Measuring Voice in Poetry Written by Second Language Learners

There is increasing usage of creative writing in the ESL/EFL classroom based on the argument that this pedagogy develops writer's voice, emotional engagement, and ownership. Within the context of teaching poetry writing to second language learners, the current article develops a scientific approach to ways in which voice can be measured and then empirically explores the claim that voice is present within poetry written by second language learners. The study explored this question: Do second language poetry writers have a discernable voice in their written poetry? This issue was investigated in two different ways: (a) utilizing human reader ratings of the likelihood that two poems were written by the same poet and (b) using computational linguistic methodology to explore systematic differences in specific linguistic features in poetry written by second language poets. The data presented here show that poetry written by the same L2 writer is more readily recognized as such and that relevant linguistic items have patterns of frequency of usage that are different for different poets. Together the two studies provide a compelling case that voice is measureable and present in the poetry written by second language learners.