Comparing the longitudinal development of phraseological complexity across oral and written tasks

Vandeweerd, Nathan; Housen, Alex; Paquot, Magali

doi:10.1017/s0272263122000389

Cited by 7 publications

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“…Only one study thus far has directly compared phraseological complexity across modes, however. Vandeweerd et al (2022) compared the diversity and sophistication of direct objects (verb + noun) and adjectival modifiers (noun + adjective) across oral and written tasks collected from university-level learners of French over a period of 21 months. While the design of the corpus made it difficult to isolate the precise effects of task characteristics (e.g., modality, interactivity) from register, comparison of the learner group and a first language (L1) group seemed to indicate that the extra planning time afforded by the written task had a positive effect on the phraseological complexity in learner productions but that this effect was somewhat mediated by the functional requirements of the task, as seen by the fact that the complexity of the noun-based units (adjectival modifiers) and verb-based units (direct objects) differed across tasks.…”

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confidence: 99%

Proficiency at the lexis–grammar interface: Comparing oral versus written French exam tasks

2023

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This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis–grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and grammatical features is mediated by communicative function. This is especially evident when assessing oral versus written exam tasks, where the modality of a task may intersect with register-induced variation in linguistic output. This article presents the results of an empirical study in which we measured the diversity and sophistication of four-word lexical bundles extracted from a corpus of French proficiency exams. Analysis revealed that the diversity of noun-based bundles was a significant predictor of written proficiency scores and the sophistication of verb-based bundles was a significant predictor of proficiency scores across both modes, suggesting that communicative function as well as the constraints of online planning mediated the effect of lexicogrammatical phenomena on proficiency scores. Importantly, lexicogrammatical measures were better predictors of proficiency than solely lexical-based measures, which speaks to the potential utility of considering lexicogrammatical competence on scoring rubrics.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proficiency at the lexis–grammar interface: Comparing oral versus written French exam tasks

2023

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“…Given that complex linguistic structures can emerge from the co-occurrence of linguistic units in actual language use (Bybee & Hopper, 2001;Cong & Liu, 2021), this paper adopts a simpler word co-occurrence network approach to measure L2 Chinese development. Word co-occurrences, i.e., bi-gram words, are increasingly being recognized as an important feature for distinguishing L2 learners' pro ciencies under the phraseological complexity construct in recent years Garner et al, 2019;Vandeweerd et al, 2022). Moreover, unlike phraseological complexity indices that need a reference corpus, the word co-occurrence network approach does not require extra resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Lexical Network Approach to Second Language Development

Chen

2023

Preprint

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This study investigates lexical development in second language (L2) learning from the perspective of complex dynamic system theory (CDST) using a complex network method. Based on authentic written output texts from L2 Chinese learners of different proficiency levels and language backgrounds, we successfully differentiate between different proficiency levels using a bi-gram lexical network model. Furthermore, we compare the lexical-network-based approach with the traditional lexical-complexity-based approach. The results show that, compared to traditional lexical complexity indices (such as Average Word Length and Hapax Legomena Percentage), the lexical network indices (such as network size, number of edges, network density, and network centrality) offer greater insight into distinguishing L2 proficiencies and approximating the target language. Furthermore, the findings reveal that L2 Chinese lexical networks exhibit the characteristics of complex networks consistently across all proficiency levels. Additionally, lexical aggregation features, encompassing more than just word frequency information, provide comprehensive properties of the interlanguage system, as supported by their information gain values. We argue that studies within the CDST framework should integrate both lexical complexity and lexical network features to gain a comprehensive understanding of L2 lexical development.

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A lexical network approach to second language development

Chen

2023

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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This study investigates lexical development in second language (L2) learning from the perspective of complex dynamic system theory (CDST) using a complex network method. Based on authentic written output texts from L2 Chinese learners of different proficiency levels and language backgrounds, we successfully differentiate between different proficiency levels using a bi-gram lexical network model at a corpus level. A more in-depth investigation reveals that when compared to traditional lexical complexity indices, such as average word length and hapax legomena percentage (though Guiraud proves to be a robust predictor), the lexical network indices, such as network density and network clusters, provide a more profound understanding of L2 proficiency distinctions and a more precise approximation of the target language. Moreover, our findings illuminate the consistent manifestation of complex network characteristics within L2 Chinese lexical networks across all proficiency levels. Additionally, word association features, encompassing more than just word frequency information, provide comprehensive properties of the interlanguage system, as supported by their information gain values. We argue that studies within the CDST framework should integrate both lexical frequency and lexical network features to gain a comprehensive understanding of L2 lexical development.

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Comparing the longitudinal development of phraseological complexity across oral and written tasks

Cited by 7 publications

References 77 publications

Proficiency at the lexis–grammar interface: Comparing oral versus written French exam tasks

Proficiency at the lexis–grammar interface: Comparing oral versus written French exam tasks

A Lexical Network Approach to Second Language Development

A lexical network approach to second language development

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