Exploring the Development of Writing Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Relation to the Motivational Trajectories: a Dynamically-Oriented Case Study

Abstract

The current study follows complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) as a framework to report an almost uncharted research domain in second language acquisition; the dynamic interplay of writing complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF); and the language learning motivation (LLM) in a successful highly motivated EFL learner for whom LLM functioned as a control parameter in the process of language development. Both quantitative and holistic data were gathered from a number of sources—questionnaire, English language learning history (ELLH), writing tasks, and a motivational level chart—to substantiate the motivational profile of the participant and then to quantitatively assess, in ten stages, the development of general measures of CAF in monthly writing assignments in conjunction with the learner’s self-reported levels of motivation over a school year. Descriptive and statistical analyses of visual display of developmental patterns and dynamic correlations uncovered non-linear trajectories along with dynamic stability suggesting occurrence of attractor states; further, they provided insight into the interconnected variability of motivation and CAF triad reflecting that motivational resources were focused on fluctuating back and forth with complexity and fluency, thus inducing trade-offs between them and accuracy. These findings lent support to the CDST approach of non-linear relationships in the time domain of both language development and the LLM.