The Presentation of Self in Everyday Ether: A Corpus Analysis of Student Self-tellings in Online Graduate Courses 123 THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY ETHER: A CORPUS ANALYSIS OF STUDENT SELF-TELLINGS IN ONLINE GRADUATE COURSES Carla Meskill, Gulnara Sadykova University at Albany, State University of New York ABSTRACT This study examines the patterns and substance of student self introductions in nine fully online graduate courses in education. A composite of social identity frameworks with an emphasis on language as the tool for self-presentation is first developed to guide the analysis and interpretation of these data. In particular Sfard and Prusack’s operationalization of the telling of identity [1], along with Bruner’s construct of turning points in self-tellings [2] are discussed and employed as analytic lenses. The question of how, in a tightly defined social/academic context, adults use written language to present themselves to others is taken up through content analysis supported by linguistic concordancing. Two hundred twenty-three “Meet Your Classmates” entries are examined for their form and content. Entries composed by preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and doctoral students reveal differences regarding academic and professional identity-telling with the tenacity of institutionally situating and situated forces prevailing. KEYWORDS Social Identity, Online Identity, Language of Introductions, Asynchronous Courses, Education, Preservice Teachers, Inservice Teachers, Concordancing I. INTRODUCTION What do we know about students in our online distance education courses? What do they choose to tell us about themselves? What mechanisms do they use to present this information? When asked for a self introduction in an asynchronous online course, what autobiographical stories do students tell? In attempting to address these questions, theoretical principles from four broad areas are employed: language in education, critical discourse analysis, narrative identity, and computer-mediated communication. Using these multiple points of entry, we examined the text archives of the Meet Your Classmates (MYC) entries of 223 graduate students in educational theory and practice in an attempt to characterize patterns of self- presentation. We used simple concordancing software to establish patterns in the corpus of student entries. Patterns of self-tellings were examined by states as defined by Sfard and Prusak [1], and what Bruner [2] terms the “turning points” that are characteristic of self-tellings. These two analytic tools were used to compare the forms and substance of self-introductions by students’ academic status: preservice teacher, inservice teacher, and doctoral student. We first lay out a brief overview of current social identity terrain as discussed within related fields and how these concepts might apply in analyses of self-introductions. The analytic lenses of self-tellings as applied to our examination of student online self-introductions are also discussed. How identity in computer-mediated communication has been conceived and examined socioculturally is then considered.