An Empirical Study Of Syntactic Complexity Development In Writing Of College English Majors

Syntactic complexity,referring to the variety and sophistication of language production units(Ortega 2003),has been recognized as a significant construct evaluating second language learners' writing development and proficiency.Studies on syntactic complexity in second language writing mainly focus on the development features of syntactic complexity in writing with the aim of finding the developmental patterns since 1970 s.In recent years,there have been increasing domestic studies on syntactic complexity.However,most domestic studies failed to adopt a multidimensional measurement of syntactic complexity or a large amount of data.Moreover,few studies explored the development or proficiency of syntactic complexity in Chinese English majors' writing with a native-speaker baseline.Therefore,it leaves space for the present study.The present study adopts 10 syntactic complexity measures,categorized into length of production units,amount of subordination,amount of coordination and degree of phrasal sophistication,to study the syntactic complexity in writing based on180 timed argumentative writings by college English majors across three grades,including Grade 1,Grade 2 and Grade 3,and 40 timed argumentative essays selected from Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays(LOCNESS)produced by American university students.This study aims to investigate the developmental patterns of syntactic complexity in writings by Chinese college English majors across three grades,and examine the correlation between syntactic complexity and writing quality.In addition,it attempts to explore the syntactic complexity level of Chinese advanced English learners represented by English majors in Grade 3 with a native-speaker baseline.The results show that 1)Six syntactic complexity measures show significant differences among Chinese college English majors across three grades,including mean length of sentence(MLS),mean length of T-unit(MLT),coordinate phrases per clause(CP/C),coordinate phrases per T-unit(CP/T),complex nominals per clause(CN/C)and complex nominals per T-unit(CN/T).2)The six measures present positive changes from Grade 1 to Grade 3.More specifically,four measures show linear positive development with grade,including MLS,MLT,CN/C and CN/T.WhileCP/C and CP/T increase non-linearly from Grade 1 to Grade 3.3)Four measures exhibit significant positive correlations with writing quality,including mean length of T-unit(MLT),coordinate phrases per T-unit(CP/T),complex nominals per clause(CN/C)and complex nominals per T-unit(CN/T),while only CN/T shows moderate correlation with writing quality.4)Eight measures show significant differences between Chinese English majors and American university students' writing,including mean length of sentence(MLS),mean length of T-unit(MLT)mean length of clause(MLC),coordinate phrases per clause(CP/C),coordinate phrases per T-unit(CP/T),T-units per sentence(T/S),complex nominals per clause(CN/C)and complex nominals per T-unit(CN/T).Based on the findings,this study provides some implications for English writing learning,teaching and evaluation.English majors and instructors should pay more attention to complexification at phrasal level rather than clausal level.Besides,raters could focus more on the employment of complex nominals when assessing writings by advanced English learners.In addition,the significant gap in syntactic complexity between Chinese college English majors in Grade three and native students calls for a new design of relevant pedagogical interventions to enhance Chinese English learners' syntactic complexity development.