dc.contributor.author | Vyatkina, Nina | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-22T16:59:09Z | |
dc.date.available | 2018-06-22T16:59:09Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2015 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Vyatkina, N. Hirschmann, H. & Golcher, F. (2015). Syntactic modification at early stages of L2 German writing development: A longitudinal learner corpus study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 29, 28-50. | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26569 | |
dc.description.abstract | This study explores ab initio development of syntactic complexity in a longitudinal corpus of learner German writing from a Dynamic Usage-Based perspective. It contributes to the research on L2 writing complexity by focusing on beginning learners of an L2 other than English (German) and on fine-grained measures of syntactic complexity, operationally defined here as syntactic modification.The results show that not only ubiquitous global measures of syntactic complexity but also more specific measures, namely frequencies of syntactic modifiers, can serve as developmental indices at beginning L2 proficiency levels. The learners in this study modified their writing from the very onset of language study and the overall size and range of the modification system did not significantly change over four semesters. However, its composition changed continuously and reflected non-linear waxing and waning of different modifier categories. The study confirmed some results from previous cross-sectional research showing that interlanguage development is characterized by a decrease in cognitively easier (e.g., uninflected) categories and an increase in cognitively more difficult (e.g., inflected and clausal) categories. The high variability that was found along with uniform group trends demonstrates the necessity of simultaneous investigations of linguistic development in groups and individuals. | en_US |
dc.publisher | Elsevier | en_US |
dc.rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. | |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | |
dc.subject | syntactic modification | en_US |
dc.subject | L2 writing development | en_US |
dc.subject | German | en_US |
dc.subject | low proficiency | en_US |
dc.subject | dynamic usage-based approach | en_US |
dc.subject | mixed effects modeling | en_US |
dc.title | Syntactic modification at early stages of L2 German writing development: A longitudinal learner corpus study | en_US |
dc.type | Article | en_US |
kusw.kuauthor | Vyatkina, Nina | |
kusw.kudepartment | Germanic Languages & Literatures | en_US |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1016/j.jslw.2015.06.006 | en_US |
kusw.oaversion | Scholarly/refereed, author accepted manuscript | en_US |
kusw.oapolicy | This item meets KU Open Access policy criteria. | en_US |
dc.rights.accessrights | openAccess | en_US |