Applying phraseological complexity measures to L2 French

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Vandeweerd ◽  
Alex Housen ◽  
Magali Paquot
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Linguistic Validation ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Adverbial Modifiers ◽  
Grammatical Dependencies

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.

scholarly journals Morphological complexity and rated writing proficiency

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria de la Torre García ◽  
María Cecilia Ainciburu ◽  
Kris Buyse
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Morphological Diversity ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Writing Proficiency ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Morphological Complexity

Abstract Linguistic complexity measures are used to describe second language (L2) performance and assess levels of proficiency and development. Although morphology is considered crucial in L2 acquisition, morphological complexity has been relatively neglected, hindering comprehensive views of grammatical complexity in L2. This article presents an application of a recently proposed metric of morphological diversity, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI), in an L2 Spanish corpus of 113 essays classified into four proficiency levels by expert evaluators. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationships of MCI with subjectively rated proficiency and with other four quantitative measures of L2 complexity. Results indicate that morphological complexity, as measured by MCI, does not vary significantly across proficiency levels in this corpus. The MCI shows significant correlations with lexical but not with syntactic complexity measures. Findings are interpreted in the light of the characteristics of the corpus and the acquisition of the Spanish verbal system.

scholarly journals Comparing the Lexical Features of EAP Students’ Essays by Prompt and Rating

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Maxime Lavallée ◽  
Kim McDonough
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Content Word ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Word Use ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Writing Class ◽  
Word Familiarity ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Holistic Rubric

Previous research has shown that high frequency lexical items, such as AWL words and formulaic expressions, may differentiate between texts written by ex- pert and novice writers (Chen & Baker, 2010; Hancioğlu, 2009), and that lexical features related to breadth, depth, and accessibility differentiate among texts from L2 writers of different proficiency levels (Crossley & McNamara, 2009, 2012; Crossley, Weston, McLain Sullivan, & McNamara, 2011). The current study compared the essays written by EAP students in response to either a cause or an effect writing prompt. As part of their EAP writing class, the students (N = 94) had two weeks to read six source texts and take notes to prepare for an integrative-writing exam. Students’ essays were assessed by three raters using a holistic rubric, and five lexical features of their essays were analyzed: percentage of AWL word use, content word frequency, word familiarity, imagability, and lexical diversity. The results indicated that responses to the effect prompt were rated sig- nificantly lower than cause essays, contained more frequent and familiar words, and had a lower percentage of AWL words. However, there was no significant correlation between essay ratings and lexical features. Potential explanations for the findings and pedagogical implications are discussed. Des recherches antérieures ont révélé que les items lexicaux à haute fréquence, tels la liste des mots académiques et les formules rigides, peuvent varier selon que le texte soit écrit par un expert ou un débutant (Chen & Baker, 2010; Hancioğlu, 2009), et que les éléments lexicaux liés à l’envergure, la profondeur et l’accessi- bilité varient dans les textes écrits par des auteurs L2 de compétences différentes (Crossley & McNamara, 2009, 2012; Crossley, Weston, McLain Sullivan, & McNamara, 2011). La présente étude a comparé des rédactions écrites par des élèves d’anglais académique où la tâche d’écriture évoquait des causes ou des effets. Le cours d’anglais académique exigeait que les élèves (N=94) lisent, en deux semaines, six textes originaux et qu’ils prennent des notes pour se préparer à un examen écrit intégratif. Trois évaluateurs se sont appuyés sur une rubrique globale pour analyser cinq éléments lexicaux : pourcentage de l’utilisation des mots de la liste des mots académiques, fréquence des mots lexicaux, capacité à évoquer des images mentales et diversité lexicale. Les résultats démontrent que les évaluations des rédactions basées sur la tâche d’écriture évoquant des effets étaient nettement inférieures aux évaluations des rédactions basées sur la tâche d’écriture évoquant des causes. Ces premières comptaient également plus de mots familiers et répandus, et moins de mots figurant dans la liste des mots académiques. Les auteurs présentent des hypothèses pour expliquer ces résultats, ainsi que les impli- cations pédagogiques de leur recherche. 

scholarly journals Morphological complexity in written L2 texts

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaclav Brezina ◽  
Gabriele Pallotti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Morphological Complexity

Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers’ proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant.

scholarly journals Productive and Receptive Collocational Knowledge of Iranian EFL Learners at Different Proficiency Levels

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Fahimeh Talakoob ◽  
Mansour Koosha
Keyword(s):  
Test Scores ◽  
T Test ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Paired Samples ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Intermediate Learners ◽  
The Mean

In the present study, an attempt was made to probe into the probable difference between Iranian intermediate and advanced EFL learners' receptive and productive collocational knowledge. To this end, 60 EFL learners studying at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch, including 30 advanced and 30 intermediate learners, were chosen through the Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants at each level of proficiency received two tests of collocations, namely receptive collocation test and productive test of collocations. Paired-samples t test showed no statistically significant difference between productive and receptive knowledge of collocations of the advanced EFL learners. However, the mean comparison between the receptive and productive collocation test scores of intermediate EFL learners revealed a significant difference. Pedagogical implications emanating from the obtained results are elaborated in the study.

scholarly journals Productivity and Predictability for Measuring Morphological Complexity

Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ximena Gutierrez-Vasques ◽  
Victor Mijangos
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Quantitative Approach ◽  
Entropy Rate ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Morphological Processes

We propose a quantitative approach for quantifying morphological complexity of a language based on text. Several corpus-based methods have focused on measuring the different word forms that a language can produce. We take into account not only the productivity of morphological processes but also the predictability of those morphological processes. We use a language model that predicts the probability of sub-word sequences within a word; we calculate the entropy rate of this model and use it as a measure of predictability of the internal structure of words. Our results show that it is important to integrate these two dimensions when measuring morphological complexity, since languages can be complex under one measure but simpler under another one. We calculated the complexity measures in two different parallel corpora for a typologically diverse set of languages. Our approach is corpus-based and it does not require the use of linguistic annotated data.

Learning Complex Features: A Morphological Account of L2 Learnability

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Job Schepens ◽  
Frans van der Slik ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Morphological Similarity ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
First Languages ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Degree Of Similarity

Certain first languages (L1) seem to impede the acquisition of a specific L2 more than other L1s do. This study investigates to what extent different L1s have an impact on the proficiency levels attained in L2 Dutch (Dutch L2 learnability). Our hypothesis is that the varying effects across the L1s are explainable by morphological similarity patterns between the L1s and L2 Dutch. Correlational analyses on typologically defined morphological differences between 49 L1s and L2 Dutch show that L2 learnability co-varies systematically with similarities in morphological features. We investigate a set of 28 morphological features, looking both at individual features and the total set of features. We then divide the differences in features into a class of increasing and a class of decreasing morphological complexity. It turns out that observed Dutch L2 proficiency correlates more strongly with features based on increasing morphological complexity (r = -.67, p < .0001) than with features based on decreasing morphological complexity (r = -.45, p < .005). Degree of similarity matters (r = -.77, p < .0001), but increasing complexity seems to be the decisive property in establishing L2 learnability. Our findings may offer a better understanding of L2 learnability and of the different proficiency levels of L2 speakers. L2 learnability and L2 proficiency co-vary in terms of the morphological make-up of the mother tongue and the second language to be learned.

The impact of computer-aided concept mapping on EFL learners’ lexical diversity: A process writing experiment

ReCALL ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hassanzadeh ◽  
Elahe Saffari ◽  
Saeed Rezaei
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Concept Mapping ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Process Writing ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
D Values ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Nowadays, many second/foreign language (L2) academic writing instruction programs place a high premium on pre-writing strategies. The current study examined the effect of software-supported concept mapping on lexical diversity (LD) of English learners’ argumentative essays within a process writing framework. Additionally, the relationship between the learners’ LD and their overall writing quality was investigated. To this end, 53 university English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduates were assigned to a computer-aided concept mapping (CACM) and a traditional outlining condition over a span of seven weeks. The CACM group was instructed through the graphic organizer software Inspiration®, whereas the comparison group underwent outlining instruction for planning their writing tasks. Measure of textual lexical diversity (MTLD) was used to assess the so-called D values of the assignments. The results revealed that the CACM group outperformed the outlining group in terms of LD scores. Also, no relationship was found between LD and overall quality of the essays. The findings provide L2 researchers and teachers with insights into understanding the use of CACM strategy in process writing. Moreover, exploiting MTLD afforded our experiment the opportunity to counteract potential pitfalls associated with text size. Further implications for the L2 teacher are also discussed.

Assessing the impact of automatic dependency annotation on the measurement of phraseological complexity in L2 Dutch

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Automatic Annotation ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Dependency Relation ◽  
Moderating Factors ◽  
Dependency Relations ◽  
Learner Language ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The extraction of phraseological units operationalized in phraseological complexity measures (Paquot, 2019) relies on automatic dependency annotations, yet the suitability of annotation tools for learner language is often overlooked. In the present article, two Dutch dependency parsers, Alpino (van Noord, 2006) and Frog (van den Bosch et al., 2007), are evaluated for their performance in automatically annotating three types of dependency relations (verb + direct object, adjectival modifier, and adverbial modifier relations) across three proficiency levels of L2 Dutch. These observations then serve as the basis for an investigation into the impact of automatic dependency annotation on phraseological sophistication measures. Results indicate that both learner proficiency and the type of dependency relation function as moderating factors in parser performance. Phraseological complexity measures computed on the basis of both automatic and manual dependency annotations demonstrate moderate to high correlations, reflecting a moderate to low impact of automatic annotation on subsequent analyses.

Lexical diversity in an L2 Spanish learner corpus

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-258
Author(s):  
Paloma Fernández-Mira ◽  
Emily Morgan ◽  
Sam Davidson ◽  
Aaron Yamada ◽  
Agustina Carando ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Spanish Program

Abstract This study examines the impact of two topic-related variables (i.e., valence polarity and everyday-life closeness) on the lexical diversity scores (i.e., MTLD) of learners of L2 Spanish at different proficiency levels. The analysis included 3,045 texts written in response to two pairs of prompts by 1,165 students enrolled in an L2 Spanish program. The first pair of prompts asked learners to narrate an event: prompt 1 focused on a perfect vacation (positive event), while prompt 2 asked participants to tell a terrible story (negative event). The second pair asked to describe a person: prompt 1 required that the subject be famous, thus not close to the writer, whereas prompt 2 required that the subject be special and close to the writer. Results indicate that lexical diversity scores were higher for the texts written about the positive event and the famous subject across all proficiency levels.

An exploratory study into the dynamics of Chinese L2 writing development

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junping Hou ◽  
Marjolijn Verspoor ◽  
Hanneke Loerts
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Response Data ◽  
School Group ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The University ◽  
Level Group

The present study is inspired by the often heard Chinese university level students’ complaint that they do not improve in English proficiency during their university courses. With a pre-post design, the study explores the potential gains in language development in free response data (writing samples) of three groups of L2 learners: a senior high school group and two university groups of different proficiency levels. Four writing samples, two collected at the beginning and two at the end of the students’ respective courses, were scored holistically on general proficiency and analytically on 47 complexity measures in a computerized tool (Synlex Analyzer). The holistic scores showed some improvement over time for the high school group, but not for the university groups. The analytical measures showed improvements in fairly different aspects of the written language for the three groups, suggesting that at different levels of proficiency different variables may develop. The highest level group actually regressed in almost all syntactic variables, but additional hand coded measures point to a subtle move toward a more academic style of writing with more non-finite constructions. The findings suggest that no single complexity measure is robust for all proficiency levels and that for the highest levels, other metrics tapping into inter-clausal complexity should be added.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document