纵向研究二语学习者三年学习中口语产出的词汇丰富性和句法复杂性发展的动态模式语言学翻译论文样本文档格式.docx

纵向研究二语学习者三年学习中口语产出的词汇丰富性和句法复杂性发展的动态模式语言学翻译论文样本文档格式.docx

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Thoughagreatnumberofstudieshavebeencarriedouttoinvestigatelexicalrichnessorsyntacticcomplexityseparatelyathomeandabroad（Hunt,1970;

Crowhurst,1980,1983;

Laufer,1991,1994,1995,1998;

Bardovi-Harlig,1992;

Vermeer,2000;

WuXudong&

ChenXiaoqing,2000;

Ortega,2003;

LiuDonghong,2003;

YuHua,2004;

WenQiufang,2006a,b;

QinXiaoqing,2007）,studiesonthedevelopmentaltendencyofthelexicalrichnessandsyntacticcomplexityfromalongitudinalperspectiveaswellastheinteractionbetweenlexicalrichnessandcomplexity（Morris&

Crump,1982）arescantyandfarfromconclusive.What’smore,asWen（2006a）claims,lexicalcharacteristicsandsyntacticcharacteristicshavebeenheavilyexploredinEFLwriting（Engber,1995;

James,2002;

Laufer,1991,1998;

Shaw&

Liu,1998;

LiJingquan&

CaiJingting,2001;

NiLan，2000;

WenQiufang,etc.,2003,2004）whilesimilarresearchesonthespokendataofEFLlearnersaremuchrarer（Vermeer,2000;

WenQiufang,2006a,b）.Accordingly,alongitudinalstudyonthechangesinChineseL2learners’vocabularyandsyntaxisnecessary.

ThislineofstudyshouldbeundertakenintheChinesecontextalsobecausethecorollaryofitwillhavesignificantpracticalimplicationsforL2lexisandsyntaxinstruction.ItisknownthatChineseL2teacherslaymoreemphasisongrammaticalaccuracythanoncomplexitybothininstructingandassessingwriting,whichleadstoL2learners’morefrequentuseofsimplevocabularyandsyntacticstructures,adetrimenttotheirlanguagedevelopment.Atpresent,westilllackaclearpictureofthedevelopmentalpatternsoflexicalrichnessandsyntacticcomplexityforChineseL2learners,whichwillundoubtedlyshedlightonChineseL2teaching.

1.2Researchpurpose

ThisstudyisundertakenwiththeaimofexploringthedevelopmentalpatternsofL2learners’lexicalrichnessandsyntacticcomplexity.Specifically,thepurposeofthepresentstudyisthree-fold:

firstly,torevealthedevelopmentalpatternsofL2learners’lexicalrichnessandsyntacticcomplexityacrossthreeyears;

secondly,tocomparethegrowthratesoflexicalrichnessandsyntacticcomplexityintheiroraloutputatthetwointervals;

thirdly,toexaminetherelationshipbetweentheL2learners’lexicalrichnessandtheirsyntacticcomplexityinthreeyearsrespectively.

2.Literaturereview

InthefieldofSecondLanguageAcquisition（SLA）research,languagecompetencecanbestudiedfromdifferentaspects.Asforproductivity,languagecompetencecanmovealongtwodimensions:

lexicalcomplexity（alsocalledlexicalrichness）andsyntacticcomplexity.Additionally,accordingtoWolfe-Quinteroetal.（1998）,complexitymeansthatawidevarietyorawiderangeofbothbasicandsophisticatedstructuresandwordsareavailableandcanbeaccessedquickly.InWolfe-Quintero’sdefinition,thefirsthalfreferstosyntacticcomplexitywhilethelatterreferstolexicalrichness.Thischapterconsistsofthreeparts.Thefirstpartfocusesonlexicalrichness,thesecondpartonsyntacticcomplexityandthethirdpartonproblemsinthepreviousstudies.

2.1Lexicalrichness

Manyscholars（Linnarud,1986;

Nihanani,1981;

Hyltenstam,1988;

Engber,1995）havedonesomeresearchesonlexicalrichness.Laufer（1994）definedlexicalrichnessasconsistingoflexicalvariance,lexicaldensity,lexicalsophisticationandlexicaloriginality.

Severaltypesofratiomeasureshavebeenutilizedinresearchonsecondlanguagelexicaldevelopmentinwriting.Lexicalvariancewasmeasuredbyatype/tokenratio（Laufer,1991）.Lexicaldensitywascalculatedbydividingthenumberoftypesbythenumberoflexicaltokens（Engber,1995）.Lexicalsophisticationwasmeasuredbytheratiooftheadvancedlexemestothetotalnumberofwords,asdoneinEngber（1995）.Lexicaloriginalitywascalculatedbydividingthenumberoftokensuniquetoawriterbythetotalnumberoftokens（Linnarud,1986）.

Amongthesemeasures,lexicalvariationmeasureandlexicalsophisticationmeasurearemostfrequentlyused.Wolfe-Quinteroetal.（1998）notedthatlexicalcomplexitywasmanifestinwritingprimarilyintermsoftherange（lexicalvariation）andsize（lexicalsophistication）ofasecondlanguagewriter’sproductivevocabulary.Theyconcludedthatmeasuresoflexicalvariationandsophisticationappearedtobestrelatetosecondlanguagedevelopment.Althoughlexicalvariationandsophisticationmeasureshavenotbeensystematicallyinvestigatedinmanystudiesorformanyprogramlevels,theydidofferpromiseasindicatorsoflanguagedevelopment.Thisthesisaimstoreviewlexicalvarianceandlexicalsophisticationastwoindicatorsoflexicalrichness.

2.1.1Lexicalvariance

InLinnarud’s（1986）study,lexicalvariancewasdefinedasthetotalnumberofdifferentlexicalitemsorwordtypesdividedbythetotalnumberoflexicalwordsinatext.Thesubjectsfellintotwogroups:

theL2learnergroup-17-year-oldSwedishlearners（L2highschooljuniors）,andthenativespeakergroupatthesameschoollevel.Theywereaskedtowriteapicturedescriptionessayin40minutes.Linnarud（1986）comparedthecompositionsinlexicalvariancebetweenthetwogroups.ShefoundacleardifferenceinlexicalvariancebetweentheL2learnersandthenativespeakers:

theL2learnerslackedlexicalvariation.ShealsohadeachcompositionholisticallyscoredinordertoexaminewhethertherewasasignificantrelationshipbetweenlexicalvarianceandL2writingquality.Asaresult,norelationshipwasfoundbetweentheholisticscoresandthismeasureforboththeL2learnergroupandthenativespeakergroup.

InNihanani’s（1981）study,lexicalvariancewasdefinedasthetotalnumberofdifferentlexicalitemsdividedbythetotalnumberoflexicalwordsinatext.Nihanani（1981）collectedthetake-homeessayswrittenbyL2universitystudents.Shecountedeachlexicalvariancescorebasedonthegivendefinitionandhadeachessayholisticallyscored.ThesameresultasLinnarud’s（1986）wasfound:

therewasnosignificantrelationshipbetweentheholisticscoresandlexicalvariance.

InHyltenstam’s（1988）study,theL2learnersweresecondyearhighschoolstudents.Theywereaskedtowriteasummaryandresponsetoa20-minutefilmwithouttimelimit.UnlikeNihanani（1981）andLinnarud（1986）,Hyltenstam（1988）controlledforthetextlengthwhencalculatingalexicalvariancescore.However,Hyltenstam（1988）foundasimilarresult:

therewasnorelationshipbetweenlexicalvarianceandL2writingquality.

InEngber（1995）andLinnarud（1986）,lexicalvariancewasdefinedinthesameway.However,Engber（1995）foundadifferentresult.Inherstudy,theL2learnerswerestudentsatanintermediatetohigh-intermediatelevelsoflanguageproficiency.Theywererequiredtowriteonthesametopicwithin35minutes.Thetopicwaschosenfromapooloftopicsthathadbeenproventobesuitableforelicitingresponsesatdifferentlevels.Sheusedaholisticscoringschemetomeasurethequalityofeachcomposition.Thequalityscoreswerethencomparedwiththequantitativemeasuresoflexicalvariance.Hercalculationofalexicalvariancescorewasunique:

shedividedeveryessayinto126-wordsegments,eachsegmentwastreatedasaseparateunitandanaveragelexicalvariancescorefortheessaywasthencalculatedastheratioofthesumofthedifferentwordspersegmenttothesumofthetotalnumberoflexicalwordspersegment.Shecalculatedthemeasureoflexicalvariancefirstwithlexicalerrorsincludedandthenwitherrorseliminated,andfoundmoderatelyhigh,statisticallysignificantcorrelationsbetweenthewritingqualityandeitherofbothmeasures.Acomparisonofthemeansforthesetwomeasuresshowedahighercorrelationforlexicalvariationwithouterror（r=0.57）thanforthatwitherror（r=0.45）.

Wolfe-Quinteroetal.（1998,p.109）heldthatthismeasurecapturedtheintuitionthatsecondlanguagewritersatahigherproficiencylevelwillcommandalargervocabularysizeandwillbeabletousesignificantlymorelexicalwordtypesthanwritersatalowerproficiencylevel.

2.1.2Lexicalsophistication

Anumberofresearchers（Laufer,1991;

Linnarud,1986;

LiuDonghong,2003）usedlexicalsophisticationtomeasurehowmanylowfrequencyoradvancedwordswereusedinatext.

Linnarud（1986）definedlexicalsophisticationasthenumberofsophisticatedlexicalwordsdividedbythetotalnumberoflexicalwordsinatextandsophisticatedlexicalwordsasthoseEnglishwordsthatweregenerallyintroducedatgrade9andaboveintheSwedisheducationalsystem.Hefoundthatnativelanguagewritersusedsignificantlymoresophisticatedwordsthansecondlanguagewriters（0.25versus0.21）,butfoundalowcorrelationbetweentheratioofsophisticatedwordsandtheholisticratingsofthecompositions.Thelowcorrelationmaybeunderstandable,sincethestudentswereatalowerlanguageproficiencylevelandhadnocommandofalargeactivevocabulary.

Laufer（1994）definedlexicalsophisticationastheratioofthetotalnumberofsophisticatedwordtypesdividedbythe