‘I always prefer to quote well-known people’: identity negotiations while constructing Ph.D. students’ intertextual repertoire

Abstract

The development and construction of doctoral students’ academic identity have become an area of research interest, focusing on the link between identity issues and the use of intertextuality in postgraduate students. While prior studies concentrated on written features and citation patterns, a more nuanced understanding of identity negotiations requires a combination of methods, including interviews and textual analysis. This study aims to explore the intertextual repertoire and how it influences doctoral writers’ academic practices and identities through a multiple-case study of Education postgraduate students from a Chilean university. By doing so, we hope to shed light on the complexities of academic writing practices and contribute to ongoing discussions on literacy and identity in academic contexts. The article concludes by highlighting the complexity of constructing intertextual repertoires and the importance of understanding the different dimensions of the writer’s identity at stake in this process.