Differential contribution of oral and written modes to lexical, syntactic and propositional complexity in L2 performance in instructed contexts

Abstract

Complexity of L2 output during oral or written task performance has been associated with the process of restructuring; that is, a qualitative change of the internal L2 system by which interlanguage becomes more elaborate and more efficient in communication. While online pressures may restrain the occurrence of restructuring in oral production, the availability of time and visibility of output in writing might create optimal conditions to deploy more complex linguistic structures, with the concomitant interlanguage development. To test these claims, we conducted a study in which we explored if and how the manifestation of lexical, syntactic and propositional L2 complexity was moderated by the mode in which the task was performed. Our participants were 290 instructed L2 learners. They performed orally and in writing a narrative video-retelling task. The analysis revealed moderating task-modality effects on L2 complexity. We found that the written texts displayed higher scores on all the sub-dimensions of syntactic and lexical complexity. Differences were also observed in the way speakers and writers conveyed the propositional content of the task. We interpret these findings as evidence of the facilitating conditions for restructuring during written production in instructed settings and, accordingly, of the language-learning-potential of L2 writing tasks.

Investigating the interrelationship between rated L2 proficiency and linguistic complexity in L2 speech

“…However, we cannot assume that findings from writing research can be generalised to oral proficiency, as there tend to be important differences between the written and oral mode (Biber, Gray, & Staples, 2016). For instance, in a recent study by Vasylets, Gilabert, and Manchón (2019), learners who performed the same video-retelling task in the written and oral mode used syntactically and lexically more complex language in writing. Compared to the work on written language, there are relatively few studies which have analysed complexity at different levels of oral proficiency (see literature review).…”

Lexical and phraseological differences between second language written and spoken opinion responses

“…Many L2 studies have compared written and oral production in terms of lexical complexity, reporting consistent findings that writing tends to elicit higher lexical complexity than speaking (e.g., Ellis and Yuan, 2005;Granfeldt, 2008;Kormos, 2014;Biber et al, 2016;Vasylets et al, 2017Vasylets et al, , 2019Zalbidea, 2017). Some of these studies have examined written and oral discourse produced by the same learners (Ellis and Yuan, 2005;Granfeldt, 2008;Kormos, 2014).…”

“…Other studies have compared writing and speaking using the same task but produced by different learners (Vasylets et al, 2017(Vasylets et al, , 2019Zalbidea, 2017). Zalbidea (2017) examined written emails and oral explanations (argumentative) produced by 16 English-speaking (L1) intermediate-level learners of Spanish (L2), respectively, and reported higher lexical diversity (measured by the Guiraud's index) in writing than in speaking.…”

“…Over the past three decades, considerable attention has focused on how L2 learner output differs across modalities (i.e., writing and speaking modalities) based on task-based approaches using experimental approaches (e.g., Ellis and Yuan, 2005;Granfeldt, 2008;Kormos, 2014;Vasylets et al, 2017Vasylets et al, , 2019Zalbidea, 2017) and from assessment perspectives using language corpora (e.g., Yu, 2010;Biber et al, 2016). These studies generally report that L2 writing tasks, as compared to speaking tasks, tend to elicit higher levels of linguistic complexity, defined as "the complexity directly arising from the number of linguistic elements and their interrelationships" (Pallotti, 2015, p. 117), particularly in terms of lexical and syntactic complexity.…”

Measurement of functional adequacy in different learning contexts

“…An array of measures has been proposed to assess these three dimensions (e.g., Bulté & Housen, 2012;Housen et al, 2012;Norris & Ortega, 2009;Wolfe-Quintero et al, 1998). Although there seems to be a growing consensus among researchers over which measures are best suited to assess linguistic performance, additional measures are still being proposed, for example, indices for morphological complexity (Pallotti & Brezina, 2019), phraseological complexity (Paquot, 2018(Paquot, , 2019, and propositional complexity (Vasylets et al, 2019).…”