A Longitudinal Study On L2 Writings Of Chinese English Major Students: A Multidimensional Analysis

Second language writing(L2 writing)has been not only a difficult literacy hurdle to English learners in China but also an important research focus in the field of applied linguistics.Taking a textual approach,previous literature either compares the academic writing by Chinese learners and L1 students,or investigates the changes of Chinese students’ writing before and after explicit pedagogical intervention.However,little research has been conducted to explore the likely development of L2 writing of Chinese students across different stages of English language education in China.We expect that this development shows the possible change of academic literacy of Chinese students at different educational times of China and indicates the potential backwash effect of the reforms and curriculum redesign of English language education in China.Therefore,in this study,I draw on Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(WECCL)and Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners(TECCL)as representative corpora of writing performance of Chinese students’ at different educational times.In addition,I adopt Biber’s(1988)multidimensional analysis(MDA)to explore the functional variations of language use in the texts across 15 years,trying to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the characteristics of two different ages’ students in second language writing?(2)What are the similarities and differences between students of two different ages in terms of multi-dimensional factors?(3)What is the changing trend of Chinese English learners’ second language writing?Results are surprising and show that over the two educational generation Chinese students’ writing sees a decrease of involved,narrative and abstract language use and less overt stance expression an also context-dependent reference in texts.In addition,this study also identifies an interesting fall in type/token ratio and rise in the use of proper nouns.These changing patterns add to our knowledge of the ongoing development ofChinese students’ academic writing,and reasons for the changes are discussed in terms of students’ increased awareness of language use,national pedagogical guideline of tertiary English teaching and social cultures.Pedagogical implication is also raised as to the aspects to be focused on in the teaching of academic writing.