| Argumentative writing is the focus of all kinds of entrance examinations and English proficiency examinations in China.However,it has always been a headache for Chinese learners,and how to effectively improve the level of argumentative writing is the focus of foreign language teachers.The comparative continuation task chooses a complete preceding text and requires learners to create new content and compare it with the preceding text,in which learners will naturally imitate the language or textual structure in the preceding text,thus enhancing their foreign language expression(Wang Chuming,2016).This method has been applied to argumentative writing and has been proved to improve students’ writing levels(Yu Qingping & Wang Luyao,2020).However,current research has not explored whether students who adopt comparative continuation for a long time will gradually increase alignment with the preceding text,thus improving their writing ability.Besides,it is known that the process of learners’ writing is complex,and learners’ writing can be regarded as a dynamic and complex system.The development between lexicon and syntax is unbalanced,and the development of the internal subsystems of lexicon or syntax is also unbalanced(Larsen-Freeman,1997;Van Geert,1991).At present,the research has not explored the development of students’ lexical and syntactic complexity in comparative continuation.Therefore,this study examines the above problem from the perspective of dynamic systems by conducting an one-semester comparative continuation task among 49 sophomores majoring in English.The following questions are discussed in detail: 1)How does the lexical complexity develop in the process of one-semester comparative continuation for English major sophomores? Is the development of lexicon affected by the alignment effect? Does the alignment effect of lexicon increase gradually? 2)How does the syntactic complexity develop in the process of one-semester comparative continuation for English major sophomores? Is the development of syntax affected by the alignment effect? Does the alignment effect of lexicon increase gradually?In this study,firstly,in order to find out participants’ current writing level,participants were required to take part in 1 propositional writing,and then they took part in 8 comparative continuations.Secondly,nine small Corpora,one for propositional writing and the other eight for 8 comparative continuations,are established.Thirdly,L2 Lexical Complexity Analyzer and L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer are used to measure the lexical and syntactic complexity,and then we make the growth trajectory plots maps of lexical and syntactic complexity.Finally,SPSS17.0 is used for significance test and correlation analysis.The data shows that,at the lexical level,1)The overall trend of lexical complexity increases at first and then decreases.Specifically,LS increases rapidly at first and then decreases gradually,LV increases rapidly at first and then decreases gradually,and LD fluctuates significantly in the whole process of comparative continuation.2)The development of lexicon is affected by alignment,and the alignment effect can exist for a long time.But alignment with each preceding text is different.Preceding texts’ higher lexical complexity does not guarantee the students’ higher lexical complexity.Besides,the influence of LS and LV of the preceding text on the students’ comparative continuation is mainly reflected in the early period of comparative continuation,and the influence of LD of the preceding text on the students’ comparative continuation is mainly reflected in the later period of comparative continuation.In general,students mainly align with the preceding text in the early period of comparative continuation,while in the later period of comparative continuation,the alignment effect on the lexicon is weak.At the syntactic level,1)The overall trend of syntactic complexity increases gradually.Specifically,in terms of unit length,in the early period of comparative continuation,the length of T-unit and the length of clause increase rapidly,and in the later period,the length of T-unit develops slowly and the length of clause decreases gradually.In terms of clausal density,in the early period of comparative continuation,the numbers of clause and dependent clause are lower than those in the later period,and the numbers of complex nominals and the reduced structure increase gradually.In the later period of comparative continuation,the numbers of clause and dependent clause increase gradually,the reduced structure develops steadily,and the number of complex nominals decreases.In terms of the reduced structure,the number of adverbial phrases increases gradually,the number of adjectival phrases is stable in general,but it is higher in quantity than that in propositional writing.And the development of nominal verb phrases is unstable.When the nominal verb phrases appear in the head sentence of the preceding text,it can significantly promote the acquisition of the sentence,but if it appears in other parts of the preceding text,it will not attract the students’ attention.2)The development of syntax is affected by alignment,and the alignment effect can exist for a long time.In the early period of comparative continuation,students mainly align with the reduced structures and complex nominals,while in the later period,they mainly align with the reduced structures and dependent clauses,and can also align with complex nominals.In general,in the whole process of comparative continuation,the students pay more attention to the syntax of preceding text,and alignment with syntax is stronger than that with lexicon.In terms of the interaction between lexicon and syntax,this study finds that although the correlation between lexical and syntactic indices is not significant,it does not mean that there is no interaction between the lexical and syntactic subsystems.In fact,in the early period of comparative continuation,LS and LV increase gradually,but the clause and dependent clause develop slowly.In the later period,LS and LV decrease gradually,while the clause and dependent clause develop quickly,which shows that there is a certain competition between lexicon and syntax.The results show that long-term comparative continuation can significantly increase students’ lexical and syntactic complexity,but it has different effects on different dimensions.In terms of lexicon,the comparative continuation promotes the development of LS greatly,making it similar to that among grades in traditional propositional writing.This is because students not only can align with the complex words appearing in the corresponding preceding text,but can also align with those in the previous preceding text.The comparative continuation can also promote the development of LV,making it similar to that among grades in traditional propositional writing.To the development of LD,it has a limited role.In terms of syntax,in the early period,the comparative continuation can promote the development of the length of T-unit and the length of clause quickly,making it similar to that among grades in traditional propositional writing.Besides,the comparative continuation can promote the development of adverbial phrases quickly,but it has a limited effect on adjectival phrases and nominal verb phrases.The results also show that,in the early period of comparative continuation,the students pay more attention to lexicon,the reduced structures and complex nominals with difficult syntactic structures,thus promoting the rapid development of these three aspects.While,in the later stage,the attention resources are more used in clauses and dependent clauses,and the development of LS,LV and complex nominals are restrained.But in the end,the reduced structures,dependent clauses,and complex nominals can develop together.In a word,this study further verifies the facilitation effect of argumentative comparative continuation by tracking the comparative continuation in one semester.And it describes in detail the dynamic development process of each dimension in argumentative writing.Therefore,this study is of great significance to the teaching of L2 argumentative writing and further enriches the understanding of the continuation task. |
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