Abstract
The present study examined the effect of language background and topic on productive formulaic competence. Guided by usage-based theory of language learning, this study used a distribution-based approach to the examination of the native-likeness of formulaic usage in English timed argumentative writing. Six indices informed by a large-scale native corpus were chosen to gauge the frequency and association strength of bigrams and trigrams in a total of 778 English timed independent argumentative essays on two topics by 100 native speaker writers, 210 English as a foreign language (EFL) writers and 79 English as a second language (ESL) writers in Asia. Results of a series of linear mixed-effects regression analyses showed that, while EFL writers scored lower on most of the indices than both NS writers and ESL writers, ESL writers did not differ much from NS writers in their use of n-grams across topics. Meanwhile, the topic that was deemed more cognitively demanding and of a stronger technical nature elicited more native-like performance in bigram and trigram use across all three language groups. Findings of the study highlight the important effect of input on the development of formulaic competence in a second language, offer empirical support to the use of cognitively complex topics in second language writing practice, and carry important implications for L2 writing pedagogy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alsakran, R. A. (2011). The productive and receptive knowledge of collocations by advanced Arabic-speaking ESL/EFL learners. Master’s thesis, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. http://hdl.handle.net/10217/48104
Atak, N., & Saricaoglu, A. (2021). Syntactic complexity in L2 learners’ argumentative writing: Developmental stages and the within-genre topic effect. Assessing Writing, 47, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2020.100506
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48.
Bestgen, Y. (2017). Beyond single-word measures: L2 writing assessment, lexical richness and formulaic competence. System, 69, 65–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.08.004
Bestgen and Granger. (2014). Quantifying the development of phraseological competence in L2 English writing: An automated approach. Journal of Second Language Writing, 26, 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2014.09.004
Biber, D., Gray, B., & Poonpon, K. (2011). Should we use characteristics of conversation to measure grammatical complexity in L2 writing development? TESOL Quarterly, 45(1), 5–35. https://doi.org/10.5054/tq.2011.244483
BNC Consortium. (2007). The British National Corpus (Version 3; BNC XML edition). http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk
Chen, A. C. H. (2019). Assessing phraseological development in word sequences of variable lengths in second language texts using directional association measures. Language Learning, 69(2), 440–477. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12340
Chen, J., & Zhang, X. (2022). L2 development of phraseological knowledge via a xu-argument based continuation task: A latent curve modeling approach. System, 106, 102767. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102767
Davies, M. (2008). The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 560 million words, 1990-present. http://www.corpus/byu.edu/coca.
Durrant, P., & Schmitt, N. (2009). To what extent do native and non-native writers make use of collocation? International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 47, 157–177. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.2009.007
Ellis, N. C., Römer, U., & O’Donnell, M. B. (2016). Usage-based approaches to language acquisition and processing: Cognitive and corpus investigation of construction grammar. Language Learning Monograph Series. Wiley.
Ellis, N. C., Simpson-Vlach, R., & Maynard, C. (2008). Formulaic language in native and second language speakers: Psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, and TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 42(3), 375–396. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00137.x
Evert, S. (2009). Corpora and collocations. In A. Lűdeling & M. Kytö (Eds.), Corpus linguistics: An international handbook (pp. 1211–1248). Mouton de Gruyter.
Gablasova, D., Brezina, V., & McEnery, T. (2017). Collocations in corpus-based language learning research: Identifying, comparing and interpreting the evidence. Language Learning, 67, 155–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12225
Garner, J., Crossley, S., & Kyle, K. (2019). N-gram measures and L2 writing proficiency. System, 80, 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.12.001
Garner, J., Crossley, S., & Kyle, K. (2020). Beginning and intermediate L2 writer’s use of n-grams: An association measures study. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL), 58(1), 51–74. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2017-0089
Granger, S., & Bestgen, Y. (2014). The use of collocations by intermediate vs. advanced non-native writers: A bigram-based study. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL), 52(3), 229–252. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2014-0011
Gries, S. T. (2015). The most under-used statistical method in corpus linguistics: Multi-level (and mixed-effects) models. Corpora, 10(1), 95–125. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2015.0068
Gries, S. T., & Ellis, N. C. (2015). Statistical measures for usage-based linguistics. Language Learning, 65(Suppl. 1), 228–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12119
Groom, N. (2009). Effects of second language immersion on second language collocational development. In A. Barfield & H. Gyllstad (Eds.), Researching collocations in another language (pp. 21–33). Palgrave Macmillan.
Hamp-Lyons, L., & Mathias, S. P. (1994). Examining expert judgments of task difficulty on essay tests. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3(1), 49–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(94)90005-1
Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes, 27, 4–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2007.06.001
Ishikawa, S. (2013). The ICNALE and sophisticated contrastive interlanguage analysis of Asian learners of English. Learner Corpus Studies in Asia and the World, 1, 91–118.
Ishikawa, S. (2018). The ICNALE edited essays: A dataset for analysis of L2 English learner essays based on a new integrative viewpoint. English Corpus Studies, 25, 117–130.
Kyle, K., & Crossley, S. A. (2015). Automatically assessing lexical sophistication: Indices, tools, findings, and application. TESOL Quarterly, 49(4), 757–786. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.194
Kyle, K., Crossley, S., & Berger, C. (2018). The tool for the automatic analysis of lexical sophistication (TAALES): Version 2.0. Behavior Research, 50, 1030–1046. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-017-0924-4
Luke, S. G. (2017). Evaluating significance in linear mixed-effects models in R. Behavior Research Methods, 49(4), 1494–1502. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0809-y
Pinheiro, J. C. (2005). Linear mixed effects models for longitudinal data. Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/0470011815.b2a12037
Robinson, P., & Gilabert, R. (2007). Task complexity, the cognition hypothesis and second language learning and performance. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL), 45(3), 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.2007.007
Römer, U. (2009). The inseparability of lexis and grammar: Corpus linguistic perspectives. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 140–162. https://doi.org/10.1075/arcl.7.06rom
Sarte, K. M., & Gnevsheva, K. (2022). Noun phrasal complexity in ESL written essays under a constructed-response task: Examining proficiency and topic effect. Assessing Writing, 51, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2021.100595
Sinclair, J. M. (1991). Corpus concordance collocation. Oxford University Press.
Siyanova-Chanturia, A. (2015). Collocation in beginner learner writing: A longitudinal study. System, 53, 148–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.07.003
Tomasello, M., & Stahl, D. (2004). Sampling children’s spontaneous speech: How much is enough? Journal of Child Language, 31, 101–121. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000903005944
Waibel, B. (2008). Phrasal verbs: German and Italian learners of English compared. VDM.
Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge University Press.
Xia, D., Chen, Y., & Pae, H. K. (2022). Lexical and grammatical collocations in beginning and intermediate L2 argumentative essays: A bigram study. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2021-0188
Yamashita, J., & Jiang, N. (2010). L1 influences on the acquisition of L2 collocations: Japanese ESL users and EFL learners acquiring English collocations. TESOL Quarterly, 44, 647–668. https://doi.org/10.5054/tq.2010.235998
Yoon, H.-J. (2016). Association strength of verb-noun combinations in experienced NS and less experienced NNS writing: Longitudinal and cross-sectional findings. Journal of Second Language Writing, 34, 42–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2016.11.001
Funding
Funding was provided by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos.: S20210020, S20220223).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
HL: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Writing-Original draft, Writing—Review & Editing. YY: Software, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing—Review & Editing.
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Li, H., Yao, Y. Formulaic Competence in College-Level Asian English Learner’s Argumentative Writing: Examining the Effects of Language Background and Topic. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 32, 793–803 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-022-00695-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-022-00695-w