The relationship between syntactic complexity and rhetorical stages in L2 learners’ texts: A comparative analysis

A recent trend in corpus-based genre analysis emphasizes the relationship between syntactic complexity and rhetorical units, with a primary focus on English texts for research and publication purposes. The present study extends this trend into research on argumentative writing, a genre that L2 learners have to write and master, by examining the syntactic features of rhetorical stages and their variation across these stages through a comparative analysis. Based on a corpus of argumentative texts (written by 162 native English speakers and 148 Chinese English learners), analyzed for rhetorical structures and assessed for syntactic complexity, this analysis reveals robust differences between the two writing groups in the syntactic features of specific rhetorical stages. It also shows some consistency but more variation between the two groups in their patterns of syntactic variation across these stages. The findings reveal a strong relationship between syntactic complexity and the rhetorical stages of argumentative texts, thus demonstrating the feasibility and necessity of studying the function-form relationship in L2 learner writing. The authors suggest that genre-based L2 writing teachers should focus on the syntactic features of rhetorical stages and increase students’ awareness of the function-form relationship.