| Recent years have witnessed a large body of studies that have explored the different perspectives of Chinese L2 writers and their performance,yet not much is known about the overall ecology of Chinese L2 writing studies.This study,therefore,adopts a metastudy approach to investigate the development of Chinese L2 writing studies from an ecological perspective with its focuses on the historical ecology,environment ecology,topic ecology and approach ecology.A total of 15,105 articles from 1,885 journals in the CNKI database were selected as the data of the study.With the help of CiteSpace visualization software and Comprehensive Meta-analysis 3.0 software,this study found that the ecology of Chinese L2 writing studies is in a trend of comprehensive,coordinated and sustainable development including the diverse communities of historical ecology,environment ecology,topic ecology and approach ecology.Historically,Chinese L2 writing studies have patterned characteristics in five phases of development.Environmentally,Chinese L2 writing studies consist of 13 communities,the diversity of which established a solid platform for research achievements.Topically,four communities reflect the universality of research horizon and the coverage of research focus.In terms of the nature of studies,six interwoven communities constitute the approach ecology.The results of metaanalysis indicated that the development of Chinese L2 writing studies is affected by various ecological factors,the healthy growth of each promoting the development of the whole ecology.This study concluded that Chinese L2 writing studies are now on a healthy track of sustainable development.Hopefully,it can contribute to a better understanding of the ecology of Chinese L2 writing studies.Implications for future research were finally provided. |
