Research Article
A Study on the Relationship between Syntactic Complexity and Quality of English Argumentative Writing Based on Syntactic Analysis Tool TAASSC
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.24-11-2023.2343562, author={Yue Dong and Xianwei Pu}, title={A Study on the Relationship between Syntactic Complexity and Quality of English Argumentative Writing Based on Syntactic Analysis Tool TAASSC}, proceedings={Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Internet Technology and Educational Informatization, ITEI 2023, November 24--26, 2023, Zhengzhou, China}, publisher={EAI}, proceedings_a={ITEI}, year={2024}, month={4}, keywords={argumentative writing quality syntactic complexity task types taassc}, doi={10.4108/eai.24-11-2023.2343562} }- Yue Dong
Xianwei Pu
Year: 2024
A Study on the Relationship between Syntactic Complexity and Quality of English Argumentative Writing Based on Syntactic Analysis Tool TAASSC
ITEI
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.24-11-2023.2343562
Abstract
The study explored the relationship between 22 syntactic complexity indices generated by TAASSC (Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Syntactic Sophistication and Complexity) and the quality of argumentative essays and the effects of task type (independent and source-based writing task) on the relationship. 126 argumentative written texts by sophomore English majors from Nanjing University of Science and Technology were collected during regular writing classes. The research results are as follows: (1) there was a statistically significant correlation between syntactic complexity and the quality of the argumentative writings; (2) T (normed frequency of T-units) and CN/C (complex nominals per clause) were able to predict the writing quality of the independent and source-based writing tasks, respectively; (3) the predictive power of TAASSC indices for the quality of independent writing (5.7%) was much lower than that for the source-based writing task (27.3%).