Measures Of Syntactic Complexity Research Articles

Understanding the SSARC Model of Task Sequencing: Assessing L2 Writing Development

This study aimed to explore the impact of task sequencing on the development of second language (L2) writing and investigate how L2 learners performed on three decision-making writing tasks completed in different orders over nine weeks. 120 advanced-high EFL students were randomly assigned to one of three groups and given different task sequences: 1) a simple-medium-complex (SMC) sequence, 2) a complex-medium-simple sequence (CMS), or 3) a random sequence (RDM). Essays were analyzed using measures of syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency (CALF). Results showed that the CALF of L2 writing demonstrated longitudinal development over time in all three task sequencing groups. CALF development was not immediately apparent in the first six weeks, with most measures displaying a significant increase by the end of the ninth week. Furthermore, different task sequences resulted in varying patterns and magnitudes of CALF growth, but no specific sequence was found to be superior overall.

Writing a successful applied linguistics conference abstract: The relationship between stylistic and linguistic features and raters’ evaluations

The conference abstract (CA) is a promotional genre that is vital to academic success. However, composing a high-quality abstract can be challenging for both first (L1) and second language (L2) writers. Some researchers have performed contrastive analyses of accepted/rejected CAs, yet few studies have analyzed the extent to which different stylistic and linguistic features can predict reviewers’ scores. The current study furthers this line of inquiry, while also responding to scholars’ recent calls for more replication work in the fields of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. Using a corpus of 304 abstracts from an applied linguistics conference, the current study is an approximate replication that analyzes the extent to which 32 variables are predictive of CA raters’ evaluations. Data analyses consisted of multiple stages, including examining the relationships between CA scores and nine stylistic variables (e.g., rhetorical moves, study completeness) and 23 linguistic variables (e.g., grammatical errors, and lexical and syntactic complexity measures). Statistically significant variables were then entered into a regression model. Results suggest that seven variables accounted for approximately 25 percent of CA scores. The pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed for L1/L2 writers, along with future research directions.

The The correlations between the average semester growth rates of syntactic and lexical complexity in L2 writing development at secondary school

The article is devoted to the development of language complexity in a relatively under-researched area of adolescent writing from the point of view of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). It describes the second part of a panel study which aimed to examine the relationships among the average semester growth rates (ASGRs) of specific measures of syntactic and lexical complexity within and between these two subsystems in writing in English as a foreign language at the secondary school level. The study involved the analysis of The Written English Developmental Corpus of Polish Learners (WEDCPL). The corpus, which comprises over 1900 essays, was created on the basis of 21 repeated measurements conducted in a group of 100 secondary school learners during a period of three years. With respect to the specific measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, the study indicated that nominalization developed faster than subordination and coordination, and that lexical variation developed faster than lexical density and sophistication per semester. Moreover, the relationships between the ASGRs of both syntactic and lexical measures were more supportive within than between the subsystems. The main pedagogical implication for English language teachers refers to fostering more coordinated development of language complexity at secondary school in the EFL context.

The relationship between self-assessment of language proficiency and measures of lexical diversity and syntactic complexity: evidence from bilingual speakers of Italian in Croatia

The relationship between self-assessment of language proficiency and measures of lexical diversity and syntactic complexity: evidence from bilingual speakers of Italian in Croatia

Patterns of lexical and syntactic adjustment in early infant-directed speech related to language development in Hungarian

ABSTRACT Infant-directed speech (IDS) is known to be characterised by phonetic and prosodic cues along with reduced vocabulary and syntax compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). However, there is considerable variation between mothers in the degree of lexical and syntactic reduction of their IDS. The present study aims to investigate the correspondences of the inter-individual variation of maternal IDS at 6 and 18 months with infants’ language development at 18 months. 109 dyads of mothers and their firstborn infants participated in the study. Mothers’ ID and AD storytelling based on standard picture stimuli were recorded at 6 and 18 months of their infants’ age. We analysed measures of speech quantity (number of utterances and words), syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance), and lexical diversity (type-token ratio). Language growth was measured bimonthly using the Hungarian adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI W&G form. The results did not reveal any association between characteristics of mothers’ ID narratives and their infants’ concurrent language skills at 18 months. However, we found a longitudinal link between a distinct pattern of linguistic simplification in maternal ID storytelling at 6 months and the development of expressive vocabulary in infants at 18 months. Infants whose mother tends to reduce both lexical and syntactic complexity of ID narratives the most are more likely to exhibit higher language outcomes. Further research is warranted to explore the background factors and longer-term effects of this maternal strategy.

The dynamics of syntactic and lexical complexity measures in academic writing

This study explores the L2 production of university students enrolled in an English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) course, by means of the analysis of the complexity of their academic writing performance. It focuses on syntactic and lexical complexity and their relationship with L2 writing quality and L2 proficiency. The participants were 182 L2 college-level students at difference levels of proficiency in English. The essays were evaluated by means of both global ratings of writing quality and quantitative measures of syntactic and lexical analysis. Results showed that the length of sentences and noun phrases, as well as subordination are all related to writing quality. In addition, the length of noun phrases along with lexical richness and diversity can differentiate proficiency levels. This study shows a greater use of complex phrasal constructions in the writing of more competent third-level students. Finally, our study that at advanced competence levels syntactic and lexical complexity are not synchronous, as syntactic complexity remains stable while lexical complexity continues increasing.

Syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing: Comparing students’ narrative and argumentative essays

This study investigated the distinctive structural characteristics between narrative and argumentative texts and examined the relationships among syntactic measures within each genre. Conducted with 161 Chinese college freshmen, the study employed 14 syntactic complexity measures to analyze 322 essays comprising both narrative and argumentative types. The research questions focused on identifying syntactic measures that differentiate between the two genres and the correlational strength among these measures. Results indicated nuanced differences in syntactic complexity, with argumentative essays demonstrating slightly higher complexity in most measures, particularly in the length of production unit, amount of coordination, and degree of phrasal sophistication. Notably, no significant differences were found in overall sentence complexity or measures of subordination. These findings suggested that these aspects do not distinguish between genres for these second language (L2) writers. Correlations within syntactic measures were also analyzed and revealed strong relationships between certain measures within the same category for both essay types. However, there were some distinct patterns of correlation between the two genres. Implications for L2 writing assessment and future studies were discussed.

Beyond accuracy

The language of Heritage Speakers (HS), or of early bilinguals of a minority language, is often seen as incomplete or less developed than that of Monolingual Speakers (MS). This study investigates whether 7- to 9-year-old English/Polish HS can be distinguished from MS in terms of linguistic skills when complexity and fluency are focal rather than accuracy. Data from 78 participants shows no significant differences between HS and MS in fluency on an overall measure in either of the languages, although HS produce more fillers and repetitions. On complexity measures, the results for English were similar across groups for Mean Length of T-Unit, but there was a statistically significant difference in Polish, with HS achieving higher values. On a more specific measure of syntactic complexity (Subordination Index), HS achieved higher scores in both languages. There were no significant differences for Lexical Diversity. Corresponding measures were positively correlated across languages, suggesting that the L1 does not impede L2 achievement. Overall, we observed substantial overlap between the groups, with the vast majority of HS falling within the MS norms and the MS falling within the HS norms. This emphasises the need to move away from the deficit approach towards HS.

Automated Measures of Syntactic Complexity in Natural Speech Production: Older and Younger Adults as a Case Study.

Multiple methods have been suggested for quantifying syntactic complexity in speech. We compared eight automated syntactic complexity metrics to determine which best captured verified syntactic differences between old and young adults. We used natural speech samples produced in a picture description task by younger (n = 76, ages 18-22 years) and older (n = 36, ages 53-89 years) healthy participants, manually transcribed and segmented into sentences. We manually verified that older participants produced fewer complex structures. We developed a metric of syntactic complexity using automatically extracted syntactic structures as features in a multidimensional metric. We compared our metric to seven other metrics: Yngve score, Frazier score, Frazier-Roark score, developmental level, syntactic frequency, mean dependency distance, and sentence length. We examined the success of each metric in identifying the age group using logistic regression models. We repeated the analysis with automatic transcription and segmentation using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. Our multidimensional metric was successful in predicting age group (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.87), and it performed better than the other metrics. High AUCs were also achieved by the Yngve score (0.84) and sentence length (0.84). However, in a fully automated pipeline with ASR, the performance of these two metrics dropped (to 0.73 and 0.46, respectively), while the performance of the multidimensional metric remained relatively high (0.81). Syntactic complexity in spontaneous speech can be quantified by directly assessing syntactic structures and considering them in a multivariable manner. It can be derived automatically, saving considerable time and effort compared to manually analyzing large-scale corpora, while maintaining high face validity and robustness. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24964179.

Modelling the use of the tool for the automatic analysis of syntactic sophistication and complexity (TAASSC)

This methods tutorial introduces the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Syntactic Sophistication and Complexity (TAASSC), a linguistic analysis tool developed by Kyle (2016). In the first part, the tutorial offers an accessible introduction to the key concepts and considerations for using the syntactic complexity and sophistication measures provided by TAASSC. It also overviews the incorporation of new lexico-grammatical features in more recent versions of TAASSC and compares the new versions with earlier versions. The second part of the tutorial guides users through the tool's application by demonstrating a case study of applying TAASSC to a linguistic analysis. It details the process of utilising TAASSC to obtain initial index profiles and conducting mixed-effects modelling using R. The focus is on analysing one aspect of the phrasal complexity development in British school children's writing across academic years, employing mixed-effects models to account for complex data structures and observation interdependence. This tutorial equips researchers with the knowledge to effectively employ TAASSC in linguistic analysis and showcases its utility in exploring syntactic complexity development.

A machine learning-based investigation of syntactic complexity measures in second language acquisition of Chinese

Abstract L2 syntactic complexity research has shown that employing multidimensional measures to assess writing proficiency levels may yield more accurate results compared to one-dimensional measures. However, the optimal number and combination of measures have not been thoroughly explored. This study addresses these gaps by employing a novel machine learning-based approach to quantitatively investigate the effectiveness of multidimensional measures and determine the optimal combination of measures. Through the analysis of a dataset comprising 36 L2 Chinese learners, we found that multidimensional syntactic complexity measures outperformed one-dimensional measures in accurately differentiating learners. Specifically, a combination of three measures (Mean Length of Sentence, Mean Length of T-unit, and Mean Length of Clause) achieved the highest accuracy in classifying the learners. The implications of this research include the development of computer-assisted placement tests and proficiency evaluations, as well as providing practical guidance for language teachers in designing complexity-based instruction.

It’s complicated: The relationship between lexis, syntax and proficiency

This paper explores the relationship between lexical and syntactic complexity measures and proficiency in L2 English argumentative essays written by L1 Czech high school students. Syntactic complexity is generally understood as referring to the “range and sophistication” (Ortega 2015) of grammatical constructions, whereas lexical complexity can refer to the range and frequency of the words used. The research used 100 essays written by final year high school students. Lexical complexity was analysed using the Lexical Complexity Analyzer (Ai & Lu 2010, Lu 2012), syntactic complexity using the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010, 2014) and Biber et al.’s (2011) hypothesised developmental stages for complexity framework. Despite a large number of measurements failing to produce any significant patterns, positive correlations were found between lexical diversity measures and vocabulary scores. Similarly, Mean Length of Clause (MLC) and Complex nominals per clause (CN/C) showed weak positive associations with grammar scores, as did Stage 5 of the developmental stages. The findings provide an insight into the kinds of complexity features that can be given more focus during instruction and underscore the potential of these measures as determinants of proficiency.

Does Quartile Matter? Investigating syntactic complexity of international publication

With the challenge of international publication, this study compares the syntactic complexity of Indonesian scholars' publications. The analysis covers 21 journal articles from two groups, from the journals with quartile and without quartile. Using 14 syntactic complexity measures, the results show that the journal articles with quartile have higher mean scores of syntactic complexity measures than the non-quartiles. However, significant differences only occur in three groups of measurement: Length of Production Unit, Coordination, and Degree of Phrasal Sophistication. The findings may show the performance gap between groups as the syntactical constructions of the journal articles with quartile surpass the non-quartile.

Text length effects on the reliability of syntactic complexity indices

Automated tools are widely used to assess syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing studies; however, the effects of text length on syntactic complexity indices remain unclear. This can pose a challenge when studying underrepresented populations (e.g., young learners, adults with limited literacy skills), as their lower proficiency may result in less text production. To address this issue, we investigated the minimum text length threshold at which automated measures of syntactic complexity become the most reliable while considering L2 proficiency and prompt topic. Essays from the ICNALE corpus, a dataset of 5,200 essays with four proficiency levels, were used to create a dataset of texts of varying lengths (50, 100, 150, and 200 words). Mixed-effects regression models showed that seven out of 14 indices were not affected by text length regardless of learner proficiency and prompt topic. The other seven differed only between the 50- and 200-word texts within intermediate levels. We suggest a minimum of 100 words as a conservative threshold for the reliability of syntactic complexity indices. Finally, we emphasize the importance of transparent reporting practice regarding text length information.

Personal Narratives of School-Age Children: A Cross-Sectional Developmental Study

Introduction: Personal narratives are monological stories based on a personal experience that help children explain and understand their emotional states, as well as process positive and negative experiences. The aim of this study was to identify age- and emotion-related traits of lexical and grammatical abilities and coherence of personal stories produced by school-aged children between 7 and 13 years. Methods: A total of 60 typically developing children, speakers of Croatian, were stratified into three groups according to age. Using the Global TALES protocol, each child was asked to produce six personal stories prompted by different emotional states. The personal narratives were analysed using measures of lexical diversity (lemma-token ratio and number of different words), productivity (total number of words), and syntactic complexity (mean length of utterances and clausal density). Based on the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme, three coherence dimensions (context, chronology, and theme) were rated. Results: Age group was shown to explain 18% of the variance in the ability to produce personal narratives. Personal narratives elicited through positive prompts were overall more lexically diverse but were significantly less elaborated chronologically and thematically than negative and neutral narratives. Conclusion: This study showed that coherence of the produced stories was connected with the child’s lexicon and that both variables – lexicon and coherence – were influenced by emotional valence of the story. In contrast, grammatical aspects of the narrative were influenced only by age. Finally, it is possible to state that the Global TALES protocol is sensitive enough to capture specificities of creating personal stories, both developmental ones and those created under the influence of the emotional valence of the prompts.

Feasibility of Using the Global Tales Protocol to Elicit Personal Narratives in 10-year-Old Children in Ireland

Introduction: This small-scale study explored the feasibility of the Global TALES protocol in eliciting personal narratives in typically developing monolingual Irish children, using the online Zoom platform. We investigated children’s performance on measures of productivity (total number of utterances; total number of words) and syntactic complexity (MLU in words). We also documented the topics children talked about in response to the six emotion-based prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol. Methods: Nineteen typically developing children (6 male, 13 female), aged between 10.0 and 10.11 years produced personal narratives in response to the Global TALES protocol. Given COVID-19 pandemic-related public health restrictions, the language samples were elicited using Zoom. All stories were transcribed and analysed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Qualitative content analysis was used to code the topics of the children’s stories. Results: Sixteen participants responded to all prompts. One participant only responded to three of the six prompts. The prompt that was least successful in eliciting a response was the “problem” prompt; 15.7% (n = 3) of the children did not provide a response to this prompt. On average, children produced 40 utterances, although individual variability was high. On average, MLU was 8.7, ranging from 6 to 11. Children’s topics closely resembled those reported in the Global TALES feasibility study despite the fact, the current study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most frequent topics were related to family (events, illnesses, relationships, siblings) and finding or fixing something. Conclusion: The Global TALES protocol was successful in eliciting personal narratives from 10-year-old Irish English-speaking children. Future larger scale studies are now needed to investigate if the results generalise to the wider Irish population with a view to create local benchmarks of personal narrative performance.

Coh-Metrix 시스템을 활용한 고등학교 영어 모의고사 읽기 지문의 학년 간 연계성 분석

The main objective of this study was to analyze the continuity of reading passages in high school English mock College Scholastic Ability Test (CAST) exams using Coh-Metrix, a multi-level text analysis tool. To achieve this, the study constructed a corpus of reading passages from the 2022 high school English mock exams and subjected them to a broad range of Coh-Metrix measures. These measures included basic measures (the number of words, the number of sentences, average word length, average sentence length), word frequencies (word frequencies for content words), word features (imageability, concreteness, age of acquisition, familiarity), lexical diversity measures (type-token ratios for content words), personal pronouns (first person pronouns, second person pronouns, third person pronouns), connectives, readability indices (Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level), syntactic complexity (noun density scores, the number of words before main verbs), coreference cohesion measures, and semantic cohesion measures. The main results revealed that the continuity of high school English mock tests was well established for average word and sentence length measures, the average number of words, word frequencies, word familiarity, second person pronouns, standard readability indices, and syntactic complexity measures. These findings have implications for the development of reading passages in high school English mock exams.

Reconsidering the syntactic complexity measures on L2 spoken English: A multi-dimensional perspective

Based on a review of previous measures employed in English syntactic complexity investigation, this article, following Biber's Multi-dimensional approach, re-establishes a comprehensive new measure system which is composed of four dimensions i.e. Subordination, Length of Production, Coordination and Nominals using factor analysis upon a collection of indices in reference. Under the newly established framework, the research examines the effects of grade level and genre factors on second language English learners' syntactic complexity in oral English in terms of the four indices representing the four dimensions. ANOVA results show that all indices except C/T, the one representing the Subordination dimension, which shows stability across grade levels, are positively related with grade level and susceptible to genre. In the argumentative genre, students generally produce more complex sentences than in the narrative genre as regards all the four dimensions.

Syntactic complexity and diversity of spontaneous speech production in schizophrenia spectrum and major depressive disorders

Syntax, the grammatical structure of sentences, is a fundamental aspect of language. It remains debated whether reduced syntactic complexity is unique to schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) or whether it is also present in major depressive disorder (MDD). Furthermore, the association of syntax (including syntactic complexity and diversity) with language-related neuropsychology and psychopathological symptoms across disorders remains unclear. Thirty-four SSD patients and thirty-eight MDD patients diagnosed according to DSM-IV-TR as well as forty healthy controls (HC) were included and tasked with describing four pictures from the Thematic Apperception Test. We analyzed the produced speech regarding its syntax delineating measures for syntactic complexity (the total number of main clauses embedding subordinate clauses) and diversity (number of different types of complex sentences). We performed cluster analysis to identify clusters based on syntax and investigated associations of syntactic, to language-related neuropsychological (verbal fluency and verbal episodic memory), and psychopathological measures (positive and negative formal thought disorder) using network analyses. Syntax in SSD was significantly reduced in comparison to MDD and HC, whereas the comparison of HC and MDD revealed no significant differences. No associations were present between speech measures and current medication, duration and severity of illness, age or sex; the single association accounted for was education. A cluster analysis resulted in four clusters with different degrees of syntax across diagnoses. Subjects with less syntax exhibited pronounced positive and negative symptoms and displayed poorer performance in executive functioning, global functioning, and verbal episodic memory. All cluster-based networks indicated varying degrees of domain-specific and cross-domain connections. Measures of syntactic complexity were closely related while syntactic diversity appeared to be a separate node outside of the syntactic network. Cross-domain associations were more salient in more complex syntactic production.

A Study on Syntactic Complexity and Topic Difference Influence in Second Language Writing Based on Dependency Treebank

Using Stanford parser as a tool, taking 1840 articles on two topics by 920 English learners of four levels after random selection as the research corpus, this study attempts to explore the development trend of syntactic complexity of learners of different levels and what influence divergent topic can have on it. Results show that multi-level learners generally prefer adverbial clauses (advcl) and complement clauses (ccomp) to relative clauses (acl: recl); adjective modifiers (amod) are the best in distinguishing the level of English learners, which can be used as an important basis for judging the level of L2; in addition, different topics of the same task type have no significant effect on L2 learners’ syntactic complexity. It can be concluded that most syntactic complexity measures at the clause and phrase level show a non-linear development trend. Based upon the findings, implications are provided for English textbook development and English pedagogical practices.