A Comparative And Diachronic Study Of Linguistic Complexity In Research Articles Between Chinese And Foreign Applied Linguistic Journals

Linguistic complexity is an important indicator to measure the quality of language learners’ academic writing.Many researchers have conducted studies on linguistic complexity in the field of L2 writing,whilst there are few studies exploring the comparative analysis and diachronic development of linguistic complexity in RAs in the discipline of linguistics.Since RAs are regarded as important realizations of scientific discourse,studying RAs can give implications to scholars at home and abroad.Therefore,this paper is devoted to exploring the differences and diachronic changes in linguistic complexity in RAs.The three research questions of this study include:1.Are there any differences in linguistic complexity between RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars? If so,what are they?2.Are there any diachronic changes of linguistic complexity between RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars? If so,what are they?3.What are the possible causes for these differences and diachronic changes of linguistic complexity between RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars?To answer the research questions,the author collected 210 RAs of empirical studies in Applied Linguistics and Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics.Among them,105 RAs are from Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics,which cover all the empirical studies since the journal was established in 2011,the other 105 RAs were randomly chosen from Applied Linguistics from the year 2011 to 2021 as the matched group.This study employed fourteen syntactic complexity measures supported by L2 SCA and four lexical complexity measures supported by LCA.The main findings of this study are summarized below:In the comparative study of linguistic complexity,in general,huge differences in linguistic complexity of RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars have been found in this study.From the perspective of syntactic complexity,among the 14 syntactic complexity measures,10 measures(Mean length of sentence,Mean length of T-units,Clauses per sentence,Clauses per T-unit,Complex T-units per T-unit,Dependent clauses per clause,Dependent clauses per T-units,Coordinate phrases per clause,Complex nominals per T-unit,Verb phrases per T-unit)show great differences in comparison with RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars(p <.01);one syntactic complexity measure(Complex nominals per clause)presents a slight difference in comparison with of RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars(p <.05);other three measures do not show an obvious difference.In brief,Chinese scholars tend to produce shorter sentences,shorter T-units,longer clauses,fewer subordinate clauses,more coordinate clauses,and fewer complex nominals in their RAs than international journal article scholars.As for lexical complexity,RAs of Chinese scholars show a lower level of lexical variation and lexical sophistication compared with the RAs of international journal article scholars,because of the lower level of language proficiency.There is no significant difference in terms of lexical density.In the diachronic study of linguistic complexity,we found that,first of all,in the diachronic change of syntactic complexity,the Mean length of sentence and Mean length of T-units in RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars show a trend of increasing;Clauses per T-unit and Complex T-units per T-unit in RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars show a trend of decreasing;the Coordinate phrases per clause and Coordinate phrases per clause in RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars show a first increasing and then decreasing trend;the Verb phrases per T-unit in RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars both present a trend of decreasing;the Complex nominals per clause shows a trend of increasing in the RAs of Chinese scholars,while demonstrates a first increasing then decreasing trend in the RAs of international journal article scholars.In the diachronic study of lexical complexity,the measure Lexical density in RAs of international journal article scholars shows a clear overall upward trend;the measure of Lexical variation in RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars show a first decreasing and then increasing trend;the measures Lexical sophistication-I,Lexical sophistication-II in RAs of Chinese scholars present a trend of slightly increasing while they present a steady trend in RAs of international journal article scholars.As for the reasons,firstly,the differences in linguistic complexity between RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars may be related to the language transfer habits,differences of levels of language proficiency and differences of journals and journal editors.Secondly,the diachronic changes of linguistic complexity between RAs of Chinese scholars and international journal article scholars may be related to the working memory capacity,legibility of the text,improvement of Chinese L2 learning ability,and complex topic choices.It is hoped that this study can provide inspiration for the teaching of second language academic writing;at the same time,it is also hoped that this study can help Chinese scholars to publish their academic outcomes in high-level journals.