Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2226-6348

L2 Writing Development and Tertiary Grade Level

Wang Hongwei, Li Qian

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARPED/v3-i4/1325

Open access

Second language writing assessment is of great significance for second language researchers, teachers and learners. Studies of writing of different grade levels will provide detailed information about textual features in each grade and student’s writing development. In this study, a corpus of 124 second language writing texts (from freshmen to senior students) was used to find out the textual feature differences in terms of China’s English major students of the four grade levels based on the computational tool Coh-Metrix2.1. Results show that significant differences were found across the four tertiary grade levels in terms of a multiple indices such as basic textual features, cohesion, lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, word frequency, readability as well as topic sentence-hood. However, not all linear patterns were shown in these indices across the four grade levels, some linear, some non-linear, and the period from the second year to the third year can be treated as a very important turning point that deserves our attention.

Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: Investigating language structure and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brace, N., Kemp, R., & Snelgar, R. (2006). SPSS for psychologists: A guide to data analysis using SPSS for windows (3rd edition). London: Palgrave.
Coh-Metrix Document file at website:
http://cohmetrix.Memphisedu/cohmetrixpr/index.html
Coltheart, M. (1981). The MRC psycholinguistic database quarterly. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 33A, 497-505.
Crossley, S. A., Greenfield, J., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Assessing text readability using cognitively based indices. TESOL Quarterly, 42, 475-493.
Crossley, S. A., Louwerse, M. M., McCarthy, P. M., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). A linguistic analysis of simplified and authentic texts. Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 15-30.
Crossley, S. A., McCarthy, P. M., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). Discriminating between second language learning text-types. In D. Wilson & G. Sutcliffe (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th international Florida artificial intelligence research society (pp. 205-210). Menlo Park, California: AAAI Press.
Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Assessing second language reading texts at the intermediate level: An approximate replication of Crossley, Louwerse, McCarthy, and McNamara (2007). Language Teaching, 41, 409-429.
Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2009). Computational assessment of lexical differences in L1 and L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18, 119-135.
Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2011). Understanding expert ratings of writing quality: Coh-Metrix analyses of first and second language writing. Int. J. Cont. Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, Vol. 21, Nos. 2/3, 170-191.
Crossley, S. A., McNamara, D. S., Weston, J., & McLain Sullivan, S. T. (2010). The development of writing proficiency as a function of grade level: A linguistic analysis. Technical Report. The University of Memphis.
Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2011). Understanding expert ratings of writing quality: Coh-Metrix analyses of first and second language writing. Int. J. Cont. Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, Vol. 21, Nos. 2/3, 170-191.
Crossley, S. A., McNamara, D. S., Weston, J., & Sullivan, M. S. T. (2010). The development of writing proficiency as a function of grade level: A linguistic analysis. Technical Report. The University of Memphis.
Cumming, A., Kantor, R., Baba, K., Erdosy, U., Eouanzoui, K., & Mark, J. (2005). Differences in written discourse in independent and integrated prototype tasks for next generation TOEFL. Assessing Writing, 10, 5-43.
Deerwester, S. S., Dumais, T., Furnas, G. W., Landauer, T. K., & Harshman, R. (1990). Indexing by latent semantic analysis. Journal of the American Society For Information Science, 41, 391-407.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fellbaum, C. (Ed.). (1998). WordNet: An electronic lexical database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ferris, D. (1994). Lexical and syntactic features of ESL writing by students at different levels. TOSEL Quarterly, 28(2), 414-420.
Graesser, A. C., Gernsbacher, M. A., & Goldman, S. R. (2003). Introduction to the Handbook of discourse processes. In A.C. Graesser, M. A., Gernsbacher, M. A., & S.R. Goldman (Eds.), Handbook of discourse processes (pp.1-24). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Graesser, A. C., McNamara, D. S., Louwerse, M. M., & Cai, Z. (2004). Coh-Metrix: Analysis of text on cohesion and language. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36, 193-202.
Grant, L., & Ginther, A. (2000). Using computer-tagged linguistic features to describe L2 writing differences. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(2), 123-145.
Haberlandt, K., & Graesser, A. C. (1985). Component processes in text comprehension and some of their interactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 357-374.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Hinkel, E. (2003). Simplicity without elegance: Features of sentences in L1 and L2 academic texts. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 275-301.
Jarvis, S., Grant, L., Bikowski, D., & Ferris, D. (2003). Exploring multiple profiles of highly rated learner compositions of L2 proficiency. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 377-403.
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87, 329-354.
Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T. (1997). A solution to Plato’s problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis theory of the acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review, 104, 211-240.
Landauer, T. K., Foltz, P. W., & Laham, D. (1998). An introduction to latent semantic analysis. Discourse Processes, 25, 259-284.
Maocheng, L. (2006). Research of Learners’ Written Discourse Coherence. Modern Foreign Language Quarterly, 29(3), 284-292.
Ma Guanghui. (2002). Comparative analysis of linguistic features in writing of Sino-U.S. colleges students. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 34(5), 345-349.
Louwerse, M. M., McCarthy, P. M., McNamara, D. S., & Graesser, A. C. (2004). Variation in language and cohesion across written and spoken registers. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp.843-848). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
McCarthy, P. M, Lewis, G. A., Dufty, D. F., & McNamara, D. S. (2006). Analyzing writing styles with Coh-Metrix. In Proceedings of the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society International Conference. FLAIRS, Melbourne, Florida.
McNamara, D. S., Crossley, S. A., & McCarthy, P. M. (2010). Linguistic features of writing quality. Written Communication, 27(1), 57-86.
McNamara, D. S., Ozuru, Y., Graesser, A. C., & Louwerse, M. (2006). Validating Coh-Metrix. In R. Sun & N. Miyake (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp.573-578). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
McNamara, T. F. (1997). Performance testing. In Clapham, C., Corson, D. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education: Language testing and assessment. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, Massachusetts, pp.131-139.
Miller, G. A., Beckwith, R., Fellbaum, C., Gross, D., & Miller, K. (1990). Five papers on WordNet. Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University, No.43.
Moore, J. D., & Wiemer-Hastings, P. (2003). Discourse in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. In A. C. Graesser, M. A. Gernsbacher, and S.R. Goldman (Eds.), Handbook of discourse processes (pp.439-486). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. NY: Newbury House/Harper & Row.
Shaw, S. D., & Weir, C. J. (2007). Examining writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Lifei, W., & Qiufang, W. (2007). The Establishment and literature review of Spoken and Written English Corpus of English Learners. Foreign Language Community, (1), 22-28.

In-Text Citation: (Hongwei & Qian, 2014)
To Cite this Article: Hongwei, W., & Qian, L. (2014). L2 Writing Development and Tertiary Grade Level. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 3(4), 301–316.