Assessing linguistic complexity and register flexibility in advanced second language learners

Register Studies, vol. 4, pp. 55–90

Abstract

Abstract The aim of the present study is twofold: (1) to assess the degree of register flexibility in advanced second language (L2) learners of English and (2) to determine whether and to what extent this flexibility is impacted by inter-individual variability in experiential factors and personality traits. Register flexibility is quantitatively measured as the degree of differentiation in the use of linguistic complexity – gauged by a range of lexical, syntactic, and information-theoretic complexity measures – across three writing tasks. At the methodological level, we aim to demonstrate how a corpus-based approach combined with natural language processing (NLP) techniques and a within-subjects design can be a valuable complement to experimental approaches to language adaptation.

Authors 3

1. Elma Kerz Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

2. Stella Neumann Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

3. Paula Niemietz Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University