Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Writing is an important part of language production, which is a hot topic in second language acquisition research. It is one of the aspects which can be used to judge what degree a second language learner belongs to. Meanwhile, it is not easy to assess a piece of writing production since writing is multifaceted (Beers & Nagy, 2007). Its assessment involves various aspects, such as the appropriateness of vocabulary use, the correctness of grammar and the proper arrangement of paragraphs. Many researchers (Hunt, 1970; Thomas & Cooper 1976; Faigley, 1979; Crowhurst, 1980; Simms &Crump, 1983; Beers & Naggy, 2007) have offered their discussions from various point of views, of which syntactic features are indispensible parts. Sentence constituents, including words, phrases and clauses, are the basis of utterance. These constituents are combined according to certain syntax, which confirms the importance of syntactic features (Wen & Qin, 2007). Syntactic complexity, together with accuracy and fluency, is used as major syntactic features as well as measures of writing development. Accuracy refers to the ability of producing error-free sentence. Fluency is difficult to define (Monroe, 1975). It is cited in Beers and Nagy’s article(2007) that sentence fluency is a way writing plays to the ear, not just to the eye, including passage rhythm, language flow and word patterns. Complexity (also called syntactic maturity or linguistic complexity) is related to the range of forms that surface in production and the degree of sophistication of such forms(Otega, 2003). In recent years, the indices of syntactic complexity play an important role in evaluating the performance of second language writing because superior writers are supposed to write more complex articles with fewer errors (Wen & Qin, 2007). Measures of syntactic complexity could be used as for characterizations of language development and language proficiency (Otega, 2003).
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1.2 Significance of the Study
First of all, the significance of this essay will be discussed from theoretical perspective. This essay intends to do research on syntactic complexity in expository writings by Chinese students of English. As the background above mentioned states, few researchers do their studies by choosing expository essays as the research data. This study aims to find out syntactic complexity features demonstrated in the writings by different-proficient students and the relationship between syntactic complexity and writing quality so that it can provide more detailed analysis and make contribution to the analysis of complexity as developmental indices in writing. On the other hand, it attempts to further test the hypothesis with empirical evidence that ESL learner's syntactic complexity is developing with the development in the second language learners’ proficiency. In the study of SLA, researchers have been interested in the development of learners' second language knowledge system and their use in the communication, for example, how learners' syntactic complexity is developed has been mentioned in Krashen's Monitor Model; Ellis's (1996) discussed structural restructuring and chunks (Ellis 1996). The study of learners' syntactic complexity is of great value in the second language writing in that writing is a process which will need a lot of the writers’ mental efforts in order to express and share their ideas and thoughts from the cognitive angle. Theories concerning the first language writing suggest that whether the capacity of writer's working memory plays a significant role in expressing their ideas. It is thus believed that the writers might spare more working memory so as to focus on points relevant to meaning if their complexity and fluency in language are enhanced. It is going to enrich the experiment of EFL learner’s writing development by using the theories and measurement of SLA.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
This chapter consists of three parts, research on syntactic complexity, including studies at home and abroad, theoretical framework that can be used to analyze the results of this study, and some definitions of the key terms in syntactic complexity.
2.1 Research on Syntactic Complexity in Writing
In the past twenty years, large quantities of empirical studies have been done on syntactic complexity both at home and abroad. The researchers took oral materials as well as written materials as the data base, in which written materials took more proportion than oral ones. This part is dedicated to a brief description of some empirical studies concerning syntactic complexity based on both written and spoken materials. The studies of syntactic complexity were first explored in the field of L1 writing and researchers tried to apply syntactic complexity into language teaching. It was used as a developmental index in studying second language acquisition until 1970s (Bardovi-Harlig, 1989). Indices of syntactic complexity were not only important research tools in the studies of second language learning, but also indispensable indices in language related disciplines(Ortega, 2003). Not until recent years, researchers began to use it as important measurement into second language writing (Polio, 2001). From the perspective of time span, previous researches can be pided into two categories, that is cross-sectional study and longitudinal study.
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2.2 Theoretical Framework: Dynamic Systems Theory
Dynamic systems theory is originally used to elaborate phenomenon of double pendulum in the field of physics. Nowadays, this theory has been used in psychology field in analyzing children’s cognitive development, action development, language development, behavior development and so on(Chen Xiangyang & Zhang Yanling, 2007). Dynamic systems theory is a science theoretical methodology in analyzingcomplex systems. The meaning of dynamic refers to variations caused by inner and extra effects in a system, which could be continuous, discontinuous or chaotic. Dynamic systems have basic features as follows(Larsen Freeman, 2011). The first one is tiny changes original in system could have great influence on the development of whole system, which is similar to butterfly effect. Secondly, each part in the system has close relationship and the development in the system is nonlinear. Thirdly, variations in the system come from self-organization and interaction with external system. Fourthly, attractor and repellor appear alternately. Attractor status are temporary in system transition. And variations in system are iteration. The core of dynamic system is complete inter-connectedness, which means all variables are dependent on each other. Alteration of one variable will have effect on other variables.
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Chapter Three Research Design .....28
3.1Research Questions ..........28
3.2Data Collection .........28
3.2.1Data........28
3.2.2Subjectsand Instruments......29
3.3Research Procedure..........30
3.3.1Indicesinthis Study.......30
3.3.2Research Design.....31
3.4Data Analysis ....32
Chapter Four Resultsand Discussion .....33
4.1Syntactic Complexity Featuresin DifferentGroups.........33
4.2Correlation Analysis Between Syntactic Complexity Features........48
4.3DiscussionsontheResults .......54
ChapterFive Conclusion.........66
5.1Major Findings..........66
5.2Implications of this Study.........68
5.3Limitations of the PresentStudy......68
5.4Suggestions for Further Study..........69
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
This chapter will give a detailed report of the results about the above analysis. Meanwhile the researcher will make a discussion about syntactic complexity features in the following parts from the perspectives, such as unit length, unit density, and sentence patterns and so on.
4.1 Syntactic Complexity Features in Different Groups
It can be clearly noticed that the scores in these three groups have an increasing trend. From deviations, it comes to the results that the biggest deviation is that of low proficiency group, the smallest one is that of the intermediate proficiency group and the middle position is occupied by the deviation of high proficiency, which manifests that low proficiency group has more concentrated scores and intermediate proficiency group has discrete scores. For the further purpose of testing whether the scores of these three groups have significant differences, Post Hoc Tests in terms of Scheffe is carried out and the results are shown in the table below.
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Conclusion
The original aims of this study are to find how syntactic complexity features vary in different proficiency expository writings and whether there are any correlations between syntactic complexity features and the composition quality. Text length develops in an increasing way from low proficiency group to high proficiency group. T-unit length, clause density, reduced structures and passive forms develop in a non-linear way. The usage of reduced structures and passive forms appear few in expository writngs. In the four basic sentence patterns, simple sentence patern, compound sentence pattern and complex sentence pattern increase from high proficiency group to low proficiency group. Only compound & complex sentence develop in an unstable way. In the clause types, only object clause increases, however, there is no big difference between intermediate proficiency group and low proficiency group. Not all the indices have close correlation with writing quality. Text length, simple sentence pattern, complex sentence pattern and object clause are the indices which show significant correlations with writing quality. The researcher of this thesis takes the writing data from a corpus Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (Edition 2.0) edited by Wen Qiufang in 2008. Specific experiment steps have been introduced in the earlier parts. This chapter will conclude major findings and the reasons why the researcher gets such findings in the previous chapter. The following part is about the implications derived from previous discussions and findings in this thesis. The third section will point out some limitations of this study. And suggestions for further studies will be given in the last section.
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The reference (omitted)