From Burdened Learners to Adaptive Survivors: Identity Construction Through Evaluative Discourse in Malaysian Higher Education During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented transition to Open and Distance Learning (ODL), fundamentally reshaping higher education experiences worldwide. While previous research has extensively examined students’ perceptions, challenges, and experiences of ODL, comparatively little attention has been devoted to how learners discursively constructed identities while navigating educational disruption. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates how learner identities were constructed through evaluative discourse in Malaysian ODL-related Twitter communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis (CACDA), Appraisal Theory, and contemporary perspectives on discursive identity construction, the study analysed a specialised corpus of 14,764 Malaysian ODL-related tweets (594,060 tokens). Keyword, collocation, concordance, and semantic prosody analyses were employed to identify recurring evaluative patterns and their relationship to processes of identity positioning. The findings reveal that evaluative discourse functioned not merely as a means of expressing attitudes towards ODL but also as a resource for identity construction. Five recurring identity narratives emerged from the corpus: the Burdened Learner, Resistant Critic, Adaptive Survivor, Supported Community Member, and Negotiating Learner. Together, these narratives illustrate how learners interpreted, negotiated, and represented themselves during a period of unprecedented educational disruption. The study contributes to research on online learning, educational discourse, and identity by demonstrating how recurring evaluative practices function as mechanisms of identity construction.

identity construction; evaluative discourse; corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis; appraisal theory; open and distance learning

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