Quantitative linguistics approach to interlanguage development: a study based on the Guangwai-Lancaster Chinese Learner Corpus

Abstract

Interlanguage is crucial for the understanding of human language acquisition and development. Based on a collection of L2 Chinese texts from three levels of international students studying in China, this study demonstrates the possibility of adopting quantitative and corpus-based methods to investigate the development of interlanguage. To do so, we used Zipf’s law and related metrics to measure linguistic complexity in terms of different language styles and task types. Results show that (1) quantitative linguistic indices, including H-point and curve length, can differentiate the proficiency levels of L2 Chinese; (2) task type interacts with language style and language level with regard to their effects on language complexity; (3) interlanguage is indeed a self-organizing and self-adapting system; and (4) the Zipfian parameters can differentiate language levels. This study offers a new approach to the study of interlanguage by modeling its dynamic organization system in real language use. It has pedagogical implications for the use of language tasks and language styles with different L2 learner proficiency levels.