The relationship between vocabulary and writing quality in three genres

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of vocabulary in writing across three genres. Fifth graders (N = 105) wrote three compositions: story, persuasive, and informative. Each composition revolved around the topic of outer space to control for background knowledge. Written compositions were scored for holistic writing quality and several different vocabulary constructs: diversity, maturity, elaboration, academic words, content words, and register. The results indicated that students vary their vocabulary usage by genre. Story text had higher diversity than informative text as well as higher maturity as compared to persuasive text. Persuasive text contained higher diversity than informative text, and higher register than both of the other genres. Informative text included more content words and elaboration than the other text types as well as more maturity than persuasive text. Additionally, multiple regression and commonality analysis indicated that the vocabulary constructs related to writing quality differed by genre. For story text, vocabulary diversity was a unique predictor, while for persuasive text, content words and register were unique predictors. Finally, for informative text content words was the strongest unique predictor explaining almost all of the total variance in the five factor model, although maturity was also a unique predictor.     

Academic language and the quality of written arguments and explanations of Chilean 8th graders

Writing is a task that entails high cognitive and linguistic efforts, especially when producing academic texts. Academic language might be one of the factors influencing the quality of written texts, given that prior research has shown its impact on reading comprehension. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of Spanish Core Academic Language Skills (S-CALS) and academic vocabulary to the quality of written argumentation and explanation. For this study, 126 Chilean 8th grade students produced an argumentative text and an explanatory text about the same topic. In addition, their academic vocabulary was assessed with the S-AVoc-T test and their CALS with the S-CALS-I test. Results show that both CALS and academic vocabulary are significantly and positively correlated with both writing tasks. Even though these instruments make different contributions to the predictive models in each discursive genre, a Principal Component Analysis revealed that the model that best explains writing quality are those which combine both language variables, namely Spanish Core Academic Language and Vocabulary Skills (S-CALVS). In argumentation, the S-CALVS model explains 29% of the variance, after controlling by gender. In contrast, in explanation, S-CALVS explains 35% of the variance. It is concluded that it is relevant to develop situated writing in each discursive genre and, upon that basis, to work with both CALS and academic vocabulary, because they have a specific impact on academic texts writing.     

Syntactic complexity as a predictor of adolescent writing quality: Which measures? Which genre?

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.     

产出性词汇量和词汇深度对英语专业学生写作质量的影响

以英语专业二年级学生为受试,采用Laufer＆Nation设计的产出性词汇等级量表,一份自制的词汇深度试卷和定时写作的方式考查了产出性词汇量和词汇深度与写作质量之间的关系。研究表明：产出性词汇量与词汇深度知识显著相关;产出性词汇量与写作整体成绩、T单位长度、文本长度呈显著正相关性,与词汇错误呈显著负相关性;词汇深度知识与写作整体成绩显著相关但是与写作词汇丰富性指标没有相关性。     

Are poor Chinese text comprehenders also poor in written composition?

We studied the performance in three genres of Chinese written composition (narration, exposition, and argumentation) of 158 grade 4, 5, and 6 poor Chinese text comprehenders compared with 156 good Chinese text comprehenders. We examined text comprehension and written composition relationship. Verbal working memory (verbal span working memory and operation span working memory) and different levels of linguistic tasks—morphological sensitivity (morphological compounding and morphological chain), sentence processing (syntax construction and syntax integrity), and text comprehension (narrative and expository texts)—were used to predict separately narrative, expository, and argumentation written compositions in these students. Grade for grade, the good text comprehenders outperformed the poor text comprehenders in all tasks, except for morphological chain. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed differential contribution of the tasks to different genres of writing. In particular, text comprehension made unique contribution to argumentation writing in the poor text comprehenders. Future studies should ask students to read and write parallel passages in the same genre for better comparison and incorporate both instructional and motivational variables.     

The contribution of vocabulary knowledge and semantic orthographic fluency to text quality through elementary school in Catalan

Building a text is a multidimensional endeavor. Writers must work simultaneously on the content of the text, its discursive organization, the structure of the sentences, and the individual words themselves. Knowledge of vocabulary is central to this endeavor. This study intends (1) to trace the development of writer’s vocabulary depth, their vocabulary fluency in writing, and the features of the text they produce (productivity, lexical richness, and text structure) through elementary school and (2) to determine the contribution of the writer’s performance and the text features to the quality of the text. One hundred and eighty bilingual Spanish/Catalan speakers from first, third, and sixth grade took part in the study. They participated in three researcher-created tasks; a synonyms/antonyms task to orally assess vocabulary depth; a semantic orthographic fluency task to examine their vocabulary fluency in writing; and a text writing task to evaluate text quality. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling in order to examine the relationship between the target writer’s performance and the text features of the written compositions, and the externally evaluated text quality. Results revealed that both writer’s performance on vocabulary depth and semantic orthographic fluency and text features improved with school level. However, the capacity to establish meaning relations between words contributed more directly to the quality of texts than the speed to find words with a specific phonographic correspondence. External evaluation of text quality was more variable for younger students than for older students and was affected by school level mediated by writer performance and text features.     

素材呈现对书面表达产出性词汇的影响

以不同形式对60名英语辅修专业学生进行书面表达测试,尝试从给定素材呈现的变化来探索其对产出性词汇的影响;在对“文字组”和“图片组”的产出性词汇进行丰富性和复杂性分析的基础上,探讨这两种素材类型对学生词汇产出能力的关联因素.结果表明,在产出性词汇丰富性和复杂蛀方面,文字素材组要优于图片素材组.     

The Effects of Rhetorical and Content Subgoals on Writing and Learning

Argument writing is challenging for elementary students. Previous experimental research has focused on scaffolding rhetorical goals, leaving content goals relatively unexplored. In a randomized experiment, 73 students in grades 5, 6, and 7 wrote persuasive texts about difficult-to-classify vertebrates. Each student received one of three sets of writing prompts: a persuasive goal only (control); a persuasive goal + rhetorical-subgoal prompts; or a persuasive goal + content-subgoal prompts. Rhetorical subgoals increased text quality, variety of rhetorical moves, number of complex propositions, and classification knowledge. Content subgoals increased the number of simple propositions in text. A path analysis indicated that content-subgoal prompts and rhetorical-subgoal prompts elicited different paths to writing and learning.     

Effects of pre-service teachers�� receptive vocabulary knowledge on their interactive read-alouds with elementary school students

There are individual differences in the amount and type of vocabulary that adults produce to young children in the home environment before the children enter school. How many words a mother knows is a significant predictor of a child??s vocabulary. The current study addressed the question of whether there were individual differences in the amount and type of vocabulary that pre-service teachers produced in their first read-aloud lessons to first and second grade students. Specifically, would pre-service teachers with higher vocabulary scores differ from those with lower vocabulary scores in their choice of books to read and in the language they used to discuss the books? Results indicated that pre-service teachers with more advanced vocabulary scores chose books with more vocabulary diversity and sophistication. When they chose narrative texts, they also chose books that were more difficult in terms of their semantic cohesion. Both the receptive vocabulary of pre-service teachers and the language in the books that they chose had an effect on the ??teacher talk?? that they used in the lesson surrounding the book reading. Just as parents show individual differences in the richness of the language input provided to their children before they enter school, pre-service teachers own knowledge of language varies, and this influences the linguistic input that they provide to their students.     

The relationship between measures of vocabulary and narrative writing quality in second- and fourth-grade students

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between measures of written vocabulary and writing quality. Participants included 92 second-grade students and 101 fourth-grade students. Students completed two writing samples: one an experimenter-developed writing task and the other, a standardized assessment of writing quality. Research questions examined whether four vocabulary measures (vocabulary diversity, less frequent vocabulary, mean syllable length, number of polysyllabic words) demonstrated developmental differences, whether the vocabulary measures remained stable across two different writing prompts, and whether the vocabulary measures explained unique and shared variance beyond that explained by compositional length and compositional spelling. The results indicated that vocabulary diversity and less frequent vocabulary showed developmental differences across the two writing tasks. Vocabulary diversity was the only variable to remain stable across the two writing tasks. Commonality analysis revealed that vocabulary measures explained unique and shared variance in writing quality in all four models (2 grades and 2 writing prompts). Generally, vocabulary diversity was the most stable and consistent of the four vocabulary variables.     

英语仿写的教学策略

为了提高学生的英语写作能力,在高一高二就要加强英语写作教学,训练学生利用不同体裁的课文中的相关词汇、句型、语法进行仿写的能力,并以小组合作探究的形式对学生习作进行修改和讲评。     

Development of vocabulary sophistication across genres in English children’s writing

This paper aims to advance our understanding of how children’s use of vocabulary in writing changes as they progress through their school careers. It examines the extent to which a model of lexical sophistication as use of low-frequency, register-appropriate words adequately captures development in vocabulary use across the course of compulsory education in England. We find that the received model needs elaborating in a number of important ways. Specifically: (1) the average frequency of words in the repertoire used by older children is no lower than that of younger children. However, younger children’s writing is characterized by extensive repetition of high frequency verbs and adjectives and of low frequency nouns (the latter being a product of a focus on entities which are rarely discussed in adult writing). The role of repetition in this finding implies that lexical sophistication is inseparable from lexical diversity, a construct which is usually treated as distinct. (2) Younger children’s writing shows a preference for fiction-like vocabulary over academic-like vocabulary. As they mature, children come to make greater use of academic vocabulary in both their literary and non-literary writing, though this increase is greatest in their non-literary writing. Use of fiction vocabulary remains constant across year groups but decreases sharply in non-literary writing, showing an enhanced sense of register appropriateness. This development of register appropriate word use can be captured by relatively simple frequency-based measures that could readily be employed by teachers and researchers to track writers’ development in this aspect of word use.

     

Predicting second language writing proficiency: the roles of cohesion and linguistic sophistication

This study addresses research gaps in predicting second language (L2) writing proficiency using linguistic features. Key to this analysis is the inclusion of linguistic measures at the surface, textbase and situation model level that assess text cohesion and linguistic sophistication. The results of this study demonstrate that five variables (lexical diversity, word frequency, word meaningfulness, aspect repetition and word familiarity) can be used to significantly predict L2 writing proficiency. The results demonstrate that L2 writers categorised as highly proficient do not produce essays that are more cohesive, but instead produce texts that are more linguistically sophisticated. These findings have important implications for L2 writing development and L2 writing pedagogy.     

Text-based writing of low-skilled postsecondary students: relation to comprehension,self-efficacy and teacher judgments

Summarization and persuasive writing are important in postsecondary education and often require the use of source text. However, students entering college with low literacy skills often find this type of writing difficult. The present study compared predictors of performance on text-based summarization and persuasive writing in a sample of low-skilled adult students enrolled in college developmental education courses. The predictors were general reading and writing ability, self-efficacy, and teacher judgments. Both genre-specific and general dependent variables were used. A series of hierarchical regressions modeling participants’ writing skills found that writing ability and self-efficacy were predictive of the proportion of functional elements in the persuasive essays, reading ability predicted the proportion of main ideas from source text in the summaries, and teacher judgments were predictive of vocabulary usage. General reading and writing skills predicted written summarization and persuasive writing differently; the data showed relationships between general reading comprehension and text-based summarization on one hand, and between general writing skills and persuasive essay writing on the other.     

体裁分析在商务英语写作教学中的应用

写作是一项需要综合知识的语言技能,把语篇语言学知识应用于商务英语写作具有十分重要的意义。文章从语篇语言学的体裁分析理论入手,探讨体裁教学法在商务英语写作教学中的应用。结合写作过程,帮助学生了解体裁的社会功能和交际目的,认识体裁结构和认知模式及语言运用策略,从而使他们更好地理解和创造出符合特定体裁惯例的商务语篇。     

Doing more with less: the impact of lexicon on dual-language learners’ writing

Dual-language learner (DLL) children typically learn to write while still learning English, with vocabulary appearing to be a particularly vulnerable domain. This study investigates how a reduced English lexicon impacts English writing in DLL children. Participants were 100 Spanish-speaking DLLs and 100 of their monolingual classmates in first through fourth grades. Children were administered standardized tests of decoding and vocabulary and a written narrative task. Narratives were analyzed for productivity, complexity, and accuracy. DLL children performed comparably to monolingual children on productivity and complexity measures. However, they differed in measures of orthographic, lexical, and morphological accuracy. They also differed in vocabulary scores. When controlling for differences in vocabulary, no differences between the DLL and monolingual groups in accuracy were found. In addition, the DLL children used a greater proportion of literate language features in their texts than the monolinguals did. The results suggest that improving DLL children’s vocabulary would improve their writing in multiple areas. The possibility of a DLL advantage in literate language is addressed in the context of the children’s need to regularly switch between their home and school languages.     

Predicting human judgments of essay quality in both integrated and independent second language writing samples: A comparison study

This study explores whether linguistic features can predict second language writing proficiency in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT) integrated and independent writing tasks and, if so, whether there are differences and similarities in the two sets of predictive linguistic features. Linguistic features related to lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, cohesion, and basic text information were investigated in relation to the writing scores for both integrated and independent samples. The results of this study show that linguistic features can be used to significantly predict essay scores in the integrated as well as the independent writing. When comparing across the two writing tasks, there are both similarities and differences in the two sets of predictive features. For instance, lexical sophistication was found to be a significant predictor for both tasks while features such as verbs in 3rd person singular form and semantic similarity were only significant predictors for the integrated task. These findings demonstrate that evaluation of the two writing tasks rely on similar and distinct features, and are at least partially assessed using different linguistic criteria. Implications of these findings for the assessment of second language (L2) writing are also discussed.     

基于网络学堂的大学英语写作教学实证研究

该项研究采用定量分析、问卷调查和师生访谈的方法,通过网络技术在大学英语写作教学中的应用,探析基于网络学堂的英语写作教学对非英语专业学生写作能力发展的影响。研究结果表明,基于网络学堂的英语写作教学显著地促进学生写作能力的发展,具体表现在其写作水平、写作流畅性、写作准确性的提高和写作中的词汇丰富性的增长。