Most research into second language (L2) writing has focused on the products of writing tasks; much less empirical work has examined the behaviours in which L2 writers engage and the cognitive processes that underlie writing behaviours. We aimed to fill this gap by investigating the extent to which writing speed fluency, pausing, eye-gaze behaviours and the cognitive processes associated with pausing may vary across independent and integrated tasks throughout the whole, and at five different stages, of the writing process. Sixty L2 writers performed two independent and two integrated TOEFL iBT writing tasks counterbalanced across participants. While writing, we logged participants’ keystrokes and captured their eye-movements. Participants took part in a stimulated recall interview based on the last task they had completed. Mixed effects regressions and qualitative analyses revealed that, apart from source use on the integrated task, L2 writers engaged in similar writing behaviours and cognitive processes during the independent and integrated tasks. The integrated task, however, elicited more dynamic and varied behaviours and cognitive processes across writing stages. Adopting a mixed-methods approach enabled us to gain more complete and specific insights than using a single method.
This study examined the relationship of L2 Chinese proficiency with writing behaviors in L2 Chinese and whether this relationship is mediated by genre. It additionally investigated how writing behaviors relate to L2 Chinese text quality. A sample of 32 L2 writers of Chinese performed two argumentative and two narrative tasks on a computer. Their keystrokes were logged. Participants’ L2 Chinese proficiency was estimated by a cloze test. Writing behaviors were operationalized as online measures of fluency, pausing, and revision. Text quality was assessed via holistic rating. Regression analyses revealed positive relationships of L2 proficiency to fluency, between‐word pause duration, between‐clause and between‐sentence pause frequency, and below‐clause revision frequency. L2 proficiency was also found to negatively correlate with within‐word and between‐word pause frequency and between‐sentence pause duration. Genre did not modulate the relationship of L2 proficiency to writing behaviors. More highly rated L2 Chinese texts were associated with fewer between‐word pauses.
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