A Study on the Influence of Task Complexity on Interactive Discourse Behavior and Engagement in L2 Peer Collaborative Writing

This study takes 36 Chinese foreign language learners as the research subjects, and examines the influence of task complexity on their interactive discourse behavior (brief feedback, collaborative contribution, cooperative co-construction) and engagement (cognitive engagement, affective engagement, social engagement) in L2 peer collaborative writing. The findings indicate that: (i)Task complexity significantly affects brief feedback and collaborative contribution, but not cooperative co-construction. Specifically, the simple task obviously generates more brief feedback and collaborative contribution; (ii) Task complexity significantly affects learners’ cognitive and affective engagement, but not social engagement. Specifically, learners obviously demonstrated higher cognitive and affective engagement in the simple task. This study demonstrated the impact of task complexity on L2 peer interaction performance in the process of cooperative writing from both macro and micro levels, with the aim of providing insights for the practice and research of foreign language interactive teaching.