L1 AND L2 WRITERS STRATEGIC AND LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE - A MODEL OF MULTIPLE-LEVEL DISCOURSE PROCESSING

This study compared the cognitive processing of 12 anglophone second-y ear French undergraduate students who were prompted to write an argume ntative text in both L1 (English) and L2 (French). The students' speak ing aloud protocols and textual drafts provided the basis of collected data. In the first part of the study, the writers' planning, evaluati on, and revision strategies were (a) analyzed in terms of the pragmati c, textual, and linguistic manifestations of these processes and (b) c ompared for differences in processing behaviors between their L1 and L 2 writing. In the second part, we measured linguistic processing occur rences to analyze their effect on more global processing behaviors at the pragmatic and textual levels. The linguistic constraints imposed b y the writers' knowledge of the second language (French) point toward some significant differences in discourse level processing between L1 and L2 writing behaviors. However, the results reveal that the state o f the writers' strategic knowledge and capacity for meaningful multipl e-level discourse processing explains the constraining effects of ling uistic processing on L2 written discourse production.