Challenging the connection between task perceptions and language use in L2 writing: Genre, cognitive task complexity, and linguistic complexity

Abstract

This study explores two writing task variables (genre and idea support) that have been extensively employed in L2 writing research. It specifically examines L2 learners’ perceptions and production of the narrative and argumentative tasks within which the condition of idea support is manipulated. Seventy-six ESL learners participated in this study (each wrote four essays), and they completed a self-rating task questionnaire immediately after each writing performance. Their essays were analyzed using 12 syntactic and lexical complexity measures. Results showed that the learners perceived the two genres as inducing similar cognitive demands, while judging the writing tasks with idea support as less cognitively demanding. In contrast, the learners’ use of syntactic structures differed widely across the two genres, but not across the idea support conditions. These findings suggest that there may be a weak connection between cognitive task complexity and linguistic complexity in written discourse and that syntactic features in learner essays are linguistic means to express genre-specific communicative functions. This study offers implications for L2 writing research and pedagogy.