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Article published In: Cumulative Knowledge Building in Learner Corpus Research
Edited by Tove Larsson and Douglas Biber
[International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 11:1] 2025
► pp. 145–177

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Comparing theory-based models of grammatical complexity in student writing

 | Northern Arizona University
ORCiD logo with link | Northern Arizona University
 | University of Maryland, College Park
ORCiD logo with link | Northern Arizona University
ORCiD logo with link | University of Arizona
ORCiD logo with link | Iowa State University
Published online: 1 July 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.23036.bib
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A survey of previous complexity research on written learner language
    • 2.1The Measurement Approach
    • 2.2The Descriptive Grammar Approach
    • 2.3A comparison of the linguistic basis of Measurement Approaches versus Descriptive Grammar Approaches
  • 3.The specific hypotheses: Motivating the models of grammatical complexity
  • 4.Corpus, linguistic analyses, and statistical methods
  • 5.Evaluation of the complexity models
  • 6.Stereotypical clausal and phrasal complexity
  • 7.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Biber, Douglas, Bethany Gray, Tove Larsson & Shelley Staples
2025. Grammatical Analysis Is Required to Describe Grammatical (and “Syntactic”) Complexity: A Commentary on “Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview”. Language Learning 75:2 ► pp. 575 ff. DOI logo
Biber, Douglas & Tove Larsson
2025. Accounting for the entire system of complexity features: evidence for general oral versus literate grammatical complexity dimensions. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory DOI logo
Kang, Mengchao, Tan Jin, Xiaofei Lu & Haomin Zhang
2024. Exploring the differences in syntactic complexity between lay summaries and abstracts: A case study of The New England Journal of Medicine. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 72 ► pp. 101444 ff. DOI logo

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