Meaning-oriented understanding of L2 academic writing development with task-type repetition

Abstract

From a meaning-oriented perspective, the study drew on the nominalization in Systemic Functional Linguistics with Coh-Metrix and interviews to check how L2 academic writing of student writers may develop with the implementation of task-type repetition (TtR). The findings revealed that the development of L2 academic writing was presumably staged rather than constantly linear. Over the development, language proficiency dynamically resonated with TtR. First, the beginning session of TtR (from Task 1 to around Task 4) witnessed a more dynamic developmental trajectory during which the low-proficiency student constantly outperformed the other two in inter-sentential cohesion, while the intermediate-level student stood out over the middle session (Task 4- around Task 8). Second, at three genre stagings, students’ genre knowledge deeply resonated with their meaning-making activities throughout TtR, particularly in facilitating individual iterative reflection on their established writing knowledge. Third, the deficiency of genre knowledge may cause wide-range absence of nominalization at DESCRIPTION and CONCLUSION than EXPOSITION. Fourth, the linguistic fossilization identified at DESCRIPTION implies that anaphoric reconstrual may be individually mediated (by grammatically complicating the syntax in the study). Finally, a nuanced improvement in metaphorical enrichment and control was identified.