As a complex dimension, also fluency is expected to develop chaotically, unpredictably and dynamically. Due to the fact that differences between learners either remain at the same level (in the case of lexical complexity) or increase (in the case of syntactic complexity and accuracy), we cannot begin our deliberations on fluency with the assumption that between- learner variation will develop the same pattern because no such homogenous pattern has been observed for other proficiency dimensions. Nor can we begin any discussion on fluency with the commonly imagined developmental pattern for complexity or accuracy because also that pattern does not exist. So we have to analyse fluency independently of other skills and then try to find the interconnections between them. Three aspects of fluency will be investigated in this chapter, i.e. within- -word automaticity, rapidity in text production and smoothness, which together should give us a differentiated picture of fluency and its development in second language writers.

Development of automaticity

In view of the above-mentioned complexity of fluency it seems reasonable to investigate particular aspects of this dimension both separately and in connection with one another. As was proposed above, automaticity in text production has been analyzed in the present study using transition time. The data presented earlier in Figures 6.37a and 6.37b (see p. 151) clearly show that an increase in this aspect of fluency is a homogenous feature of the language development of all learners. This development is for the most part not dynamic, with mean growth rates between experiments equal to R ≤ −10% and the mean growth rate after three years of learning amounting to R = −22%. However, the changes are more variable at the individual level. As Figures 7.1a and 7.2b show, in some learners the decrease in the time needed to move between keys is especially dynamic in the first period of learning Swedish, when their growth rates were at least 70% higher than the average. Such substantial progress in automaticity was observed in both slow (S4, S5, S9, S11) and fast (S8) writers. The dynamics of development is very strongly correlated with the level of automaticity at the beginning of the study.