Abstract
Providing an overview to the concept of voice is no simple feat. It is a term most writers have heard or used, perhaps even in their early days of writing, and that many have strong feelings about, whether positive or negative. I myself avoided its use for many years, leery of its imprecise meaning and its often literary and aesthetic overtones. Indeed, one of the thorniest issues with the notion of voice is the broad range of meanings ascribed to it. Metaphorical interpretations are multiple and subject to arguments about how far the metaphor can accurately be extended. It is perhaps this polysemous nature of voice that has made it a somewhat controversial concept in academic writing, and surely this definitional ambiguity has as well contributed to scholarly disputes over the role it should play in the academic writing classroom (e.g. Elbow, 1999; Ramanathan and Atkinson, 1999; Stapleton, 2002; Helms-Park and Stapleton, 2003; Matsuda and Tardy, 2007; Stapleton and Helms-Park, 2008).
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© 2012 Christine M. Tardy
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Tardy, C.M. (2012). Current Conceptions of Voice. In: Hyland, K., Guinda, C.S. (eds) Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030825_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030825_3
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