Second Language Learners’ Pauses Over Different Times Intervals in L2 Writing Essays: Evidence From a Keystroke Logging Program

Mohammed Mohsen

doi:10.31470/2309-1797-2021-30-1-180-202

Abstract

Purpose. Several studies have been conducted to analyse students’ pauses during first language and/or second language writing to indicate the magnitude of the underlying cognitive processes learners have. Majority of studies have examined students’ pauses at a threshold 200ms. However, little is known about recording second language learners' pauses at different pauses’ times over different types of genres. The current investigation reports a case study of L2 learners’ cognitive processes by recording their pauses (<500ms, <1000ms, and <2000ms) during L2 writing in response to multiple genres prompts.  Design / methodology / approach. Twenty-five postgraduate students were asked to write three essays over three weeks, and their writing processes were recorded using a keystroke logging program (Inputlog, 7, Leijten & van Waes, 2013). Data was triangulated using a log file from the keystroke logging program, a process graph for writing behavior through different stages, and a visual video recording of their captured screens during writing behaviours.  Findings. Results found that the students paused over sentence and paragraph boundaries and their pauses between paragraphs were significantly higher in writing narrative essay than in their argumentative essays at pauses intervals <500 and <1000ms respectively, and in turn, their pauses between sentences in an argumentative essay were significantly higher than their pauses in a descriptive essay at <500, <1000 respectively. However, there were no significant differences across word boundaries over genre types.  Conclusions. The current study extends the previous literature in examining the underlying cognitive processes during L2 writing tasks as the trendy issue of psycholinguistics. Knowing the cognitive processes is crucial in diagnosing the students’ difficulties in writing L2 essays as advanced technology has the potential to explore intrusively the accurate cognitive processes learners involved during writing tasks. Originality / value. This paper is innovative in examining a state-of-the-art issue and has implications to the field of psycholinguistics.

Highlights

There has recently been a new trend for L2 researchers to investigate L2 learners’ cognitive processes when learners involve in productive skills; speaking and writing
Knowing the cognitive processes is crucial in diagnosing the students’ difficulties in writing L2 essays as advanced technology has the potential to explore intrusively the accurate cognitive processes learners involved during writing tasks
Many recent studies (e.g. Révész, Kourtali & Mazgutova, 2017; Révész, Michel & Lee, 2019) have attempted to empirically explore what learners are thinking of when they pause during producing written form; do they struggle at the lexical unit, at the syntactic level, or at the technical form? Does type of genre affect difficulty in writing? If so, which genre does significantly affect cognitive processes? How about the proficiency level of students' writing? Do experienced learners pause as much as inexperienced writers? Do other demographic factors such as age and gender affect learners’ cognitive processes? the focus of this paper is to explore and to answer a different issue

Summary

Introduction

There has recently been a new trend for L2 researchers to investigate L2 learners’ cognitive processes when learners involve in productive skills; speaking and writing (see for example a special issue on L2 writing process, published in Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume, 41, issue 3, 2019). This trend is premised by the claim that identifying how the mind works to process a foreign language is one of the central issues of psycholinguistics as writing is “stepchild of psycholinguistics” (Bonin & Fayol, 1996: 145). It attempts to explore how L2 learners pause over times across different types of genres by recording their pauses across the lexical boundaries; words, sentences, and paragraphs, using the keystroke logging program (Leijten & Van Waes, 2013)

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