Language Anxiety: Differentiating Writing and Speaking Components

1999/09/01 by Yuh‐show Cheng, Elaine K. Horwitz, Diane L. Schallert · 773 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Anxiety #Cognitive psychology #Communication apprehension #Comprehension approach #Developmental psychology #Discourse Analysis in Language Studies #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning #Foreign language #Foreign language anxiety #Language assessment #Language education #Linguistics #Mathematics education #Operationalization #Psychology #Second Language Acquisition and Learning #Second language #Second language writing #Second-language acquisition #Second-language attrition #Test anxiety

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/0023-8333.00095

published in Language Learning 49(3), 417-446 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1999/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This study investigated the links between second language classroom anxiety and second language writing anxiety as well as their associations with second language speaking and writing achievement. The results indicate that second language classroom anxiety, operationalized by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and second language writing anxiety, measured by a modified second language version of Daly and Miller's Writing Apprehension Test, are two related but independent constructs. The findings suggest that second language classroom anxiety is a more general type of anxietyabout learning a second language with a strong speaking anxiety element, whereas second language writing anxiety is a language‐skill‐specific anxiety. Nevertheless, low self‐confidence seems to be an important component of both anxiety constructs.

Citations

• Language Anxiety: Its Relationship to Other Anxieties and to Processing in Native and Second Languages*
• Methods and Results in the Study of Anxiety and Language Learning: A Review of the Literature*

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Related

• Factors Associated with Foreign Language Writing Anxiety
• Language anxiety and achievement
• Foreign and second language anxiety
• Anxiety and Speaking English as a Second Language
• Language Anxiety: Its Relationship to Other Anxieties and to Processing in Native and Second Languages*