Comments on Vivian Zamel's "Recent Research on Writing Pedagogy". A Reader Reacts

Abstract

Vivian Zamel is, without a doubt, a potent force and an acknowledged leader in the area of ESL composition. Her work is always interesting and provocative, and her latest TESOL Quarterly offering (Vol. 21, No. 4, December 1987) is no exception. However, I find some aspects of this piece quite troubling. First, there seems to be little, if any, recognition of the difference between Li and L2 composing in this article. The article's bibliography contains about three times as many references to Li as to L2 writing studies; L1 and L2 studies are mixed throughout the article as though they were equally relevant to L2 composition; and the author seems to offer no caveat about using the findings of L1 writing studies in L2 composition situations. Thus, there seems to be a tacit assumption here that Li and L2 writing are essentially the same phenomenon-that the linguistic, cultural, and experiential differences of L2 writers are of negligible or no concern to ESL composition teachers. This assumption seems counterintuitive and would appear to militate against the experience of most ESL composition teachers and L2 writers, including Raimes (1985), who notes that all of us who have tried to write something in a second language ... sense that the process of writing in an L2 is startlingly different from writing in our LI (p. 232). Although there is certainly much to be learned from developments in Li composition theory, research, and practice, it seems wise to interpret these lessons very carefully into L2 writing contexts. Second, this article argues for a view of composition research