A Study On Language Complexity Development In Expository Writing By English Majors

Writing is a significant indicator to evaluate learners’ language competence,gauged by language accuracy,fluency and complexity.The present study focuses on language complexity of writing,which is commonly investigated from two aspects:syntactic complexity and lexical complexity.In recent years,the research concerning language complexity has increased,some of which longitudinally probe into the writing features of language learners at different development stages or levels.Some are cross-sectional studies,inspecting language features of the same period or stage.This study exams the development of syntactic and lexical complexity of English majors’ expository writing.Based on the Dynamic System Theory,the present study,taking exposition as its genre,researched both syntactic and lexical complexity in writing of English majors across three grades.It aimed at addressing the following questions:(1)What are the features of syntactic complexity demonstrated in expository writing of English majors of different grades?(2)What are the features of lexical complexity demonstrated in expository writing of English majors of different grades?(3)What is the relationship between linguistic complexity and English learners’ expository writing performance?The study collected one-topic compositions written by English majors from three grades in a university in Jiangxi Provence.The participants were 121 English majors who were asked to write an exposition.Then 90 writings were randomly selected,30 from each grade.We examined syntactic complexity by four indexes: clausal length(W/C);complex nominals(CN/C);T-unit complexity ratio(C/T);dependent clause ratio(DC/C).lexical complexity was examined from lexical variation(word types per square root of 2 times total words)and Lexical frequency profile(LFP).Results of the present study are as follows:(1)all the indexes for syntactic complexity W/C,CN/C,C/T and DC/C progressed across the three grades but there exists a slow growth from Grade 1 to Grade 2 in terms of C/T and DC/C;(2)Generally,lexical complexity makes slow progress,especially Lexical Frequency Profile(LFP),indicating students are more over-dependent on producing the most frequently used words;(3)syntactic complexity is found to be significantly correlated with writing proficiency.Also significant relationship is discovered between lexicalvariation and writing proficiency but there is no statistical correlation between lexical sophistication and writing quality.The implications for writing teaching can be summarized as follows:(1)English writing instructors can utilize the process of syntactic development to facilitate writing teaching;(2)both teachers and students should also realize the importance of syntactic complexity rather than only focusing on accuracy and fluency;(3)the situation of over-dependence on the most frequently used words is expected to be changed by adopting various teaching methods,such as encouraging students to use various words in writing;analyzing advanced vocabulary in texts;or sharing theme-based martial for vocabulary incidental acquisition in order to enlarge students’ storage and range of productive vocabulary as as to reduce the dependence on the frequently used words.