Affiliation:
1. Northern Arizona University
2. University of Maryland, College Park
3. University of Arizona
4. Iowa State University
Abstract
Abstract
The present study tests the empirical adequacy of competing models of grammatical complexity in university student
writing, based on analysis of disciplinary texts from L1-English and L2-English students. The results show that grammatical
complexity in student writing must be treated as a multi-dimensional linguistic construct, distinguishing among both structural
types and syntactic functions. We compare the results here to previous research (Biber et al., 2024a, b), showing a similar patterning of complexity features in student writing and the broader domain of general
writing. Two of these groupings – dependent phrases functioning as noun modifiers, and finite dependent clauses functioning as
clause-level constituents – are especially interesting. These two groupings represent the strongest co-occurrence patterns in
general writing, but only the dependent clause grouping is represented in student writing. This discrepancy is interpreted
relative to the development of advanced proficiency in the use of complexity features by university students.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Cited by
1 articles.
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