Task complexity and linguistic and discourse features of narrative writing performance

Journal of Second Language Writing

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 148-161

  Kormos, Judit ^a  

^a LANCASTER UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Cohesion; Lexical sophistication; Lexical variety; Narrative; Syntactic complexity; Task type

Indexed keywords

EID: 79955023044     PISSN: 10603743     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2011.02.001     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Albert, Á. (2007). Creativity and task performance. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University.
2. Bereiter C., Scardamalia M. The psychology of written composition 1987, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
3. Biber D., Conrad S. Register, genre, and style 2009, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
4. Bourdin B., Fayol M. Mode effects in a sentence production span task. Cahiers De Psychologie Cognitive - Current Psychology of Cognition 1996, 15:245-264.
5. Cameron C., Lee K., Webster S., Munro K., Hunt A., Linton M. Text cohesion in children's narrative writing. Applied Psycholinguistics 1995, 16:257-269.
6. Cohen J. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences 1988, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. 2nd ed.
7. Coltheart M. The MRC psycholinguistic database. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 1981, 33:497-505.
8. Connor U. A study of cohesion and coherence in English as a second language students' writing. Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication 1984, 17:301-316.
9. Council of Europe Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment 2001, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
10. Coxhead A. An academic word list. ELI occasional publications 1998, Vol. 18. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington.
11. Coxhead A. A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly 2000, 34:213-238.
12. Crossley S.A., McNamara D.S. Computational assessment of lexical differences in L1 and L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 2009, 18:119-135.
13. Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (in press). Predicting second language writing proficiency: The role of cohesion, readability, and lexical difficulty. Journal of Research in Reading.
14. Crossley, S. A., Salsbury, T., McNamara, D. S., & Jarvis, S. (in press). Predicting lexical proficiency in language learners using computational indices. Language Testing.
15. Dasinger L., Toupin C. The development of relative clause functions in narrative. Relating events in a narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study 1994, 452-514. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. R. Berman, D.I. Slobin (Eds.).
16. Deerwester S.S., Dumais T., Furnas G.W., Landauer T.K., Harshman R. Indexing by latent semantic analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 1990, 41:391-407.
17. Ellis R., Yuan F. The effects of planning on fluency, complexity and accuracy in second language narrative writing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 2004, 26:59-84.
18. Flower L., Hayes J. The dynamics of composing: Making plans and juggling constraints. Cognitive processes in writing 1980, 31-50. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. L. Gregg, E. Steinberg (Eds.).
19. Gates R. An analysis of grammatical structures in compositions written by four groups of students at Southern Technical Institute: Indo-Iranian, Latin-Romance, Sino-Tibetan, and American. Dissertation Abstracts International 1978, 39(4):2026A.
20. Gilabert, R. (2005). Task complexity and L2 narrative oral production. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Barcelona.
21. Haberlandt K.F., Graesser A.C. Component processes in text comprehension and some of their interactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 1985, 114:357-374.
22. Halliday M.A.K., Hasan R. Cohesion in English 1976, Longman, London.
23. Hamp-Lyons L., Mathias S.P. Examining expert judgments of task difficulty on essay tests. Journal of Second Language Writing 1994, 3:49-68.
24. Harris Wright H., Silverman S.W., Newhoff M. Measures of lexical diversity in aphasia. Aphasiology 2003, 17:443-452.
25. Heatley, A., Nation, I. S. P., & Coxhead, A. (2002). RANGE and FREQUENCY programs. Retrieved from http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/range.aspx.
26. Hinkel E. Second language writers' text: Linguistic and rhetorical features 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.
27. Hu Z., Brown D., Brown L. Some linguistic differences in the written English of Chinese and Australian students. Language Learning and Communication 1982, 1:39-49.
28. Ishikawa T. The effect of manipulating task complexity along the [+/- Here-and-Now] dimension on L2 written narrative discourse. Investigating tasks in formal language learning 2006, 136-156. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, UK. C.M. Garcia-Mayo (Ed.).
29. Iwashita N., McNamara T., Elder C. Can we predict task difficulty in an oral proficiency test? Exploring the potential of an information-processing approach to task design. Language Learning 2001, 51:401-436.
30. Jarvis S., Grant L., Bikowski D., Ferris D. Exploring multiple profiles of highly rated learner compositions. Journal of Second Language Writing 2003, 12:377-403.
31. Just M.A., Carpenter P.A. A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review 1980, 87:329-354.
32. Kang Y.J. Written narratives as an index of L2 competence in Korean EFL learners. Journal of Second Language Writing 2005, 14:259-279.
33. Kellogg R.T. Attentional overload and writing performance: Effects of rough draft and outline strategies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 1988, 14:355-365.
34. Kellogg R.T. Effectiveness of prewriting strategies as a function of task demands. American Journal of Psychology 1990, 103:327-342.
35. Kellogg R.T. A model of working memory in writing. The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences and applications 1996, 57-71. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. C.M. Levy, S. Ransdell (Eds.).
36. Kellogg R.T. Competition for working memory among writing processes. American Journal of Psychology 2001, 114:175-191.
37. Kintsch W. Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition 1998, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
38. Kintsch W., Van Dijk T.A. Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review 1978, 85:363-394.
39. Kuiken F., Vedder I. Cognitive task complexity and written output in Italian and French as a foreign language. Journal of Second Language Writing 2008, 17:48-60.
40. Landauer T.K., Dumais S.T. A solution to Plato's problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of the acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review 1997, 104:211-240.
41. Leki I., Cumming A., Silva T. A synthesis of research on second language writing 2008, Routledge, London.
42. Louwerse M.M. An analytic and cognitive parameterization of coherence relations. Cognitive Linguistics 2002, 21:15-35.
43. Malvern D.D., Richards B.J. A new measure of lexical diversity. Evolving models of language 1997, 58-71. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon. A. Ryan, A. Wray (Eds.).
44. Malvern D.D., Richards B.J., Chipere N., Durán P. Lexical diversity and language development: Quantification and assessment 2004, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, NH.
45. Manchón R.M., Roca de Larios J., Murphy L. The temporal dimension and problem-solving nature of foreign language composing processes: Implications for theory. Writing in foreign language contexts: Learning, teaching, and research 2009, 102-129. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, UK. R.M. Manchón (Ed.).
46. McCarthy P.M., Jarvis S.A. Vocd: A theoretical and empirical evaluation. Language Testing 2007, 24:459-488.
47. McCarthy P.M., Jarvis S.A. MTLD, vocd-D, and HD-D: A validation study of sophisticated approaches to lexical diversity assessment. Behaviour Research Methods 2010, 42:381-392.
48. McCutchen D. A capacity theory of writing: Working memory in composition. Educational Psychology Review 1996, 8:299-325.
49. McNamara D.S., Louwerse M.M., Graesser A.C. Coh-Metrix: Automated cohesion and coherence scores to predict text readability and facilitate comprehension. 2002, Memphis, TN, Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis.
50. Meara P. The rediscovery of vocabulary. Second Language Research 2002, 18:393-407.
51. Meara P., Bell H. P_Lex: A simple and effective way of describing the lexical characteristics of short L2 texts. Prospect 2001, 16:5-19.
52. Norris J.M., Ortega L. Towards an organic approach to investigating CAF in instructed SLA: The case of complexity. Applied Linguistics 2009, 30:555-578.
53. Ong J., Zhang L.J. Effects of task complexity on the fluency and lexical complexity in EFL students' argumentative writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 2010, 19:219-233.
54. Pallotti G. CAF: Defining, refining and differentiating constructs. Applied Linguistics 2009, 30:590-601.
55. Park Y Academic and ethnic background as factors affecting writing performance. Writing across languages and cultures: Issues in contrastive rhetoric 1988, 261-272. Sage, Newbury Park, CA. A. Purves (Ed.).
56. Reid J. A computer text analysis of four cohesion devices in English discourse by native and non-native writers. Journal of Second Language Writing 1992, 1:79-107.
57. Révész A. Task complexity, focus on form, and second language development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 2009, 31:437-470.
58. Robinson P. Task complexity, task difficulty, and task production: Exploring interactions in a componential framework. Applied Linguistics 2001, 22:27-57.
59. Robinson P. The Cognition Hypothesis of adult, task-based language learning. Second Language Studies 2003, 21:45-107.
60. Robinson P. Cognitive complexity and task sequencing: Studies in a componential framework for second language task design. International Review of Applied Linguistics 2005, 43:1-32.
61. Samuda V., Bygate M. Tasks in second language learning 2008, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
62. Sanders T.J.M., Spooren W.P.M., Noordman L.G.M. Toward a taxonomy of coherence relations. Discourse Processes 1992, 15:1-35.
63. Schoonen R. Generalizability of writing scores: An application of structural equation modeling. Language Testing 2005, 22:1-30.
64. Schoonen R., Snellings P., Stevenson M., van Gelderen A. Towards a blueprint of the foreign language writer: The linguistic and cognitive demands of foreign language writing. Writing in foreign language contexts. Learning, teaching and research 2009, 77-101. Multilingual Matters, Bristol. R.M. Manchon (Ed.).
65. Silva T. Toward an understanding of the distinct nature of L2 writing: The ESL research and its implications. TESOL Quarterly 1993, 27:657-675.
66. Silverman S.W., Bernstein Ratner N. Word frequency distributions and type-token characteristics. Mathematical Scientist 2000, 11:45-72.
67. Skehan P. Modelling second language performance: Integrating complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis. Applied Linguistics 2009, 30:510-532.
68. Skehan P., Foster P. Cognition and tasks. Cognition and second language instruction 2001, 183-205. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P. Robinson (Ed.).
69. Smith R.N., Frawley W.J. Conjuctive cohesion in four different English genres. Text 1983, 3:347-373.
70. Tapper M. Connectives in advanced Swedish EFL learners' written English-Preliminary results. The Department of English: Working Papers in English Linguistics 2005, 5:116-144.
71. Van Dijk T.A., Kintsch W. Strategies of discourse comprehension 1983, Academic Press, New York.
72. West M. A general service list of English words 1953, Longman, London.
73. Zwaan R.A., Radvansky G.A. Situation models in language comprehension and memory. Psychological Bulletin 1998, 123:162-185.