Abstracts
Abstract
Despite writing and speaking being related activities, their end-products are entirely different. However, previous studies have not shown consistency in terms of grammar use in these two modes. Accordingly, in the present study, I aim to define the syntactic characteristics in these two modes with large-scale data and organized research designs. This study examined 14 indices of syntactic complexity and specific grammar factors in 224 monologues and 139 writings of Korean EFL undergraduates. The results revealed that learners tended to use more finite complement clauses and relative clauses while writing but used because- fragments independently and ‘and’ sentence-initially more frequently while speaking. When compared with previous studies, the characteristics of syntactic complexity of Korean EFL learners, regardless of age, are defined by the use of coordination in speaking and the use of subordination in writing.
Keywords:
- syntactic complexity,
- spoken corpus,
- written corpus,
- English as a Second/Foreign Language,
- monologue
Résumé
L’écrit et l’oral sont des activités clairement liées, mais le résultat final est tout à fait différent.Toutefois, des études antérieures n'ont pas montrées de cohérence dans l'utilisation de la grammaire dans les deux modes. Par conséquent, dans la présente étude, le but est de définir les caractéristiques syntaxiques des deux modes avec des données à grande échelle et des plans de recherche organisés. Cette étude a examiné 14 indices de complexité syntaxique et des facteurs grammaticaux spécifiques dans 224 monologues et 139 écrits d'étudiants coréens de premier cycle EFL. Les résultats ont révélé que les apprenants ont tendance à utiliser des clauses complémentaires limitées et des clauses relatives lorsqu'ils écrivent, mais qu'ils utilisent les fragments ‘parce que’ de manière indépendante et les fragments ‘et’ en début de phrase plus fréquemment à l’oral. En comparaison des études précédentes, les caractéristiques de la complexité syntaxique des apprenants coréens de l'EFL, quel que soit leur âge, sont définies par l'utilisation de la conjonction de coordination dans la parole à l’oral et de la conjonction de subordination par à l’écrit.
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- Ai, H. & Lu, X. (2013). A corpus-based comparison of syntactic complexity in NNS and NS university students’ writing. Automatic Treatment and Analysis of Learner Corpus Data, 249-264.
- Barker, F., Salamoura, A., & Saville, N. (2015). Learner corpora and language testing. In S. Granger, G. Gilquin, & F. Meunier (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of learner corpus research (pp. 511–533). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Biber, D., Gray, B., & Poonpon, K. (2011). Should we use characteristics of conversation to measure grammatical complexity in L2 writing development? TESOL Quarterly, 45(1), 5-35.
- Biber, D., Gray, B., & Staples, S. (2016). Predicting patterns of grammatical complexity across language exam task types and proficiency levels. Applied Linguistics, 37(5), 639-668.
- Bonin, P., Fayol, M., & Gombert, J. E. (1998). An experimental study of lexical access in the writing and naming of isolated words. International Journal of Psychology, 33, 269–286
- Bulté, B., & Housen, A. (2014). Conceptualizing and measuring short-term changes in L2 writing complexity. Journal of second language writing, 26, 42-65.
- Casal, J. E., & Lee, J. J. (2019). Syntactic complexity and writing quality in assessed first year L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 44, 51-62.
- Chen, M., & Zechner, K. (2011, June). Computing and evaluating syntactic complexity features for automated scoring of spontaneous non-native speech. In Proceedings of the 49th annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (pp. 722-731).
- Chun, J. H., & Hong, S. 2018. Pedagogical reflections on teaching because clauses in Korean EFL writing (to appear in). Modern Studies in English Language and Literature, 62(4), 235-257.
- Cleland, A. A., & Pickering, M. J. (2006). Do writing and speaking employ the same syntactic representations? Journal of Memory and Language, 54(2), 185-198.
- Foster, P., Tonkyn, A., & Wigglesworth, G. (2000). Measuring spoken language: A unit for all reasons. Applied linguistics, 21(3), 354-375.
- Glover, P. (2011). Using CEFR level descriptors to raise university students’ awareness of their speaking skills. Language Awareness. Vol. 20(2), 121–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2011.555556
- Hong, S. (2018). What Japanese and Korean EFL Learners Have in Common: the Acquisition of BECAUSE-Clauses. English Language and Literature, 23(4), 37-56.
- Hwang, H, Jung, H., & Kim, H. (2020). Effects of Written Versus Spoken Production Modalities on Syntactic Complexity Measures in Beginning‐Level Child EFL Learners. The Modern Language Journal, 104(1), 267-283.
- Hulstijn, J. H. (2007). The shaky ground beneath the CEFR: Quantitative and qualitative dimensions of language proficiency. The Modern Language Journal. Vol. 91(4), 663–667. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4626094
- Hunt, K. W. (1965). Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels. Champaign, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English.
- Ito, F., & Misumi, H. (2016). The distinctive use of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in Japanese EFL academic compositions. The Gunma-Kohsen Review, 35, 71-81.
- Jiang, J., Bi, P., & Liu, H. (2019). Syntactic complexity development in the writings of EFL learners: Insights from a dependency syntactically-annotated corpus. Journal of Second Language Writing, 46, 100666.
- Kellogg, R. T. (1996). A model of working memory in writing. In C. M. Levy & S. Ransdell (Eds.), The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences and applications (pp. 57–71). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Khushik, G. A., & Huhta, A. (2020). Investigating Syntactic Complexity in EFL Learners' Writing across Common European Framework of Reference Levels A1, A2, and B1. Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 506-532.
- Kormos, J., Byrnes, H., & Manchón, R. M. (2014). Differences across modalities of performance. Task-based language learning: Insights from and for L2 writing, 193-216.
- Kyle, K. (2016). Measuring syntactic development in L2 writing: Fine grained indices of syntactic complexity and usage-based indices of syntactic sophistication. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.
- Kyle, K., & Crossley, S. (2017). Assessing syntactic sophistication in L2 writing: A usage-based approach. Language Testing, 34(4), 513-535.
- Lan, G., & Sun, Y. (2019). A corpus-based investigation of noun phrase complexity in the L2 writings of a first-year composition course. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 38, 14-24.
- Levelt, W. J. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- Lim, S. B. (2018). A study of grammatical errors in college students' English writings. The Journal of Modern British & American Language & Literature, 36(1), 301-328.
- Lintunen, P. & Mäkilä, M. (2014). Measuring syntactic complexity in spoken and written learner language: comparing the incomparable?. Research in Language, 12(4), 377-399.
- Lu, X. (2010). Automatic analysis of syntactic complexity in second language writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 15, 474–496.
- Lu, X. (2011). A corpus-based evaluation of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level ESL writers’ language development. TESOL Quarterly, 45, 36–62.
- Lu, X. (2012). The relationship of lexical richness to the quality of ESL learners’ oral narratives. The Modern Language Journal, 96(2), 190-208.
- Manning, C. D., Surdeanu, M., Bauer, J., Finkel, J. R., Bethard, S., & McClosky, D. (2014, June). The Stanford CoreNLP natural language processing toolkit. In Proceedings of 52nd annual meeting of The association for computational linguistics: system demonstrations (pp. 55-60).
- Martínez, A. C. L. (2018). Analysis of syntactic complexity in secondary education EFL writers at different proficiency levels. Assessing Writing, 35, 1-11.
- Myles, F. (2015). Second language acquisition theory and learner corpus research. In S. Granger, G. Gilquin, & F. Meunier (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of learner corpus research (pp. 309–331). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Nippold, M. A., Frantz-Kaspar, M. W., & Vigeland, L. M. (2017). Spoken language production in young adults: Examining syntactic complexity. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(5), 1339-1347.
- Niu, R. (2009). Effect of task-inherent production modes on EFL learners’ focus on form. Language Awareness, 18, 384–402.
- Ortega, L. (2003). Syntactic complexity measures and their relationship to L2 proficiency: A research synthesis of college‐level L2 writing. Applied Linguistics, 24, 492-518.
- Park, S. (2020). A corpus study of modal verbs in Korean learners' speech. Journal of Linguistic Studies, 25(2), 121-137.
- Park, S. & Yoon, S. (2021). Syntactic complexity of EFL learners’ casual conversation, monologue, and writing. The Journal of Studies in Language, 37(1), 75-89.
- Pojanapunya, P. & Todd, R. (2018). Log-likelihood and odds ratio: Keyness statistics for different purposes of keyword analysis. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic theory, 14(1), 133–167.
- Ravid, D., & Tolchinsky, L. (2002). Developing linguistic literacy: A comprehensive model. Journal of Child Language, 29, 419–448.
- Rayson, P. & Garside, R. (2000). Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. In Proceedings of The Workshop on Comparing Corpora (ACL 2000). Hong Kong: Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Seidlhofer, B., Breiteneder, A., Klimpfinger, T., Majewski, S., Osimk-Teasdale, R., Pitzl, M. L., & Radeka, M. (2001). Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English.
- Tian, Y., & Lo, D. (2015, March). A comparative study on the effectiveness of part-of-speech tagging techniques on bug reports. In 2015 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER) (pp. 570-574). IEEE.
- Seog, D. S. Y. (2018). A Corpus-based Study of the Use of English Articles by Korean EFL Learners. The Linguistic Association of Korean Journal, 26(1), 57-73.
- Seog, D. S. Y., Choi, I. C., & Lee, Y. S. (2019). Modal Usage of Advanced Korean EFL Learners, Young Korean EFL Learners, and Native English Speakers: A Corpora Comparison Study, Language and Linguistics, 85, 23-54.