Home Investigating the relationship between linguistic changes in L2 writers’ paraphrasing, paraphrasing performance and L2 proficiency
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Investigating the relationship between linguistic changes in L2 writers’ paraphrasing, paraphrasing performance and L2 proficiency

  • Emily Di Zhang EMAIL logo and Shulin Yu
Published/Copyright: December 7, 2021
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

While the typology of paraphrasing revolves around linguistic changes of paraphrasing, little is known about the importance of different types of linguistic changes and their relationship between paraphrasing performance and L2 proficiency. Empirical enquiry has focused on L2 writers’ inappropriate paraphrasing performance against the norm of L1 writer, which is problematic in that L2 and L1 writers displayed considerable variation in paraphrasing. The present study drew upon 202 Chinese EFL writers’ written responses in a paraphrasing test to look into the discrete linguistic transformations in paraphrasing and examine how the frequency of different linguistic changes in paraphrasing relates to their paraphrasing performance and L2 proficiency. Correlation analysis was run to analyze the relationship between the frequency of linguistic changes and paraphrasing performance. Multivariate analysis of variance analysis was conducted to examine how the frequency of linguistic changes relates to L2 proficiency. The findings revealed that Conceptual Transformation had the highest significant correlation with paraphrasing scores, followed by Lexical Transformation and then Syntactic Transformation. The frequency of Synonym Substitution, Morphology, Multiple Word Units, Phrase/Clause Shift, Active/Passive Shift and Conceptual Transformation increased as L2 writers’ proficiency levels increased. Implications are drawn from the findings for paraphrasing instruction and assessment, research in paraphrasing and L2 writers’ academic writing practice.


Corresponding author: Emily Di Zhang, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China, E-mail:

References

Bereiter, Carl & Marlene Scardamalia. 1987. The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Search in Google Scholar

Bhagat, Rahul. 2009. Learning paraphrases from text (Publication No. 3368694). California: University of Southern California Doctoral dissertation, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.Search in Google Scholar

Bond, Trevor & Christine Fox. 2007. Applying the Rasch model: Fundamental measurement in the human sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Search in Google Scholar

Burstein, Jill, Michael Flor, Joel Tetreault, Nitin Madnani & Steven Holtzman. 2012. Examining linguistic characteristics of paraphrase in test-taker summaries. ETS Research Report.10.1002/j.2333-8504.2012.tb02300.xSearch in Google Scholar

Campbell, Cherry. 1987. Writing with others’ words: The use of information from a background reading text in the writing of native and nonnative university composition students. Los Angeles: University of California unpublished doctoral dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Campbell, Cherry. 1990. Writing with others’ words: Using background reading text in academic compositions. In Barbara Kroll (ed.), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom, 211–230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139524551.018Search in Google Scholar

Chen, Yuan-Shan & Jianda Liu. 2016. Constructing a scale to assess L2 written speech act performance: WDCT and E-mail tasks. Language Assessment Quarterly 13(3). 231–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2016.1213844.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.10.1515/9783112316009Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.10.21236/AD0616323Search in Google Scholar

Cohen, Jacob. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioural sciences. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Cohen, Jacob. 1992. A power primer. Psychological Bulletin 112(1). 155–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155.Search in Google Scholar

Culicover, Peter. 1968. Paraphrase generation and information retrieval from stored text. Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics 11. 78–88.Search in Google Scholar

Currie, Pat. 1998. Staying out of trouble: Apparent plagiarism and academic survival. Journal of Second Language Writing 7(1). 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(98)90003-0.Search in Google Scholar

Derewianka, Beverly. 2011. A new Grammar companion for teachers. Australia: Primary English Teaching Association Australia.Search in Google Scholar

Du, Qian. 2013. “What Do You Mean ‘In My Own Words’?” Undergraduate ESL writers’ paraphrasing experiences in an advanced academic writing course. Ohio: The Ohio State University Unpublished doctoral dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Du, Qian & Ying Liu. 2021. Foregrounding learner voice: Chinese undergraduate students’ understanding of paraphrasing and source use conventions for English research paper writing. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688211027032.Search in Google Scholar

Dunlea, Jamie, Richard Spiby, Sha Wu, Jie Zhang & Mengmeng Cheng. 2019. China’s standards of English language ability (CSE): Linking UK exams to the CSE. London: British Council.Search in Google Scholar

Fujita, Atsushi. 2005. Automatic generation of syntactically well-formed and semantically appropriate paraphrases. Japan: Nara Institute of Science and Technology Unpublished doctoral dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

George, Darren & Paul Mallery. 2016. SPSS for Windows step by step: A simple guide and reference. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Graesser, Arthur & Danielle McNamara. 2011. Computational analyses of multilevel discourse comprehension. Topics in Cognitive Science 3(2). 371–398. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01081.x.Search in Google Scholar

Hall, Christopher, Jack Joyce & Chris Robson. 2017. Investigating the lexico-grammatical resources of a non-native user of English: The case of can and could in email requests. Applied Linguistics Review 8(1). 35–59. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-1001.Search in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael. 1994. An introduction to functional grammar. New York: Edward Arnold.Search in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael & Christian Matthiessen. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Harris, Zellig. 1981. Co-occurrence and transformation in linguistic structure. In Henry Hiz (ed.), Papers on syntax, 143–210. Netherlands: Springer.10.1007/978-94-009-8467-7_8Search in Google Scholar

Hirvela, Alan & Qian Du. 2013. “Why am I Paraphrasing?”: Undergraduate EFL writers’ engagement with source-based academic writing and reading. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12(2). 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.11.005.Search in Google Scholar

Honeck, Richard. 1971. A study of paraphrases. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 10. 367–381.10.1016/S0022-5371(71)80035-XSearch in Google Scholar

Howard, Richard. 1996. Plagiarisms, authorships, and the academic death penalty. College English 57(7). 788–806. https://doi.org/10.2307/378403.Search in Google Scholar

Jin, Yan. 2008. Powerful tests, powerfulness test designers? Changes facing the college English test. CELEA Journal 31(5). 3–11.Search in Google Scholar

Johns, Ann & Patricia Mayes. 1990. An analysis of summary protocols of university EFL students. Applied Linguistics 11(3). 253–271. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/11.3.253.Search in Google Scholar

Keck, Casey. 2006. The use of paraphrase in summary writing: A comparison of L1 and L2 writers. Journal of Second Language Writing 15(4). 261–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2006.09.006.Search in Google Scholar

Keck, Casey. 2010. How do university students attempt to avoid plagiarism? A grammatical analysis of undergraduate paraphrasing strategies. Writing & Pedagogy 2(2). 193–222. https://doi.org/10.1558/wap.v2i2.193.Search in Google Scholar

Keck, Casey. 2014. Copying, paraphrasing, and academic writing development: A re-examination of L1 and L2 summarization practices. Journal of Second Language Writing 25. 4–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2014.05.005.Search in Google Scholar

Kintsch, Walter. 1998. Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Knoch, Ute. 2009. Diagnostic assessment of writing: A comparison of two rating scales. Language Testing 26(2). 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265532208101008.Search in Google Scholar

Leung, Alex Ho-Cheong & Martha Young-Scholten. 2013. Reaching out to the other side: Formal-linguistics-based SLA and Socio-SLA. Applied Linguistics Review 4(2). 259–290. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2013-0012.Search in Google Scholar

Linacre, John Michael. 2009. Facets: Rasch-measurement computer program. Chicago, IL: MESA Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lu, Xiaofei. 2010. Automatic analysis of syntactic complexity in second language writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 15(4). 474496. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.15.4.02lu.Search in Google Scholar

Marr, Jennifer Walsh. 2019. Making the mechanics of paraphrasing more explicit through grammatical metaphor. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 42. 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2019.100783.Search in Google Scholar

Martin, Robert. 1976. Inf´erence, antonymie et paraphrase. Librarie C. Klincksieck.Search in Google Scholar

McGinley, William. 1992. The role of reading and writing while composing from sources. Reading Research Quarterly 27(3). 227–248. https://doi.org/10.2307/747793.Search in Google Scholar

McInnis, Lara. 2009. Analyzing English L1 and L2 paraphrasing strategies through concurrent verbal report and stimulated recall protocols. Toranto: University of Toronto.Search in Google Scholar

McNamara, Tim, Ute Knoch & Jason Fan. 2019. Fairness, justice, and language assessment: The role of measurement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

McNamara, Danielle & Joe Magliano. 2009. Towards a comprehensive model of comprehension. In Brian Ross (ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, 297–384. New York: Elsevier Science.10.1016/S0079-7421(09)51009-2Search in Google Scholar

Mel’čuk, Igor. 1992. Paraphrase et lexique: La théorie sens-texte et le dictionnaire explicatif et combinatoire. In Igor Mel’čuk, Nadia Arbatchewsky-Jumarie, Lidija Iordanskaja & Suzanne Mantha (eds.), Dictionnaire explicatif et combinatoire du Francais contemporain. recherches lexico-sémantiques III, 9–58. Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Mon-tréal.Search in Google Scholar

Milton, James & Jeanine Treffers-Daller. 2013. Vocabulary size revisited: The link between vocabulary size and academic achievement. Applied Linguistics Review 4(1). 151–172. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2013-0007.Search in Google Scholar

Mori, Miki. 2019. Pluralizing the paraphrase: Reconsidering meaning via a typology of linguistic changes. TESOL Quarterly 53(3). 885–895. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.514.Search in Google Scholar

O’Malley, Michael & Anna Uhl Chamot. 1990. Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139524490Search in Google Scholar

Ortega, Lourdes. 2013. Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In Stephen May (ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education, 32–53. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Pennycook, Alastair. 1996. Borrowing other’s words: Texts, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. Tesol Quarterly 30(2). 210–230. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588141.Search in Google Scholar

Prieto, Gerardo. 2011. Evaluación de la ejecución mediante el modelo many-facet Rasch measurement. Psicothema 23(2). 233–238.Search in Google Scholar

Prieto, Gerardo & Eloísa Nieto. 2014. Analysis of rater severity on written expression exam using many faceted Rasch measurement. Psicológica 35. 285–397.Search in Google Scholar

Rigat, Marta Vila. 2013. Paraphrase scope and typology: A data-driven approach from computational linguistics. Barcelona: University of Barcelona unpublished doctoral dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Shi, Ling. 2004. Textual borrowing in second-language writing. Written Communication 21(2). 171–200. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088303262846.Search in Google Scholar

Shi, Ling & Yanning Dong. 2018. Chinese graduate students paraphrasing in English and Chinese contexts. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 34. 46–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.03.002.Search in Google Scholar

Skehan, Peter & Pauline Foster. 2001. Cognition and tasks. In Peter Robinson (ed.), Cognition and second language instruction, 183–205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139524780.009Search in Google Scholar

Spivey, Nancy Nelson. 1990. Transforming texts: Constructive processes in reading and writing. Written Communication 7(2). 256–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088390007002004.Search in Google Scholar

Sun, Yu-Chih. 2009. Using a two-tier test in examining Taiwan graduate students’ perspectives on paraphrasing strategies. Asia Pacific Education Review 10. 399–408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-009-9035-y.Search in Google Scholar

Uemlianin, Ivan. 2000. Engaging text: Assessing paraphrase and understanding. Studies in Higher Education 25(3). 347–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/713696160.Search in Google Scholar

Wang, Wei. 2016. Intertextual practices in academic writing by Chinese ESL students. Applied Linguistics Review 7(1). 53–72. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-0003.Search in Google Scholar

Weigle, Sara Cushing. 2002. Assessing writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511732997Search in Google Scholar

Weigle, Sara Cushing. 2004. Integrating reading and writing in a competency test for non-native speakers of English. Assessing Writing 9(1). 27–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2004.01.002.Search in Google Scholar

Wette, Rosemary. 2017. Source text use by undergraduate post-novice L2 writers in disciplinary assignments: Progress and ongoing challenges. Journal of Second Language Writing 37. 46–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.05.015.Search in Google Scholar

Wind, Stefanie & George Engelhard. 2013. How invariant and accurate are domain ratings in writing assessment? Assessing Writing 18(4). 278–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2013.09.002.Search in Google Scholar

Yamada, Kyoko. 2003. What prevents EFL/EFL writers from avoiding plagiarism? Analyses of 10 theoretical tenets of paraphrase. North-American college websites. System 31(2). 247–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(03)00023-X.Search in Google Scholar

Yang, Huizhong. 2000. Validation study of the college English test [Paper presentation]. In The International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) Conference, Tokyo, Japan.Search in Google Scholar

Yang, Huizhong & Cyril Weir. 1998. The CET validation study. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Search in Google Scholar

Zhang, Emily Di. 2020. An investigation of novice ESL writers’ cognitive processes and strategy use of paraphrasing. Language Testing in Asia 10. 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-020-00104-3.Search in Google Scholar


Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2021-0014).


Received: 2021-01-31
Accepted: 2021-11-15
Published Online: 2021-12-07
Published in Print: 2023-09-26

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Deaf signing diversity and signed language translations
  4. ‘Smelling’ diasporic: bargaining interactions and the problem of politeness
  5. Discursive strategies of self-promotion by doctors in online medical consultations in China: an e-commercialised practice
  6. Learning semantic and thematic vocabulary clusters through embedded instruction: effects on very young English learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention
  7. Towards an understanding of multilingual investment: multilingual learning experiences among mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong
  8. The cognitive-conceptual, planning-organizational, affective-social and linguistic-discursive affordances of translanguaging
  9. Development and validation of the questionnaire on EFL students’ perceptions of authorial stance in academic writing
  10. Emergent LOTE motivation? The L3 motivational dynamics of Japanese-major university students in China
  11. Study abroad, human capital development, language commodification, and social inequalities
  12. Exploring the impact of a teacher development programme using a digital application on linguistic interactions in the classroom: a multiple case study
  13. Boredom in practical English language classes: a longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis-curve of factors model
  14. Medical students’ attention in EFL class: roles of academic expectation stress and quality of sleep
  15. Foreign language peace of mind: a positive emotion drawn from the Chinese EFL learning context
  16. Mutual intelligibility of a Kurmanji and a Zazaki dialect spoken in the province of Elazığ, Turkey
  17. Investigating the relationship between linguistic changes in L2 writers’ paraphrasing, paraphrasing performance and L2 proficiency
Downloaded on 10.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/applirev-2021-0014/html
Scroll to top button