A Study Into The Effect Of Genre And Timing Condition On The Written Syntactic Complexity Of Undergraduate English Majors

In second language writing research field,the main yardsticks for the development in writing proficiency are accuracy,fluency and complexity.Written complexity studies,however,have long been ignored by domestic researchers due to its deviation from the dominant writing test assessment system in China which focuses on written output's fluency and accuracy.It's in recent decades that domestic researchers have gradually shifted their attention to the theoretical and pedagogical significance of complexity studies and conducted various exploratory research.However,relevant empirical studies into the effects of the genre and the timing condition on English learners' written syntactic complexity,particularly in Chinese context,are comparatively rare.The present study aims to explore whether genre and timing condition exert any influence on undergraduate English majors' written English syntactic complexity and whether there is any interactive effect between the two factors on their written English syntactic complexity.The subjects are 30 English major sophomores from one natural class in a university of Jiangxi Province.All the subjects were required to compose an essay once a month and total 4 pieces of writing for each subject within a semester and altogether 120 compositions were collected.The researcher assigned the writing topics,genre and writing timing condition of the 4 types of essays.The writing genre is either argumentation or narration;meanwhile the writing timing condition arrangement is between timed writing condition and untimed one.The writing data collection finished,the researcher utilized 4 indexes to calculate the written syntactic complexity: T-unit length(W/T),clause length(W/C),T-unit complexity ratio(C/T)and dependent clause ratio(DC/C).Ultimately,the quantification result was analyzed through SPSS 19.0.The study reaches three main findings:First,with regard to the effect of genre on undergraduate English majors' written syntactic complexity,the finding is that argumentative genre provides more chance for the subjects to perform high written syntactic complexity degree than narrative one does.However,the difference of the two genres only reaches a significant level interms of both unit length indexes(W/T & W/C)but not the other two density indexes(C/T & DC/C).In other words,the superiority of argumentation in facilitating English writers' syntactic complexity does not continue in the density indexes.Second,concerning the effect of timing condition on undergraduate English majors' written syntactic complexity,the researcher finds that under untimed writing condition all the subjects produced higher degree of written syntactic complexity than under timed one except for an adverse statistical result in that untimed writing condition triggers them to present slightly lower W/C index in narration.Furthermore,none but the untimed argumentations presents significantly higher length indexes(W/T & W/C)than timed ones.The conclusion can be drawn that the effect of timing condition on written syntactic complexity is not as prominent as the genre factor.Third,significant interactive effect is found between the genre factor and the timing condition factor with regard to the writing units length indexes(W/T & W/C)but not the density indexes(C/T & DC/C).These statistical results confirm and interpret the complex interrelationship among the genre factor,timing condition factor and written syntactic complexity.The above research findings can offer the following pedagogical implications:first of all,teachers of writing teaching should adjust flexibly the course arrangement according to the students' current writing interest and proficiency through assigning diverse writing practices;for instance,essays of various genres and under different writing conditions.Secondly,writing instruction should also get rid of overemphasis on some regulated writing pattern and encourage the students to compose freely.Last but not least,writing teaching should encourage the students to produce much more complex and varied syntactic structures in their daily writing practice.