While the study of written discourse that informs ESL writing has provided a number of insights into its conventional features and structures, individual variations such as voice and identity have largely been neglected. To examine how a socially situated notion of voice plays a role in disciplinary online writing, this study explored the co-construction of an author’s identity by peer readers in online written exchanges. The goal of this paper is thus to explore how voice articulated as sociocultural point of view is developed through dialogic interactions with others and how such development can be traced through the discursive constructs such as positioning, epistemic/affective stance, and intertextual relations. This study has important educational implications in relation to academic writing that is a critical issue for many Korean college students who pursue their studies in the United States in that the number of Korean international students has continued to increase in the U.S. universities.

The article portrays one way in which academic voices and social identity can develop and constitute each other through the affordances of computer-mediated communication in the classroom. In this article, I present a case study in which voice is treated as an analytic means for understanding the complexities undergone by an L2 graduate student as she was transitioning into an L2 academic community. I highlight how voice as ideological point of view is developed through dialogic interactions with others, and such development can be traced through the discursive constructs such as intertextual relations and epistemic/affective stance. This study has important educational implications in relation to the academic writing/reading of L2 students with differing needs and the provision of opportunities for access to the curriculum.