An Analysis Of Language Complexity In English Writings Of EFL Learners With Different L1 Backgrounds

Language complexity, which is viewed as an important indicator of second language (L2) proficiency, is a significant construct in second language acquisition (SLA) and second language (L2) writing studies. A large number of studies have been conducted to investigate the influence of internal linguistic factors and external factors on language complexity. At the same time, there is a growing number of studies that investigate the influence of first language (LI) on L2 writing. However, few researches have studied the effect of EFL learners’language background, an important learner-related factor, on their English writing.This paper reports the results of a corpus-based comparison of language complexity in English writings across English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with different L1 backgrounds. From the International Corpus of Learner English Version 2.0 (ICLE 2.0; Granger, Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot,2009) and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS; Granger,1996),1200 argumentative essays written by EFL learners with six different L1 backgrounds and 200 argumentative essays produced by native-speaker (NS) collegiate students are sampled. Half of the NNS groups (Chinese, Japanese and Tswana) are at the upper intermediate proficiency level while the other half of the groups (Swedish, Bulgarian and Russian) are at the advanced proficiency level. Employing computational tools such as L2 Lexical Complexity Analyzer (L2LCA), L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) and SPSS, the lexical and syntactic complexity indices of the sampled essays are calculated, analyzed and then compared. The study finds that the results of some language complexity dimensions contradict the prediction based on students’ proficiency level. In other words, a purely proficiency-based explanation cannot account for the EFL learners’performance in some language complexity dimensions of their English writing production. As a result, the influence of L1 background on language complexity, or at least certain interaction between the EFL students’ L1 background and proficiency level, needs to be taken into consideration. The implications of the findings for EFL education and L2 wring are discussed.