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A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University

Syntactic complexity is the variety and sophistication degree of the syntactic structures conveyed in written production. The syntactic complexity of general Chinese university students’ EFL writing has been studied previously, but the performance of university students in educationally underdevelop...

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Main Authors: Yang, Yang, Ngee, Thai Yap, Afida, Mohamad Ali
Format: Article
Published: Sciedu Press 2022
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/100113/
https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/22471
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spelling my.upm.eprints.1001132024-08-01T04:17:34Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/100113/ A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University Yang, Yang Ngee, Thai Yap Afida, Mohamad Ali Syntactic complexity is the variety and sophistication degree of the syntactic structures conveyed in written production. The syntactic complexity of general Chinese university students’ EFL writing has been studied previously, but the performance of university students in educationally underdeveloped Southwestern China remains unclear. Taking Pu’er University as a case, this study collected 400 EFL compositions from 100 university students in Southwestern China and compared them with 200 writing samples from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. Scores of 11 syntactic complexity indices were calculated using the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer. The independent samples t-test was conducted to investigate whether and the extent to which the two groups differed on syntactic complexity indices. The results showed that university EFL students in Southwestern China produce a similar length of linguistic units when compared to native English writers. However, the amount of subordination in EFL writing is significantly less than that of native English writers. For the amount of coordination, the university EFL students produced a lower proportion of coordinate phrases than that of native writers, but the proportion of coordinate sentences is not significantly different between the two groups. Finally, for degree of phrasal sophistication, university EFL students in Southwestern China produce significantly fewer complex nominals than native writers do. The results imply that university students in Southwestern China should write more subordinated sentences and complex nominals, such as nominal clauses, infinitives, or gerunds, in their future EFL writing, instead of writing long sentences just heavily relying on simple coordination. Sciedu Press 2022-12 Article PeerReviewed Yang, Yang and Ngee, Thai Yap and Afida, Mohamad Ali (2022) A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University. World Journal of English Language, 12 (8). pp. 172-180. ISSN 1925-0703; ESSN: 1925-0711 https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/22471 10.5430/wjel.v12n8p172
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
description Syntactic complexity is the variety and sophistication degree of the syntactic structures conveyed in written production. The syntactic complexity of general Chinese university students’ EFL writing has been studied previously, but the performance of university students in educationally underdeveloped Southwestern China remains unclear. Taking Pu’er University as a case, this study collected 400 EFL compositions from 100 university students in Southwestern China and compared them with 200 writing samples from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. Scores of 11 syntactic complexity indices were calculated using the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer. The independent samples t-test was conducted to investigate whether and the extent to which the two groups differed on syntactic complexity indices. The results showed that university EFL students in Southwestern China produce a similar length of linguistic units when compared to native English writers. However, the amount of subordination in EFL writing is significantly less than that of native English writers. For the amount of coordination, the university EFL students produced a lower proportion of coordinate phrases than that of native writers, but the proportion of coordinate sentences is not significantly different between the two groups. Finally, for degree of phrasal sophistication, university EFL students in Southwestern China produce significantly fewer complex nominals than native writers do. The results imply that university students in Southwestern China should write more subordinated sentences and complex nominals, such as nominal clauses, infinitives, or gerunds, in their future EFL writing, instead of writing long sentences just heavily relying on simple coordination.
format Article
author Yang, Yang
Ngee, Thai Yap
Afida, Mohamad Ali
spellingShingle Yang, Yang
Ngee, Thai Yap
Afida, Mohamad Ali
A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
author_facet Yang, Yang
Ngee, Thai Yap
Afida, Mohamad Ali
author_sort Yang, Yang
title A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
title_short A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
title_full A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
title_fullStr A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
title_full_unstemmed A corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university Students’ EFL writing in Southwestern China: a case of Pu’er University
title_sort corpus-based comparative study on syntactic complexity in university students’ efl writing in southwestern china: a case of pu’er university
publisher Sciedu Press
publishDate 2022
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/100113/
https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/22471
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score 13.239859

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