Syntactic complexity as a predictor of adolescent writing quality: Which measures? Which genre?
Syntactic complexity as a predictor of adolescent writing quality: Which measures? Which genre?
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DOI：
10.1007/s11145-007-9107-5
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发表时间：
2009-02-01
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Nagy, William E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Beers, Scott F.;Nagy, William E.
本研究研究了中学生创作的两种类型的文本的不同句法复杂性测量与评分质量之间的关系。假设不同的度量将与句法复杂性的不同方面相关；每个子句的单词更多地使用更典型的说明性文本结构，每个 T 单元的子句更多地使用更典型的会话或叙述语域结构。来自郊区中学的 41 名七年级和八年级学生样本撰写了一篇叙述性和说服性文章。对文本进行质量评级并根据句法特征进行编码，包括每个子句的单词数和每个 T 单元的子句。以每个子句的字数衡量的句法复杂性与论文的质量呈正相关，但与叙述性的质量无关。每个 T 单元的子句与叙述质量呈正相关，但与论文质量呈负相关。因此，发现句法复杂性和文本质量之间的关系取决于文本的类型和所使用的句法复杂性的度量。
This study examined the relationship of different measures of syntactic complexity with rated quality for two genres of text produced by middle school students. It was hypothesized that different measures would be associated with distinct aspects of syntactic complexity; words per clause with greater use of structures more typical of expository texts, and clauses per T-unit with structures more typical of conversational or narrative registers. A sample of 41 seventh and eighth grade students from suburban middle schools composed a narrative and persuasive essays. Texts were rated for quality and coded for syntactic features including words per clause and clauses per T-unit. Syntactic complexity as measured in words per clause was positively correlated with quality for essays but not for narratives. Clauses per T-unit was positively correlated with quality for narratives, but negatively correlated with quality for essays. The relationships between syntactic complexity and text quality were thus found to be dependent both on the genre of the text, and the measure of syntactic complexity used.