Anna Lovas Gyula Tank BBN-ANG-108/a 05. 16. 2012, 05. 14.

2012

An evolution: The changing perceptions about the importance of L2 proficiency in summary writing and its connection to plagiarism

One of the more interesting debates of the last two decades about the internal constraints that affect performance in summarizing tasks is academic second language proficiency and its connection to plagiarism. During the previous years the importance of L2 proficiency in summary writing has been examined by numerous experts with various results. The aim of this essay is to cover the evolution of this disputation and to outline the way the admittedly broad term of second language proficiency narrowed down to two elements of the concept which were proven relevant in summarizing. In their article about summary writing Kirkland and Saunders (1991) highlighted a connection between the ability to successfully summarize in a second language and the capacity to command that language, at least, at a high-intermediate level: The L2 skills needed in summarizing include adequate reading skills and comprehension level plus adequate control of grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills to manipulate and express the information. In our experience, limitations in any of these result in semantic distortions, inability to paraphrase, and other problems. (p. 5) As a result, students with weaker L2 proficiencies demonstrate a greater tendency to process text bottom-up; thus, inadequate language proficiency may prevent students from getting the big picture inwriting the summary, and potentially resulting in plagiarism (Kirkland & Saunders, 1991, p. 8). Kirkland and Saunders et al. (1991) supported these claims with Clakes (as cited in Kirkland & Saunders,1991) and Carrells (as cited in Kirkland & Saunders,1991) findings about the usability of L1 reading skills in a second language and urged further studies covering the topic.

Later, both Keck and Asencir (2006) published articles about this subject. Keck (2006) pointed out that there were significant differences between L1 and L2 students paraphrasing strategies. While L2 students were more likely to use Exact and Near Copies, L1 undergraduates used more Moderate and Substantial Revisions. This was in correlation with the fact that L2 students used more unique links (words used only in a given part of a text). The reason for this suggested by Keck et al. (2006) was that L2 students did not have an adequate level of language proficiency to successfully paraphrase the unfamiliar words. However, very few texts contained Exact Copies. These findings showed that L2 students, in most cases, did not plagiarize intentionally; rather, they were not aware of violating the rules. Asencir (2006) also assumed that there was a possible connection between academic language achievement and summary quality. As a matter of fact, this was the only statistically significant variable in his study which only further strengthened the credibility of that claim. Finally, Baba (2009) found that while vocabulary size contributed to summarizing skills, lexical diversity did not. She indicated that, while size and depth of vocabulary gave the basis for writing and reading, they were only partly responsible for summarizing. However, the ability to define words was proved to be an important factor in summarizing, even after the effects of reading comprehension and writing fluency were controlled for (p. 12). Hence, not being able to properly define a word or a phrase means that the person does not have a substantial knowledge about the given concept which, in turn, might render ones ability to paraphrase it (Baba, 2009, p. 12). As it was pointed out previously, these instances inadvertently lead to committing plagiarism, because in such situations undergraduates tend to keep the unknown ideas in their original form or only make minimal revisions on them. Through these four articles it seems that the exact role of L2 proficiency in summary writing finally crystallized out. These findings show that second language proficiency, as a

whole, does not affect summarizing skills; however, constituents of it do. According to the latest results, it is now proved that vocabulary size and the ability to define words significantly contribute to L2 students performance in summarizing tasks and have an important role in committing plagiarism without the students intention to do so. (657)

References

Kirkland, M. A., & Saunders M. A. P. (1991). Maximizing student performance in summary writing: Managing cognitive load. TESOL Quarterly, 25(1), 105121. Keck, C. (2006). The use of paraphrase in summary writing: A comparison of L1 and L2 writers, Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 261278. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2006.09.006 Asencir, Y. (2006). Summarizing by Spanish beginner learners. Hispania, 89(4), 937949. Baba, K. (2009). Aspects of lexical proficiency in writing summaries in a foreign language. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18, 191208. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2009.05.003