The Relationship Between First and Second Language Writing: Investigating the Effects of First Language Complexity on Second Language Complexity in Advanced Stages of Learning

Recent studies have uncovered substantial individual differences in first language (L1) language attainment across the lifespan and across multiple components of language. The existence of such variability raises the question of its role in second language (L2) learning. The existing body of researc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language learning 2020-09, Vol.70 (3), p.732-767
Main Authors: Ströbel, Marcus, Kerz, Elma, Wiechmann, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advanced Students
common underlying proficiency
Computational Linguistics
Correlation
emergentist approaches
Individual differences
Information theory
information‐theoretic measure
L1–L2 relationship
Language
Language acquisition
Language Proficiency
Language Role
lexical complexity
Linguistic complexity
Native Language
Reading comprehension
second language
Second Language Learning
Second language writing
Simulation
syntactic complexity
Transfer of Training
Writing (Composition)
Writing Evaluation
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Summary:Recent studies have uncovered substantial individual differences in first language (L1) language attainment across the lifespan and across multiple components of language. The existence of such variability raises the question of its role in second language (L2) learning. The existing body of research on L1–L2 relationships has primarily targeted reading comprehension by means of controlled experimental designs. This study extended existing research by investigating L1–L2 relationships in writing through the automatic analysis of linguistic complexity in paired samples of authentic production data. For each writing sample, a series of measurements of 12 indicators was obtained using a computational tool that implements a sliding‐window approach. Results from mixed‐effects modeling revealed significant relationships between L1 complexity and L2 complexity for all but one measure, indicating that an L1 effect is robust across different levels of linguistic description.
ISSN:0023-8333
1467-9922
DOI:10.1111/lang.12394