The Concurrent and Longitudinal Contributions of Linguistic and Cognitive Skills to L2 Writing Quality

Research on second language (L2) writing has primarily focused on linguistic skills, with limited attention to higher-order cognitive skills such as inference making. This study expands prior research by examining both concurrent and longitudinal effects of linguistic skills (vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and morphological awareness) and inference making on L2 English writing quality among 135 Chinese high school English learners. Students' linguistic skills, inference making, and writing were assessed in Grade 10 and Grade 11. Regression analyses showed that, in Grade 10, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and inference making significantly predicted writing quality, whereas in Grade 11, morphological awareness, grammatical knowledge, and inference making were significant predictors. Longitudinally, Grade 10 morphological awareness uniquely contributed to L2 writing quality in Grade 11 after controlling for the autoregressive effect of L2 writing quality in Grade 10. These findings highlight the key role of inference making in writing development and reveal that linguistic skills contribute to writing differently across grades. Pedagogically, the results underscore the importance of targeting grade-specific skills to support higher-quality English writing.