Chapter One Introduction
1.1Background of the Study
Writing ability in second language or foreign language is closely related to thepeople’s employment and future career development. Learning to write effectively isone of crucial challenging aspects of second language learning.In the late 20thcentury in the West, writing theories experienced a developing age.Second language writing has gradually been an independent discipline by starting tostudy its history, examined the basic assumptions about second language writing andsynthesizing the models of the writing. These researchers, which have made lots ofproductive researches integrated practical situations of second language writing,borrowed and inheriting the rich fruit of first language writing and other related fieldsof language studying.The process movement over past few decades has been considered “the mostsuccessful one in the history of pedagogical reform in the teaching of writing” (Mastsuda 2003: 69). It has an important impact on the development of secondlanguage writing theory, research procedure, and instructional practice. It is largelybecause of the process approach that writing, as creation of meaning andcommunication, has gained its due status in a second language class.Consequently ,researchers began to recognize the complex nature of writing inanother language. As the years went by, it is hard to find a second language teachertoday who believes that grammar or organizational pattern drills are all a secondlanguage student needs to learn in writing. Popular methodology textbooks aboutsecond language learning now introduce process writing as the mainstream ororthodoxy approach to second language writing instruction.
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1.2Statement of the Problem
When writing a text, EFL student writers frequently come across languageproblems, many of which are lexical in fact. In order to enhance the quality ofstudents’ writing, researchers should know the real mechanism of lexical outputduring the writing process. However, not so many researchers pay their attention tothis field. Murphy and Roca de Larios (2010) showed not only detailed researchprocedure about lexical problems but also implications for further studies. WhetherChinese college students have the same underlying lexical mechanism as the Spanishwriters in the previous study is a problem remains to answer in this thesis.
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Chapter Two The Review of the Literature
2.1 Definition of Terms
In the present study, it is necessary to clarify and define several key terms. Theseterms include English as a Foreign Language (EFL), mother tongue, think aloudprotocols, formulation and problem-solving formulation process.English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is the use or study of English by speakerswith different native languages. An EFL environment is one where the majority of thecommunity does not speak English as their first language. It indicates the teaching ofEnglish in a non-English-speaking region. Many EFL students study English in school,and do so for academic purposes. They do not need to speak English in their daily life,since most of the people around them speak the same language that they do. Learningcan occur either in the student's home country, as part of the normal school curriculumor otherwise, for the privileged minority. In China, EFL is learned either to passexams as a necessary part of one's education, or, for career progression while oneworks for an organization or a company with an international focus. In this thesis, L2is used exchangeably with EFL sometimes.
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2.2 Previous Researches on L2 Writing Process
The substantial researches overseas about the planning, formulation, revisionstage and variables are firstly reviewed in this part, and then the related publishedliterature in China.The writing process is pided into three phrases: Planning, Formulation andRevision (Murphy, 2010). Some researchers (Beare, 2000; Jones & Tetroe, 1987;Krapels, 1990; Uzawa & Cumming, 1989; Wang, 2003; Woodall, 2002) conductresearches about the three phrases from different aspects.The scholars that do some researches in the planning stage have some findings.For example, in Jone and Tetroe’s research (1987), they analyzed the process of sixexcellent Spanish learners and observed the planning process of second languagewriting and found plenty of examples of using mother tongue. Cumming (1990)studied 23 Canadians whose second language is French and he found that no matterwhich language proficiency they are, they use mother tongue in the planning stage.Friedlander (1990) found 28 high-level English learners in China and did similarresearches in 1990. His finding is that the writers who use mother tongue to composehave higher level compositions. Formulation as another important stage of writing process provides researchersmany useful findings. Roca de Larios (2001) did some related researches towardsEnglish speaking Spanish by analyzing the argumentation they wrote. The resultsreveal that high proficiency writers spend less time in formulation phrase and the ratioof fluent formulation and problem solving formulation is certain. Murphy (2010)analyzed the lexical searches in formulation phrases and the influences of differentwriting tasks to lexical searches. He picked seven excellent Spanish learners to be thesubject. The result shows that the variability of cognitive difficulty of writing taskshas some influence on the quality and quantity of the lexical searches.
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Chapter Three Research Methodology........10
3.1 Research Design.......10
3.1.1 Research Subjects ....10
3.1.2 Variables of the Research........11
3.2 Research Method .....12
3.3 Research Procedures .....13
3.4 Data Process, Analysis and Results .......17
3.4.1 Task as a variable in the Chinese language......18
3.4.2 Mother tongue’s role in solving lexical problems .....21
Chapter Four Discussions of Research Results.....29
4.1 Impacts of task variation....29
4.2 The roles of the mother tongue ....30
4.3 Inpidual differences ........31
Chapter Five Conclusion, Implications and Limitations......33
5.1 Conclusion .....33
5.2 Implications....34
5.3 limitations ......35
Chapter Four Discussions of Research Results
4.1 Impacts of task variation
In order to answer Research Question One, the results of the study show that taskvariation makes great effect on the lexical searches in three aspects. The first aspect isthat the number of lexical searches produced in the argumentative task is fewer thanthose in the narrative task. Then, focusing on the lexical searches involving themother tongue, the research results reveal that student writers produce more lexicalsearches involving the mother tongue in the narrative task than in the argumentativetask. The last but not least, the results display that student writers use more upgradingtype searches in the argument task than in the narrative task, which means that theargumentative task need more L1 support in order to produce higher-levelcompositions.
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Conclusion
The two major findings of the present study are the variation of English writingtasks influence the performance of Chinese in solving lexical problems and theChinese language as mother tongue plays six roles in solving lexical problems in EFLwriting.The first finding is about one of the variables focusing on cognitive difficulty ofthe task the subjects required to do. The finding is that different levels of cognitivecomplexity elicit different use of the Chinese language in EFL writing in quantitativeand qualitative terms. The number of words in the protocols, number of lexicalsearches in the protocols, the number of lexical searches involving the Chineselanguage in the protocols is all measured in different ways. The finding about theeffects of task variation in the present study has three obvious aspects :1) The numberof lexical searches produced in the argumentative task is less than those in thenarrative task. 2) Student writers produce more lexical searches involving the mothertongue in the narrative task than in the argumentative task. 3) Student writers usemore upgrading type searches in the argument task than in the narrative task, so theargumentative task need more L1 support when improving and refining lexicalsearches than the narrative one.
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Reference (omitted)