Explanation
The authorial we is the use of first-person plural by a single writer or speaker acting in an authorial role. We may include readers in a shared line of thought, invoke a research collective or discipline, reduce overt personal responsibility, or guide the exposition. Its reference cannot therefore be derived from pronoun form alone. In academic texts, inclusive, exclusive, institutional, and purely text-organising readings may alternate within a few paragraphs. The plural is not automatically modest or authoritative; its effect depends on genre, tradition, and actual authorship. The concept shows grammatical number designing a social position: a single voice can present itself as community, presuppose a community, or temporarily involve readers in the process of inquiry.
Movement of thought
1. A single authorial voice must first position its claims, decisions, and movement through the text. 2. It selects we rather than I, opening several possible reference spaces among author, team, discipline, and readership. 3. Context and predicate determine who is included and whether we marks responsibility, community, or textual guidance. 4. A counter-test reconstructs actual referents, separating authorial plural from ordinary plural we and the royal we. 5. The single voice returns with an imagined collective, making authorship a relational role rather than a person alone.
Scientific use case
Discourse linguistics and writing research annotate reference, predicate, genre, and author count. Comparative corpora investigate inclusion, responsibility, and historical conventions.
Example
A sole author writes, “We now consider the counter-test and then return to the opening question.” The pronoun guides author and readers together through the text.
Counterexample
Three collaborating researchers write, “We coded the data independently.” Here the pronoun genuinely denotes several people and need not constitute the authorial we of a single writer.
Distinction
Distinguish it from ordinary referential we, inclusive and exclusive we, royal we, modesty plural, institutional we, impersonal constructions, and genuine co-authorship.
Effect on thought and perception
The authorial we can create community and guidance, mitigate personal assertion, or invoke institutional authority; ambiguous reference may also obscure responsibility.
Resonance
One voice says we and draws a circle around possible companions; only the continuing sentence reveals whether readers, discipline, or authorial role stand inside it.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Authorial we“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-RES6B-0006. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-RES6B-0006The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Jespersen observes that a speaker’s use of we for I can present modest self-effacement or a claim of superiority. The same grammatical form therefore does not carry one social interpretation by itself. This historical discussion supplies a route to the authorial we, where a writer may invite shared reasoning, represent collaborators, or obscure personal responsibility. The Atlas should ask which people the pronoun actually includes and what kind of participation it offers the reader. Jespersen’s account is not a complete history of academic writing or evidence that every scholarly we is modest. It witnesses a recognised contrast in English grammatical discussion, while the development of authorial conventions and their variation by discipline need additional, dated examples.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Authorial we is a contextual role choice; plural form alone proves neither community nor modesty.
References for the historical section
- Otto Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar, work first published 1924; inspected later printing with November 1934 afterword, exact printing year unresolved · Chapter XIV, plural for a single speaker, printed p. 193
Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. OCR of a later printing containing a 1934 afterword. The catalogue’s 1924 date identifies the work’s first publication, not the inspected copy. Historical judgments about languages and social groups require critical distance.