Bilingual returnee scholars’ identity in academic writing

Academic writing is a dynamic process that in some senses reveals a writer’s scholarly identity. To illuminate how this identity-forming process occurs, in the present study, three Anglosphere-educated writing scholars in China were interviewed to uncover their English-Chinese bilingual scholarly identities focusing on their perspectives of academic writing in two languages. The findings reveal they were conscious of their bilingual scholarly identities as English and Chinese academic writers, and attributed their academic writing skill development to their education at universities overseas, despite holding different views about the rhetorical styles of English and Chinese academic writing. Although the three returnee scholars faced challenges with writing and publishing papers in Chinese journals, they consciously applied different approaches in practicing and promoting both an English writing style and evidence-based argumentation when writing and teaching academic writing to Chinese students. The present study unpacks the complex nature of the Chinese returnee scholars’ bilingual scholarly identity construction in academic writing while highlighting their contribution to the Anglo-centric globalization of academic writing and rhetorical development. Implications for graduate research training programs and research on academic writing identity are discussed.