Switching to first language among writers with differing second-language proficiency
Section snippets
Previous studies
In the domain of L2 writing, a consensus has been reached that one consistent and salient characteristic, which is fundamentally distinct from L1 writing processes, is that L2 writers, either “skilled” or “unskilled,” switch back and forth between their L1 and L2 in order to work through a particular problem that they are struggling with while composing in the L2. As several studies have reported, L2 writers use their L1 to plan their writing for text generation (Cumming, 1989, Jones & Tetroe,
Participants
The present study involved adult Chinese-speaking learners enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL) school in Toronto. The school offers 12-week, eight-level courses throughout the year. Students are placed at different levels of classes on the basis of their placement test scores on the Canadian Language Benchmarks
Discussion
In general, all participants switched languages frequently and to about the same extent (from 30 to 45% of their thinking sequences) while composing in the L2. This finding suggests that L-S was common to the HP and LP participants, and it might have facilitated their writing processes while they were composing. The key finding of the study is that the HP participants switched to their L1 more frequently than the LP participants did while composing the two writing tasks. This finding
Conclusions and implications
Overall, in contrast to previous studies which have tended to show that the amount of L1 use decreased as the writers’ L2 proficiency developed, the present study showed that the amount of bilingual writers’ L-S is not reduced when their L2 proficiency has developed. Rather, the qualities of, or strategic ways in which, bilingual writers switch to the L1 do suggest some kind of developmental continuum associated with L2 proficiency. As the present analyses suggest, the HP learners appeared to
Acknowledgements
This research is based on my M.A. thesis from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Alister Cumming. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Cumming for his careful reading of the manuscript, thoughtful suggestions, and invaluable comments on the earlier version of this article.
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2020, LinguaCitation Excerpt :In this research, the results of the previous body of L2 studies on L2 writers’ language use during the L2 composing process are contested. First, most of the previous studies investigated the L1 use and its effect on L2 text production during the L2 composing process, and even though some of them examined both L1 and L2 composing processes, the focus of the studies still seemed limited to L1 use during the L2 composing process (Cumming, 1990; Kobayashi and Rinnert, 1992; Lay, 1982; Manchón et al., 2000, 2009; McCarthey et al., 2005; Murphy and Roca de Larios, 2010; Qi, 1998; Roca de Larios et al., 1999, 2001; Sasaki and Hirose, 1996; Smith, 1994; Uzawa, 1996; Van Weijen et al., 2009; Wang, 2003; Wang and Wen, 2002; Whalen and Menard, 1995; Wolfersberger, 2003). How L2 is used and how it is used with L1 are rarely discussed.