Authorial Identity in the Academic Oral Presentations of Non-Native English BA Majors

Creating an authorial identity observing the requirements of an academic discourse community is a demanding communicative practice even in the mother tongue, and it might cause increased difficulties in a foreign language. This is partly due to limited foreign language competencies, and partly to socially available options of selfhood in academic discourse that novice discourse community members might not be fully aware of. The study presents an overview of the concept of and research on authorial identity in oral academic discourse, to be followed by an investigation of how Hungarian English Studies BA students apply self-mentions to create authorial identities in their Academic Oral Presentations in English. The investigation relies on a combination of discourse and rhetorical analyses and suggests that the lack of academic experience might contribute to non-native BA students’ reluctance to conceptualise themselves as community practice members of their discipline and create a confident authorial identity.