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68209

Syntactic Complexity and Lexical Diversity in English Conference Abstracts: Investigating Cross-Disciplinary Effects with Native Speaker Baseline

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Last updated: 25 Dec 2024

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Abstract

This study investigates potential cross-disciplinary effects on the extent of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity (SC & LD, respectively) in English conference abstracts authored by Egyptian (Arabic L1) researchers in two disciplines: Linguistics and Nuclear Science. The study establishes a native speaker baseline through parallel analysis of British-authored abstracts in the two disciplines under investigation. The data comprises 100 single-authored English conference abstracts, evenly divided over four contrastive categories: Eg(yptian)-Ling(uistics), Eg-N(uclear) Sc(ience), Br(itish)-Ling, and Br-NSc. Using two computational tools, L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) and TEXT INSPECTOR, scores of SC and LD, respectively, have been extracted and managed in MS Excel through some statistical tools. The results have indicated significant and uniform cross-disciplinary effects in both the native and non-native groups in terms of SC, where the Ling abstracts have displayed longer and more complex production units. Furthermore, significant language nativity effects have been observed in terms of SC; English natives have been found to use more subordination, which is characteristic of more mature writing in their L1. Arabic natives, on the other hand, have made greater use of coordination which is the preferred structure-combining operation in their L1. In terms of LD, the native groups have outperformed the non-native groups across both disciplines.

DOI

10.21608/herms.2019.68209

Keywords

Measuring linguistic complexity, syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, L2 writing, disciplinary effects

Authors

First Name

Amany

Last Name

youssef

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Associate Professor, Helwan University

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Orcid

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Volume

8

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

10091

Issue Date

2019-04-01

Receive Date

2020-01-14

Publish Date

2019-04-01

Page Start

33

Page End

70

Print ISSN

2090-8555

Online ISSN

2974-4695

Link

https://hermes.journals.ekb.eg/article_68209.html

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https://hermes.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=68209

Order

9

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

1,100

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

هرمس

Publication Link

https://hermes.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Syntactic Complexity and Lexical Diversity in English Conference Abstracts: Investigating Cross-Disciplinary Effects with Native Speaker Baseline

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023