Measures Of Syntactic Complexity Research Articles

Enhancing Syntactic Complexity in L2 Chinese Writing: Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on the Chinese Topic Chain.

Syntactic complexity, as one aspect of the Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) model, is integral to the writing ability of second language (L2) learners. Previous research found that T-unit-based measures of syntactic complexity in writing tasks of English as a second language (ESL) learners increased with more instruction, yet it remains unclear whether the same can be observed in Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners. To fill this gap, this study compared the development of syntactic complexity of a training group (N = 64) and a control group (N = 51), both composed of CSL students in a first-year Chinese course at a university in North America. While participants in the control group only participated in the regular course, the training group received an additional 10-week, explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) on the Chinese topic chain. Results on the posttest and delayed posttest show that the FFI on the topic chain had a positive and durable effect on the participants’ syntactic complexity; instructional intensity and feedback type may have influenced its effectiveness and durability. Characteristics of measures and task complexity may have affected the observation of syntactic complexity.

Validating a rubric for assessing integrated writing in an EAP context

Although researchers have argued for a mixed-method approach to rubric design and validation, such research is sparse in the area of L2 integrated writing. This article reports on the validation of an analytic rubric for assessing a classroom-based integrated writing test. Argumentative integrated essays (N = 48) written by EAP students at an English-medium Canadian university were rated by instructors (N = 10) with prior EAP teaching experience. Employing a mixed methods design, the quality of the rubric was established through many facet Rasch measurement and perceptions from the instructors elicited during semi-structured interviews. To further explore the rubric’s ability to differentiate among students, essays from three performance levels (low, average, high) were compared in terms of fluency, syntactic and lexical complexity, cohesion, and lexical diversity measures. Results have suggested the rubric can capture variation in student performance. Implications are discussed in terms of validation of assessment rubrics in localized assessment contexts.

Syntactic Complexity in Journal Research Article Abstracts Written in English

The reader’s ability to connect new information to existing knowledge is crucial when reading a text. Nonetheless, text complexity, in many ways, is more linguistic than cognitive. It encompasses the degree of sophistication, and how challenging a reading section is. Depending on the section, such difficulty may appear on the vocabulary level, in the organizational structure, or with coherence, and cohesion. In the globalized world of scientific communication, research articles published in non-Anglophone academic journals require English abstracts to access an international database and citation possibilities. This paper describes the syntactic complexity in journal research article abstracts. A corpus of abstracts written in English and published in Anglophone and non-Anglophone contexts were sampled. The English sub-corpora underwent software-based text analysis using fourteen syntactic complexity measures with the second language (L2) Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu, 2010). Significant differences appeared in only four of the fourteen syntactic indices between texts in Anglophone and non-Anglophone journals, and out of these fourteen measures, non-native groups reported thirteen lower mean values. The study affords insights for L2 writing research to produce accurate texts in content and structure. Ideally, findings will uncover pedagogical implications and applications for academic writing instructions.

The Effect of Comprehensive Written Corrective Feedback on EFL Learners’ Written Syntactic Complexity

Research background: The effectiveness of Corrective feedback has been a controversial issue and thus a central part of second language writing instruction worldwide.Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: It has been argued that the provision of written corrective feedback can affect the complexity of the written text negatively, and the issue is not sufficiently investigated. Therefore, this studyinvestigated the effects of two types of comprehensive written corrective feedback strategies: direct corrective feedback (DCF), and metalinguistic explanation (ME) on L2 learners’ written syntactic complexity.Methods: This study was quasi-experimental and used a pretest-intervention-posttest-delayed-posttest design. Participants were 90 Turkish EFL upper-intermediate learners, whose L2 proficiency and L2 writing skills were controlled by administering the Oxford Placement Test and the IELTS Writing Task 2 test. They were assigned to three groups: DCF, ME, and NF (i.e., no feedback on grammatical errors).The treatment/control period lasted for five weeks. Every week, each participant wrote an essay of argument-led type in class and then received the specified feedback. No work was done on writing for the two-week interval between the posttest and delayed posttest. Lu’s (2010) web-based L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyser was utilised to calculate the syntactic complexity measures. The MANOVA test was utilized to find the results.Findings and Value added: It was revealed the ME group was not significantly different from the NF group. The DCF group significantly outperformed the ME group in the clauses per sentence (C/S) of the texts both in posttests and delayed-posttests. The DCF group also significantly outperformed the NF group in the clauses per T-unit (C/T), complex T-units per T-unit (CP/T), and C/S in posttests, but the positive effect of the DCF on CP/T was not durable after the two-week interval.

Syntactic Complexity of Online Opinion Articles Published in South East Asian Countries

The research investigated the syntactic complexity of opinion articles published in online newspapers from English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries in South-East Asia (SEA). The aims of the research were, first, to analyze the types of Syntactic Complexity (SC) of opinion articles in online news media. The second was to seek the difference in syntactic complexity in online opinion articles between ESL and EFL countries. The third was to seek whether there was a significant difference in terms of types of syntactic measurements between ESL and EFL countries. To answer the questions, the research applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. Twelve opinion articles from online news media in SEA countries were derived from Malaysia and Singapore, which represented ESL countries, and Indonesia and Thailand, which represented EFL countries. The data were analyzed by using an L2 syntactic complexity analyzer. The Second Language Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) program displayed fourteen syntactic complexity measures divided into five types of measurements such as the length of production, sentence complexity, subordination, coordination, and particular structures. From comparing overall ESL and EFL countries and each of the opinion articles topics, the research results reveal that opinion articles of ESL countries show a higher score on the lengthof production, sentence complexity, subordination, and particular structures than EFL countries. Meanwhile, in coordination type, EFL countries display a higher number of a score than ESL ones. The research indicates there is no significant difference between ESL and EFL countries since the p-value of each type of syntactic complexity is higher than 0,05.

The dynamics of monthly growth rates in the emergence of complexity, accuracy, and fluency in L2 English writing at secondary school–a learner corpus analysis

The present paper examines the development of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in the emergent field of adolescent L2 writing from the perspective of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). The paper reports a panel study whose aim was to investigate the monthly growth rates (MGRs) of ten selected measures of syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, accuracy, and fluency as well as to examine the relationships between the growth rates of these measures in L2 English writing at secondary school. The study was based on The Written English Developmental Corpus of Polish Learners (WEDCPL) which consists of over 1900 texts. The corpus was built on the basis of 21 repeated measurements in the form of essays written by 100 learners over the period of 3 years at secondary school. The results of the study revealed insignificant peaks in the trajectories of the monthly growth rates of all measures, but some significant differences and relationships between the average monthly growth rates (AMGRs), pointing to competition between and support within language subsystems. The findings align with previous research in terms of the nonlinearity and interconnectedness of CAF measures in L2 writing development and provide some practical implications on language instruction and evaluation.

Noun‐Phrase Complexity Measures in Chinese and Their Relationship to L2 Chinese Writing Quality: A Comparison with Topic–Comment‐Unit‐Based Measures

AbstractThis study proposed a set of measures for assessing noun phrase (NP) complexity in second language (L2) Chinese writing and compared the predictive power of these measures for L2 Chinese writing quality to that of a set of syntactic complexity measures based on the topic–comment unit (TC‐unit). Our data consisted of 101 narratives written by beginning–intermediate, intermediate–advanced, and advanced Korean Chinese‐as‐a‐second‐language (CSL) learners and rated by 2 trained CSL teachers. Results showed that the NP complexity measures explained a substantially larger proportion of variance in holistic writing scores than the TC‐unit‐based measures. Our findings confirmed the validity of the NP complexity measures we proposed and the need to attend to phrasal complexity in assessing L2 Chinese writing quality.

The Impact of Telegram on Syntactic Complexity of the Saudi Female EFL Undergraduates’ Argumentative, Classification, and Reaction Essays

The aim of this exploratory experimental quantitative is to investigate the impact of the learning environment and text types on the syntactic complexity of female Saudi students majoring in English language. Specifically, the study seeks to explore how and when the syntactic complexity of these students increases/decreases as a whole and across the fourteen measures of syntactic complexity (MLS, MLT.MLC.C/S, VP/T, C/T, DC/C, DC/T, T/S, CT/T, CP/T, CP/C, CN/T, CN/C) in two learning contexts: traditional learning context (TLC) and blended learning context (BLT) across three writing tasks (argumentative, classification ,and reaction). It purports, also, to find out when and which learning context leads to the most/least increase/decrease in the syntactic complexity (as a whole and across specific measures) of Saudi undergraduate in the three writing tasks. To answer such questions, 48 female Saudi EFL undergraduate students were recruited from the pool of level six students. The participants were randomly divided into the control and experimental groups. The control group consisted of 28 students; while the experimental group was comprised of 20 students. The 288 students’ writing productions were analyzed according to the fourteen measures of syntactic complex by using a paired t-test and an independent t test. For the first question, the results of this study show that there was no increase/decrease in syntactic complexity, either as a whole or partially across individual measures, for the control group for the three writing tasks (argumentation, classification, and reaction). This would suggest that traditional learning method does not reach to level to be significant to the participants in the control group. For the second research question, the t-tests showed that the syntactic complexity of the participants in the experimental group increased as a whole in both the classification and reaction essays. An increase in complexity was shown across the following measures for the classification essay: MLS, MLT, MLC, CN/T/VP/T, and CN/C. For the reaction essay, an increase in complexity was shown across MLS, MLT, MLC, and CN/T measures. Although the syntactic complexity of these participants did not increase/decrease as a whole for the argumentation essay, the CN/T measure did show some increase. Finally, the comparison between the results of the two groups revealed that, although the experimental group in this study showed more improvement in syntactic complexity than the control group, the degree of difference between the two groups was too small to draw any definite conclusion about the relative effectiveness of the two methods. This may be due to the comparatively short duration of the study: ten weeks. The findings of this research have significant implications for academic research and for Saudi EFL teachers at the university level.

Dependency distance measures in assessing L2 writing proficiency

Syntactic complexity is one of the key research foci in writing assessment. This study combines traditional syntactic complexity (SC) measures with newly-proposed dependency distance measures to better assess second language (L2) SC development. Based on a syntactically-annotated corpus of 400 compositions, we aim to investigate the extent to which the traditional SC measures and dependency distance measures can differentiate the writing proficiency of beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. In terms of traditional SC measures, length-based measures fare better when pinpointing the different writing proficiency levels, but none of these can significantly differentiate all adjacent levels. As for dependency distance measures, the overall mean dependency distance can significantly discriminate all pairs of adjacent proficiency levels, serving as the best metric explored in our study. Moreover, dependency distance measures can further explain the findings of the traditional SC measures from the perspective of language processing.

Syntactic Complexity of Different Text Types: From the Perspective of Dependency Distance Both Linearly and Hierarchically

ABSTRACT Dependency distance (DD) is a well-established measure of syntactic complexity. Previous studies largely focused on the linear dimension, mostly by mean of dependency distance (MDD). In the present study, a new quantitative indicator –mean hierarchical dependency distance (MHDD), is proposed to discuss DD-related issues. Combining MHDD and MDD, the study investigates syntactic complexity of different texts, using strictly length-controlled sentences of 12 text types from the Freiburg-Brown corpus of American English. Correlations of MHDD and MDD have been identified, and possible reasons are discussed from the mathematical and theoretical perspectives.Mathematically, one is that the numerator of MHDD overlaps with the denominator of MDD, both being (n-1) where n is the number of words in the sentence. The other is that the denominator of MHDD (maximum hierarchical layer: MAXHL) and the numerator of MDD (sum of DD: SOD), are positively correlated. We believe that it is the positive correlation of SOD and MAXHL that ensures the change of MDD and MHDD in the same direction. It is also worth noting that both MAXHL and SOD seem to be minimized at their respective data spectrum, which foreshadows the dependency distance minimization (DDM) tendency on the hierarchical dimension.

Syntactic Complexity Measures as Indices of Language Proficiency in Writing: Focus on Heritage Learners of Russian

Abstract The concept of linguistic complexity, understood broadly as a range of basic and elaborate structures available and accessible to learners as evidenced in their production of speech and writing (Ortega, 2003), has featured prominently in second language development research since the inception of the field. The field of heritage language acquisition, however, has only recently begun to engage linguistic complexity as a comprehensive lens for studying heritage language development. The current study contributes to this fledgling area of research by investigating automatically extracted measures of syntactic complexity in the written language of heritage learners of Russian at various developmental levels. The analysis of 12 measures of syntactic complexity allows us to conclude that the majority of automatically extracted indices differentiate proficiency levels of heritage speakers in the study. The study results provide important insights into the nature of heritage language development and are readily applicable for assessment and pedagogical purposes.

Syntactic Complexity Measures as Indicators of Teaching L2 Academic English Writing

The purpose of this research is to examine the effectiveness of reforming academic English writing instruction via the perspective of the syntactic complexity of L2 learners' practice. The present study evaluates 14 measures of syntactic complexity as indicators of language growth in academic writing by 52 Chinese undergraduate students. The findings indicate that an intensive academic teaching design can be used to help students enhance their academic writing output ability. The findings of this study provide direct quantitative evidence for altering classroom instruction, textbook compilation, assessment practice, and curriculum development at the undergraduate level for academic English.

절대평가 시험으로서의 수능 영어시험 분석: 주요 난이도 예측 변인을 중심으로

Given a great variance of the number and percentage of test-takers with high band scores in the CSAT English tests for the 2015-2020 academic years, the present study compared these six tests in terms of facility index (FI), measures of lexical richness and syntactic complexity, distractor feasibility, information density in listening materials, familiarity of speakers’ pronunciation and accent, and levels of background knowledge required to understand reading passages, which are all said be major predictors of question item difficulty. One-way ANOVAs, independent sample Kruskal-Wallis H tests and chi-square tests showed that there was no significant difference concerning FI and any of the predictors not only between the six CSAT English tests but between their reading parts. There was also no significant difference between the listening tests except that the test for the 2017 academic year was significantly easier than for the 2016 and 2018 ones. These findings together mean that the introduction of criterion-referenced testing in the 2018 academic year has brought no substantial changes to CSAT English tests. Interestingly, however, there was a significant difference in FI between the six sets of the 13 most difficult questions drawn from each test, which was a reason for the great variance of high scorers between the six tests. The study concluded with some pedagogical discussions.

Challenging the connection between task perceptions and language use in L2 writing: Genre, cognitive task complexity, and linguistic complexity

This study explores two writing task variables (genre and idea support) that have been extensively employed in L2 writing research. It specifically examines L2 learners’ perceptions and production of the narrative and argumentative tasks within which the condition of idea support is manipulated. Seventy-six ESL learners participated in this study (each wrote four essays), and they completed a self-rating task questionnaire immediately after each writing performance. Their essays were analyzed using 12 syntactic and lexical complexity measures. Results showed that the learners perceived the two genres as inducing similar cognitive demands, while judging the writing tasks with idea support as less cognitively demanding. In contrast, the learners’ use of syntactic structures differed widely across the two genres, but not across the idea support conditions. These findings suggest that there may be a weak connection between cognitive task complexity and linguistic complexity in written discourse and that syntactic features in learner essays are linguistic means to express genre-specific communicative functions. This study offers implications for L2 writing research and pedagogy.

A syntactic complexity analysis of translational English across genres

Abstract This study compares the syntactic complexity between translational and non-translational English across four genres (i.e. fiction, news, general prose, and academic prose) and examines the connections between various forms and degrees of syntactic complexity measures and explicitation. Fourteen syntactic complexity indices were examined based on a one-million-word translational English corpus (COTE) and a one-million-word non-translational English corpus (i.e. FLOB), respectively. This study shows that syntactic explicitation in translations varies with the formality of discourse. The most significant complexity difference between translational vis-à-vis non-translational English is found in fiction, which is regarded as the major contributor to translational English syntactic complexity. No significant difference in syntactic complexity was observed between the two types of academic English texts. Translational English news and general prose stand between fiction and academic texts. Translational fiction and news are characterised by more phrasal complexity features such as coordinate and complex nominal phrases, and a key indicator of translational English general prose complexity is subordination. The findings of this study will help students of translation to make informed decisions on the arrangement of sentence structures when given texts of different genres.

Applying phraseological complexity measures to L2 French

Abstract This study partially replicates Paquot’s (2018, 2019) study of phraseological complexity in L2 English by investigating how phraseological complexity compares across proficiency levels as well as how phraseological complexity measures relate to lexical, syntactic and morphological complexity measures in a corpus of L2 French argumentative essays. Phraseological complexity is operationalized as the diversity (root type-token ratio; RTTR) and sophistication (pointwise mutual information; PMI) of three types of grammatical dependencies: adjectival modifiers, adverbial modifiers and direct objects. Results reveal a significant increase in the mean PMI of direct objects and the RTTR of adjectival modifiers across proficiency levels. In addition to phraseological sophistication, important predictors of proficiency include measures of lexical diversity, lexical sophistication, syntactic (phrasal) complexity and morphological complexity. The results provide cross-linguistic validation for the results of Paquot (2018, 2019) and further highlight the importance of including phraseological measures in the current repertoire of L2 complexity measures.

Fsca

Abstract This article reports on an open-source R package for the extraction of syntactic units from dependency-parsed French texts. To evaluate the reliability of the package, syntactic units were extracted from a corpus of L2 French and were compared to units extracted manually from the same corpus. The f-score of the extracted units ranged from 0.53–0.97. Although units were not always identical between the two methods, manual and automatically-derived syntactic complexity measures were strongly and significantly correlated (ρ = 0.62–0.97, p < 0.001), suggesting that this package may be a suitable replacement for manual annotation in some cases where manual annotation is not possible but that care should be used in interpreting the measures based on these units.

Linguistic complexity in teachers' assessment of German essays in high stakes testing

In national educational standards, linguistic complexity is one of the core aspects characterizing the demands of reading material and student writing quality. In Germany, teachers are supposed to consider linguistic complexity in their assessment of language arts Abitur examinations, the high stakes test qualifying for higher education admission in Germany. In the present study, we investigated if and how teachers consider linguistic complexity in their assessment of writing quality. To systematically identify a range of linguistic complexity aspects, we conducted computational linguistic analyses of student essays (N = 344) written during Abitur examinations in the subject German. Experienced teachers (N = 33) then regraded a subsample of the essays (n = 16) and rated their linguistic complexity. We used mixed-effects models to study the relationships between computational measures of linguistic complexity, teachers’ assessment of writing quality (language, content, and overall grade), and their linguistic complexity rating. Results confirm that teachers’ complexity rating and their assessment of the language aspect of writing quality is related to the computed linguistic complexity features, primarily measures of syntactic complexity and language use (word frequency measures). But findings also show that teachers have difficulties in separating linguistic complexity from aspects of content and language accuracy.

Syntactic Complexity Measures and Academic Writing Proficiency : A Corpus-based Study of Professional and Students’ Prose

Syntactic Complexity Measures and Academic Writing Proficiency : A Corpus-based Study of Professional and Students’ Prose

Non-canonical word order as a measure of syntactic complexity in advanced L2 German

AbstractA major issue in SLA research concerns the operationalization of syntactic complexity, in particular the need for fine-grained measures that go beyond the traditional focus on syntactic elaboration. Following recent findings that have demonstrated the potential of syntactic diversity for providing a more detailed picture of how complexity develops across languages and proficiency levels, the present study argues for the use of two types of non-canonical structures, passives and argument inversions, as indices of syntactic complexification in advanced L2 German writing. Based on 75 argumentative texts written by experienced L2 learners of German (B2 to C2 CEFR levels), we addressed the question to what extent learners’ use of non-canonical word order is a hallmark of advanced proficiency compared to measures of syntactic elaboration. The results revealed a considerable increase in the frequency of argument inversions from B2 to C1 and highlighted the interrelationship between diversity and elaboration in learner compositions.