Abstract
As an important construct in the field of second language teaching and assessment, syntactic complexity is closely related to the language proficiency and language development process of L2 learners. Using the visualization software of CiteSpace, this study conducts an in-depth scientometric analysis of 140 articles on written syntactic complexity published over the past 10 years (2010-2022), thus uncovering the current development and challenges faced by relevant studies. Specifically, a frequency analysis was firstly administrated to describe the overall development in written syntactic complexity research. Furthermore, the current study conducted a Document Co-Citation Analysis (DCA), which enables researchers to conduct a network of co-cited references to identify the underlying research hotpots and future trends. The results indicate that the study concerning automatic essay scoring is the most prominent cluster active from 2010 to 2021. In addition, Norris & Ortega (2009) is the most cited paper, followed by Ortega (2003) and Biber et al. (2011). Meanwhile, the bursts of detected papers demonstrate that McNamara et al. (2012) and Grant & Ginther (2000) generated the strongest citation burst with a burst strength of 3.14 and 3.09, respectively. The findings of the study would have implications for subsequent research on written syntactic complexity in the field of language teaching and language learning.
Highlights
IntroductionKnown as syntactic maturity, was defined by Ortega (2003) as the diversity and sophistication of syntactic structures in language production
Over the last few decades, the importance of syntactic complexity in the second language (L2) writing has been recognized, as evidenced in those studies that investigated the relationship between syntactic complexity and the quality of L2 writing text (Barrot & Gabinete, 2021; Jagaiah et al, 2020; Lu & Ai, 2015; Mohamadi Zenouzagh, 2020; Qin & Uccelli, 2020).Syntactic complexity, known as syntactic maturity, was defined by Ortega (2003) as the diversity and sophistication of syntactic structures in language production
IJLLT 5(1): 18-27 3.2 Document co-citation analysis As a widely-used visualization tool in scientometric analysis, Document Co-Citation Analysis (DCA) enables researchers to conduct a network of co-cited references to identify the underlying research hotpots (Chen, Ibekwe-SanJuan, & Hou, 2010; Lim & Aryadoust, 2021). 3.2.1 The knowledge mapping for keywords The paper's keywords may highly reflect the scheme and thought of the paper, and it is feasible to determine the research hotspots in the field of discipline according to the frequency of the keywords (Ma et al.,2020)
Summary
Known as syntactic maturity, was defined by Ortega (2003) as the diversity and sophistication of syntactic structures in language production. Syntax complexity, a crucial dimension in language complexity, mainly involves the richness and elaborateness of syntactic structures. Syntactic richness refers to the diversity and change of syntax forms in different levels of phrase, clause, and sentence, while syntactic elaborateness refers to the sophistication of various syntactic forms in these three levels. To a certain extent, written syntactic complexity reflects L2 learners' ability to store and produce syntactic knowledge in the brain. It is regarded as a gauge of L2 learners’ language proficiency and the quality of L2 writing
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