The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

their native language to assist their L2 composing. There were mixed findings
among the studies on language switches. Cumming‘s (1987) study revealed that
both skilled and unskilled writers used their native language while composing in
L2: unskilled writers use L1 to generate ideas, and skilled writers use L1 as a
stylistic strategy, generating content and checking style (e.g. diction); skilled L2
writers in Cumming‘s study also use L1 to assist their thinking. However, Wang
and Wen‘s (2002) study found that L1 was more likely used to control process,
generate and organize ideas, and was less used to generate texts. In Cumming‘s
(1989) study participants switched languages frequently, but Johnson‘s (1985)
investigation observed no use or very limited use of L1. Johnson‘s findings
concurred with Wang and Wen‘s that L1 was used to make plans.
Cumming‘s (1989) study indicated the use of L1 as a problem-solving strategy.
In contrast, Johnson‘s (1985) participants perceived the use of L1 in L2 writing
inadvisable for writers with high level of L2 proficiency. Yet Johnson‘s
participants did use their native language in the process of planning in
composing aloud. It is interesting to discover that participants in Johnson‘s
(1985) study used their native languages when writing about culturally-oriented
topics (e.g. traditions in their home countries). Research findings of
Friedlander‘s (1990) study show that L2 writers benefit from using topic-related
language, which leads to detailed plans, longer texts, and better quality of
written products. Language switches enable L2 writers to relate their personal
experiences or background to the writing, and hence facilitate their writing. The
more first language switches, the better quality of the writing in terms of ideas,
organization and details (Lay, 1982).
During 1980s a growing number of investigations placed emphasis on the social
context of academic writing. Writing is no longer viewed as a composing
process happening in a vacuum, but as a communicative interaction between
writers and readers, as Silva and Matsuda (2002) highlight writing is always
embedded in a rhetorical situation – a complex web of relationships between the
writer, the reader, the text and reality. Two important approaches emerged –
social constructionism and social interactionism. The social interactionist
approach emphasizes the dialogic nature of writing, which is constructed in the
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