The Role of Syntactic Complexity in Second Language Acquisition: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The study of second language acquisition (SLA) has always been an important field of study in applied linguistics, and the syntactic complexity has since been identified as one important factor in language development and proficiency in L2. The role of syntactic complexity for successful language acquisition for various groups of learners, however, has not been fully researched. In this study, syntactic complexity plays a role in SLA by comparing learners at different levels of proficiency. The main goal is to analyze the effects of the syntactic complexity on the performance of the language and communicative competence as a whole. A quantitative comparative research design was used, involving written and spoken language samples from beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. Syntactic development was assessed through the use of mean length of T-unit, clause density, subordination ratio, and phrasal complexity. Results indicate that syntactic complexity correlates with language proficiency, with higher levels of language proficiency corresponding to more complex sentence structures, more subordinate clauses, and more expanded noun phrases. Lower-proficiency learners on the other hand used much simpler syntactic constructions. The findings also indicate that a growth in complexity and grammatical accuracy are important for effective communication and language learning. The study finds that syntactic complexity is a useful indicator of L2 learning and L2 proficiency. The findings have implications for pedagogical design of the curriculum, language assessment, and instruction that promotes higher-level language competence of second language learners.

The keywords are: Syntactic Complexity, Second Language Acquisition, Language Proficiency, Comparative Analysis, Linguistic Development, Grammatical Accuracy, Communicative Competence.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20626397