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MEASURING LONGITUDINAL WRITING DEVELOPMENT USING INDICES OF SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY AND SOPHISTICATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2020

Kristopher Kyle Open the ORCID record for Kristopher Kyle [Opens in a new window] ,
Scott Crossley Open the ORCID record for Scott Crossley [Opens in a new window]  and
Marjolijn Verspoor
Kristopher Kyle*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon and Yonsei University
Scott Crossley*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Marjolijn Verspoor*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kristopher Kyle, Straub Hall 161, 1290 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1290. E-mail: kkyle2@uoregon.edu
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Abstract

Measures of syntactic complexity such as mean length of T-unit have been common measures of language proficiency in studies of second language acquisition. Despite the ubiquity and usefulness of such structure-based measures, they could be complemented with measures based on usage-based theories, which focus on the development of not just syntactic forms but also form-meaning pairs, called constructions (Ellis, 2002). Recent cross-sectional research (Kyle & Crossley, 2017) has indicated that indices related to usage-based characteristics of verb argument construction (VAC) use may be better indicators of writing proficiency than structure-based indices of syntactic complexity. However, because cross-sectional studies can only show general trends across proficiency benchmarks, it is important to test these findings in individuals over time (Lowie & Verspoor, 2019). Thus, this study investigates the developmental trajectories of second language learners of English across two academic years with regard to syntactic complexity and VAC sophistication.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , September 2021 , pp. 781 - 812
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We would like to thank the four anonymous reviewers and the handling editor, Andrea Revesz, for their detailed comments on previous versions of this manuscript.

References

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