Morphological Complexity in Written L2 Texts

Autor/inn/en	Brezina, Vaclav; Pallotti, Gabriele
Titel	Morphological Complexity in Written L2 Texts
Quelle	In: Second Language Research, 35 (2019) 1, S.99-119 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0267-6583
DOI	10.1177/0267658316643125
Schlagwörter	Second Language Learning; Second Language Instruction; Morphology (Languages); Teaching Methods; Advanced Students; English (Second Language); Case Studies; Native Speakers; Persuasive Discourse; Italian; Correlation; Language Proficiency; Sentence Structure; Contrastive Linguistics; Interlanguage; Computational Linguistics; Writing (Composition); Academic Discourse; College Students; Foreign Countries; Netherlands; Italy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Zweitsprachenerwerb; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Morphology; Morphologie; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Fortgeschrittener; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Case study; Fallstudie; Case Study; Muttersprachler; Persuasion; Persuasive Kommunikation; Italienisch; Korrelation; Language skill; Language skills; Sprachkompetenz; Satzbau; Satzstruktur; Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik; Zielsprache; Computerlinguistik; Schreibübung; Discourse; Diskurs; Collegestudent; Ausland; Niederlande; Italien
Abstract	Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers' proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01