作者：吕燕彬
出版社：清华大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
影响中国外语学习者英语写作的认知因素试读：
前言
当我决定辞去清华大学外文系稳定的教职，远赴太平洋彼岸的美国攻读博士学位的时候，我已过了而立之年。从经济学的角度来看，这个决定的机会成本似乎是太高了，得不偿失；更何况它还意味着远离家人，尤其是尚且年幼的孩子，感情方面的代价和风险更是难以估算。所幸的是，六年后我完成了学业、获得了博士学位，而我的家庭也至今完整、幸福。
攻读博士学位不仅仅训练一个人的学术素养，也考验一个人的毅力，这是我这些年最深刻的体会。整个过程可谓是脑力上的“过五关斩六将”：一开始是学习各门课程，要完成海量的阅读、每次课的口头报告和大大小小的课程论文；接踵而至的是通过资格考试和综合考试；然后是选题、确定研究方法、设计实验并完成开题报告；其后是收集数据和分析结果；直到最后完成论文写作和通过论文答辩——这完全是对意志的历练。期间的种种迷茫和困惑曾无数次地令自己产生放弃的念头。所幸的是，老师、朋友、家人的鼓励和帮助给了我无比的力量，使我能够战胜困难，坚持到底。
本书是基于我的博士学位论文改写而成的。博士课题研究的是影响中国学生英语写作的认知因素。当初选题时，我的初衷是将语言测试和二语习得结合起来。在文献阅读过程中，我的导师的一篇文章（Weigle, 2005）使我对工作记忆产生了浓厚的兴趣，由此开始探索工作记忆广度与二语/外语写作的关系。本课题结合可能影响学生外语写作的其他因素，如外语语言水平、母语写作水平以及写作策略的运用等，选用认知心理学领域对工作记忆广度的测试方法、语言测试领域对语言水平和外语写作的测试方法以及二语习得领域对隐性语法知识的测试方法，对可能影响中国学生英语写作的认知因素进行了实证研究和探讨。
本课题尝试采用跨学科的理论和方法来研究外语写作，希望借此为外语写作研究开辟一条新途径，也希望研究结果能使我们对外语写作的影响因素有更全面的了解，并为外语写作的学习与教学提供一些参考与借鉴。在论文的写作和书稿的出版过程中，本人得到了许多人无私的帮助，感激之情倍感至深（详见下页英文版致谢）。不过，书中的所有纰漏和错误都是本人个人之责，乃本人才疏学浅所致。不足之处敬请学界同仁批评指正。
博士课题的研究曾受到美国教育考试服务中心（ETS）和美国佐治亚州立大学的资助；本书的出版得到了清华大学外文系和外国语言文学学科的大力资助，在此致以诚挚的谢意。作者2013年7月
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been published without the help from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University and Tsinghua University Press. Inparticular, I would like to thank Prof. Liu Shisheng and Prof. Wang Ning for their fnancial support for this publication and my professional development. My special thanks also go to Prof. Zhang Wenxia, Prof. Zhang Weimin and Ms. Fang Yanhua for their enduring friendship, continual encouragement and spiritual support. I would also like to thank Prof. Hao Jianhua and Ms. Zhu Lin for their help and support in getting this book published.
This book is based on the study I conducted for my doctorate at Georgia State University. I am deeply indebted to a great many individuals who have helped me during my doctoral study. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Sara Weigle, for her guidance, support, understanding, insights, patience, and encouragement in every step of my dissertation journey. Without herand the enormous time and effort she put in, I would not have accomplished this dissertation.
I am also grateful for having an exceptional doctoral committee and wish to thank Dr. Diane Belcher, Dr. Eric Frignal, and Dr. Lucy Pickering for their comments and insights as well as their encouragement and support despite their busy schedules. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Gayle Nelson, who brought me into this wonderful community and provided continual encouragement and support all along.
I am very appreciative to the Department of Applied Linguistics for providing me with the financial support and opportunities to teach in the IEP as well as undergraduate programs. Many thanks also go to the TOEFL Grants and Awards Committee at Educational Testing Service and the Dissertation Grant Program at Georgia State University for providing grants to support the completion of my dissertation project.
I would like to thank my fellow doctoral students in the Applied Linguistics program, especially Amanda Baker, Liang Guo, Jack Hardy, Eliana Hirano, Guiling Hu, Meg Montee, Kate Moran, Joseph Lee, Man Li, Jason Litzenberg, Lauren Lukkarila, Caroline Payant, Pam Pearson, Amanda Lanier Temples, Weiwei Yang, Lijuan Ye, Cheongmin Yook, and many others. I enjoyed working together with them and will remember the wonderful times in the GTA room and at our living complex Tempo Continental. My special thanks go to Liang Guo, Guiling Hu and Man Li for their insightful discussions on my project as well as their continued encouragement, emotional support, and sustained friendship.
I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues and friends in Beijing, especially Wenxia Zhang and Weimin Zhang, who helped me considerably during my data collection, including recruiting participants and essay raters and arranging facilities for testing sessions. I also wish to thank Yang Hu, Jiping Liang, Baoxia Liu, Ru Xing, Meilan Zhang, Weimin Zhang, Zhipeng Zhang for rating all the essays.
Last but not least, I wish to express my special thanks to my family—to whom this book is dedicated. I owe profound gratitude to my parents for their efforts in providing the best condition for their children’s education, to my brother for his help, support and encouragement all these years. I am especially indebted to my husband, Huaming Wen, for his sustained love, understanding and faith in me as well as his sacrificial support all these years, and to our daughter, Luou Wen, for being strong during the time when I was away from her and for the joy and company she brought me during her two years’ stay with me in Atlanta. We have lived on three continents during the six years of my study. Now my strongest wish is for us to live together and grow old with each other.
摘要
在英语作为二语/外语的写作研究中，越来越多的研究显示工作记忆广度是影响写作的一个重要因素，同时也有研究表明在写作过程中对写作技巧的运用也是影响学生写作的一个重要方面。然而，研究者对于学生的母语写作水平和外语语言水平对外语写作的影响究竟有多大这个问题至今尚无定论。有些研究发现外语语言水平是影响外语写作能力最重要的因素，而有些研究发现母语写作水平与外语写作水平的相关性比外语语言水平与外语写作水平的相关性更高，另外还有些研究则发现母语写作水平与外语写作水平无相关性。鉴于此，本书结合语言测试、二语写作和认知心理学方面的理论和研究方法，对影响中国学生英语写作的认知因素进行了研究和探讨。本书所汇报的实证性研究选取母语（中文）写作水平、写作语体知识、写作技巧运用、外语（英语）语言知识以及工作记忆广度为自变量，以限时条件下的英语写作为应变量，通过一系列的测试手段来检测受试者在这几个方面的能力或表现，并使用SPSS对得到的数据进行相关性分析、T检验、方差分析和回归分析。研究结果显示英语语言知识是影响受试者英语写作的最重要因素，其次是写作语体知识和写作技巧的运用，而母语写作水平和工作记忆广度对英语写作几乎没有影响。基于此研究结果，本书作者从研究方法、测试手段及工作记忆广度的概念和范畴等方面进行了剖析和探讨，并对将来的后续研究提出了可行的建议。
关键词：认知因素，英语作为二语/外语（ESL/EFL），母语写作，写作技巧，语言知识，工作记忆广度
Abstract
This study investigated cognitive factors that might infuence Chinese EFL learners’ argumentative essay writing in English. The factors that were explored included English (L2) language profciency, Chinese (L1) writing ability, genre knowledge, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2. Data were collected from 136 university students who received a battery of tests in two sessions. The tests consisted of timed essay writing tasks in L1 and L2, post-writing questionnaires for genre knowledge and use of strategies in the writing process, a timed grammaticality judgment task for L2 grammar knowledge, a receptive vocabulary test and a controlled-production vocabulary test for L2 vocabulary knowledge, and working memory span tasks in L1 and L2. Quantitative analyses using correlations, paired-samples t-test, analysis of variance and multiple regression revealed that L2 language proficiency is the most important predictor of L2 writing, followed by genre knowledge and L2 writing strategies. L1 writing ability and working memory capacity have slight impact as explanatory variables for L2 writing performance in the timed essay writing task.
Index words:cognitive factors, EFL learners, L2 writing, L1 writing, L2 language profciency, writing strategies, working memory capacity
Chapter 1 Introduction
This study investigates some of the cognitive factors that might influence Chinese EFL learners’ timed essay writing in English, including English (L2) language profciency, Chinese (L1) writing ability, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2.
1.1 Context of the Study
Writing in one’s native language (L1) is a complex cognitive activity. The metaphor of a writer as a busy switchboard operator trying to juggle a number of demands and constraints (Flower&Hayes, 1980) vividly describes the dynamics of a writer in action. Writing in a second/foreign language (L2) is even more demanding, more diffcult, and less effective, due to the additional constraints arising from the writer’s L2 proficiency (Silva, 1993). In the past decades, research into L2 writing has fourished, yet most of the studies have focused on the social/cultural or pedagogical aspects of writing. As Schoonen et al. (2009) noted, cognitively oriented research on writing is a young but growing field, and a central issue is to defne a“blueprint of the writer”(p. 77), that is, what individual factors are involved in both L1 and L2 writing. This study aims at contributing to this growing area of research by exploring the relationship among various factors involved in L2 writing from a cognitive perspective.
A number of studies have investigated explanatory variables for L2 writing in various contexts (e.g., Cumming, 1989; Sasaki&Hirose, 1996; Schoonen et al., 2003, 2009; Yun, 2005), and many researchers have proposed models of writing to illustrate the factors involved in writing and their interplay in the writing process (e.g., Bereiter&Scadamalia, 1987; Hayes, 1996; Hayes&Flower, 1980 for L1 writing; Grabe&Kaplan, 1996; Sasaki, 2002 for L2 writing; also see Shaw&Weir, 2007 and Weigle, 2002 for summaries of writing models). Cognitive approaches to writing focus on the cognitive factors that are important for the individual writer in developing writing expertise. In this study, four major factors were selected for investigation—L1 writing ability, L2 language knowledge, use of writing strategies and working memory capacity.
Within the previous literature on L2 writing research, L1 writing ability and L2 language proficiency are the two most frequently investigated variables. The influence of L1 writing on a language learner’s L2 writing has been a primary concern since Kaplan’s (1966) seminal exploration of the different rhetorical patterns of writings produced by culturally and linguistically distinct groups of writers. Since then, a great number of studies have been carried out. In terms of second language acquisition (SLA), the influence of L1 on L2 learning has been considered negative transfer or interference; that is, the quality of L2 writing might be negatively infuenced by a learner’s L1 rhetoric patterns. However, according to Cummins’ (1979, 1981) proposal of Interdependence Hypothesis, which postulates that there is a common underlying proficiency in terms of one’s cognitive and linguistic abilities and that L1 background serves as the basis for L2 learning, one might hypothesize that a learner’s L2 writing ability is dependent upon his/her L1 writing ability.
Empirical studies on the role of L1 writing ability on a learner’s L2 writing have yielded controversial results. Many studies (e.g., Cumming, 1989; Schoonen et al., 2003; Sasaki&Hirose, 1996; Yun, 2005) have found evidence for the Interdependence Hypothesis, showing varying degrees of contributions of L1 writing ability to L2 writing performance. Nevertheless, contrary to those studies which found some sort of correlation between L1 and L2 writing, some other studies (e.g., Carson, Carrell, Silberstein, Kroll,&Kuehn, 1990; Pennington&So, 1993) did not find a clear relationship between L1 and L2 writing products in their investigations of L2 learners’ writing performance. Both Carson et al. (1990) and Pennington and So (1993) used Chinese native speakers as their participants, which raised the question of whether such controversial fndings resulted from the differences among the participants’ L1 in different studies.[1]
A learner’s L2 language knowledge is another explanatory variable that has been widely investigated with mixed results. For example, Cumming (1989) and Schoonen et al. (2003) reported that for their participants (French and Dutch L1, respectively) L2 writing performance was highly correlated with L1 writing ability, more than with their L2 linguistic knowledge. In contrast, Sasaki and Hirose (1996) and Yun (2005) found that for their participants (Japanese and Korean L1, respectively) L2 profciency seemed to play a more important role than L1 writing ability in L2 writing performance. Pennington and So (1993) also claimed that L2 proficiency was a much better predictor than L1 writing ability for their Chinese L1 participants. Therefore, additional empirical research is needed in order to elucidate the respective role of L1 writing ability and L2 proficiency on a learner’s L2 writing performance.
A third frequently examined factor is the use of writing strategies in the process of writing. Process-oriented studies on L2 writing have found that the quality of L2 writing is more closely related to learners’ writing strategies rather than their L2 profciency. These researchers maintain that the determining factor of L2 writing quality is not the learners’ linguistic competence, but their composing competence (see Krapels, 1990 and Roca de Larios, Murphy&Marin, 2002, for critical reviews of studies on L2 writing process research). Composing competence may not be the same as writing strategies, yet the effective use of writing strategies is a good indicator of one’s composing competence. Studies into the writing process and writing strategies have shown that skilled writers use different skills, behaviors and procedures from unskilled writers (Roca de Larios et al., 2002). However, most of the studies into the writing process and writing strategies used qualitative methods such as think-aloud or stimulated recall for data elicitation and investigated small numbers of participants whose results were hard to be generalized. Using questionnaires to measure writing strategies has the potential to reach a larger number of participants and thus conduct studies on a larger scale than is possible through think-aloud or stimulated recall. In addition, there is a need for a catalogue which embraces the fullest possible range of writing strategies, even though the lack of such a catalogue was pointed out by Leki (1995) over a decade ago.
A fourth variable that is gaining interest in L2 writing research is working memory capacity. Working memory, as a theoretical construct in the feld of cognitive psychology, refers to the storage and processing mechanism for complex cognitive activities such as reading and writing. The concept of working memory, first proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), involves“the temporary storage and manipulation of information that is assumed to be necessary for a wide range of complex cognitive activities”(Baddeley, 2003, p. 189). It is postulated that working memory is both a processing and storage mechanism, which consists of a central executive, responsible for the control and regulation of attention, and two subsystems, the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad, responsible for maintaining phonological and visual representations (Baddeley&Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 1986). The coordinated functions of the three components are posited to facilitate the performance of complex cognitive tasks, with the central executive playing the most important role. According to Hayes (1996), working memory plays a central role in the activity of text generation and occupies the central position in his model of writing. Within this model, working memory serves as a maintaining and processing interface of different kinds of knowledge involved in the writing process. Such a central role of working memory is also demonstrated in Kellogg’s (1996) model of working memory in writing, who argued that all the three components of Baddeley’s (1986) working memory model were in use during the composing process of writing.
It is also posited that working memory has a limited capacity. Research in cognition as information processing suggests that cognitive resources are limited, and if processing capacity is being used for one function, other functions can only make use of whatever capacity is left over (Bereiter&Scardamalia, 1987). McCutchen (1996) proposed a capacity theory of writing on the basis of a comprehensive review of the role of working memory in the process of composition. She postulated that while composing a text, a writer coordinates within working memory the planning goals and language generation processes to retrieve words and organize them into appropriate text. That is, writing imposes considerable processing and storage demands on the writer. Due to overall resource limitations within the working memory system, fewer resources will be available for storage when more resources are devoted to processing and vice versa. Therefore, if either processing or storage functions are compromised, overall writing performance will suffer.
It seems logical to assume, then, that for language learners, when they are writing in L2, they must use part of their cognitive capacity to focus on the language so that other functions, such as higher order functions for organization and discourse, cannot be engaged at full capacity. Commenting on broader concerns of text construction, Freedman, Pringle, and Yalden (1983) postulated that“constraints of writing, without full proficiency, in a second language may impose psychological limitations on people’s abilities to conceptualize their intended meaning and its organization as discourse”(p. 10). Weigle (2005) asserted that“adults writing in their first language have automatic access to lexical and syntactic resources, while for many second language writers, particularly at lower levels of profciency, these processes are not as automatic so writers need to focus conscious attention on them, making it diffcult to access strategies and LT (long-term) knowledge that are available to them when writing in their first language”(p. 136). It is possible that more attention to language will result in less attention to more global writing functions.
Working memory capacity differs among different individuals, and people with greater working memory capacity may be better able to handle tasks which demand complex cognitive abilities. For example, Daneman and Carpenter (1980) found that one’s reading span (a measure of working memory capacity) correlates with one’s reading comprehension. The usual term for the measure of working memory capacity is“working memory span”(Daneman&Carpenter, 1980). In working memory span studies, participants are typically required to carry out processing and storage simultaneously. The most typical span task is the reading span test initiated by Daneman and Carpenter (1980), in which the participants read out a set of sentences while remembering the last word in each sentence for subsequent immediate recall at the end of each set. Other measures such as listening span, speaking span, writing span, and operation span (in which the participants do mental arithmetic and remember words for recall) have also been used in empirical studies.
A number of studies with L2 learners have suggested that working memory plays a role in second language acquisition (e.g., N. Ellis, 1996, 2002; Harrington&Sawyer, 1992; Mackey, Philp, Egi, Fujii,&Tatsumi, 2002; Miyake&Friedman, 1998; Osaka&Osaka, 1992; Service, 1992; Service, Simola, Metsaenheino,&Maury, 2002; Van den Noort, Bosch,&Hugdahl, 2006; Williams, 1999). Most of the studies investigating working memory capacity and second language acquisition focus on phonological short-term memory (e.g., Mackey et al., 2002; N. Ellis, 1996), reading comprehension (e.g., Harrington&Sawyer, 1992), grammar learning (e.g., McDonald, 2006), sentence parsing (e.g., Juffs, 2004, 2005), or oral production (O’Brien, Segalowitz, Collentine&Freed, 2006). There are very few empirical studies in terms of the relationship between working memory capacity and L2 writing ability. Therefore, part of the aims of this study is to fll in this gap by exploring the effect of working memory capacity on L2 writing performance.
In summary, research into the factors that influence an L2 learner’s writing performance abounds, but results are more diverging than converging. In addition, studies in the field of L2 writing tend to focus on the variables such as L1 writing ability, L2 profciency, and use of strategies in the writing process, whereas the role of working memory is usually investigated by researchers in the field of cognitive psychology. This study is an attempt to integrate the various felds of inquiry to explore the relationships among the various cognitive factors involved in L2 writing and to examine how much each of the factors contributes to the latent variable of L2 writing ability.注释[1]L2 language knowledge is also called“L2 linguistic knowledge”,“L2 language profciency”,“L2 linguistic competence”among previous studies. These terms are used interchangeably in the current study.
1.2 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to combine language assessment and second language acquisition as well as research in cognitive psychology to explore some of the components of the writing expertise of L2 learners in an attempt to determine how these components contribute to the learners’ L2 writing performance. The factors selected for investigation were L1 writing ability, L2 language proficiency, use of writing strategies in L1 and L2, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2. Specifically, the current study investigates the following research questions:1) What is the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ L1 writing ability, L2 writing ability and their working memory capacity in L1 and L2?2) What is the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ L1 writing ability, L2 writing ability and their L2 language profciency?3) What is the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ L1 writing ability, L2 writing ability, and their use of writing strategies in L1 and L2?●What are the similarities and differences between the use of writing strategies in L1 and L2 writing?4) What is the relative importance of the investigated variables in the explanation of L2 writing performance? How much does each of the variables contribute to Chinese EFL learners’ L2 writing performance?
Chinese EFL learners were chosen as target population for this study on account of the following reasons:frst, contradictory results regarding the importance of L1 in L2 writing have been reported with Chinese L1 participants and those with other native languages; second, China has the largest population of EFL learners; however, little research has investigated the explanatory factors for Chinese EFL learners’ L2 writing performance.
1.3 Signifcance of the Study
This study is intended to be an interdisciplinary study which connects different felds such as second language writing, language assessment, and cognitive psychology. The investigation into the selected cognitive variables of EFL learners’ writing performance has a number of implications which contribute theoretically, methodologically and pedagogically to the relevant fields of applied linguistics.
Theoretically, this study contributes to a better understanding of the various factors involved in L2 writing from a cognitive perspective. Some of the factors (e.g., L2 proficiency, strategy use in L2 writing process, etc.) have been examined by L2 writing researchers whereas others (e.g., working memory capacity) have been investigated by cognitive psychologists. By integrating these factors in one study, a better, though not thorough, understanding of what makes a good L2 writer could be reached. As Grabe (2001) pointed out in his“Notes towards a theory of second language writing”, there is still a lack of“a predictive model of the construct of writing that would be directly and transparently useful for research agendas, instructional practices, curricular planning, and assessment efforts”(p. 48). This study does not aim to propose a comprehensive model of writing, but does try to build an equation for predicting L2 writing performance from the measures used in this study.
Methodologically, a battery of tests was compiled and/or constructed in order to measure the various contributing factors of L2 learners’ writing performance. Item analysis was conducted for these instruments, and reliability and validity of these measures were examined. The examination of a post-writing questionnaire for eliciting the writing strategies that the participants used during the writing process contributes to the construction and further improvement of such a questionnaire. The modeling of L2 writing ability as measured by the timed essay writing task adapted from TOEFL TWE writing prompts will enhance our understanding of the construct of this type of writing task, and in turn, will provide useful information for test developers as well as test users.
Pedagogically, the results from this study will have signifcant implications for L2 writing instruction. It would be helpful for both teachers and learners of L2 writing to have information about the contributing variables of L2 writing and their relative importance as well as the effective writing strategies used by successful L2 writers during the writing process. Teachers will be able to design their curriculum and plan their lessons accordingly. For example, if L2 language knowledge is found to be the most important predictor of L2 writing performance, teachers should highlight the priority of improving the students’ L2 language proficiency in L2 writing instruction. EFL learners will beneft from learning about effective writing strategies and practice accordingly.
Despite these potential signifcances, it has to be pointed out that the current study focused on the cognitive aspects of writing only and investigated a group of Chinese college students who were learning English as a foreign language, so the scope of this study is limited to the particular context of Chinese EFL academic writing. It would be pompous to claim that this study solves the puzzle of what makes a good L2 writer, but hopefully this study contributes one or two pieces to the solving of this puzzle and some strokes to the painting of the blueprint of an L2 writer.
Chapter 2 Theoretical Frameworks in L2 Writing Research
This chapter consists of three main sections. The frst section introduces the theoretical frameworks used in L2 writing research, including models of writing, Cummins’ hypotheses of language transfer of second language proficiency and writing expertise, and concepts of working memory capacity in writing. The second section reviews studies related to the selected explanatory factors:L1 writing ability, L2 language proficiency, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity and their respective relationships with L2 writing. The third section provides a brief summary of this chapter.
2.1 Theoretical Frameworks in L2 Writing Research
It is generally acknowledged that second/foreign language writing research has developed on the basis of two distinct theoretical perspectives:L1 writing theories or models and theoretical constructs in the feld of second language acquisition research related to literacy transfer (Roca De Larios et al., 2002). A number of researchers have proposed models of writing in an attempt to describe the components of the writing process and their interactions. In this section, I will review the writing models proposed by Hayes and Flower (1980) and Hayes (1996), whose work was based on studies done in L1 writing, and Grabe and Kaplan (1996), whose model took second/foreign language into consideration. I will also introduce the Interdependence Hypothesis and the Threshold Hypothesis by Cummins (1979, 1981), who proposed these two hypotheses to explain the language transfer issues among bilingual learners. Then conceptions of second language proficiency and writing expertise will be introduced, followed by the conception of working memory capacity in writing.
2.1.1 Models of Writing
2.1.1.1 Hayes and Flower (1980)The infuential model of writing that Hayes and Flower (1980) devised from their analysis of writers“thinking aloud”protocols consists of three major parts:the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing process (see Figure 2.1). The task environment, which includes the writing assignment and the text produced so far, and the writer’s long term memory, which includes knowledge of topic, knowledge of audience, and stored writing plans, are the context in which the writing process operates. The cognitive process, which is the nucleus of the model, consists of three major components—Planning, Translating, and Reviewing. In the Planning process, the writer takes information from the task environment and the long-term memory and uses it to generate ideas, set goals, and establish a writing plan. In the Translating process, the writer transforms the information, ideas, and plans into written text (this process was later called“Text Generation”in Hayes, 1996). In the Reviewing process, the writer reads and edits what has been produced to improve the quality of the text. It should be noted that Hayes and Flower emphasized that the process described in the model is recursive rather than successive. The whole writing process, including Planning, Translating, and Reviewing, may appear as a part of an Editing sub-process. Thus, writing involves a complex intermixing of stages, which is controlled by a Monitor.Figure 2.1 Hayes-Flower (1980
Hayes and Flower’s model is important in that it served as a basis for later research into writing processes, including second language writing process research. A great many of later studies (e.g., McCutchen, 1994, 1996; Sasaki&Hirose, 1996; Zamel, 1983) were designed according to the process stages postulated in their model. In fact, this model has created the terms most commonly used by researchers in dealing with the writing process—especially the distinction between planning, formulation and revision.2.1.1.2 Hayes (1996)
Hayes proposed a new model in 1996, which he claimed to be“a framework that can provide a better description of current empirical findings than the 1980 model”(p. 1). In this revised model, two major components—the task environment and the individual—are identifed (see Figure 2.2). The cognitive processes in the new model now include text interpretation, reflection, and text production. Text Interpretation is the process by which source texts are read and internal representations are formulated. Refection is a process of mental activities by which new internal representations are created from existing internal representations. And Text Production is the process by which the product of reflection is transcribed and elaborated into texts. These three processes are involved not only in drafting a piece of writing but also in revising one’s writing as well.Figure 2.2 Hayes (1996
Apart from other major revisions, the most important difference between the new model and the old one is that the new model emphasizes the central role of working memory in writing. Drawn heavily on Baddeley’s (1986) model of working memory, the working memory in the new writing model consists of phonological memory (for phonologically coded information), visual/spatial sketchpad (for visually or spatially coded information), and semantic memory (for conceptual information). It is located in the center of the model, signifying its central role, which is to retrieve information from long-term memory and other environments and to carry out cognitive processes within its limited capacity. The role of working memory will be revisited in a late section when a review of studies on working memory and writing is presented.2.1.1.3 Grabe and Kaplan (1996)
Attempting to integrate the cognitive processing of a writer, the linguistic and textual resources for a writing task, and the contextual factors that strongly shape the nature of writing, Grabe and Kaplan (1996) proposed a model of writing on the basis of a more general model of communicative language use developed by Chapelle, Grabe and Berns (1993). Included in the model are two major components:context for language use and verbal working memory of the language user (see Figure 2.3). Context, as the external factor, comprises situation and language performance output. The former is further composed of participants, setting, task, text, and topic, and the latter accounts for the actual textual output produced as a result of the processing in verbal working memory.Figure 2.3 Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996
The verbal working memory is a different concept from the working memory in Hayes’ (1996) model, which was built on Baddeley’s (1986) conception. The verbal working memory in Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) model is constituted by three subcomponents:internal goal setting, verbal processing, and internal processing output. Internal goal setting mediates the external context with“verbal processing”, which draws on“language competence”and“knowledge of the world”and integrates the activated resources through“on-line processing assembly”. The result of verbal processing is“internal processing output”and this processing output in turn becomes textual output as external performance. Both processing and textual output are compared to the goals set in the goal setting component which interacts with external situation and internal verbal processing.
In this model, the verbal working memory is the locus of internal operations for linguistic processing, and the relationships among the components are depicted clearly in terms of their interactions. Despite some self-acknowledged limitations of this model (such as lack of details as to how the various subcomponents of language competence interact with each other and with world knowledge and processing mechanisms), Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) model represents an effort to incorporate social context, cognitive processing and textual product into a single model of writing from the perspective of communicative language use. Their emphasis on situation and language competence allows for a wider range of application of this model to account for not only L1 but also L2 writing.
2.1.2 Cummins’ Hypotheses of Language Transfer
2.1.2.1 Interdependence HypothesisCummins’ notion of language transfer is expressed in two hypotheses:the Developmental Interdependence Hypothesis and the Linguistic Threshold Hypothesis. The Interdependence Hypothesis, also known as“Common Underlying Profciency (CUP) model,”posits that“the literacy-related aspects of a bilingual’s proficiency in L1 and L2 are seen as common or interdependent across languages”(Cummins, 1981, pp.23–24). Basically, it assumes a common set of abilities involved in cognitively demanding tasks underlying both first and second language performance. When such a cognitive/academic profciency is acquired in one language, it is transferrable to another language. In other words, L2 literacy skills (such as reading and writing) are partially dependent on the literacy already developed in the L1.2.1.2.2 Threshold Hypothesis
Cummins’ Threshold Hypothesis postulates that“those aspects of bilingualism which might positively infuence cognitive growth are unlikely to come into effect until the child has attained a certain minimum or threshold level of competence in a second language”(1979, p. 229). In other words, in the acquisition of L2 literacy, a certain threshold or level of L2 proficiency must first be achieved if L1 literacy skills are to be transferred. Within this hypothesis, the level of a learner’s L2 linguistic competence may act as an intervening variable in mediating the development of cognitive abilities and literacy skills.
It follows from these hypotheses that both L1 writing ability and L2 language proficiency are important in a learner’s L2 writing development. Cummins’ theory has been generated from and supported by studies involving bilingual children from a developmental perspective of their L1 and L2 proficiency. The applicability of this theory to the context of adult L2 learners merits further research.
2.1.3 Conceptions of Second Language Profciency and Writing Expertise
Many researchers have explored and defined the construct of second language ability in different ways at different times. In this section, I will first review some influential models of second language ability which define the construct of language ability for the purpose of assessment and then narrow it down to components of second language writing expertise.
Early models such as those proposed by Lado (1961) and Carroll (1961) focused on competence, or rather, linguistic knowledge, instead of performance or ability to use the language. Second language proficiency was viewed in terms of skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and components (or elements) of language knowledge (e.g., grammatical structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.). In contrast to the skills/components model of second language proficiency, Oller (1979) argued for an integrative notion of language proficiency (the unitary trait hypothesis). He proposed the concept of“pragmatic expectancy grammar”, which refers to the knowledge that“causes the learner to process sequences of elements in a language that conform to the normal contextual constraints of that language”(p. 38). His efforts to integrate language processing and language use highlight the importance of cognitive factors in second language proficiency. Unfortunately, as Purpura (1999) noted, he did not explicate the cognitive processes affecting second language acquisition or performance; nor did he explain how these processes could be incorporated into a comprehensive model of second language ability.
Canale and Swain (1980) proposed a model of second language profciency which identifed strategic competence as one of the three major components of communicative competence, the other two being grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence. Later, Canale (1983) revised the model and added discourse competence to refer to cohesion and coherence. Canale and Swain were the first to include strategic competence into a model of language ability; nevertheless, their model is inadequate in that, as Chalhoub-Deville&Deville (2005) pointed out, while it is possible to view grammatical competence in terms ofknowledge, it is diffcult to conceptualize the other competences in their models.
On the basis of earlier work, Bachman (1990) and Bachman and Palmer (1996) formulated the influential model of communicative language ability (CLA). The CLA model represents a complex interactional framework of language use, among the various individual characteristics of language users on the one hand, and between these characteristics and the characteristics of the language use task and setting on the other (see Figure 2.4). The key components constituting characteristics of individual language users include topical knowledge, language knowledge, personal characteristics, affective schemata, and strategic competence (those in the bold circle). Strategic competence is placed at the center of the diagram, providing links for other components within the individual as well as links with the characteristics of the language use task and setting. Bachman and Palmer (1996) defined strategic competence as“a set of metacognitive components, or strategies, which can be thought of as higher order executive processes that provide a cognitive management function in language use, as well as in other cognitive activities”(p. 70).Figure 2.4 Bachman&Palmer’s (1996
Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) model presents a cognitive perspective of communicative language use. These cognitive factors would therefore apply to writing, one of the four essential language skills, which involves productive language use. In an attempt to structure the writing context and the skills, knowledge, and processes involved in writing, Grabe and Kaplan (1996) compiled a detailed taxonomy specifically for the description of the nature of academic writing. Among their twelve categories, two of them are most relevant to my current study—linguistic knowledge and writing process strategies. Linguistic knowledge includes the knowledge of the written code (orthography, spelling and punctuation), knowledge of phonology and morphology, vocabulary, syntactic/structural knowledge. Writing process strategies refer to the executive control or metacognitive strategies, among which monitoring text production, considering task problems, re-reading already produced texts and editing texts are just a few of the subcategories.
Summarizing from a cognitive perspective on writing, Weigle (2005) outlined the essential areas of knowledge that are involved in both L1 and L2 writing. These areas of knowledge include language knowledge, topic, genre, audience knowledge, task schemas and metacognition. Language knowledge includes linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and orthography, as well as functional knowledge of language such as discourse knowledge and pragmatic knowledge. Weigle (2005) also pointed out the important role of working memory in writing, which will be discussed in the following section.
2.1.4 Working Memory Capacity in Writing
The complexity of writing has been depicted by Flower and Hayes (1980) as juggling the demands and constraints of a busy switchboard operator. Scardamalia (1981) has also described how complex the task of writing is:“Too many interdependent skills are involved, and all seem to be prerequisite to one another. To pay conscious attention to handwriting, spelling, punctuation, word choice, syntax, textual connections, purpose, organization, clarity, rhythm, euphony, and reader characteristics would seemingly overload the information processing capacity of the best intellects”(p. 81).
In order for writers to carry on such a variety of processes simultaneously, automatization of many parts of the writing process needs to be obtained so that the processing task can be achieved with slight conscious attention (Posner&Keele, 1973, cited in Bereiter, 1980). Such performance would also require a certain level of working memory capacity. In an attempt to analyze the information processing load in writing, Scardamalia (1981) examined the coordination of content schemes in expository writing among 10–14 year old children. She found that children who are presumably capable of handling three to five content schemes simultaneously in speaking tend to manage only one to three in writing. This would suggest that they are so busy with other (possibly low-order) processing needs (such as spelling out the words) that they have little attentional capacity left for higher order concerns with content.
Such a capacity theory of working memory has been supported by research such as Just and Carpenter (1992) in reading comprehension and McCutchen (1996, 2000) in writing. Based on a review of past studies, McCutchen (1996) concluded that many developmental and individual differences in writing skill could be explained with a capacity theory of writing. In complex tasks such as reading and writing, comprehension and composition impose considerable processing and storage demands. With a limited working memory capacity, novice writers are unable to deal with the complex demands imposed by the writing processes. They are constrained by the limitations and tend to depend on knowledge-telling strategies (as proposed by Bereiter&Scardamalia, 1987) and engage in non-interactive processes. In contrast, skilled writers possess fuent encoding processes for text-generation and transcription, as well as extensive knowledge about topic, genre, and routines for coordinating writing processes. Therefore, they are able to move beyond the limits of short-term working memory and tap the resources of long-term working memory (McCutchen, 2000).
Ransdell and Levy (1999) employed complex working memory measures to investigate the role that working memory plays in reading comprehension and text composition. They proposed a resource fexibility model, and concluded from their study thatlanguage skills require shared working memory capacity, but differ in resource allocation priorities given to the demands of remembering, reading, and writing. In particular, writing requires resource fexibility in order for the writer to successfully attend to higher level demands such as, organization of sentences, paragraphs, and entire essays. In contrast, attending to lower-level details, such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation, are less dependent on individual differences in resource fexibility. (p. 111)
Extending this notion of working memory capacity in writing to second language writers, Weigle (2005) posited that for many second language writers, particularly those with lower L2 profciency, their access to L2 lexical and syntactic resources is not yet automatic, so they need to pay conscious attention to these processes. With a limited capacity of working memory, this consumption of attention in turn hinders their access to higher level strategies and knowledge bases that might be available to them when writing in their frst language (p. 136).
All in all, the review of writing models, language transfer hypotheses, language proficiency models and working memory capacity models helped provide an understanding of the construct of L2 writing and the possible cognitive variables that contribute to L2 writing. On the basis of this theoretical review, four aspects were selected for the current study as explanatory factors for L2 writing performance:L1 writing ability, L2 language proficiency, use of writing strategies in the writing process and working memory capacity. In the next section, previous studies in L2 writing in relation to these four aspects are reviewed.
2.2 Review of Relevant Studies
2.2.1 Research on L1 and L2 Writing Ability and L2 Language Profciency
Many studies have investigated a composite of variables that interplay in a learner’s L2 writing performance, especially on the relationship between writing skills (both in L1 and L2) and L2 profciency. In his seminal review, Silva (1993) examined 72 reports of empirical studies on L1 and L2 writing in an attempt to develop a clear understanding of the nature of L2 writing. More recently, Roca de Larios, Murphy, and Marin (2002) and Polio (2003) provided a critical examination of more recent empirical studies on L2 writing. Even such extensive reviews cannot conclude with a simple statement regarding the relationship between L1 and L2 writing skill and L2 proficiency, because the issues involved are complicated and the studies reviewed produced mixed results.
As stated above, empirical studies on the relationship between L1and L2 writing and L2 language proficiency have yielded inconsistent results. Many studies (e.g., Cumming, 1989; Schoonen et al., 2003; Sasaki&Hirose, 1996; Yun, 2005) have found varying degrees of contributions of L1 writing ability to L2 writing performance. For example, Cumming (1989) found that learners’ L1 writing expertise had a signifcant effect on the quality of L2 writing for his French participants. Sasaki&Hirose (1996) also found a significant correlation between Japanese university students’ L1 writing ability and their L2 writing performance (r=.43). This result was corroborated in Yun’s (2005) study with Korean participants, who found similar correlations between L1 and L2 writing performance (r=.42).
In contrast to those studies which found some sort of correlation between L1 and L2 writing, some other studies (e.g., Carson et al., 1990; Pennington&So, 1993) did not find a clear relationship between L1 and L2 writing products in their investigations of L2 learners’ writing performance. In their exploratory study using multiple regression analysis, Carson et al. (1990) found that L1 writing ability was not a signifcant predictor for L2 writing ability for both Japanese and Chinese participants. They examined the written products of 48 Chinese and 57 Japanese students in both their L1 and L2 (English). Their results showed only a weak positive correlation (r=.230, p<.05) for the Japanese participants but no signifcant correlation (r=-.019, n.s.) for the Chinese participants. Another study with Chinese L1 students by Pennington and So (1993) presented similar results. In their examination of the writings produced by six Singaporean college students in both their L1 (Chinese or English) and L2 (Japanese), Pennington and So did not find a clear relationship between the quality of their L1 and L2 written products. They concluded that writing quality in L2 was correlated to learners’ general profciency level in L2 but not to the quality of the written products in L1.
L2 profciency has also been widely investigated in L2 writing research, and the results are also mixed. Cumming (1989) reported that his French participants’ L1 writing expertise (measured by written composition in their L1—French) and L2 proficiency (measured by an oral interview) accounted for large but separate portions of the variance in participants’ L2 composition. L1 writing ability and L2 proficiency are found to be independent of each other. Participants with professional-level L1 writing expertise produced higher quality writing in L2 (English) than those with no such expertise, and such effect was consistent over three different types of writing (letter, argument, and summary writing). Schoonen et al. (2003) discovered with their Dutch L1 participants that L2 writing profciency (measured by three written compositions in English) was highly correlated with L1 writing proficiency (measured by three parallel written compositions in L1), more than with either their L2 linguistic knowledge (measured in terms of vocabulary, grammar and orthography) or the accessibility of this L2 knowledge (measured by reaction time in word retrieval and sentence building).
In contrast, Sasaki and Hirose (1996) found that Japanese participants’ L1 writing ability (measured by a written composition in L1) only explained 18.3% of the variance in their L2 composition scores, whereas their L2 proficiency (measured by a comprehensive English language test for learners of English, which consisted of items on structure, listening and vocabulary) explained 52.1% of the variance, and that the unique contributions of L2 proficiency and L1 writing performance toward the variance in EFL writing performance were found to be even more remarkably different—32.6% and 1.5% respectively. Therefore, L2 proficiency seems to play a much more important role than L1 writing ability in L2 writing performance. Yun (2005), adopting a structural equation modeling approach, also found that for her Korean participants, L2 proficiency was a much better predictor than L1 writing ability as an explanatory variable for L2 writing performance. Yun concluded that her data and analyses provided empirical evidence for the linguistic threshold hypothesis (Cummins, 1979, 1991), which postulates that a certain minimum level of L2 competence is required before L1 skills can transfer to L2 performance.
It is possible that participants in Yun’s (2005) and Sasaki and Hirose’s (1996) studies were more constrained by their L2 profciency than those in Cumming’s (1989) and Schoonen et al.’s (2003) studies. It is also possible that these controversial results were due to the language typology of participants’ L1’s—French and Dutch are more closed related to English, all of which belong to the Indo-European family; whereas Korean, Japanese and Chinese belong to different language families. Still another possibility is that these discrepancies arose from the various measures employed for each construct in different studies. Each study operationalized and measured L2 proficiency in a different way—Yun (2005) with a cloze test, Sasaki and Hirose (1996) with a comprehensive English Language Test for learners of English (the structure, listening and vocabulary sections), Cumming (1989) with an oral interview and Schoonen et al. (2003) with a vocabulary test, an orthographic knowledge test and a grammatical knowledge test, thus making their results diffcult to compare. Therefore, additional empirical research is required in order to explicate the relative importance of L1 writing ability and L2 language profciency to a learner’s L2 writing performance.
2.2.2 Research on the Use of Writing Strategies and L2 Writing
The use of writing strategies during the writing process is another frequently examined factor in L2 writing research. Despite those studies which show that learners’ L2 profciency is a major factor of learners’ ESL/EFL writing performance, some early studies in second language writing process research reported that learners’ writing did not seem to be influenced by their L2 linguistic proficiency (e.g., Jacobs, 1982; Raimes, 1985; Zamel, 1983). Instead, the quality of L2 writing has been found to be more closely related to learners’ composing competence (see Krapels, 1990 and Roca de Larios et al., 2002 for reviews of studies on L2 writing process). Expert L2 writers with less language profciency are not impeded in their use of global cognitive strategies in writing by their lesser ability in language; by the same token, inexperienced writers with greater fuency in English are not able to tap into more effective writing processes by virtue of their greater profciency in English (Leki, 1996).
Research into the writing process and writing strategies of skilled/expert and unskilled/novice writers has produced mostly consistent fndings. In general, expert writers are found to spend more time planning and revising their work than novice writers. They tend to work recursively, managing the whole process fexibly with a balanced interaction between planning, generating, rereading, and revising, etc. At the discourse level, they pay more attention to the content, the organization, and the choice of words and phrases. When they revise, they tend to edit globally for content and organization rather than simply making surface local changes to the text. Skilled writers also tend to take into account the reader’s expectations and handle their writing accordingly. They are also found to have a more highly developed schemata for the genres in which they are writing than less skilled writers (Weigle, 2005; also see Roca de Larios, et al, 2002 for a
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