Voice, criticality, and identity in nursing students’ reflective writing: A corpus-informed discourse analysis
Author(s)
Date Issued
2026
Publisher
Centre for Applied English Studies, The University of Hong Kong
Journal
The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics
Volume
10
Issue
4
Abstract
Reflective writing is used in pre-registration nursing curricula to support experiential learning and professional formation. However, its linguistic realisation and discourse demands remain under-specified in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and disciplinary-literacy research, especially in Hong Kong higher education. This paper presents a corpus-informed discourse-analytic study of 108 English-language reflections by first-year undergraduate nursing students at a Hong Kong university. The texts were structured around Gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle and classified using Hatton and Smith’s (1995) categories of descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection, and critical reflection. The study examines the enactment of professional voice, the indexing of criticality across reflective stages, and the discursive positioning of professional identity. Corpus techniques were integrated with stage-sensitive move coding mapped onto Gibbs’ sequence. The findings indicate that students’ reflective voice is highly personal but only partly professionally situated, causal markers often provide local explanations rather than extended analytical reasoning, and professional identity is typically projected as a future aspiration rather than enacted within the reflected-upon episode. Most texts were classified as descriptive or dialogic reflection, while approximately 15% were classified as critical reflection. The paper contributes an empirically grounded approach to operationalising reflection as language-in-use, with implications for discipline-embedded instruction and feedback.
SFU Affiliated Publication
Yes
Availability at SFU Library
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