Assessing the metacognitive awareness relevant to L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer in L2 writing: The cases of Chinese EFL writers across proficiency levels

Abstract

Abstract For decades, L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer has been researched as a meaningful topic for foreign language writing development and pedagogy. Recent studies have begun to focus on an underlying cause for this transfer -- L2 writers’ agency. The present study was an initial attempt to inquire into one of the ingredients of L2 writers’ agency accounting for L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer by assessing the relevant metacognitive awareness. The participants were 36 Chinese EFL writers, who differed in their level of English writing proficiency. Multiple sources of data were collected using an English argumentative writing task, a retrospective verbal report, native English raters’ evaluation, and a text- and video-based stimulated recall. Results suggested that lower-proficiency L2 writers tended to display partial or no metacognitive awareness about L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer; they could only monitor but not control this transfer or neither monitor nor control this transfer; the deficiency of metacognitive awareness was related to their sense of L2 writing difficulty or limited L2 rhetorical knowledge. It was also found that most of the higher-proficiency L2 writers were capable of both metacognitively monitoring and controlling L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer; such complete metacognitive awareness was characterized by comparative rhetorical awareness, which helped to make the transfer compatible with L2 writing situations and to prevent its negative effect. Based on the results, this study concluded that there existed a difference in the metacognitive awareness of L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer between lower- and higher- proficiency L2 writers.