A Multidimensional Approach To Linguistic Complexity In Low-intermediate Efl Learners' Writings

As a multidimensional approach to linguistic complexity,the present study involved a new type of complexity—phraseological complexity—into the linguistic complexity system which has traditionally been operationalized as syntactic and lexical complexity.In order to depict a multidimensional and balanced picture of linguistic complexity,the study first investigated the development of phraseological complexity in L2 writings of low-intermediate proficiency,and then delved into the sub-constructs of syntactic complexity,lexical complexity,and phraseological complexity and compared the complexity indices in their ability to predict low-intermediate L2 proficiency.The data of this study consist of 322 English narratives written by Chinese students from one junior high school and one senior high school,who are considered as low-intermediate L2 learners.In order to better define participants' proficiency,all the compositions are scored and redistributed to make a quasi-longitudinal corpus.The measurement of syntactic complexity and lexical complexity is completed automatically by L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer(L2SCA)and L2 Lexical Complexity Analyzer(L2LCA).Phraseological units are operationalized as two common collocations,adjective + noun collocation and verb + direct object collocation.A dependency treebank based on the corpus is built by Stanford Parser and the measurement of phraseological complexity is computed by online BNC corpus.Through statistical analyses and discussion,the major findings are: 1)Phraseological complexity can measure the development of L2 proficiency,which,however,also depends on the type of phraseological units.Phraseological measures based on adjective + noun collocations are better at discriminating and predicting low-intermediate proficiency than verb + direct object collocations.2)Phraseological indices tap into different sub-constructs of linguistic complexity according to the type of phraseological units,but syntactic and lexical measures according to the index.3)Phraseological complexity is more related to lexis rather than syntax and more related to lexical diversity instead of lexical sophistication in low-intermediate L2 writings.4)The measure of lexical diversity and phraseological complexity based on amod collocations are the most powerful in predicting low-intermediate L2 proficiency,while lexical sophistication and phraseological complexity based on dobj collocations fail to gauge and predict L2 proficiency.5)Clause-level syntactic indices contribute to predicting L2 proficiency weakly but still significantly.However,phrase-level syntactic complexity measures fail to show a significant contribution to predicting L2 proficiency,indicating they are not qualified predictors of low-intermediate L2 proficiency.Based on the above findings of the relationship between L2 proficiency and three types of complexity,it is hoped that they could give some theoretical and pedagogical implications on the teaching and learning of syntax,vocabulary and phraseological units for low-intermediate L2 learners.