Voice in Written Discourse and Teaching Second Language Writing in Context --- Dr. Paul Matsuda

Voice in Written Discourse and Teaching Second Language Writing in Context

— Dr. Paul Matsuda

Dr. Paul Matsuda, a Professor of Department of English at Arizona State University, gave us lectures on “Voice in Written Discourse” and “Teaching Second Language Writing in Context”. Dr. Matsuda is an expert of international second language writing, and his main research areas are rhetoric and second language writing, applied linguistics, and TESOL. He published more than 50 papers in the core international academic journals, and more than 10 monographs. Furthermore, many of his works won the outstanding honor award.

In the lecture of 19^th, Dr. Paul Mastuda defined “Voice” which reflects different views of some things, and “Voice” is consistent with humans. Besides, Dr. Matsuda shared his experience of writing, and he humorously emphasized the significance of “Voice” in academic writing. Additionally, he discussed with students about the evaluation of authors’ characteristics based on academic writing. Finally, he suggested that students use accurate words in academic writing, and find out their own “Voice”.

In the lecture of 20^th, Dr. Matsuda presented 4 important rhetorical goals of writing, and pointed out that writing is widely applied in various areas in our daily life. Dr. Matsuda highlighted that faculty should help students jump out of the limitation of traditional decontextualized writing style, and develop the ability of contextualized writing, because the unknown part is most valuable in the study. Finally, Dr. Matsuda introduced the audience some skills of becoming effective writers, and writing properly in a socially acceptable way.

Dr. Matsuda’s creative thoughts and valuable experiences in English writing would be beneficial to both faculty and students. The audience burst into wild applause when he finished his lecturers. In Q & A, students, faculty, and Dr. Matsuda exchanged ideas.