Published in Frontiers in Psychology
Based on 774 argumentative writings produced by Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, this study examined the extent to which Kolmogorov complexity metrics can distinguish the proficiency levels of beginner, lower-intermediate, and upper-intermediate second language (L2) English learners. Kolmogorov complexity metric is a holistic i...
Published in Language Learning in Higher Education
Although several studies have investigated the self-assessment (SA) of writing skills, most research has adopted a cross-sectional research design. Consequently, our knowledge about the longitudinal development of SA is limited. This study investigated whether SA instruction leads to improvement in SA accuracy and in second language (L2) writing. A...
Learning a second language (L2) is a complex process made up of acquisitional stages. These stages correspond to phases of development in which the language of the learner shows specific features forming a separate language system, i.e. Interlanguage or IL (Selinker, 1972). These features can be grouped in three main classes, i.e. Complexity, Accur...
Published in Frontiers in Psychology
In this paper, we present an overview of existing parallel corpora for Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) in different languages focusing on the approach adopted for their construction. We make the main distinction between manual and (semi)–automatic approaches in order to investigate in which respect complex and simple texts vary and whether and ...
Word problems can be challenging for learners of all ages on different levels. In this paper, specific linguistic requirements and features of word problems contributing to the difficulties for learners will be discussed. For this purpose, first results of a literature review are presented. The literature was analysed according to the model of genr...
Published in Frontiers in Psychology
In studies on second language writing, linguistic complexity exhibited by learners has long been regarded as being indicative of writing proficiency. However, there are relatively scant studies focusing on the diversity and structural elaboration of complexity in L2 production data that are extracted from high-stakes tests [such as Test of English ...
status: published
Linguistic complexity measures are used to describe second language (L2) performance and assess levels of proficiency and development. Although morphology is considered crucial in L2 acquisition, morphological complexity has been relatively neglected, hindering comprehensive views of grammatical complexity in L2. This article presents an applicatio...
This study applies relative entropy in naturalistic large-scale corpus to calculate the difference among L2 (second language) learners at different levels. We chose lemma, token, POS-trigram, conjunction to represent lexicon and grammar to detect the patterns of language proficiency development among different L2 groups using relative entropy. The ...
Published in International journal of audiology
The goal of this study was to assess recognition of foreign-accented speech of varying intelligibility and linguistic complexity in older adults. It is important to understand the factors that influence the recognition of this commonly encountered type of speech, in a population that remains understudied in this regard. A repeated measures design w...
