ESL/ EFL Writing Research

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CHAPTER Ⅱ

LITERATURE REVIEW

The following literature review is divided into two parts. The first part is the introduction of ESL/ EFL writing research. The second part reviews some studies on narrative writing research.

2.1 ESL/ EFL Writing Research

Second language writing (L2) has always been a difficult area for second language learners and a hot topic for second language researchers (Zhang, 2008). In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the population of international ESL writers at institutions of higher education in North America increased, so the field of L2 writing was originally centered on teaching those ESL students. Researchers from different linguistic fields have addressed numerous issues in their studies, and the studies conducted by the researchers of L2 writing can be categorized into five areas: (1) L2 writers' characteristics, (2) the L2 writing process, (3) L2 writing feedback, (4) L2 writing instruction, and L2 writers' texts (Zhang, 2008). Studies on L2 writers’

characteristics have mainly investigated three categories of the writer variables: L2 variables, L1 variables, and psychological and social variables, and their influence on

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L2 writing. Different L2 skills can be seen as one of L2 variables. In their writing, more skilled L2 writers wrote longer texts (Grant & Ginther, 2000; Sasaki, 2000) and used more parts of speech, fictional categories (Grant & Ginther, 2000; Kiany &

Nejad, 2001), and grammatical features(Grant & Ginther, 2000). As for L1 variables, the studies of L1 writing ability are included in this respect. Carson et al. (1990) proposed that L2 writing ability correlated significantly with L1 writing ability. In their research, the first language and second language writing abilities of adult ESL learners, which include Japanese and Chinese ESL Students, was examined to determine the relationships across languages (L1 and L2) in the acquisition of L2 writing skills. Furthermore, Ma and Wen (1999) claimed that the L2 writing ability of writers at different L2 proficiency levels could be significantly predicted by L1 writing ability according to the linguistic evidence they found. The research on psychological variables found that the emotions of the L2 writers may influence their writing strategies (Clachar, 1999). When the L2 writers faced topics which can elicit emotions, the writers spent more time on lexical, morphological and syntactic issues for the complete expression of their feeling with specific linguistic structures.

Classification of the L2 writing research in the studies on the L2 writing process is the second area. There are two main focuses in this area of study: the role of L1 in L2 writing, and writing strategies. Brooks (1985) investigated the writing processes of

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five unskilled college writers speaking Cantonese, French, Spanish and Malay. She found that students who had read and written extensively in their native language were able to use these competencies when writing in English. The positive correlation of the L1 writing ability and the L2 writing ability is proven by Brook's findings. The other issue in the L2 writing research is writing strategies. The usage of writing strategies, such as the planning, is influenced by the level of L2 proficiency (Akyel, 1994). He found that “proficiency level affected the quality of plans and compositions, but the language used for the plan had no significant effect on the differences between higher- and lower-proficiency writers in terms of the plan and composition scores.”

The third area of the L2 writing research is L2 writing feedback. In the writing classroom, there are two sources of feedback: L2 writing instructors and student peers.

The effect of L2 writers’ approaching the writing process, viewing feedback and making revisions to the writing will be definitely decided by the type of feedback given by the teacher (Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1996; Lockhart & Ng, 1995). As for the peer feedback, it is stated there are some advantages of using peer review, including

bringing a genuine sense of audience into the writing classroom, helping develop students’ critical reading and analysis skills (Keh, 1990), and encouraging students to

focus on their intended meaning by discussing alternative points of view that can lead to the development of those ideas (Mangelsdorf, 1992; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994).

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In the area of L2 writing feedback, the effects of peer feedback and teacher feedback have been compared. Connor and Asenavage (1994) explored the impact of peer and teacher feedback on the revisions of university freshman ESL students from different countries in a university in the USA as they wrote and revised an essay. The results showed that the feedback of the teacher and the peer were not the reason for the revision; interestingly, the revision resulted from some other source.

L2 writing instruction is the fourth area in the L2 writing research. The research on L2 writing instruction mostly focused on the discussion of instructional models and the use of portfolios. For the studies on instructional models, which contain process approach and product approach, some researchers have compared the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches (Han, 2001; Zhang & Zhou, 2002; Chen, 2005). The other issue in L2 writing instruction is the use of portfolios.

Baack (1997) reported his own experience with using portfolios in ESL writing classrooms. He argued for the use of portfolios for helping the evaluation of the students' writing development.

The last area is L2 writers’ texts. Studies of L2 writers’ texts include two issues:

contrastive rhetoric between L1 and L2 texts, and linguistic features of L2 texts.

Kaplan started Contrastive Rhetoric (CR) research in 1966. He assumed that “each language is characterized by a set of rhetorical conventions unique to it, and these

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conventions influence how people in those cultures think and write, and consequently interfere with their ESL writing ” (Grabe & Kaplan, 1989; Kaplan & Grabe, 2002;

Kaplan, 1966, 2000). Furthermore, some researchers analyzed the differences between Chinese and English writing. Matalene (1985) found that a huge amount of memorization is essential to the Chinese writing system because of the important role of rote-learning. Li (1996) also proposed the reason for the lack of creativity in Chinese writing, and the respect of authority in Chinese culture. Another important difference between English and Chinese writing lies in discourse organizational patterns: the structure of English composition is linear and direct, while that of

Chinese composition is a roundabout (Kaplan, 2001). The other issue in the area of L2 writers’ texts is linguistic features of L2 texts. In 2002, Hinkel conducted a

comprehensive study of L2 texts. She compared the writings of non-native English speakers (NNS) (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Arabic) to those of native English speakers (NS) (English). Based on this comprehensive study, systematic information about linguistic and rhetoric characteristics of L2 texts by learners of different L1 backgrounds was provided.

Through the introduction of five areas of L2 writing, research, we found that although researchers in the area of L2 writers’ texts dealt with the linguistic features in L2 texts and the difference in the writing of L1 and L2 (Hinkel, 2002), the texts of

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L2 writers were not focused on specific types of writing and compared L1 and L2 writing on the basis of the same types of writing. To fill this gap, this study aims to formulate the linguistic features of the narrative of native English speakers and investigate L2 texts, including the narrative articles in Taiwanese English textbooks and the narrative writing written by Taiwanese senior high school students.