Journal of Second Language Writing 17 (2008) 1–6

Editorial
Writing in foreign language contexts:
An introduction
Research output on second language writing has experienced a dramatic outburst in the last
two decades to the point that this strand of research has gained recognition as a distinct field of
inquiry (Matsuda & De Pew, 2002; Silva & Brice, 2004). Yet, this growth in research output has
not applied equally to investigations into second language (SL) and foreign language (FL)
writing. Thus, whereas SL writing research has expanded at the levels of theoretical discussions,
empirical research, and pedagogical recommendations, FL writing has featured less prominently
in theoretical and pedagogical discussions in the field. The result has been that, as rightly
contended by Ortega (2004), ‘‘L2 writing as a field is heavily ESL-oriented’’ (p. 3). This is a less
than ideal situation given that, among other things, the SL-bias of L2 writing scholarship,
as Ortega puts it, ‘‘diminishes the capacity of L2 writing as a field to produce theoretically
robust knowledge that can be useful in improving L2 writing education across diverse settings’’
(p. 8).
It is also true, however, that empirical research on FL writing has steadily grown, especially in
the last few years. This has resulted in an increase in the presence of this disciplinary inquiry in
academic publications and conferences. In terms of publications, for instance, 75% of the articles
on FL writing featured in the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW) have been published
from 1999 onwards, which might explain why the few annual JSLW awards that have gone to
studies on FL writing have been awarded to studies published from around the turn of the century
onwards. Thus, between 1992 and 2005, only one out of fourteen awards for the best article
published in any given year has gone to a study on FL writing (Kobayashi & Rinnert, 2002), and
five out of a total of 26 Honorable Mentions have been awarded to studies conducted in FL
settings (Burrough-Boenish, 2003; Casanave, 1998; Roca de Larios, Murphy, & Manchón, 1999;
Ramanathan, 2003; Sasaki, 2000).
The steady growth of FL writing research in the last few years has also been reflected in
academic conferences. Suffice it to say that an almost equal number of presentations on SL and
FL writing were given at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Annual
Conference held in Montreal in 2006. It is also worth noting that these foreign language studies
presented at the AAAL 2006 conference had been conducted all over the world (e.g., Canada,
Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan, and U.S.) and had investigated writing in a variety of foreign
languages (e.g., Arabic, English, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish), which might point to an
opening up of the range of languages studied in FL writing research.
The growth of empirical research on FL writing is not only quantitative, but also qualitative in
nature. Thus, according to a recent comprehensive review of L2 writing scholarship (Silva &

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2 Editorial / Journal of Second Language Writing 17 (2008) 1–6

Brice, 2004), the scope of disciplinary inquiry into FL writing covers all strands of L2 writing
research and clearly dominates the study of writing processes. In support of this contention, out
of the 83 studies that formed the corpus of data of a recent synthesis of the research on L2 writing
strategies published between 1980 and 2005 (Manchón, Roca de Larios, & Murphy, in press),
59% corresponded to FL writing studies and 41% focused on SL contexts. Moreover, just in the
period from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of studies that investigated the writing strategies used
by FL learners amounted to a total of 75% of the whole output on L2 writing strategies.

An overview of the volume

The facts and figures we have been commenting on so far can be taken as signs of the strength
and vitality of FL writing research, so it would appear reasonable (and, in our view, productive for
the development of the field of L2 writing) that the insights gained in FL writing research should
eventually make their way into mainstream theoretical and/or pedagogical discussions on L2
writing, thus redressing the traditional (and, in our view, unproductive) SL-bias of the field. The
present volume is an attempt in this direction. It brings together three contributions on FL writing
that were originally presented at the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée
(AILA) Conference in Madison in July 2005. The three articles are representative of what Ortega
and Carson (in press) call ‘‘SLA [second language acquisition]-oriented writing research,’’ and
they collectively represent an advance in different areas of writing research on account of their
research focus, methodology, and insights.

Research focus

The three papers look into cognition and writing, although they do so from different
perspectives. Rinnert and Kobayashi investigate writing through a socio-cognitive lens. They
analyze cognitive writing processes, as seen by the manner in which Japanese writers approach
writing tasks in their native language (L1) and in the FL (English), in relation to specific social
contexts, operationalized in this study as the availability of – or lack of – previous training and
practice in L1 and/or L2 writing. They obtained very interesting results regarding the socially
situated nature of writing activity, particularly regarding how previous writing instruction and
practice shapes the FL writer’s writing processes and products. Of special interest is the finding
that the combination of L1 and L2 writing instruction appears to have more far-reaching effects
than instruction in just one of the two languages. At another level, the study also sheds light on a
perennial issue in L2 writing research—the transferability of writing competence across
languages. Their findings confirm such transfer, and, what is more, they point to the bi-directional
nature of the phenomenon.
The next two papers take a more cognitive stance, and they share an interest in exploring how
attentional resources are used while writing, although they differ in their research focus and
design: Kuiken and Vedder delve into cognition by looking at their participants’ texts, whereas
Roca de Larios, Manchón, Murphy, and Marı́n do so by considering process data.
Kuiken and Vedder investigate the effect of cognitive task complexity on actual linguistic
performance. The ultimate aim of this research is to empirically test two well-known explanatory
models of the influence of cognitive task complexity on linguistic performance, namely
Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001a,b, 2005) and Skehan and Foster’s Limited
Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan & Foster, 1999, 2001). In our view, it is theoretically and
pedagogically relevant to complement the available empirical research on these influential SLA
 Editorial / Journal of Second Language Writing 17 (2008) 1–6 3

hypotheses with written data, if only because the printed word acquires special importance in FL
instructional settings. This is an issue that might not have been sufficiently emphasized in
mainstream SLA research (see Harklau, 2002; Manchón & Roca de Larios, 2007). In Kuiken and
Vedder’s experiment, carried out among over 150 Dutch students of Italian and French, the L2
learners had to perform two writing tasks in which cognitive task complexity was manipulated. It
was found that task complexity resulted in greater accuracy, but not in greater syntactic
complexity or lexical variation, which partly supported Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis.
Roca de Larios, Manchón, Murphy, and Marı́n explore the influence of the English as a foreign
language (EFL) writer’s proficiency level on how attentional resources are used while writing.
This is measured by the time spent on different composition activities throughout the whole
writing process, as well as at different stages of the process of text production. This analysis of
the temporal dimension of writing allowed the researchers to posit that, as proficiency increases,
L2 writers appear to be able to strategically decide what attentional resources to allocate to which
writing activities at particular stages of the writing process, an issue that has implications in the
area of self-regulation and in the purported recursive nature of composing. In this study, the
recursive nature of L2 writing processes appears to be mediated by the writer’s L2 proficiency
level. The study, therefore, sheds additional light on how linguistic ability influences writing
activity, another perennial issue in writing scholarship.

Research methodology

In line with the general trend in FL writing research mentioned earlier, the studies featured in
this volume investigate a variety of languages and language combinations. Thus Kuiken and
Vedder’s study obtained data from 92 Dutch learners of Italian and 76 Dutch learners of French
and Roca de Larios et al. report on data from 21 Spanish students of English. Rinnert and
Kobayashi base their findings on data from 28 Japanese students of English. Therefore, the data
collected from these L2 writers can illuminate our understanding of how L2 writing is learned
and practised in different socio-cultural settings in different parts of the world.
A variety of educational stages and L2 proficiency levels are also represented in the volume.
One study investigated secondary school, undergraduate, and graduate university students (Roca
de Larios et al.), whereas the other two contributions analyzed college-level writers. Collectively,
a range of L2 proficiency levels were investigated, ranging from writers with various years of L2
study (Kuiken & Vedder), to those who possessed an intermediate level (Rinnert & Kobayashi) or
an advanced level in their L2 (Roca de Larios et al.) at the time of the investigation.
A further feature of the present volume lies in the variety of methods used to study FL writers’
texts and/or their composing processes. Kuiken and Vedder’s study used text analysis. Rinnert
and Kobayashi’s study also used text analysis, but it was combined with interview data. Roca de
Larios et al. analyzed process data obtained through think-aloud protocols.

Insights obtained

As mentioned earlier, the volume brings together investigations that shed light on the
linguistic, cognitive, and social dimensions of FL writing at the same time as it presents results
that are relevant for SLA research. We learn about the development of writing competence as a
socially situated phenomenon; the influence of writing instruction and experience on both the FL
student’s mental model and his/her writing performance; the transferability of writing
competence across languages—a crucial issue in writing theory and research with clear applied
4 Editorial / Journal of Second Language Writing 17 (2008) 1–6

implications; and the influence of the writer’s L2 proficiency level on various aspects of writing
performance at both process and product levels. Many of these issues are also relevant for current
theorizing in SLA research. In the pages to come, we believe that there are insights that have
some bearing on at least three of the ten issues that a theory of SLA needs to explain: (1) the
effects of a learner’s L1 on SLA; (2) the effects of instruction on SLA; and (3) the effects of
learner production on SLA (VanPatten & Williams, 2007, pp. 11–12). Regarding this last point,
an issue worth investigating in the future is the potential for language learning that writing
production may have (see Manchón & Roca de Larios, 2007), particularly in FL settings where
contact with the printed word affords more varied and frequent opportunities for learning than
oral language affords. If we accept that such language learning potential is related to the nature of
the attentional processes implemented during the act of producing language (in this case writing),
the relevance of some of the insights obtained in the studies included in this volume is clear. Thus,
in the contribution by Roca de Larios et al., we learn that FL learners, when given limited time to
write a text, mainly devote their attentional resources to the act of transforming ideas and
intentions into language. This means that plenty of language processing must take place while
struggling to get a text on the page, and, as we know, this language processing is considered to be
essential in promoting language development (see Swain, 1985, 1995). In Kuiken and Vedder, we
also learn that, when faced with the dilemma of what to pay attention to, FL learners opt for
accuracy. As the authors suggest, this might just trigger the consolidation of linguistic
knowledge, a claim that would need to be put to empirical test. Similarly, the studies would need
to answer the empirical question of whether the behaviour of the FL learners investigated in these
two studies is, to some extent, the result of their previous writing experience and instruction, as
Rinnert and Kobayashi report in their study with respect to issues of task approach and text
features.
The three papers also point to new paths for the future of writing research. Special attention
should be given to the claim that more longitudinal research is needed in the field (Rinnert &
Kobayashi; Kuiken & Vedder), which is in line with similar claims in the SLA field (see Ortega &
Iberri-Shea, 2005) and in writing research (see Ortega & Carson, in press). Similarly, the
contributors to the volume point out the need to control for task factors in future research so that
findings can be generalized beyond individual studies (for a recent discussion of the same
problem in applied linguistics research, see contributions in Chalhoub-Deville, Chapelle, & Duff,
2006). Finally, the need to look at writing processes as being socio-cognitively shaped is also
stressed in the present volume, which is a demand in line with post-process approaches in L1 and
L2 writing research (see Atkinson, 2003; Juzwik et al., 2006; Kent, 1999) and with socio-cultural
approaches to the study of SLA (for recent accounts, see Johnson, 2004; Lantolf, 2006, 2007;
Zuengler & Miller, 2006).
We would like to finish with a word of gratitude. Naturally, we first shared our ideas about this
publishing project with the editors of the JSLW, who warmly welcomed the idea and have since
wholeheartedly supported and wisely guided us throughout the whole editorial process. We
would like to express our most sincere gratitude to Tony Silva and Ilona Leki and interpret their
support and encouragement as clear proof of the open and committed editorial policy of the
JSLW. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the authors of the three papers for
having agreed to join us in this project. It has been a pleasant and stimulating academic
experience to work with such professional colleagues and, by now, we would like to think,
friends.
We hope that this joint effort will be an important contribution to L2 writing theory and
research. We also hope that the initiative taken here to put FL writing in the limelight is followed
 Editorial / Journal of Second Language Writing 17 (2008) 1–6 5

by future studies and edited collections so that we start redressing the traditional SL-bias of L2
writing scholarship.

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Rosa M. Manchóna,*
Pieter de Haanb
a
University of Murcia, Spain
b
Radboud University Nijmegen,
The Netherlands

*Corresponding author.
Tel.: +34 968 363187; fax: +34 968 363185
E-mail address: manchon@um.es (R.M. Manchón)