Understanding experiential meaning-making in Chinese adolescent L2 writing: a systemic functional perspective

Abstract

While most of the L2 writing literature focuses on tertiary L2 writing, there is relatively scanty research conducted with adolescent L2 writers. The present study aims to explore Chinese adolescent L2 writing from the perspective of writing as meaning-making in systemic functional linguistics tradition. Drawing on the framework of process type from systemic functional linguistics, the present study utilizes 500 pieces of texts from ten writing tasks written by a class of 50 Chinese high school students as the data to explore how these adolescent L2 writers deploy process types to instantiate the experiential meaning in their L2 English writing. Findings show that registerial difference exists in the deployment of process type in different writing tasks. In addition, simple, congruent process type is deployed in their writing. Pedagogical recommendations on how to include the system of process type in ESL writing are provided.