Chapter 2
Organic models for measuring Spanish learners’ linguistic complexity
Second language acquisition (SLA) researchers measure linguistic complexity to assess pedagogical effectiveness and depict development (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Yet, from linguistic and cognitive perspectives, commonly used approaches oversimplify complexity. Furthermore, such approaches do not consider the morphological complexities of a highly inflected L2 like Spanish. Norris and Ortega (2009) encourage SLA researchers to develop empirically and theoretically valid measures of linguistic complexity through an organic (i.e., iterative and data-driven) investigative process; resulting models should be multidimensional and developmentally sensitive. This study delineates three multidimensional models of Spanish L2 linguistic complexity based on a principal component analysis of a corpus of learners participating in a task-based activity at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of university instruction.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Shortcomings in current metrics of linguistic complexity
- 2.2Conceptualizing complexity
- 2.3Cognitive characteristics of linguistic complexity
- 3.An ‘organic’ approach to operationalizing L2 linguistic complexity
- 4.Research questions
- 5.Method
- 5.1Participants
- 5.2Task
- 5.3Corpus
- 5.4Dataset
- 5.5Analysis
- 6.Results
- 6.1Syntax
- 6.2Morphology
- 6.3Corpus samples
- 7.Conclusions
-
Note
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References
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Restrepo-Ramos, Falcon & Nofiya Denbaum-Restrepo
2022.
The Syntactic and Discourse Properties of Second Person Singular Forms of Address inPaisaSpanish.
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15:2
► pp. 453 ff.
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