Syntactic complexity in Finnish-background EFL learners’ writing at CEFR levels A1–B2

The increasing importance of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) has led to research on the linguistic characteristics of its levels, as this would help the application of the CEFR in the design of teaching materials, courses, and assessments. This study investigated whether CEFR levels can be distinguished with reference to syntactic complexity (SC). 14- and 17-year-old Finnish learners of English (N=397) wrote three writing tasks which were rated against the CEFR levels. The ratings were analysed with multi-facet Rasch analysis and the texts were analysed with automated tools. Findings suggest that the clearest separators at lower CEFR levels (A1–A2) were the mean sentence and T-unit length, variation in sentence length, infinitive density, clauses per sentence or T-unit, and verb phrases per T-unit. For higher levels (B1–B2) they were modifiers per noun phrase, mean clause length, complex nominals per clause, and left embeddedness. The results support previous findings that the length of and variation in the longer production units (sentences, T-units) are the SC indices that most clearly separate the lower CEFR levels, whereas the higher levels are best distinguished in terms of complexity at the clausal and phrasal levels.

Multi-word term variation

Complex nominals (CNs) are frequently found in specialized discourse in all languages, since they are a productive method of creating terms by combining existing lexical units. In Spanish, a conceptual combination may often be rendered with a prepositional CN (PCN) or an equivalent adjectival CN (ACN), e.g., demanda de electricidad vs. demanda eléctrica [electricity demand]. Adjectives in ACNs – usually derived from nouns – are known as ‘relational adjectives’ because they encode semantic relations with other concepts. With recent exceptions, research has focused on the underlying semantic relations in CNs. In natural language processing, several works have dealt with the automatic detection of relation adjectives in Romance and Germanic languages. However, there is no discourse studies of these CNs, to our knowledge, for the goal of establishing writer recommendations. This study analyzed the co-text of equivalent PCNs and ACNs to identify factors governing the use of a certain form. EcoLexicon ES, a corpus of Spanish environmental specialized texts, was used to extract 6 relational adjectives and, subsequently, a set of 12 pairs of equivalent CNs. Their behavior in co-text was analyzed by querying EcoLexicon ES and a general language corpus with 20 expressions in CQP-syntax. Our results showed that immediate linguistic co-text determined the preference for a particular structure. Based on these findings, we provide writing guidelines to assist in the production of CNs.

DP, NP, or neither? Contours of an unresolved debate

Glossa’s Special Collection New perspectives on the NP/DP debate brings together syntactic analyses of various phenomena of complex nominals, shedding light on the central problem of their syntactic category label. In this paper, we survey arguments and analyses offered in the Special Collection, classifying their underlying assumptions and highlighting their relevance to syntactic theory more generally.

A Morphological Analysis of Akan Honorific and Title Names for God

This study is motivated by our observation that earlier works have looked at Akan personal names either from sociolinguistics or non-linguistic perspectives; however, a critical morphological analysis of the structure of Akan honorific and title names for God has eluded researchers in linguistics. It is based on this background that we conduct a thorough morphological investigation into Akan honorific and title names for God, with the aim of addressing the morphological processes that account for their derivation. Drawing on data from both primary and secondary sources, the analysis reveals that Akan honorific and title names ascribed to God have complex nominals and this is manifested through affixation, compounding and reduplication. It further shows that some of the names are recursive in nature and are therefore derived through nominalization of sentences or clauses, especially those that undergo compounding.

Beyond Differences: Assessing Effects of Shared Linguistic Features on L2 Writing Quality of Two Genres

This study explored the relationship between linguistic features and the rated quality of letters of application (LAs) and argumentative essays (AEs) composed in English by Chinese college-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A corpus of 260 LAs and 260 AEs were analyzed via a confirmatory factor analysis. Latent variables were EFL writing quality, captured by writing scores, and lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion, each captured by different linguistic features in the two genres of writing. Results indicated that lexical decision times, moving average type-token ratio with a 50-word window, and complex nominals per clause explained 55.5 per cent of the variance in the holistic scores of both genres of writing. This pattern of predictivity was further validated with a test corpus of 110 LAs and 110 AEs, revealing that, albeit differing in genre, higher-rated LAs and AEs were likely to contain more sophisticated words and complex nominals and exhibit a higher type-token ratio with a 50-word window. These findings help enrich our understanding of the shared features of different genres of EFL writing and have potentially useful implications for EFL writing pedagogy and assessment.

Different Genres and Proficiency Levels: Relationships Among Syntactic Complexity, Genres and Students with Different L2 Proficiency Levels

The present study examines differences in syntactic complexity in English writing among writers at different levels and explores the relationship between syntactic complexity and writings with different genres. 20 students in grade three of a senior high school that were randomly selected from two brands of test scores were grouped into high and low proficiency groups. The 40 writings from the 20 students were examined. Writings were evaluated by L2SCA (L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer) gauging syntactic complexity at global, clausal and phrasal level. After obtaining the data, the complexity values were entered into SPSS 21.0 to do analysis. Results reveal that the difference of the two genres reaches a significant level in terms of C/T (clauses per T-unit) and CN/C (complex nominals per clause); there is no significant relationship between syntactic complexity and L2 proficiency levels and no significant interactive effect is found between the genre factor and proficiency factor. The results can yield implications for ESL writing pedagogy.

Syntactic Complexity of EFL Chinese Students’ Writing

<p>Syntactic complexity as an indicator in the study of English learners’ language proficiency has been frequently employed in language development assessment. Using the Syntactic Complexity Analyzer, developed by Lu (2010), this article collected data representing the syntactic complexity indexes from the writing of Chinese non-English major students and from the writing of proficient users of English on a similar task. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in the use of complex nominals, the mean length of sentences, and the mean length of clauses between the writings of EFL Chinese students and more proficient users. This study provides suggestions for EFL writing teaching, particularly writing at the sentence level.</p>