Interaction between grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity at different proficiency levels
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Jennifer Thewissen
Abstract
This learner corpus study tracks the development and interactional dynamics between grammatical accuracy (GrA) and syntactic complexity (SC) at four Common European Framework proficiency levels (intermediate and advanced levels B1/B2/C1/C2). Data from the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger et al. 2020) were error-tagged and submitted to the automatic L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010). Interaction between B1 and B2 is characterised by a competitive relationship between GrA and SC, with the most marked improvement displayed in accuracy. Development between B2 and C1 displays subtle shifts, with GrA improving slightly and SC showing mild signs of reorganisation. Between C1 and C2, a more supportive relationship appears: SC shows the most marked signs of development, with GrA continuing to subtly improve.
Abstract
This learner corpus study tracks the development and interactional dynamics between grammatical accuracy (GrA) and syntactic complexity (SC) at four Common European Framework proficiency levels (intermediate and advanced levels B1/B2/C1/C2). Data from the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger et al. 2020) were error-tagged and submitted to the automatic L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010). Interaction between B1 and B2 is characterised by a competitive relationship between GrA and SC, with the most marked improvement displayed in accuracy. Development between B2 and C1 displays subtle shifts, with GrA improving slightly and SC showing mild signs of reorganisation. Between C1 and C2, a more supportive relationship appears: SC shows the most marked signs of development, with GrA continuing to subtly improve.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Complexity, accuracy and fluency in learner corpus research 1
- Investigating the scopes of textual metrics for learner level discrimination and learner analytics 21
- Syntactic complexity measures as linguistic correlates of proficiency level in learner Russian 51
- Development of L2 writing complexity 81
- Phraseological complexity in EFL learners’ spoken production across proficiency levels 115
- Persistent errors in spoken English among Taiwanese and Czech learners at CEFR B2 and C1 137
- Measuring lexical accuracy 159
- The effect of time and dimensions of collocational relationship on phraseological accuracy 181
- Interaction between grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity at different proficiency levels 209
- Accuracy, syntactic complexity and task type at play in examination writing 241
- Contextualizing fluency in advanced spoken learner language 273
- Exploring the use of repeats in learners’ native and interlanguage production 299
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Complexity, accuracy and fluency in learner corpus research 1
- Investigating the scopes of textual metrics for learner level discrimination and learner analytics 21
- Syntactic complexity measures as linguistic correlates of proficiency level in learner Russian 51
- Development of L2 writing complexity 81
- Phraseological complexity in EFL learners’ spoken production across proficiency levels 115
- Persistent errors in spoken English among Taiwanese and Czech learners at CEFR B2 and C1 137
- Measuring lexical accuracy 159
- The effect of time and dimensions of collocational relationship on phraseological accuracy 181
- Interaction between grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity at different proficiency levels 209
- Accuracy, syntactic complexity and task type at play in examination writing 241
- Contextualizing fluency in advanced spoken learner language 273
- Exploring the use of repeats in learners’ native and interlanguage production 299
- Index 325
