Clausal complexity of expert and student writing: a corpus-based analysis of papers in social sciences

IF 0.7 Q3 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Language Learning in Higher Education Pub Date : 2022-10-01 DOI:10.1515/cercles-2022-2052

E. Smirnova

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract Syntactic complexity has been extensively approached in the fields of corpus linguistics and academic discourse studies. However, works focusing on disciplinary variation in terms of linguistic complexity and comparison of professional and novice academic writing are scarce. Addressing these issues is likely to have important implications for EAP/ESP practitioners in terms of selection of target structures and learning material design. This study is a corpus analysis of the use of clausal complexity features in two social sciences, management and economics. The research is based on two kinds of corpora: expert corpora which comprise articles published in peer-reviewed journals, and learner corpora of L2 undergraduate students’ research papers. This work aims at answering two questions: Do clausal complexity features vary in the texts in management and economics? What are the differences in syntactic use between the academic texts written by professional authors and learner writing? The data showed that economists and managers tend to use the structures under consideration with significantly different frequencies. The professional writing was found to demonstrate more signs of clausal complexity than the learners’ texts.

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专家和学生写作的小句复杂性：基于语料库的社会科学论文分析

摘要句法复杂性在语料库语言学和学术话语研究领域得到了广泛的研究。然而，关注语言复杂性方面的学科变异以及专业和新手学术写作的比较的作品很少。解决这些问题可能会对EAP/ESP从业者在目标结构选择和学习材料设计方面产生重要影响。本研究是对管理学和经济学两门社会科学中从句复杂性特征的使用进行语料库分析。本研究基于两种语料库：由发表在同行评审期刊上的文章组成的专家语料库和二语本科生研究论文的学习者语料库。这项工作旨在回答两个问题：管理学和经济学中的从句复杂性特征是否有所不同？专业作者撰写的学术文本与学习者写作在句法使用上有什么区别？数据显示，经济学家和管理者倾向于以明显不同的频率使用所考虑的结构。研究发现，与学习者的文本相比，专业写作表现出更多的从句复杂性迹象。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Language Learning in Higher Education EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-

CiteScore

1.00

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Language Learning in Higher Education deals with the most relevant aspects of language acquisition at university. The CercleS journal presents the outcomes of research on language teaching, blended learning and autonomous learning, language assessment as well as aspects of professional development, quality assurance and university language policy. Its aim is to increase the quality of language teaching and learning programmes offered by university language centers and other providers in higher education by presenting new models and by disseminating the best results of research activities carried out at language centers and in other higher education departments.