Dynamic Development Of Linguistic Features In Chinese Undergraduates' English Narratives

This study aims to investigate the dynamic development of linguistic features in Chinese learners' English narratives over time.On the basis of the theories and empirical studies of linguistic features in the field of second language writing,the author examines the dynamic changes of lexical features,syntactic features and cohesive features on the one hand,and explores how their indices interact within and across each of these three types of linguistic features on the other hand.Specifically,this study attempts to answer the following questions:1)How do Chinese undergraduates' multiple indices of lexical features,syntactic features and cohesive features in their English narratives change over the five tests?2)How do the internal relationship between the indices within lexical features,syntactic features and cohesive features change over the five tests?3)How do the overall relationship between the indices of lexical features,syntactic features and cohesive features change over the five tests?As part of a National Social Science Project(11CYY021),this study analyzed 150 English narratives written by thirty English major students of Grade 2011 from North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power and Xian University of Posts & Telecommunications.In the longitudinal study,the data were collected at five points;specifically at the beginning of and at the end of the first semester,and at the end of the 2nd,the 3rd,the 4th and the 5th semester.The linguistic features of Chinese learners' English narratives on group level were examined diachronically.Data analysis involves the following steps: First,two computational automatic tools,Coh-Metrix 3.0 and L2 SCA,were used to analyze texts on multiple characteristics of linguistic features.Second,afterwards,means and standard deviations were calculated to represent the central tendency and variable tendency of the data.Third,One-way Analysis of Variance(ANOVA)was performed to test if there is variation in the frequency of the use of internal indices of each linguistic feature across the five different tests.Finally,Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between internal indices of linguistic features over the five tests,to determine whether the internal indices of each type of linguistic features are significantly correlated and whether the three types of linguistic features are correlated on the whole.In addition,the dynamic change of their relationship is also taken into consideration.The major findings are summarized below: Firstly,the linguistic features of Chinese learners' English narratives change in a fluctuant way over the five tests,reflecting the complex and dynamic development characteristics of linguistic system.Secondly,there are strong positivesignificant correlations among the internal indices of each type of linguistic feature,except that lexical diversity is not significantly correlated with hypernymy and there is a significant negative correlation between lexical diversity and concreteness.And their relationship change over time in an unpredictable way.It means that systems are constantly changing,that small changes in one place may have an effect on other parts of the system,and that these changes are nonlinear.Thirdly,regarding relationship between the three types of linguistic features,there is no significant correlation between lexical features and syntactic features,which indicates they can be regarded as two subsystems of a complexity linguistic system.The correlations between syntactic features and cohesive features show a nonlinear change over time,specifically,their relationship sometimes become stronger,sometimes become weaker and even zero.The relationship between the indices of lexical features and cohesive features also change in a fluctuating way,especially include positive significant correlation and negative significant correlation.The above results confirm a DST points of view,namely,language as a complexity and dynamic system;it changes in a dynamic,complexity and nonlinear way;the subsystems not only develop by their own changes,but also by the interaction between each other over time.Illuminated by the above findings,some pedagogical suggestions are proposed: Firstly,in order to improve the text cohesion,we need to enhance syntactic complexity,reduce the lexical diversity appropriately while increasing the lexical hypernymy and concreteness,and vice versa.Secondly,the study of linguistic features cannot be limited to group studies or case studies.We should combine these two kinds of research design to fully delineate the dynamic development of EFL in a comprehensive and multi-dimensional manner.