scholarly journals Study on the Correlation between Linguistic Complexity and Audience Recognition in College English Speech Contests

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 286-293
Author(s):  
Lin Shi
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
College English ◽  
Corpus Construction ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Lexical Complexity ◽  
Different Levels

From the perspective of linguistic complexity, this paper explores the correlation between linguistic complexity and audience recognition in college English speech contests. By adopting the corpus construction and computer visualized data analysis, this study analyzes the speech of contestants at different levels in FLTRP Cup National English peaking Contest 2019-2020, the most authoritative college English speech contest in China. The study shows that: 1) In college English speech contests, the lexical complexity of the speech is negatively correlated with the recognition degree of the audience (i.e. the final ranking of the competition or the success of the speech). 2) The syntactic complexity of the speech exists reasonable interval to ensure good audience recognition. 3) In college English speech contests, the correlation between the lexical complexity and syntactic complexity of speeches and audience recognition is similar to the correlation between the rhetoric and audience recognition in political speeches which is obtained by previous researchers in the field of political speeches. Therefore, we think this study has a certain practical value. It provides evidence of linguistic complexity for predicting the winner of college English speech contests and helping contestants prepare for the contest better.

A Comparison of Mothers' Individual and Simultaneous Book Sharing With Preschool Siblings

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne van Kleeck ◽  
Amy Beckley-McCall
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Strategy ◽  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Reading Condition ◽  
Book Sharing ◽  
Simultaneous Reading ◽  
Fine Tune ◽  
Different Levels

Many studies have demonstrated that adults fine tune book-sharing discussions to the developmental levels of preschoolers, but little is known regarding how reading simultaneously to different-aged preschoolers is negotiated. We observed five mothers of different-aged preschoolers sharing books with each child individually and with both children together. Analyses focused on the linguistic complexity of the book, the amount of time spent sharing a book, and on several aspects of the mothers' book-sharing mediation. Results revealed developmental differences on several measures of how mothers mediated with younger as compared to older children individually. Book complexity, the time spent sharing books, and the percent of utterances at higher levels of abstraction were higher when reading to the older children; the number of mediation strategies per minute and the percent of mothers' behaviors that were used to get and maintain attention were higher when reading to the younger children. When reading to both children simultaneously, which aspects of the mediation fell at these different levels varied among the different mothers. This suggests that different mothers reach different solutions to the task of simultaneously reading to preschoolers of different ages. One mother approached the simultaneous book sharing much as she did sharing a book with her older child, one mother approached it as she did with her younger child, one mother simply read and did little mediation, and two mothers appeared to use a mixed strategy in the simultaneous reading condition.

scholarly journals Grammatical Intricacy in EFL Textbooks

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinh To
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Lexical Density ◽  
English Textbooks ◽  
Different Levels

Grammatical intricacy is an important concept in charactering complexity of language (Halliday, 2008). However, this concept has not yet been fully investigated in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language (TEFL), particular in English as a foreign language (EFL) textbooks in higher education. This paper aims to examine grammatical intricacy across textbook levels in a book series used in tertiary education in the Vietnamese context. This is part of a larger research project looking at linguistic complexity of English textbooks in the TEFL setting. The research employed Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the main theoretical framework and Halliday’s method as a measure of grammatical intricacy to look at how this language feature was used in reading comprehension texts in four textbooks at different levels including elementary, pre-intermediate, inter-mediate and upper-intermediate. The findings revealed that grammatical intricacy increased in accordance with the book levels. Particularly, the mean scores of grammatical intricacy showed a gradual increase from the elementary to the intermediate book level; though they were not different significantly and the upper-intermediate textbook did not show the topmost grammatical complexity. These findings suggest that the use of grammatical intricacy in the investigated textbooks was appropriate for EFL learners across levels; however, the use of other linguistic features such as lexical density and nominalisation may potentially impact the use of simple clauses in the textbooks at a higher level. Thus, further investigations are recommended to fully explore the complexity of textbook language.      

Influences of Length and Syntactic Complexity on the Speech Motor Stability of the Fluent Speech of Adults Who Stutter

2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 548-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kleinow ◽  
Anne Smith
Keyword(s):  
Stability Characteristic ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Lower Lip ◽  
Lip Movement ◽  
Adults Who Stutter ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Speech Motor

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of utterance length and syntactic complexity on the speech motor stability of adults who stutter. Lower lip movement was recorded from 8 adults who stutter and 8 normally fluent controls. They produced a target phrase in isolation (baseline condition) and the same phrase embedded in utterances of increased length and/or increased syntactic complexity. The spatiotemporal index (STI) was used to quantify the stability of lower lip movements across multiple repetitions of the target phrase. Results indicated: (a) Adults who stutter demonstrated higher overall STI values than normally fluent adults across all experimental conditions, indicating decreased speech motor stability; (b) the speech motor stability of normally fluent adults was not affected by increasing syntactic complexity, but the speech motor stability of adults who stutter decreased when the stimuli were more complex; (c) increasing the length of the target utterance (without increasing syntactic complexity) did not affect the speech motor stability of either speaker group. These results indicate that language formulation processes may affect speech production processes and that the speech motor systems of adults who stutter may be especially susceptible to the linguistic demands required to produce a more complex utterance. The present findings, therefore, support the hypothesis that linguistic complexity is one factor that contributes to the disruptions of speech motor stability characteristic of stuttering.

The effect of topic familiarity on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of second language writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiwei Yang ◽  
YouJin Kim
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Writing ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Topic Familiarity ◽  
Data Analyses ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Lexical Complexity ◽  
Efl College Students

AbstractThe purpose of the current study is to examine the role of topic familiarity in the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of second language (L2) writing. Topic familiarity was operationalized as whether writers are writing about a common, everyday subject matter in relation to themselves (+ familiar) or to a group they are not familiar with (–familiar), and a learner survey was used to test the validity of the construct. A total of 123 Chinese EFL college students participated in the study, with 61 writing on a familiar topic and 62 writing on a less familiar topic. Their writing performance was analyzed for lexical complexity, syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Data analyses revealed that the students produced essays with significantly lower lexical complexity for the less familiar topic than for the familiar topic, while the performance areas of accuracy, fluency, and syntactic complexity were not affected by the degree of familiarity. The study findings are discussed in terms of their implications for task selection and sequencing for L2 teaching and assessment purposes.

scholarly journals Cultivation of Translation Competence — A Study on Translation Teaching in College English Teaching in Leshan Normal University, Sichuan, China

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 756
Author(s):  
Ye Zhou ◽  
Li Zou
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Teaching Approaches ◽  
College English ◽  
English Teaching ◽  
Efl Teachers ◽  
English Majors ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Normal University ◽  
Problems Of Translation

The paper probes into the translation competence of non-English majors in college English study, based on a study carried out in Leshan Normal University in terms of translation teaching in college English teaching. Questionnaires on EFL teachers and students as well as data analysis are implemented with an aim to find out the current problems of translation teaching in college English and non-English majors’ translation competence. Based on the problems, the author draws the conclusions and raises some suggestions, trying to help non-English majors to improve their translation competence and also to help EFL teachers to perfect their teaching approaches in translation teaching. The paper’s findings are supposed to not only apply to Leshan Normal University but also apply to other colleges and universities in China.

scholarly journals Penerjemahan Novel Dracula Karya Bram Stoker dari Bahasa Inggris ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia: Kasus Pengalihan Skema Budaya Divergen

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Doni Jaya
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Source Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Cultural Schema ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

<p>Divergent cultural schema (DCS) is a collection of cultural knowledge required to interpret a text, which is assumed to be present in source readers (SR) but absent in target readers (TR). DCS typically takes the form of a highly concise source text without any sufficient information, so the translator applied various strategies. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, consisting of its English source text (ST) and Indonesian target text (TT), was chosen as data source due to its strong Victorian-European setting which contains many potential DCS. Data analysis generated several categories of results. The first is units of analysis (n = 758) which are classified into various schemata (n = 21) and subschemata (n = 84) based on certain similarity in schematic characteristics. The second is various types of ST divergence (n = 13). The third is the reasons for applying domesticating (n = 16) or foreignizing (n = 12) strategies, as well as their weaknesses (n = 20). The fourth is domestication as the dominant translation ideology. The fifth is a number of interesting phenomena (n = 25) related to the transfer of DCS such as ideological level, different levels of divergence among TR, and “foreignization” and “domestication” by ST writer. This research demonstrates the complexity of strategy applications and ideological positions which are dependent on many factors such as narrative context, linguistic constraints, ST divergence, or TR schemata.</p>

scholarly journals Exploring syntactic complexity and its relationship with writing quality in EFL argumentative essays

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
Farzaneh Shadloo ◽  
Hesamoddin Shahriari Ahmadi ◽  
Behzad Ghonsooly
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Development Scheme ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract To predict syntactic complexity in second/foreign language writing, some studies have advocated the use of T-unit and clausal subordination measures while others have argued for the use of phrase-based measures. This study seeks to identify syntactic features that can be regarded as discriminators among different levels of writing quality. For this purpose, a corpus of argumentative essays by EFL learners was compiled and then the essays were rated and placed into three groups of high-rated, mid-rated, and low-rated essays. The corpus was then coded and analysed for both phrasal and clausal features. The phrasal features were manually coded based on the development scheme hypothesized by Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011) for academic writing, and the clausal features were analysed using the online L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer developed by Lu (2010). A separate ANOVA test was used to compare the three groups of essays for each of the phrasal and clausal features. The findings of the current study demonstrated that subordination and dependent clauses were not good indicators of different writing qualities in our corpus. Also, the pattern of noun phrase complexity predicted by Biber et al. (2011) was not observed across argumentative essays from three different levels of writing quality.

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