Transfer of ideal L1 and L2 writing selves and their impacts on L2 writing enjoyment and integrated writing performance

Abstract

Second language (L2) writers’ motivation and emotion is a flourishing area in L2 writing education research; however, there is a dearth of literature on L2 writers’ motivational and emotional responses to integrated writing (IW) tasks, particularly in a bilingual context. With a sample of 239 first-year English major students at a Chinese university, the present study investigated the relationship between ideal L1 and L2 writing selves and how they may contribute to L2 IW enjoyment and task performance. Path analysis results report a relationship of transfer between ideal L1 and L2 writing selves, as well as their positive associations with L2 writing enjoyment and L2 IW performance. Further, the indirect path from ideal L1 writing self to L2 IW performance via ideal L2 writing self and L2 writing enjoyment was evident. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we included IW tasks in the existing research on ideal self and L2 writing. Second, we affirm that the transfer between L1 and L2 may concern not only linguistic capabilities and learning strategies, but also students’ personal beliefs about language learning. Pedagogical suggestions are made based on the findings.