Complejidad del sintagma nominal en escritura argumentativa en inglés como lengua extranjera en los niveles B1, B2 y C1 del MCER: medidas pormenorizadas extraídas de un corpus.

Noun phrase complexity and second language Chinese proficiency: An analysis of narratives by Korean learners of Chinese

Noun phrase (NP) complexity research has shown the effects of both discipline and writing competence on NP complexity in academic writing and has focused more on applied linguistics. Yet few studies examined NPs in the academic writing of computer science (CS), especially in the CS conference abstract writing, in depth. This study fills this gap by investigating the disciplinary preference of NPs through the corpus analysis of 267 published abstracts from a leading CS conference. The authors found that multiple pre-modifiers were the most frequently used device by CS researchers, and attributive adjectives, nouns, and prepositional phrases were fundamental in abstract composition in both CS and applied linguistics. The difference largely lies in the use of devices in later-acquired stages. CS researchers favor more multiple pre-modifiers while their peers in applied linguistics tend to prefer multiple prepositional phrases as post-modifiers. The findings shed light on classroom instruction and future research on NP complexity.

This study investigates first-year students at the University of Vavuniya and their ability to construct complex noun phrases in academic essay writing. Complex noun phrases, including pre- and post-modifiers, are essential for mature academic writing and effective communication of compact information. With simple random sampling using a mixed-method approach, the study finds that students primarily used simple noun phrases with minimal embedding, mainly relying on prepositional phrases as post-modifiers. Most noun phrases were endocentric, and students frequently made errors, such as misordering, plural-singular misuse, malformations, and inappropriate word choices, highlighting a critical need for enhanced grammatical instruction. The findings reveal that students struggle with forming complex noun phrases, typically using only one or two modifiers, indicating a basic level of proficiency. The study recommends targeted training in noun phrase construction, emphasising <quantifier + head> agreement pattern and specific writing strategies. Strengthening students’ ability to use complex noun phrases improves their writing clarity, conciseness, and overall academic proficiency. Mastering noun phrase construction allows writers to convey detailed information efficiently, enhancing their ability to write well-structured and high-quality academic essays.

Planning in sentence production: Evidence for the phrase as a default planning scope

Noun phrase (NP) complexity can be examined through the types of noun modifiers and phrasal features used in a specific NP. This study intends to address the gap focusing on the NP complexity of students with similar proficiency levels, taking into consideration the possible influence of the syntactic structure of their L1. The analytical model of this study made use of the Hypothesized Developmental Stages for Noun Phrase Modification (Biber et al., 2011). Data examined in this study were academic writings from the master students of University of Malaya (UM), who major in Linguistics or English Language studies. Of the five essays examined, 855 complex NPs were identified. The attributive adjective was found most frequently with 395 occurrences in total. Despite being competent users of the English language, NPs of higher complexity stages were not found abundantly across all the essays. Complex NPs of the lower stages like attributive adjective (47.1%), nouns as pre modifiers (12.2%), of phrases as post modifiers (19.7%), prepositions other than of (concrete/locative meanings) / (abstract meanings) (5.1% / 4.8%) remained as some of the most-frequently used NPs. This study implicates that although students are competent users of the English language, the L1 still has an influence on their essay writing.

Research on noun phrase use in EFL writing has mainly focused on linguistic complexity and accuracy, lexical richness, and phraseological competence. However, the relationship between noun lexical diversity of nouns and the syntactic complexity of the noun phrases in which these nouns appear remains underexplored. To address this gap, this paper examines the lexical diversity of head nouns in noun phrases within a sample of emails written by L1 Spanish EFL learners at B1 and C1 proficiency levels, taken from the FineDesc Learner Corpus. The analysis considers both the lexical diversity of nouns and the syntactic complexity of the noun phrases they head. The findings reveal: a) a narrower range of nouns at the B1 level compared to the C1 level; b) a low percentage of nouns from both levels, based on the English Vocabulary Profile; and c) differences in NP complexity between the two proficiency levels (B1 and C1), depending on whether the head nouns are concrete or abstract. The paper underscores the importance of combining different complexity measures ––namely, lexical diversity and NP complexity analyses–– to gain a more comprehensive understanding of learners’ use of noun phrases.

The Noun Phrase (NP) is the dominant construct in natural language text. While base NPs (BNP) and maximal length NPs (MNP) are relatively easy to identified and extracted, the internal structure of NPs is rather a challenge in natural language processing. Penn Treebank leaves the BNPs flat as implicit right branching. Vadas and Curran added BNP internal structure to the Penn Treebank. But the results of the BNP structure are very often incorrect when it is considered within a longer complex NP (CNP). Structural ambiguity prevails in most CNPs and multilingual comparison may help improve disambiguation. We introduce a new NP annotation scheme, which is applicable to multilingual parallel corpora and discriminate genuine flat branching and right branching. Flat branching is preferred instead of binary branching wherever appropriate so as to achieve inter-lingual consistency. As a pilot task to build a gold standard corpus for structural and semantic analysis of CNPs, 381 document titles are extracted from the UN resolutions as typical examples of CNPs. Document titles in Chinese, English and Russian are manually annotated in XML format with the hope to help acquire rules for parsers or machine translators targeted at CNPs. The problems encountered are reported.

This study investigates longitudinal changes in linguistic complexity and holistic scores in EFL timed argumentative writing among beginning-level learners using Complex Dynamic Systems Theory. It also explores relationships among linguistic complexity over time and with writing scores. Over nine months, 42 Japanese EFL learners completed six timed essays. Linguistic complexity was assessed through lexical, phraseological, and syntactic features. Findings indicate linear growth in writing scores, lexical sophistication, and noun phrase (NP) complexity, alongside stable phrasal complexity and non-linear subordination. Interrelated growth patterns included connections between lexical sophistication and phrasal complexity, and phraseological complexity and subordination. Competitive dynamics were observed between lexical diversity and NP complexity, and phraseological complexity and phrasal sophistication. Linear associations emerged between writing scores and lexical sophistication or syntactic complexity, while a non-linear relationship occurred with phraseological sophistication. This study illuminates the intricate dynamics of linguistic complexity and L2 writing scores among beginning-level learners in argumentative writing.

A corpus-based investigation on noun phrase complexity in L1 and L2 English writing

Noun phrase (NP) centered structures are distinctive syntactic devices in academic discourse. The commonly employed subordination-based complexity measures cannot adequately capture the development of syntactic complexity of noun phrases expected of advanced student academic writing (Biber, Gray, & Poonpon, 2011). Following the call for more research in this area (e.g. Lu, 2011, p. 57), the current study compared noun phrase complexity in two corpora: one is a corpus of MA dissertations written by Chinese EFL students and the other comprises published research articles in applied linguistics journals. The study examined overall noun phrase complexity using an automatic syntactic complexity analyzer and specifically identified features of one aspect of NP complexity: NP postmodification. The quantitative results were further contextualized in a textual analysis of excerpts from the two corpora for demonstrating the significance of NP complexity to the establishment of discourse coherence. Results of the analyses showed significant underdevelopment of NP postmodification complexity in student writing relative to published texts, meanwhile explicating the circumstances under which the difference is meaningful. Implications of the findings for the teaching of EFL academic writing were also discussed.

This study compares the complexity of the noun phrase (NP) in Ghanaian English in a real‐time perspective. Based on the Historical Corpus English in Ghana (1966–1975) and the Ghanaian component of the International Corpus of English (mainly 2000s), representing the early and late stages of structural nativisation in the dynamic model, NP complexity is measured using five criteria (NP pattern, complexity of the premodifier, length of the pre‐ and postmodifier and complexity of the postmodifier). The study uses conditional inference trees, taking into account three potential factors: corpus, text type and syntactic function. The results show that over time the complexity of the NP in Ghanaian English has increased, which is interpreted as Ghanaians becoming more proficient and therefore employing more sophisticated structures. Text type is an important predictor; syntactic function plays only a minor role. By adding a diachronic perspective, the study contributes to current models of the evolution of world Englishes.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the noun phrase complexity of advanced Chinese EFL learners’ integrated writing and the score assigned by expert raters. Their written performance was also compared with those of native English speakers (NS) at university level with particular reference to the use of noun phrases. One hundred and twenty integrated writing samples were collected from an English writing test administered in a southeastern province of China. Results showed that there was a moderately positive correlation between the use of complex nominals in test-takers’ writing and the corresponding score. More specifically, non-native speakers of English (NNS) and NS groups differed significantly in the majority of noun phrase complexity measures. The implications are discussed concerning noun phrase complexity as a more reliable measure of syntactic complexity for an integrated writing test.

Academic writing favors lexical and phrasal nominal premodifications and postmodifications over the clausal type. However, for novice writers, whether the constructed complex noun phrases (NPs) maintain conciseness and grammatical accuracy is questionable. The present study analyzed the types of NPs and the grammatical devices used to construct complex NPs in abstracts authored by twenty-five English-majoring English as a foreign language undergraduates. Additionally, the extent to which the NPs maintained conciseness and grammatical accuracy was also examined. Following the content analysis procedures, the study revealed the frequent use of complex NPs over simple NPs. Regarding complex NP constructions, extensive use of multiple and mixed grammatical devices in the same complex NPs was observed. While this reflects an attempt to construct condensed academic discourse, excessive layered modifications and the unnecessary use of such modifications led to verbosity, grammatical inaccuracy, semantic errors, and reduced clarity. The findings highlight the need for targeted academic writing instruction that balances complexity, clarity, and grammatical accuracy.

This research aimed to find out the most frequent types of inflectional suffixes, derivational suffixes, noun phrases and verb phrases produced by the Postgraduate Students in writing argumentative text. This research used Descriptive Quantitative Research. The data were obtained by using writing test. The samples of this research were 16 Postgraduate Students of English Education Master Program in Academic Year 2023 selected by using Total Sampling Technique. The results of data analysis from 16 samples found that 1) The inflectional suffixes of plurality {-s} were 46,06%, 3rd person singular {s/es} were 8.33%, past tense/passive {-ed} were 14.58%, participle {-ing} were 17.59 %, possessive {-s} were 3,93%, and comparative/ superlative degrees {er/est} were 3.47%. 2) The derivational suffixes forming noun were 52.4%, forming verb were 3.2%, forming adjective were 23.92%, and forming adverb were 19.28%. 3) The constructions of simple noun phrases were 18.86%, rather complex noun phrases were 23.58 %, and very complex noun phrases were 56.83%. 4) The constructions of simple verb phrases were 82.5% and rather complex verb phrases were 16.87%. Thus, it can be concluded that the most frequent types of inflectional suffixes used by the students were plurality {-s}, the type of derivational suffixes was noun formation, the type of noun phrases was very complex noun phrases, and the type of verb phrases was simple verb phrases.

Since the 1990s, grammatical complexity is a topic that has received considerable attention in various fields of applied linguistics, such as English for academic purposes, second language acquisition, language testing, and second language writing (Bulte & Housen, 2012). Many scholars in applied linguistics have recently argued that grammatical complexity has primarily been represented by clausal features (e.g., subordinate clauses), and it is important to study grammatical complexity as a multidimensional construct based on both clausal features and phrasal features (Biber, Gray & Poonpon, 2011; Norris & Ortega, 2009). Thus, this dissertation is a corpus-based investigation on how the use of noun phrases is influenced by two situational characteristics of a university context: academic level and first- and second-English language background.I built my corpus by extracting 200 essays from British Academic Written English Corpus, which represents academic writing of (1) undergraduate and graduate students and (2) L1 and L2 students. Noun phrase complexity was then operationalized to the 11 noun modifiers proposed in the hypothesized developmental index of writing complexity features in Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011). The 11 noun modifiers were extracted from the corpus and counted for statistical analysis via a set of Python programs. With a Chi-square test followed by a residual analysis, I found that both academic level and first- and second-English language background influenced noun phrase complexity but in distinct ways. The influence of academic level is primarily associated with three phrasal modifiers (i.e., attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns, and appositive NPs) and two clausal modifiers (i.e., relative clauses and noun complement clauses). The undergraduate corpus includes more of the two clausal modifiers, whereas the graduate corpus has more of the three phrasal modifiers. This suggests that, in these 200 essays, graduate students tend to build more compressed NPs than undergraduate students. However, the influence of first- and second-English language background derives from a much broader range of noun modifiers, including eight noun modifiers (e.g., attributive adjectives, relative clauses, infinitive clauses). More diverse NP patterns with different noun modifiers are in the L1 corpus than in the L2 corpus. Surprisingly, the L2 corpus has more phrasal noun modifiers (i.e., attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns), which has been argued to indicate advanced levels of academic writing. A qualitative analysis on selected essays reveals that some cases of attributive adjectives and premodifying nouns are repeatedly used by L2 students to help content development in their writing. Overall, this dissertation adds an additional piece of evidence on the importance of noun phrase complexity in writing research.