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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.

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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.

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