Revision Processes in First Language and Foreign Language Writing: Differences and Similarities in the Success of Revision Processes

Abstract

Writing academic texts in one's native language (L1) and -even more -in a foreign language (FL) places high cognitive demands on students. In order to cope with these demands, writers should learn to adapt their writing methods flexibly to their tasks, depending on the language and the genre they are writing in. Crucial aspects here are the methods of revising because the need for linguistic revision will be higher in the FL text than in the L1 text; at the same time, it should not be the main or only focus of the revision process. In order to analyse the differences in L1 and FL revision, a study was set up in which ten L1 German students wrote academic essays in German and in English. The production process was protocolled with the help of keylogging, so that the revising processes could be analysed. The results show that the participants revised similarly in both the L1 and the FL. They focussed on the same aspects (content, typing mistakes, and language errors that were not L1 related). At the same time, there are differences in finer grades. These differences in revision do not seem to be a conscious decision, however, but are rather the result of the higher cognitive demands in FL academic writing and the lower degree of language knowledge. Additionally, the analysis of the final FL texts showed that most of the errors that were not corrected were L1 induced. When one looks at the revisions, however, one sees that hardly any revisions were made in these aspects: the L1 influence went more or less unnoticed. For writing pedagogy, this means that one has to put a higher focus on revision strategies during teaching, in order to give students the tools to write successfully in L1 and in FL, and to motivate them in enhancing their papers.

The Writing Process of Bilingual Students with Focus on Revisions and Spelling Errors in Their Final Texts

“…There are very few, if any, spelling errors related to crosslinguistic transfer in the texts. This is in line with the results of the study by Odilia Breuer (2017), but not with those of the studies by Andersson (1981) and Zetterholm (2017). All participants in this study were early second language learners of Swedish who usually use Swedish at school and another language at home.…”

“…The researchers concluded that revisions depended more on students' linguistic experience than on their linguistic competence. In a study by Odilia Breuer (2017), German students of English philology wrote texts on different topics in their L1 (German) and their foreign language (English). At a broad level, the same revisions were made in both texts by the students, although analyses at a deep level showed differences related to students' linguistic competence.…”

“…Novice or younger writers, meanwhile, will often spend time on revisions, concentrating on spelling or wording, and less time on structure and cohesion (Allal 2004;Becker 2006). Depending on the demands on working memory or the lack of diagnostic skills, revisions may not always lead to improvement (Odilia Breuer 2017).…”

Using Spelling Error Analyses to Examine Individual Differences in German Students From Diverse Linguistic Backgrounds: A Latent Class Approach

“…The second and third authors and 12 graduate students administered two reading tests to screen for literacy disabilities for a larger project, which were the Pseudoword (Nonword) and Word Reading subtests from the Salzburg Reading and Orthography Test II (Moll & Landerl, 2010). Both tests have high test–retest reliability coefficients across grades (.80 and .97) and correlate highly ( r ≥ .75) with the Salzburg Reading Screening Instrument (Breuer, 2017). Based on the two tests, the current sample had a number of students at risk for reading disabilities.…”

“…Earlier studies have suggested that German L2 learners had lower spelling proficiency than their L1 counterparts had (Festman & Schwieter, 2019). In addition, Breuer (2017) found that adult German L2 students performed significantly poorer than L1 students did in spelling and writing tasks. Bassetti (2017) suggested that the orthographic similarity between L1 and L2 might influence L2 spelling proficiency.…”