ‘auto-biographical’ self manifested in his belief in the holiness and divinity of life by repeating that,
Life is a divine gift, and physical death is another; usually one  doesn’t mistreat such gifts Extract 2.g (English text)

The oral interview data was collected mainly in relation to the written texts. Therefore, the additional information which I got from the in-depth interview gave additional evidence for the participant’s consistent religious identity. Participant one reported strong religious affiliation: believing in the second coming of Christ and being a member of a religious committee. He said,

I believe in the second coming of Christ…. I am a member of  a religious Committee whose aim is to spread Christ’s teaching and his second coming… Extract 3 (in-depth interview)
The above discussion tried to show, in answer to the first research question, that the academic argumentative writing of this particular student reflected his religious identity in his writing in both Arabic and English.
In this section, I will  discuss the third  research question in relation to participant one to show how different identity positions are reflected differently depending on the topic he is writing about. I will show the interplay of the discoursally constructed  ‘selves’ as follows:

Table 1 Interplay of Discoursally Constructed Selves in the Writing of Participant One

In his semi-structured interview, this paricipant reported that he had ‘a mixture of identities’. In the following extract, he said

As an Armenian, I have got…a mixture of identities. I consider English a mid way between English and Armenian. I feel free to express myself and emotions in English. I will read the Bible in English. I like the British culture…. Extract 4 (semi-structured interview)
Asking this participant  what he meant by “mid way between English and Armenian”, He explained that he used both languages equally at home.
As discussed in the literature review the concepts of ‘identity’ and ‘investment’ might help me understand  my students  and their learning processes better. Having many voices, the student or ‘individual writer’ will invest differently in different fields of study as Ivanič (1998) says in discussing multiple possibilities of selfhood in the discourse community and as was illustrated in the literature review. Similarly, I will quote evidence from participant one which shows different identity positions depending on text type and topic. Similar to one of Ivanič’s participants, quoted in the review of related literature, this participant positioned  himself  differently as he wrote on different topics. Writing on causes and/or effects of pollution, he gives scientific evidence for the reasons of pollution.
In his in-depth interview discussing his essays on the two different text types (cause/effect versus argumentation) and different topics ( pollution/ merciful killing) participant one said,
I feel I have two identities, a scientific one for discussing scientific issues and a religious one for discussing matters which deal with life and death. My religious identity is reflected in referring to the Holy Bible and the importance of God in ending or extending someone’s life... Talking about life and death is more philosophical, you can see…uh… a different person from the one talking about science and scientific issues (Extract 6).
The preliminary analysis of the Arabic texts left me with the impression that they were more personal than the English texts. To verify whether this impression was, in fact, correct I attempted a functional analysis using two of the continua suggested by the International Assosciation for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA):  Personal –Impersonal and Ornamented-Plain (Purves and Purves, 1986 ). Analyzing the essays of this participant, he used the personal element in his Arabic text, particularly in the last paragraph referring to Christ as a religious authority.
In his Arabic text and particularly the last paragraph, he used the first person (whether singular or plural) six times. Two of the pronouns are  from a quote  from the Bible.
He also quoted what Christ said to support his argument
He who hasn’t sinned can throw a stone at her. Extract 5.b (Arabic text)
In his English essay, however, he was more impersonal and did not use the first person at all. He ended it more formally referring to the creator giving man the freedom of choice and repeating the same idea in different words. This technique, convincing by repetition, is a characteristic of Arabic rhetoric (Koch, 1983;cited in Hatim, 1997; Hamod, 1963; cited in Anderson 1991 ) but was used by the participant in English in the following extract:
Indeed, life is sacred and too precious to let go, not to mention that it is too sublime to be regulated by man-made laws or agreements. Life is a divine gift, and physical death is another; usually one doesn’t mistreat such gifts. However, the Creator of life has granted man with a freedom to choose, so they would rather make the right choice. Extract 6.a (English text)
Life is referred to as being sacred three times, using different words in order to convince the reader.
To answer the fourth research question,  I also attempted a  rhetorical analysis of the  argumentative essays in Arabic and in English following Hatim’s models of argumentation: ‘Through-Argumentation/Counter-Argumentation/Explicit/Concessive’ (1998). Hatim (1998) claims that argumentation is greatly affected by ones cultural heritage.
Before starting the analysis it is advisable to acquaint the reader with some of the fundamentals of Arab and Moslem orientations towards argumentation. As pointed out by Anderson (1991, p.97), drawing on Gudykunst (1984 ),
While values such as materialism, success, activity, progress, and rationality are featured in American culture, Arab societies revolve around the core values of “hospitality, generosity, courage, honor, and self-respect” (p. 50).
These values are reflected in the participants’ writings depending on the topic which they are writing about. The author, Anderson, also talks about the importance and function of story telling and poetry in the Arabic cultural heritage which is used to act upon the human emotions and  move the  people to action especially in the  early times. He adds  that according to Arab cultures there is a bond between inspired language ( the language of the Holy Koran) and religion. This is reflected in the important religious role which Arabic plays in Islamic societies. Regardless of their nationality, all Moslems must use Arabic in their daily prayers. To show the strong connection between language and religion, he refers to Almaney and Alwan (1982)  who explain how Moslems consider the language of the Quran a miracle because it was revealed to Prophet Mohammed who was illiterate. That is why it cannot be translated faithfully into other languages. One can sense the linguistic and religious importance of the Quran  in what Anderson says about the Arabic style. It depends strongly on devices that intensify the emotional influence of the message and the power of words,
The power of words lay not in their ability to reflect human experience, but in their ability to transcend it, to reach toward that which lay beyond human experience, __ the devine. To this day, the Quran stands as the ultimate book for style and grammar for Arabs. The cultural equivalent in the West would be using King James version of the Bible as our style manual (p. 98).
With respect to the particular topic my students wrote about, the strong relationship between Arabic language and religion may explain why most of  my  students quoted  from important religious authorities either the Holy Koran or the Holy Bible to support their main argument against ‘Merciful Killing’.
   Finally, with respect to the first research question, Participant one manifested a consistent religious identity in his writing in both texts, Arabic and English. With respect to the second  and third research questions, he manifested different identity positions depending on the topic he was writing about. He introduced his authorial voice  in the Arabic text by using the first person (I and/or we), but he  was more impersonal and distanced himself in order to create a more objective tone in the English text. With respect to the fourth research question, he followed the ‘through-argument’ model more in his Arabic text and the ‘counter-argument’ model in his English text.

Summary of Findings

  The findings highlight some important issues in the writing of Lebanese students of the Faculty of Economics and Administration in general and in their argumentative writing in particular. Based on Ivanič’s theory of voice, academic writing which is mainly argumentative in my own particular context reflects the identity of my students. Illustrations from the four participants show an almost consistent religious element in both texts Arabic and English with respect to the specific topic on ‘Merciful Killing’. Other illustrations show the  interrelated selves: ‘self as author’ reflecting different positioning and giving opinions, ‘auto-biographical’ self referring to past experience and cultural heritage, and the ‘real self’ which Ivanič discusses in her theory.  Different identity positions emerged in using Arabic and English for different purposes. Almost all of them used Arabic to express emotions, to write about family and personal problems, and to pray. However, they used English for academic and business purposes. Finally, comparing the four participants’ responses, there is some evidence for Ivanič’s theory of voice. Participants display similar as well as different identity positions depending on what purpose they are using the language for. The religious element  and the subjectivity reflected in the use of the personal pronoun (I, we, our, and us) are two consistent features in the students’ texts regardless of the language.
They reflect their different selves: ‘self as author’, ‘auto-biographical’ self, and ‘real self’ through their ‘discoursal’ self sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. Analyzing how students argued their points in Arabic and in English,. Participant two followed the Through-argument model in both essays, in Arabic and in English. Participant nine followed the Counter-argument model in both essays in Arabic and in English. Participants one and ten followed the Through- argument model in Arabic and the Counter-argument model in English. All the participants used religious evidence either from the Holy Bible or Holy Koran to support their main argument. Some used proverbs, poetic expressions to start or end their essays as was illustrated with respect to participant one
Interviewing Lebanese university students, I was really surprised to find important differences in the responses of the participants. Two participants reported that they felt much more comfortable to write in English than in Arabic even expressing their emotions and writing about personal subject matters. Two female participants wrote their prayers in Arabic but wrote personal letters in English.
Looking through the questions asked, and attempting a functional analysis of the essays written, I was able to pick up a consistent pattern of writing  in both languages, Arabic and English which reflected consistent religious identity positions with respect to the topic on Merciful Killing..  However, different identity positions were reflected in using Arabic and English for different purposes.  Some would use Arabic to express their emotions to discuss family problems and to pray while they would use English only for academic business purposes. Two important things were observed while students were writing during the final exam which give further illustration of the importance of the  religious element. First, as students were writing their essays on the same topic ‘Merciful Killing’ in Arabic and in English, the Christian students had pictures of  Christ, Virgin Mary, Saint Rita, Saint Charbel…etc in front of them while writing which reflected their religious affiliation. In contrast, the Moslems had the Holy Koran (small pocket book) opened in front of them, or a prayer from Holy Kora’n called in Arabic ‘Dua’ in front of them as they were also writing. The students reported when interviewed that the photos or the scripts whether from the Holy Bible or Koran helped them concentrate better and inspired them with creative ideas. Second, some students brain stormed , organized their ideas, wrote an outline, drafted and redrafted. Others wrote some expressions and  then started writing. A few started writing right away claiming (when interviewed) that they didn’t want to loose time.

            Weaknesses in Research Design

Argumentation is a text type which is not taught in high school, neither in English nor in Arabic as part of the English language course or Arabic language course. However, students study argumentation and syllogisms in their philosophy course which is taught in Arabic in their last year of high school. They study Aristotle and Plato (Jadawel Manahij Al-Taalim Fi Marhalat Al-Taalim Al-Thanawi, General Course Description, Secondary Level, Lebanese Ministry of Education, 1971). Therefore, they are exposed to the rhetoric of Aristotle and to argumentation. Students were supposed to argue in Arabic and in English. As a part of their English course (when I was doing my research study), students were explicitly taught how to argue in English. They were not, however, explicitly taught to argue in Arabic. The weakness of the design of my study was that the students were taught how to argue in English and had practiced argumentative writing before they wrote their argumentative essay on ‘Merciful Killing’. However , they were not taught how to argue in Arabic, but they had to write an argumentative essay in Arabic on the same topic ‘Merciful Killing’. Perhaps, it would have been more appropriate if they  were taught argumentation in both languages or neither before being tested. In future research, it might be advisable to also teach argumentation skills in Arabic. The aim of the research  was to look for features in their writing which reflected similar or different identity positions. Argumentation was used as a text type to understand issues of cultural identity. It was not primarily intended for textual analysis to test how skillfully they argued in both languages. I think this minimizes  the intensity of the weakness. Recognizing this weakness, however, I modified the research design by using semi-structured and in-depth interviews to understand the students’ different or similar identity positions. The interview data clarified some of the problems students face in arguing in Arabic and English. The topic ‘Merciful Killing’ is a religiously sensitive topic for Lebanese native speakers of Arabic. Their religious beliefs, therefore, influenced the line of their argument. I think one can look at this more positively recognizing the effect of the cultural religious heritage manifested in the ‘auto-biographical self’ which Ivanič (1998) talked about extensively. Referring to Anderson’s article (1991), she gives more evidence for the strong connection between the Arabic language and religion as discussed before.
Inspired by Hatim (1998), I looked for similarities and/ or differences when trying to answer the fourth research question which emerged  from my data: whether my students argued their points in the same way in Arabic and in English. The strong relationship between Arabic language and religion  reflecting the students’ cultural background was manifested in arguing against  ‘Merciful Killing’ as I illustrated in chapter four. In both languages, participants argued against ‘Merciful Killing’ whether using the ‘Through argument’ organization in Arabic or the ‘Counter-argument’ organization in English. Finally, in a moral dilemma, if the person is religious, he will use religion more. The students relied strongly on religious references to support their main argument. The functional, and textual analysis of the texts of these participants along with their semi-structured and in-depth interviews indicate the strong religious impact on their writing and behavior. With such a group of students, it would be advisable to avoid religious topics  for future research.

Implications for teaching

In spite of the limitations and weaknesses in the research design, this study has many pedagogic implications for teachers, students, and administrators of institutions of higher learning. Knowing more about the writer’s identity and more specifically about the ‘discoursal-self’ is very important with respect to the teaching of English  language skills in general and the teaching of writing in particular. These will be discussed in relation to teachers first and then in relation to learners.

Implications for Teachers

   Understanding thoroughly how students construct their ‘discoursal-self’  through the use of their discoursal resources in their written texts can help the teacher of writing and contribute a lot to the improvement of teaching and learning about writing in higher education. Moreover, understanding the writer’s ‘own voice’ described by Ivanič (1998, p. 331), as “an articulation of socially available  possibilities for self-hood, the fabric which is highly dependent on the writer’s ‘auto-biographical self’”, which refers to the  past experience and cultural heritage of the student, helps the teacher in dealing more positively with the problems students usually face while writing. By learning more about the culture of the native language, the teacher  can present the different aspects of the target culture which are not similar to the native culture in a way which will not offend the students. She can avoid  cultural sensitive topics. She can deal with  cultural problems cautiously trying to see through the students’ perspective showing more understanding and appreciation for the students’ point of views leading them smoothly to the different aspects of the target culture which are different from the native culture and hence may affect their writing.
The teaching of writing should be socially situated. It is necessary to construct the teaching of writing around writing tasks with real communicative purposes for real readers in order to be able to learn how to negotiate their identities through writing. The writing text, which is going to be read and evaluated, should be done on two bases: content and accuracy. Similar to Ivanič’s research (1998), it should be based on essays which are part of a course work in higher education, rather than tasks necessarily set up specifically for the purpose of research. The English essays which I analyzed were part of a course work in higher education for second year Lebanese university students in two branches. This shows the importance of research into writing  to the teaching of writing.
Raising learners’ critical awareness of the nature of the writer identity in order to give them the maximum control over this significant feature, is of equal importance to other suggestions. Critical language awareness (C.L.A.) is recommended by Ivanič (1998) to be used both as research methodology and as a pedagogy which focuses on the critical discussion of discourses, discourse practices, and the way they position language users. It is possible to explain that writing in a particular way appears to be characteristic of a certain kind of person.
Encouraging students to take action and make choices as they write, with proper guidance and training by qualified educators, students would be able to overcome most of the obstacles they face while writing. To facilitate their job as apprentice writers, students should be made aware that getting stuck with writing may not only be because of their weakness, but because writing is a complex social act. As emphasized by Ivanič (1998), not only ‘learners’ but every one who wants to write must face the arduous task of deciding how to present themselves in writing: which discourse types and associated identities to accept, and which ones to reject. They are also encouraged by developing a critical awareness of their life histories and the kinds of social restraints which may be responsible for any difficulties they have with acquiring particular discourse types. As a result, they would stop blaming themselves and start looking for possible solutions for their writing problems. Another important result of being critically aware of the relationship between writing and identity gives students the feeling that there are alternatives to choose from depending on the social situation they encountered (Ivanič 1998).
Encouraging my students develop critical awareness helped them improve their writing and motivated them. After recognizing and analyzing the problems (such as the kind of social restraints) which they faced, their writing skill improved gradually. As they wrote better, they enjoyed writing more frequently. For example, they got more interested in argumentation especially after learning how to argue persuasively presenting their main argument, giving evidence to support their claim, moving to the counter-argument, then refuting it to support their main argument. Extracts from their in-depth interviews (provided in the analysis section) after writing argumentative essays illustrate this point. Raising the teachers’ and students’ critical awareness helps both and leads to an understanding of the relationship between writing and identity.
Finally, discussing the writer-reader relationship from the point of view of self-representation is important because the issue of what impression the reader is going to receive of the writer as a person (which may be subconsciously disturbing the writer) remains hidden. Mentioning this as an element in the writing process and focusing on it during writing conferences and tutorials is really worth considering seriously because this may lead to possible solutions to improve the writer-reader relationship such as maximizing mutual understanding between the writer and the reader.

 Implications for Students or Learners

    The importance of the students’ voice has been extensively discussed by Ivanič (1998). Recognizing the two dimensions of ‘voice’ by both the teacher and the student is very important. The first dimension refers to the ‘voice’ in the sense of  form referred to also as the ‘discoursal self’. The second dimension is the writer’s voice in the sense of content referred to also as the ‘auto-biographical self (ideas and beliefs). Ivanič recommends that writing should be equated with authorship because having a motivation for writing, ‘a burning desire’ to put across a message, a story, some thoughts, powerfully held views must be the focus of the teaching of writing. What teachers should teach is that writing something always means possessing the power to make decisions. To say something that is of importance should be the point of writing. Learners should  be provided with opportunities to develop a sense of purpose and authorship. As writers and learner-writers, there is a need to recognize how authority is contested. This refers to how the students are authoritatively willing to present themselves as they are writing. Considering questions dealing with the type of writing which is conventionally difficult for the author to understand, learner-writers have to   critically judge how they are going to establish their authorial presence in a particular task. Ivanič stresses the importance of cultural differences here: “..members of different cultural groups feel  differently about how authoritatively they are willing to present themselves, depending on religious beliefs and social customs” (1998, p. 341). This issue is intimately related to the teaching of the argumentation text type to groups coming from different cultures. What appears logical and convincing to an American or British student, may be offensive to an Arab.   Lebanese students come from a cultural background where religion plays a large role in forming the identity of the people. Most of them follow the religious teachings of either Christianity or Islam. They have been brought up not to oppose their superiors. Therefore, they are reluctant to argue against their teachers’ points of view or opinions. The tutor is to be highly respected. They have been trained how to expose different points of view rather than argue against a particular point of view especially issues prohibited religiously such as ‘Merciful Killing’ or ‘Civil Marriage’. They have been trained on expository writing rather than argumentative or persuasive writing. That’s why they always face difficulties in writing argumentative essays. Looking at  how students argued their points in Arabic and English shows that  participants one, two and nine presented  a ‘through-argument’ in Arabic which follows the typical Arabic model of argumentation (presenting their thesis or claim and substantiating it ). However, one and nine followed the ‘counter-argument’ English model when arguing in English (Hatim, 1998). This reflects different identity positioning: moving  from through-argumentation to counter-argumentation after they learned how to argue persuasively in English. In other words, they learned how argumentation in English is different from that in Arabic. When the learners are  provided with opportunities to develop a sense of purpose and authorship, they  can establish their authorial presence in a particular task as they did  in following different strategies when arguing in English as opposed to Arabic. The authorial presence of participants IX and X is manifested in their writings in both texts, Arabic and English using personal pronouns (singular and plural) more often than participants I and II.
Ivanič also recommends involving students by considering them ‘active participants in social struggles’, ‘intellectuals’, and ‘researchers’  in order for  a theory to have the desired effect. This is in line with the student-centered approach (which is in the process of implementation in the New Lebanese Baccalaureate Curriculum) in contrast with the teacher-centered approach which Ivanič (1998) criticized as having ‘short-term benefit’.  Instead, she recommends engaging students directly with a new theory and giving them opportunities  to discover for themselves how the theory may help them  in understanding their experience. She suggests classes entitled, ‘Critical Approaches to Academic Discourse’ in which students read  Ivanič’s articles on identity and chapters one and six from her book, Writing and Identity and   other selections. After reading these sections, students can compare the examples with their own experiences, tasks, and drafts, discuss whether the theoretical differences are useful for reflecting on their experience, and if so, use them for this aim. In addition to this, theory can be useful in providing students with tools for a critical evaluation of the social context in which they are learning, for ways of identification in which it limits their opportunities and/or others’ opportunities and eventually for predicting choices and fighting for them.
Therefore, students should be viewed  ‘as active participants in social struggle’ not just as passively receiving knowledge and advice, but as individuals searching for understanding which will be of direct use to them, “which will open up new fields of vision and new perspectives, and provide a basis for their own emancipatory and transformatory action” (Ivanič, 1998, pp. 337-338). I have started implementing this approach at the Lebanese University/ Faculty of Education since 1999. Most students welcome it and show a lot of motivation and enthusiasm. The majority report in their evaluation forms that they are learning more, are more motivated, and actively involved in the learning process. They feel more independent and more fluent in all communication skills.  Some criticize it, however, for doing more than what they were used to do following the traditional approach which is based on lecturing and memorizing. 

Implications for the Administrators and Educational Institutions

   Complaints about students’ writing  are ascribed to shortfalls on the part of the students especially at the secondary level and university level. This research and my intensive reading of almost all Ivanič’s works on writing and identity made me more convinced of her views on this issue. Institutions of secondary and higher learning should examine and remedy their own practices.
First, the semi-structured and in-depth interviews along with the evaluation forms which I always collect from students at the beginning and the end of each semester show how there are clever and legitimate explanations for what students have written. They demonstrate the amount of thought and strategy that students have put into their writing. What may appear at first glance to be ‘unsatisfactory’ academic writing has got complex negotiations of identity underneath it. This implies that teachers ought to learn to look at students’ writing as the product of their developing sense of what it means to be a member of  a certain academic community: of who the students are and how they want to appear to be. Teachers should themselves always listen to students’ own understandings of what is going on, not making assumptions on the basis of surface evidence. This will stop the teachers from making damning or pejorative judgments of student writing. They might, instead, be able to help students to be aware of these processes, in the way my participants did through participation in this research.
Second, contrary to existing belief, meeting institutional expectations is not just a question of ‘literacy’, but more a question of identity. The requirements for writing a good student essay which will be highly valued consists of “ complex insider knowledge” as Ivanič (1998) says. There are differences in the values and practices required from one department to another, even from one teacher to another. Even mechanical instructions such as layout, margin width, and  giving a title might differ and lead to misunderstandings because students need a great deal of insider knowledge in order to know precisely what is considered an acceptable essay in terms of structure, argumentation, proof, or clarity in a particular community. Students should know what needs defining, what needs elaborating, what needs supporting, and how. This depends on context and content-specific details. This means that students need to know what is involved in taking on an identity as a member of a specific discourse community. The institution of higher learning should identify its own values, beliefs, and practices, and subject them to critique. Teachers should make  clear to themselves what they are asking students to do, and why. This would put them in a position to share the insider knowledge with their students, “…making membership of the academic discourse community less exclusive, more accessible, and more open to contestation” (Ivanič, 1998, p. 344).
Third, the disparity between institutional expectations and students’ writing  shows how academic discourses position students and select them. Students feel under pressure to take on particular values, beliefs, and practices characteristic of academic discourse. That’s why they face what Ivanič refers to as  an “ identity crisis”. They feel that they should become a different sort of person in order to take part in the context-specific and culture specific knowledge making practices of academic institutions. Teachers and institutions should be aware of the fact that students bring with them to the act of writing ‘autobiographical’ selves which may be disregarded by the academic institution. Similar to Ivanič, I think that  institutions of higher learning are responsible for questioning their values, beliefs, and practices critically, and to recognize alternatives and possibilities for change. They should  value  the complete diversity of knowledge, wisdoms, methods of learning and accept words and expressions which new members could bring with them. Finally, the academic institutions should adopt this challenge because of the increasing presence of students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Concluding Remarks

   Finally, I would like to emphasize two points in my conclusion related to the reflection of the Lebanese students’ cultural identity in their academic essay writing. The first one is associated with power relations and differences between the social relations surrounding different types of writing different text types. This is related to differentiating between two forms of writing for assessment where the  student is still an amateur on the periphery of community membership, and writing for publication where the student is at the heart of his community feeling the special right to speak and contribute to the knowledge-making projects of his society. Personally, writing as a tutor, I feel stronger, more self confident and powerful. Writing as a student to be assessed by others who are more powerful than me, however, I feel more tense and not as powerful as a tutor. Struggling to find the proper expressions which would convey the right image which would satisfy my advisor and trying to come up with something original while analyzing my data “uncovering new knowledge” as explained by Ivanič (1998, p. 300) is my major concern. Ivanič discusses this issue emphasizing the importance of the various social relations surrounding diverse types of writing. She refers to a continuum covering these two types of writing in which the writer of the text has a higher status (tutor, or writing to a journal, for example) and therefore is more powerful than the reader, and types of writing where the roles are reversed; the writer is less powerful (a student to be assessed). This distinction is not ‘watertight’ as described and elaborated on by Ivanič, (1998), and these two roles ‘leak into each other’ when I write for different purposes. At certain times, I feel strong and powerful in developing my argument and supporting it with evidence. At other times, however, I feel uncertain whether I have chosen the right expressions which would be interpreted by the reader the way I perceive them. This brings us to a very critical issue, to the pedagogic importance of getting the message the writer wants to pass to the reader, “Do readers construct the same impressions as the writers thought they conveyed?” (Ivanič, 1998, p.334) an issue which still needs a lot of researching as recommended by Ivanič and other researchers such as (Hayes et al, 1992; Haswell and Haswell, 1995). In conclusion, considering students potential authors and training them to be powerful enough to make decisions by reading and writing critically is the job of a knowledgeable tutor who knows enough about the students’ cultural heritage to be able to understand their needs, help them solve their problems, and hence guide them through the right path enlightening the dark part of their school and /or university life.