What Are We Writing About Second Language Writing: A Literature Review Of Articles On Second Language Writing Research In CSSCI Foreign Language Journals(2007-2016)

Second language writing has always been a hotspot in the research field of Applied Linguistics.Especially when stepping into the new century,its development has been flourishing,and some scholars have reviewed research articles on it.These reviews did not include the review of research methods and theories and differed a lot in identifying the focus entities.The present research,based on international scholars’ perspective,reviews second language writing research published in 11 CSSCI foreign language journals during 2007-2016 and indicates that most articles are empirical ones.When doing empirical research,Chinese scholars use quantitative and mixed methods more often.And they frequently choose activity theory,genre theory,functional perspective and metacognitive idea as their theory.In terms of focus entities,writing is predominant,followed by multiple entities,writers and readers.Through this review,it is expected to make up the existing review gap of research theory and methods,to call on Chinese researchers to go with the tide of international development,to provide some enlightenment for teaching and practicing of research theories and methods.