第一章绪论
1.1研究背景
近年来，中国的研究人员已经在一些英语写作与处理的研究中发现，即使是优秀的中国学生在他们的著作中对英语句法的运用也不是百分百的正确，句法学习的重要性已经越来越明显了，Writing is an important part of testing language competence, and it is urging to findcertain objective measures to identify and evaluate the surface linguistic structures，whichwould help language learner to be more proficient in the target language. Developmentalindex studies began in the late 1970s，which aimed to identify a developmental yardstick forinvestigating global L2 proficiency (Larsen-Freeman, 1983)，since a general question that isat the heart of much research in applied linguistics and second language acquisition: whatmakes a second or foreign language (L2) user，or a native speaker for that matter，a more orless proficient language user (Housen & Kuiken，2009:461)? As Wolfe-Quintero et al.(1998:3) noted，such developmental indices would determine learner's developmental levelby means of an objective assessment for examine the effect of a pedagogical treatment oneither oral or written language use and they would http://www.1daixie.com/dxyylw be served as a tool that researchers coulduse to establish and report the L2 developmental level of their research participants, ratherthan using vague terms (Larsen-Freeman, 2009:580).
Since Skehan (1989) proposed a L2 model, considering syntactic complexity，togetherwith accuracy and fluency, as one of the three principal proficiency dimensions for the firsttime，syntactic complexity has been employed in lot of studies to evaluate learners’ L2performance (Wolfe-Quintero et al.l998, Ortega 2003，Qing Xiaoqing，2007，Bao gui 2009).Syntactic complexity has been recognized as an important element in L2 writing teachingand research, as the growth of a learner's syntactic competence is an integral part of his orher development in the target language. It not only used as performance descriptors for theoral and written assessment of language learners and indicators of learners' proficiencyunderlying their performance, but also been used for measuring progress in languagelearning (Housen & Kuiken，2009). Syntactic complexity manifests in L2 writing or spokendiscourses in terms of syntactic variation and sophistication, or，the range of syntacticstructures that are produced and the degree of sophistication of such structures (Ortega,2003:492). According Qin Xiaoqing's (2007) classification, http://www.1daixie.com/dxyylwt he studies concerning syntacticcomplexity can be separated into five major categories: 1) examining syntactic complexity toshow the effect of pedagogical treatment in written language usage; 2) investigating thedifference on syntactic complexity between students from different grades or at differentproficiency levels; 3) using syntactic complexity as an important index for assessing thequality of students' essays; 4) analyzing whether students’ writing quality would improve astime goes on; 5) finding the shortcomings existing in grammatical complexity as a guidancefor future teaching.Previous studies have fertilized the knowledge necessary for assessing the writingcompetence of L2 learners in terms of three perspectives; fluency, accuracy and complexity.
However, it still needs to make deeper study into the field of L2 learners' languageperformance based on syntactic complexity measurement for the following reasons:First, growing attention had been paid to L2 writing, but such studies on investigatingsyntactic features on a developmental in Chinese context are relatively few (Qin Xiaoqing，2007; Bao Gui, 2009). Yao Lan (2005) reviewed earlier studies concerning EFL writing inChina，and she found that non empirical studies occupy a large proportion.Second, it is necessary to improve and strengthen students" ability to use more varied andcomplex structure. When entering college, the students have grasped English grammaticalstructures. Instead of accumulating new grammatical structures, they have to improve theability of using more sophisticated language structures, and of efficiently using morestructures in a simple sentence (Qin Xiaoqing & Wen Qiufang, 2007:12).
第2章主要概念和句法复杂性的相关研究
Since the late 1970s，studies on developmental index studies began, which aimed toidentify a developmental yardstick for investigating global L2 proficiency (Larsen-Freeman,1983). Such yardstick, as pointed out by Larsen-freeman (1978:440). should able to give a"numerical value to different points along a second language developmental continuum”.Furthermore, these numerical values would be correlates of the developmental process andwould increase uniformly and linearly as learners proceed towards full acquisition of a targetlanguage. As Bardov-Harlig & Bofman (1989) and Pery-Woodly (1991) pointed out, therewere two types of development studies in second language acquisition literature: 1)developmental sequence studies, which acquisition orders for morphosyntactic features oflanguage based on error and perform analysis; 2) developmental index studies, which aim togauge the development of learners at known proficiency levels through the use of accuracy,fluency and complexity that are not necessarily tied to particular structures.
Chapter 3 Methodology......................................... 31-36
3.1 Research questions........................................ 31
3.2 Data sources........................................ 31-33
3.2.1 Data from the Spoken........................................ 31-33
3.2.2 English native speakers' data........................................ 33
3.3 Indices of syntactic complexity adopted ........................................ 33-35
3.4 Statistical analysis ........................................35-36
Chapter 4 Results report ........................................36-57
4.1 Syntactic complexity demonstrated........................................ 36-46
4.2 Comparison of syntactic complexity........................................46-57
4.2.1 relating unit length ........................................46-47
4.2.2 relating clause density........................................ 47-48
4.2.3 relating syntactic patterns adopted ........................................48-57
Chapter 5 Discussions of syntactic complexity ........................................-77
5.1 pattern of unit length ........................................57-61
5.2 pattern of clause density ........................................61-64
5.3 patterns of sentence patterns ........................................64-77
Conclusion结论
This study, quantitative study in nature, aims to figure out the developmental pattern ofsyntactic complexity in Chinese English majors' augmentative writings. Based on theinvestigation of the compositions collected from four tertiary groups of students, it is clearthat college students tend to produce more and more complex and varied syntactic structuresas their language proficiency develop. However, the results gained from data analyzingshows that there is no linear increase for almost all the syntactic complexity measures. There? rriay have been fossilization and plateau period in the developing process, which meanslanguage learners may temporarily cease advancing or sometimes even slipping back tosame extant regardless of undergoing progressive development of syntactic ability. For eachmeasure, the developing pace varied through the learning process. Furthermore, from acomprehensive point of view, all measures demonstrate unbalanced growth, Previouschapters have given detailed descriptions of the data analyzing procedures, followed bydiscussion in depth, with the majors findings being listed below in terms of unit length,clause density and sentence types.
The present study reports the developmental patterns of syntactic complexity in ChineseEnglish majors' argumentative writings. And the results offer several pedagogicalimplications for English writing. Wolfe-Quintero et al. (1998) pointed out several potentialapplications of developmental measures in language assessment and pedagogy, includingtest validation, program placement, end-of-course assessment, and trait analysis of holisticratings, among others. These applications necessitate a solid understanding of howdevelopmental measures work. Our investigation of which measures significantlydifferentiate between proficiency levels, what magnitudes are required forbetween-proficiency differences to reach statistical significance, what patterns ofdevelopment are exhibited for these measures, and how different measures relate to eachother contributes to achieving this understanding..