Drawing on over 40 publications, this presentation describes how CDST-L2 writing scholarship has developed since the first widely acknowledged study in the field (i.e., Larsen-Freeman, 2006). This talk aims to assist those familiar with the literature to consolidate their knowledge and to help new researchers to join the conversation.
This talk provides a chronological and thematic account of empirical studies and position papers on L2 writing scholarship from a complex dynamic systems theory perspective. Beginning with Larsen-Freeman (2006), this presentation traces how initial research in this domain focused primarily on the quality of linguistic output (e.g., measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency) in North American and European contexts and how to the present date studies have since expanded to cover a range of constructs and contexts that employ increasingly sophisticated and diverse research methods. The basis for this talk draws from over 40 journal articles and book chapters published in English since 2006. The dataset comprises a wide variety of L2 contexts across a range of second and foreign languages that represent both seminal works and studies by emerging scholars. The presentation will help those familiar with the literature to consolidate their knowledge of the field and will assist researchers eager to join the conversation to understand how this relatively new approach to L2 writing research has established itself in its present form.
