Creating an authorial identity observing the requirements of an academic discourse community is a demanding communicative practice even in the mother tongue, and it might cause increased difficulties in a foreign language. This is partly due to limited foreign language competencies, and partly to socially available options of selfhood in academic discourse that novice discourse community members might not be fully aware of. The study presents an overview of the concept of and research on authorial identity in oral academic discourse, to be followed by an investigation of how non-native English Studies BA students apply self-mentions to create authorial identities in their Academic Oral Presentations in English. The investigation relies on a combination of discourse and rhetorical analyses and suggests that in comparison with students at more advanced levels of their academic study (cf. Zareva 2013; Nausa 2020), limited academic experience and less definite career perspectives might contribute to the construction of different identities in the case of English and American Studies BA students. These identities tend to comprise familiar and more readily accessible roles related to acting as individuals, learners or ≫architects≪, who structure and signpost the surface level of discourse rather than community practice members, who provide knowledge, describe research procedures and originate ideas.