Toward a Theory of Reflective Authorship in Language Teacher Education: A Framework for Voice, Emotion, and Discursive Self-Construction

Abstract

This article introduces the Reflective Authorship Model (RAM), a conceptual framework developed through sustained engagement with written reflections by Vietnamese English as a foreign language teachers. Moving beyond traditional views of reflection as cognitive self-report, the model conceptualizes reflective writing as a discursive act of professional authorship, crafted through narrative positioning, emotional negotiation, stylistic agency, and discursive constraint. Drawing on insights from narrative inquiry, affect theory, and stylistic analysis, the article presents a four-dimensional, Venn-inspired model in which voice is not simply expressed but composed. The model accounts for how teachers manage vulnerability, perform professionalism, and shape identity through textual choices. At the intersections of each dimension lie the tensions and negotiations that give reflective writing its depth, emotionally inflected storytelling, hedged critique, stylistic hesitation, and voice shaped by institutional expectation. RAM reframes reflective writing not as a mirror of thought, but as a site of rhetorical and ethical labor. It invites teacher educators, researchers, and reflective practitioners to read with closer attention to how teachers write themselves into their work, through friction, nuance, and desire.