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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 24, No. 0, pp.754-771
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2024
Received 04 Jul 2024 Revised 17 Jul 2024 Accepted 22 Jul 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.24..202407.754

Individual Differences as Predictors of L2 writing: L2 Proficiency, Working Memory Capacity, and Explicit Language Aptitude

Jiyong Lee
Assistant Professor, Department of English Korea Military Academy KMA, Chungmukwan #472, Hwarang-Ro 574, Nowon-Gu Seoul, Korea, Tel: 02) 2197-2637 jlee0123@kma.ac.kr


© 2024 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Much attention has been paid to the effects of individual differences on L2 learning in recent years, but there is still a lack of studies that directly investigated the roles that more cognitive individual differences play in L2 writing. The present study investigated whether L2 proficiency, working memory capacity (WMC), and explicit language aptitude (ELA) could predict L2 writing, in terms of syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, and accuracy. Because L2 writing requires conscious cognitive effort, the study also sought to find out whether these individual differences could also predict the cognitive load imposed on the learner during L2 writing. Forty-two Korean EFL learners completed a series of an English proficiency test, a writing task, a questionnaire measuring cognitive load, a test of ELA, and a test of WMC. Results revealed that those with greater L2 proficiency and explicit language aptitude perceived the writing task as more difficult and/or stressful. Regarding written performance, higher L2 proficiency was linked to greater accuracy, and higher WMC was associated with greater lexical diversity. These results have implications for our understanding of the cognitive processes and demands of L2 writing.

Keywords:

L2 writing, L2 proficiency, working memory capacity, explicit language aptitude

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2021S1A5B5A16076199).

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