The Unfiltered Voices in Students’ Academic Writing Justy P. Tuquib

The study explored the unfiltered voices in students’ academic writing who are enrolled in an online class in the midst of pandemic. These unfiltered voices could be seen based on language use, style, and vocabulary. Several studies have revealed that students’ writing in a face-to-face set-up has been observed to be declining while a limited body of literature explored this phenomenon in the times of the pandemic. With teachers complaining on the dominance of Netspeak on their written communication skills, the study investigated the students’ writing in an online academic writing course. The study analyzed the language style of 70 senior high school students by looking into their written responses implemented in five (5) writing prompts through Canvas as the school’s learning management system. Through discourse analysis, the study revealed that their unfiltered voices as reflected in their written communication responses showed orthographic deviations, neosemanticism, neologism, and social media expressions. The study further argued that with so much language creativity and freedom that students enjoy over the internet, the language style of students is blurring the line of what is formal and academic. Thus, further studies should explore on how students can shift their language from what is needed in an academic context and what is needed in social media settings.