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A corpus-based comparison of syntactic complexity in academic writing of L1 and L2 English students across years and disciplines

PloS one, 2023-10, Vol.18 (10), p.e0292688-e0292688 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

COPYRIGHT 2023 Public Library of Science ;2023 Shen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;2023 Shen et al 2023 Shen et al ;2023 Shen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;ISSN: 1932-6203 ;EISSN: 1932-6203 ;DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292688 ;PMID: 37812624

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  • Title:
    A corpus-based comparison of syntactic complexity in academic writing of L1 and L2 English students across years and disciplines
  • Author: Shen, Chen ; Guo, Jirong ; Shi, Penghai ; Qu, Sheming ; Tian, Jiwei
  • Zhang, Lawrence Jun
  • Subjects: Asian students ; Biology and Life Sciences ; College students ; Colleges & universities ; Comparative analysis ; Complexity ; English as a second language ; Evaluation ; Interdisciplinary aspects ; Language ; Learning strategies ; Linguistics ; Mediation ; Native students ; Physical Sciences ; Scholarly communication ; Social Sciences ; Students ; Training ; Writing
  • Is Part Of: PloS one, 2023-10, Vol.18 (10), p.e0292688-e0292688
  • Description: Syntactic complexity, widely acknowledged as a key predictor of writing quality, has gained increasing attention in the realm of academic writing. A notable line of inquiry has centered on the factors that potentially influence syntactic complexity in academic writing. Instead of attending to one factor, the study focuses on multiple factors to examine how language background affects syntactic complexity across years and disciplines. Specifically, it compares the syntactic complexity in English academic writing between L1 English and L1 Chinese university students across four years and/or three disciplines. Fine-grained indices, which include five clausal indices and eight phrasal indices, are utilized to capture specific syntactic features for a full understanding and description of the syntactic preferences shown by L1 English and L1 Chinese students in academic discourse. The results revealed that L1 English students tended to produce more noun phrases in academic writing than L1 Chinese students with the increase of years. Additionally, both cohorts of students followed similar syntactic patterns in cross-disciplinary contexts, with highly frequent use of complex nominals in the Physical Sciences and clausal structures in the Social Sciences. In instances where language background, year, and discipline interact, texts produced by Chinese English learners exhibited reliance on the syntactic features of adverbial clauses, attributive adjectives, and pre-modifying nouns across all disciplines in the early years of their academic journey. Ultimately, some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses are put forward in an attempt to provide valuable insights for enhancing academic literacy among both L1 and L2 students.
  • Publisher: San Francisco: Public Library of Science
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 1932-6203
    EISSN: 1932-6203
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292688
    PMID: 37812624
  • Source: Public Library of Science (PLoS) Journals Open Access
    Geneva Foundation Free Medical Journals at publisher websites
    PubMed Central
    ProQuest Central
    DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals
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