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Ethnographies of Academic Writing Research: Theory, methods, and interpretation
Edited by Ignacio Guillén-Galve and Ana Bocanegra-Valle
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 1] 2021
► pp. 83–104

Chapter 5
The contribution of ethnographically-oriented approaches to the study of L2 writing and text production processes

| University of Murcia

This chapter synthesizes trends in the study of writing and text production processes, and presents an analysis of the contribution that ethnographically-oriented research can make to professional discussions in this domain. It is suggested that the affordances of ethnographic approaches should be linked to the emergence of two “methodological rich points” (Hornberger, 2006) that came about as a consequence of disciplinary interests in the socially-situated as well as the time-distributed nature both of literacy practices and of the invisible text production processes behind such practices. I illustrate this potential contribution of ethnographic approaches with representative studies in which the research lens was extended to zoom into writing across languages, modes, time, and environments. The chapter closes with some global methodological considerations for future work into the invisible dimension of text production.

Keywords: ethnographically-oriented approaches, methodological rich points, text production processes, writing processes, writing strategies
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Ethnographically-oriented approaches to the study of writing processes and text production processes
  • Methodological rich point 1: From individual cognition to a socially-situated, “person-centredness” perspective in the study of writing processes
    • Writing processes and individual cognition
    • Methodological rich point 1: Socio-cognitive and socio-cultural inquiries into writing processes and strategies
  • Methodological rich point 2: The study of the time-distributed, collaborative nature of text production processes
    • Cognitive studies of the temporal distribution of writing processes
    • The study of the time-distributed nature of text production processes
  • Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 26 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rmal.1.05man
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