Positioning writing as meaning-making in writing research: An introduction  

Oleh:

Byrnes, Heidi

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Second Language Writing (Full Text) vol. 22 no. 2 (2013), page 95–106.
Fulltext: Byrnes_H.pdf (405.1KB)

Isi artikel

At first glance the theme of this special issue, Writing as Meaning-Making – Teaching to Mean, seems to do little more than affirm the obvious about second language (L2) writing research and educational praxes in the teaching and learning of L2 composing: Writing is about meaning-making and the teaching of writing is, therefore, about assuring that a focus on meaning informs and guides the development of students’ ability to become competent multilingual creators of written texts. However, the writing field itself has not characterized and researched its area of inquiry in such a fashion. That assessment is justified on the basis of recent publications that offer critical summative and at the same time forwardlooking analyses of the state of the art in L2 writing research (WR) and practice. I refer readers especially to a number of edited volumes by Mancho´n (2009), Mancho´n (2011a), and Mancho´n (2012), each of which includes chapters that take a broad view of where we stand and make it a point to contextualize and link the positions that researchers in the field have taken. Crucial evidence is provided as well in the synthesis of English-focused writing research that Leki, Cumming, and Silva (2008) presented; in overview treatments by Tardy (2009) and Tardy and Swales (2008), as well as by the contributors to a guest edited issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW, 20, 1) regarding the role of genre (Tardy, 2011a); and, finally, a recent exploration by established scholars of the interfaces between writing and second language acquisition (SLA) research (JSLW, 21, 4). Notwithstanding a considerable variety of foci and findings in these scholarly treatments, Mancho´n’s (2011b) distinction between the dimensions of ‘‘learning-to-write’’ and ‘‘writing-to-learn’’ well characterizes the research. In other words, meaning-making has a presence in WR, but to date it has mostly been implicitly ‘‘carried along,’’ or appeared as a niche interest. Furthermore, when it is pursued, it occurs almost exclusively in the context of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and from a very particular viewpoint, namely the interpretation of the construct of genre associated with North American approaches to ESP.

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