Lexical complexity in exemplar EFL texts: towards text adaptation for 12 grades of basic English curriculum in China

IF 1.4 2区文学 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Iral-International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Pub Date : 2023-08-14 DOI:10.1515/iral-2022-0236

Yanfang Su, Kanglong Liu, Feng Liu, J. Lee, Tan Jin

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Abstract

Abstract Lexical complexity has been a key consideration of teaching preparation in determining grade appropriateness of teaching materials. However, the lack of quantified and defined standards for benchmarking lexical complexity has made it difficult for teachers when adapting source texts to target learners. This study has assessed quantitative differences in lexical complexity of exemplar texts at different points of schooling using a range of lexical diversity and sophistication features. The data consists of 2,372 texts from popular curriculum packages adopted from 1 to 12 grades of the English curriculum in China. One-way ANOVAs revealed significant differences in 16 out of 17 lexical complexity indices among different grades. Subsequent post hoc tests identified three lexical diversity features and four sophistication features that helped to differentiate exemplar texts across these 12 grades. These findings on the nature and role of lexical complexity have yielded new insights into the establishment of grade-level benchmarks for material preparation.

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英语基础课程12年级范例语篇词汇复杂性研究

摘要词汇复杂性一直是决定教材等级适宜性的教学准备的一个关键因素。然而，由于缺乏衡量词汇复杂性的量化和定义标准，教师很难将源文本适应目标学习者。本研究利用一系列词汇多样性和复杂性特征，评估了不同学校教育阶段范例文本词汇复杂性的数量差异。该数据由2372篇来自中国英语课程1至12年级的热门课程包的文本组成。单因素方差分析显示，17个词汇复杂度指数中有16个在不同年级之间存在显著差异。随后的特设测试确定了三个词汇多样性特征和四个复杂度特征，这有助于区分这12个年级的样例文本。这些关于词汇复杂性的性质和作用的研究结果为建立材料准备的年级基准提供了新的见解。

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

Iral-International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Multiple-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

13.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching is devoted to problems of general and applied linguistics in their various forms.