The Comparison of the Method Section of Applied Linguistics Articles Written by Native and Iranian Writers in Terms of Grammatical Complexity and Clause Types

Abstract

Academic texts are characterized by the use of longer minimal terminal units (t-units) containing complex grammatical structures and various clause types. The purpose of this study was to compare grammatical complexity and clause types used in the methodology section of the applied linguistics articles written by English and Iranian writers. To this purpose, the researchers selected twenty articles. Grammatical complexity was calculated as the ratio of the number of dependent clauses per t-unit to the number of independent clauses used. The t-test analysis revealed no significant difference as far as grammatical complexity was concerned. However native writers used more adjective clauses and the difference reached significance level. The findings might have important pedagogical implications.