The processes in FL writing

Leki and Carson (1997) summarise the differences between L1 and FL writing as being located in ten areas: epistemological issues; the functions of writing; the writing topics;

knowledge storage; writing from reading; audience awareness; textual issues; plagiarism;

writer wishes to write successfully, they must cope with all of these areas. As a result, the probability of cognitive overload is increased. Impediments to certain aspects of the writing process must be compensated for by shifting cognitive resources away from some aspects in order to allocate them to others, or else by slowing the process down (Alamargot et al. 2007: 23, Dansac and Alamargot 1999: 95). Whether or not the writers are able to compensate for the problems depends on a whole range of factors: their knowledge of the language; their knowledge of how to use it; their individual traits as learners; their abilities and preferences; the social context; their attitudes and motivation; their writing practice;

the instructional context; processing factors; cultural variability; content knowledge; and knowledge about discourse, genre and register (Grabe 2001: 53, Grosjean 2008: ch. 3.1, Spolsky 1989: ch. 3). That is, the acquisition of FL writing in part depends on factors that the writer cannot influence directly (e.g. formal instruction, abilities and preferences, attitudes and motivation), and in part on others which they can actively work to enhance (Ashby, Valentin and Turken 2002: 273).

Berman (1994: 38) tested FL students’ writing with respect to the transferability of their L1 writing skills to their FL writing. He found that writers are generally able to transfer their skills, but that this ability depends on their proficiency in the grammar, structure and vocabulary of the target language (see also Sagarra 2008: 145/146). Expertise in L1 writing thus is not a sufficient condition for becoming a good FL writer (Galbraith 2009: 11, Grabe 2001: 44/45, Hirose and Sasaki 1994: 216, Wolff 2000: 109, but see Schoonen et al. 2003: 194). Often, FL writers are not as flexible in the usage of their writing skills and methods as they are in their L1, but are consistent in their strategies.

‘Sticking’ to an L1 writing strategy can be used as a method of overcoming cognitive overload; at the same time, however, it might have a negative impact on the quality of the FL text (Kimball and Holyoak 2005: 118/119, van Weijen et al. 2008: 219, 2009: 246, but see Beare and Bourdages 2007: 157/158).

Other studies document the fact that many FL writers tend to use the resources of both their L1 and the FL while composing (Cumming 1990: 31, 2001: 5, Uzawa and Cumming 1989). Sasaki (2000) conducted an experiment with L1 Japanese writers at novice and expert levels who were asked to write argumentative texts in FL English. The novice writers often stopped to translate the generated ideas from their L1 Japanese into FL English, whereas the expert writers stopped to refine the English expressions (278).

Similarly, the participants in van Weijen’s (2008) experiment with L1 and FL writers needed more “composing episodes” (164) when writing in the FL. Van Weijen proposes

that this is a symptom of a decrease in the attention span in FL writing, and that writers tend to use L1 as an attempt to overcome cognitive overload. Only if this is unsuccessful does the quality of the FL text suffer. That is, if turning to the L1 as a resource, the FL writer has to find a way in which the L1 “is used but not…misused” (Wolff 2000: 110).

The non-language internal factors in FL writing also have an impact on FL writing processes. As Leki (1992: 90) notes, “cultures evolve writing styles appropriate to their own histories and the needs of their societies”. These styles are rhetorically distinct, no matter what other factors of processing are taken into account – be it the age of the writers, their language proficiency, the task complexity or the audience. Due to cultural and educational differences in the L1 and in the FL setting, the writer has to cope with different problems: they must decide which knowledge the FL audience is likely to have about the topic (e.g. if a person from Cologne writes about a carnival parade there, can they assume that a British audience will know about the tradition of throwing sweets and flowers?). The writer also needs to know about different cultural conventions, i.e. the “standards and norms specifying what is expected and considered appropriate in a particular type of written discourse” (Schneider 2012: 1027). When a German writer wants to apply for a job at a company in England, they should know how a letter of application is commonly structured in that culture, as well as which formal aspects should be taken into account (e.g. greeting, references, etc.), and which register is appropriate (e.g. level of formality).

Contrastive rhetoric also highlights the influence of the L1 and its cultural settings on FL organisational structures. Organisational structures are above the sentence level, meaning that they are not restricted to different syntactic structures, but apply to the overall structure, the topics to be included, etc. For this reason, FL writers often perceive tension between culturally-appropriate writing and the personal voice, whereas L1 writers usually do not notice such tension (Devine, Railey and Boshoff 1993: 208, Galbraith 2009: 11).

Idea generation is more problematic in the FL if one sees it as being dependent on the activation of a semantic network. Although this network is seen as language-independent by different linguistic schools, the interfaces to phonology and syntax plus the interfaces between the phonological structures and back to the semantic network are language-dependent (see e.g. Culicover and Jackendoff 2006: 413, Hagoort and Levelt 2009: 372, Jackendoff 2002: 293, 2010: 9, 2012: 175/176, Ward 2006: 214, Zimmermann 2000: 85). That is, if the L1 is the most dominant language in the writer, the L1 network is denser and the activation of one word in the phonological structure during the thinking process will activate more nodes in the L1 network than will its FL counterpart.

Additionally, word-finding problems can suppress the activation of the semantic network via the phonological structures. The concentration on the interface phonology-semantics impedes the recall of other, associated concepts in the semantic network. Thus the

“generation-driven-generation” which van den Bergh and Rijlaarsdam (1999: 114) propose to be an index of thoughtfulness is more difficult for an FL writer to carry out than for an L1 writer. The same is true for the overall organisation of a paper: the more working memory capacity the writer has to devote to finding words and syntax, the less capacity is available for structuring and organising (Berman 1994: 40, Cumming 2001: 5, van Wijk 1999: 45).

In the case of weak FL writers, the revision process is often problematic as well.

Revision does not improve the text but makes it even worse, and writers tend to preserve the written text even if it is useless (see Breetvelt, van den Bergh and Rijlaarsdam 1994:

105). Strong FL writers, on the other hand, are often occupied with searching for appropriate words and phrases, with finding language forms that are appropriate for the expression of their ideas and for the intended genre. If FL writers are skilled, they plan effectively and extensively before and during composing, and they revise and edit more than do their less-skilled counterparts (Cumming 2001: 5, Sasaki 2000: 275, Zimmerman 2000). That is, the number of revisions and the goal of the revisions point to the text quality that can be expected.

In short: FL writers have to deal with higher demands on their cognitive capacities in all writing processes, and in order to deal with these demands, they must find strategies that differ from those applied in L1 writing. This need is even greater if the writer must write in a genre that is differently defined in the L1 and the FL – as is often the case in academic writing (Chapter 2.4.2).