Second Language Writing Research: Perspectives on the Process of | Knowledge Construction.

Second Language Writing Research: Perspectives on the Process of Knowledge Construction.. Instead, they set out to fill in some gaps—gaps between how-to research manuals and published st

Second Language Writing Research: Perspectives on the Process of Knowledge Construction.

P K Matsuda and T Silva (Eds.) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum,

2005 Pp xv + 254

䡲 This book contains essays by 18 second language (L2) writing research-ers Earlier versions of these essays were presented at the 2002 Sympo-sium on Second Language Writing As a member of the book’s target audience, a novice researcher entering “the messy world of situated re-search practices” (p xiii), I was interested in the type of contribution this book would make to my own knowledge base and how it might be useful

to my peers in both linguistics and composition studies

The volume was not what I expected I had thought that it would be

an introduction to conducting research in L2 writing and assumed it would review the most significant literature; however, these were not the editors’ goals Instead, they set out to fill in some gaps—gaps between how-to research manuals and published studies; gaps between the ab-stract, clear-cut descriptions of research in theory and the messy com-plexity of real research; and gaps between the research methodologies of

second language studies and those of composition studies The book is less a collection of studies on L2 writing than a collection of researchers’ reflections on the act of researching—a pulling back of the veil on how research actually gets done Contributors address a range of research issues including philosophy, methodology, representation, ethics, and publication Though the text as a whole is quite successful, some authors are better than others at making their work accessible to a novice audi-ence and teasing out the broader implications of their specific studies The book is divided into four sections: “Research as Situated Knowl-edge Construction,” “Conceptualizing L2 Writing Research,” “Collecting and Analyzing Data,” and “Coda,” though, as the editors accurately note, the essays do not necessarily fit neatly into clear-cut categories The first section begins with a philosophical essay by Tony Silva that describes and then challenges the traditional positivist and relativist inquiry paradigms

of much L2 writing research Silva then convincingly articulates an

al-ternative: humble pragmatic rationalism The contributors following Silva

provide insight into a variety of research projects and methods Christine Pearson Casanave examines the uses of narrative in L2 writing research, arguing that researchers, regardless of methodological choice, should be honest about their roles as storytellers and consider the power of narra-tive to break down stereotypes of the L2 writer Next, Paul Kei Matsuda argues for the value of historical, or metadisciplinary, inquiry and de-scribes one of his own historical research projects

The volume then moves from addressing major theoretical questions behind research to the next section, “Conceptualizing L2 Writing Re-search.” Dwight Atkinson begins by discussing qualitative research from

a more situated perspective and argues for researchers to adopt a more reflexive, critical approach to their research choices John Flowerdew then describes possibilities and challenges of adopting a multimethod-ological approach to complex research questions, and Miyuki Sasaki

articulates the value of exploratory or hypothesis-generating studies which can then lead to confirmatory studies or those designed to test hypotheses.

Robert Weissberg considers the added complexities inherent in cross-modality research, and Richard Haswell looks at prototype theory At the end of the section, Xiaoming Li examines what postmodern theory, specifically the move away from essentializing, ought to mean for con-trastive rhetoric

In the book’s third section, “Collecting and Analyzing Data,” it con-tinues its arc from the more theoretical to the more practical aspects of conducting research Susan Parks opens this section by discussing quali-tative research as a heuristic, offering what she considers a rare example from an applied linguistics context Linda Lonon Blanton’s piece, aptly titled “Mucking Around in the Lives of Others: Reflections on Qualita-tive Research,” follows by offering a forthright discussion of the ethical

issues raised by choosing a qualitative research methodology Colleen Brice then examines some of the challenges of coding qualitative data, and Ken Hyland describes textual analysis Rosa Manchón, Liz Murphy, and Julio Roca de Larios describe one use of concurrent protocols, and Sarah Hudelson revisits and critiques an earlier study to consider how theoretical frameworks shape research interpretations Dana Ferris’s

“Coda” provides a practical bookend to Silva’s opening philosophical essay by candidly narrating her own journey as a researcher She also provides novices with realistic advice about choosing projects, working with collaborators, and seeing a project through to publication

As researchers reflect on their various projects, the reader learns about the choices they made in design and interpretation and how those choices were later complicated when the abstract research design col-lided with real people As the researchers discuss how they responded to these complications, the process of conducting research becomes some-how scarier and safer at the same time No one can foresee all of the issues that a particular research project will raise, but people do live to tell the tale, get results published, and even undertake new projects The candid portraits the contributors provide, the scope of the issues they cover, and the range of research methodologies they include all make this book extremely valuable, not just for people entering L2 writing research, but also for those in second language studies and composition studies

TALINN PHILLIPS

Ohio University

Athens, Ohio, United States