English Majors’ Syntactic Complexity in Different Oral Task Types 不同口语任务类型中英语专业学习者 句法复杂性研究文献综述

 2021-10-08 18:52:17

毕业论文课题相关文献综述

Fluency, accuracy and complexity (both grammatical and lexical) are the three most important measures for the study of both written and oral performance by second language learners (Wolfe-Quintero, 1998). Skehan secondly, accuracy was the second language leaners familiarity of language form while complexity was the structure reengineering of language expression. These three important measures were not only important indexes to measure oral expression ability, but also the explicit indexes to measure oral production proficiency. They were both cooperative and competitive (Skehan and Foster, 2001 ). 　　　Syntactic complexity, also called syntactic maturity and linguistic complexity, was one of the most important criteria to measure second language learners language competence. Syntactic complexity meant progressively more elaborate language and a great variety of syntactic patterning (Foster and Skehan, 1996). According to Ortega (2003), syntactic complexity was the degree of language proficiency and the change of language patterns. Skehan (1996) pointed out that the main factor that affected task performance was the task itself especially the appropriate difficulty of the task. But Robinsin (2001) found that complexity had a close relationship with the cognitive demands on attention, memory and reasoning that were given by different task types. Simple tasks often had less cognitive demands than complex ones did. In the past few decades, a great number of studies have been made to investigate the oral accuracy and oral fluency both at home and abroad (Lennon, 1990; Xu Qinfang, 2005; Zhang Wenzhong, 2000 He Lianzhen, 2003), but much fewer studies have been conducted to analyze syntactic complexity on oral English. At the same time, there were more researches into syntactic complexity in written English than in oral English (Bao Gui, 2009; Ji Xiaoling, 2009). And even less attention had been paid to the statistics analysis of language proficiency in task types. Since college students had already acquired the basic structure of grammar, they expected to have the ability to use more complex structures (Qin Xiaoqing Wen Qiufang, 2007). It demands more empirical study of syntactic complexity to find which kind of task can lead to a more complex structure. The present study is intended to investigate the syntactic complexity of English majors in different oral task types.　　　As one of the most important criteria to measure the speech competence, syntactic complexity have drawn quite a lot of attentions from the academic circles both home and abroad. But the studies are still far from enough. In this study the difference of English majors syntactic complexity in different oral task types will be analyzed. And in this chapter, literature is reviewed in four parts, first on theoretical foundations, second on the empirical studies on language complexity in oral English, third on the syntactic complexity and forth on the problems in the previous studies. 　　　The theoretical foundations of language complexity are rich and deep. Ortega (2003) defined syntactic complexity as the range of forms that surface in language production and the degree of sophistication of such forms. Wolfe-Quintero (1998) gave a more specific definition several years ago. He considered syntactic complexity was manifest in writing mostly in terms of grammatical variation and sophistication. That demanded the second language learner a wild variety of both basic and sophisticated structures were available and could be accessed quickly. Hunt (1995) pointed out that complexity was to show the competence of a language leaner to express a great variety of meaning in a linguistic unit. Bygate (1999) considered language complexity as a reflection of the quality of structure that was used in communication. It could reflect communication quality in two different aspects: one was the number of lexical bundle in the structure and another was the degree of connecting of the structure itself. Ellis (2003) believed that language complexity depended on the elaborate nature and complexity of language production. Most of the researchers have agreed with Skehans (1996) definition: language complexity was measured by whether the output was elaborate and complex or not. An elaborate output reflected in the number of word and vocabulary in a structure; and a complex output reflected in the quality and change of language structures. Besides, some researchers also have investigated into the theoretical framework of studying language complexity. Wang Xi and Yang Binjun (2013) mainly focused on the proving or denying of compensation hypothesis，pidgin and creole languages and subsystems of language complexity. Liu Xinrong and Zhong Mengchun (2011) studied several graduate students language performances and drew the conclusion that the output-driving hypothesis could help EFL learners to grasp the ability output more complex structure. 　　　There are also many empirical studies on syntactic complexity in oral English in the past few decades. Skehan (1996) pointed out that the main fact which affecting EFL learners proficiency was the characteristic of task itself. He also found that adequate time to prepare could produce more complex structure, Yuan and Eillis (2003) agreed with him. This finding could partly explain why task one and task two have different roles in syntactic complexity. Robinson (1996) concluded several dimensions (such as the background information and the motivation of EFL learners etc.) that might affect the syntactic complexity of a task. Brown (1995) found that more complex task can force speakers to produce more clause, coherence and complex phrases. In another word, tasks of higher complexity demanded sentence of higher syntactic complexity. Basic on this finding, Lu Li and Sun Yunmei (2009) studied fourteen EFL leaners language performance and founded the more familiar the topic was, the more complex the output would be. They also draw a conclusion that tasks of higher complexity demands longer sentence and compound structure. Compare to the ANC spoken corpus in American, Zhao Juan (2009) studied the feature and tendency of the development of syntactic complexity of Chinese EFL leaners. He Lianzhen and Wang Min (2003) studied the influence of complexity and difficulty to Chinese English learners language proficiency. They found some specific factor that could affect the complexity of task, such as the preparation before task, the structure of tasks and the condition of task.　　　 There were more and more scholars came into notice the necessities of studying these important criteria in the process of improving the ability of speech communication. But from the previous studies, its easy for us to find the study of syntactic complexity in different oral task types; especially in oral tests are limited. To sum up, both qualitative and qualitative analyses are necessary in the study of syntactic complexity in different oral task types.

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