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English: Language use in written texts
3
Language use in written texts
syntax, vocabulary, grammar, style, cohesion
Study 2
Study 1
Study 3
How is syntactic complexity and variation in the prefield distributed in the two genres of narrative and explanatory texts in fifth grade?
Descriptive statistical analysis.
82 student texts segmented into 3186 prefields.
Research Questions
Method
Empirical Basis
What does research say about the characteristics of elementary school student texts in the area of language use?
Systematic scoping review
27 studies on language use between 1980 and 2024."
What are the correlations between 5th grade students written vocabulary and syntax skills?
Regresion analysis
The same 82 texts as for
study 2
Ph.D.-prosjekt
Cecilie Andreassen
Language Use in Elementary School Student Texts -
A Scoping Review
What does research say about the characteristics of elementary school student texts in the area of language use?
Language Use in Written Texts
-
Scoping Review
Background: Language use
Background
Sentence structure
How the sentences are stuctured. Complexity, variation between and within sentences.
Vocabulary
How the text uses different types of words.
Gramatical structures
How the text uses different types of gramatical structures
Style
Whether the style is appropriate to its genre
Cohesion
How the sentences are connected
More details
7. trinn
(Matre et al., 2021)
Sentence
structure
Build complex and varied sentences
Vocabulary
Use a relevant, varied, and precise vocabulary, including technical terms
Gramatical structures
Use varied linguistic devices
Style
Use a relevant linguistic style"
"Writing Center"
(not connected to a certain educational level, but used for 5th and 8th grade)
Sentence
structure
- Parts of the text can show complexity and variation in sentence structure (level 4).
- The sentences have some variation in the pre-field.
Vocabulary
In texts where it is relevant, the text shows correct use of advanced concepts.
Style
- The text can show the use of linguistic devices (e.g., metaphors, comparisons, contrasts, rhetorical questions, repetitions, and irony)."
8. trinn
(Evensen et al., 2016)
Sentence
structure
Build complex and varied sentences
Vocabulary
Use a relevant, varied and precise vocabulary, including discipline-specific terms
Style
- Use various idiomac expressions, where appropriate
- Use an appropriate tone
1.-3. trinn
(Skar et al., 2020)
Sentence structure
Some variation in the sentence structure
Vocabulary
Some abstract, specialized words
Gramatical structures
Some elaborated phrases
Style
Creative expressions
Cohesion
5. trinn
(Evensen et al., 2016)
Sentence
structure
- Use comprehensive declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences
Use some variation at the beginning of sentences
- Use a relevant and varied vocabulary, including terms relevant to school-subjects
Use elaborated nominal phrases
Include some idiomatic expessions where appropriate
Use indirect and direct speech where relevant
4. trinn
(Matre et al., 2021)
Sentence structure
- Complete narrative sentences, interrogative and imperative sentences
- Have some variation in the beginning of sentences
Vocabulary
Use a relevant and varied vocabulary, including terms from school subjects
Use expanded noun phrases
Have elements of linguistic devices
Master the use of indirect and direct speech as a device."språklege verkemiddel
Meistre bruk av indirekte og direkte tale som eit verkemiddel.
Methods
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Metaanalyses with extention for scoping reviews guidelines (PRISMA-ScR) (Tricco et al., 2018)
Methods
Results
Results
(i) What research exists on language use in student texts in Norwegian primary school?
Results:
(i) What research exists on language use in student texts in Norwegian primary school?
Grade
Methods
Publication year
Number of texts studies
Subject
(ii) What does this research say about the different areas in language use?
Resultat:
(ii) What does this research say about the different areas in language use?
Areas in Language Use
Sentence structure
Vocabulary
Grammatical structures
Style
Cohesion
Number of studies
11
16
7
15
7
Tendencies/main findings within language use:
In general:
- Students are aware their language use,
- They benefit from having model texts on the classroom,
- They adjust their language use to different types of texts and genres.
Sentence structure
- Students use sentence patterns from model texts (Håland, 2013; Kjelen & Tverbakk, 2020).
- The first position is mostly nominal and adverbial nodes (Iversen & Otnes, 2013; Maagerø et al., 2021)
Vocabulary
...
Studies with language use as its only focus
Studies with language use as part of a larger focus
8
24
Syntactic complexity and variation
Methods and data
Syntax
WHAT
How is syntactic complexity and variation in the prefield distributed in narrative and explanatory texts in fifth grade?
WHY
To know what to expect in this area from a fifth grader
HOW
Analyze syntactic variation and complexity in 82 student texts from the intermediate level.
41 narrative, 41 explanatory.
Results
Background
Background: What is the prefield?
- The element before the finite verb.
- Can only be one element, but can be any element (subject, object, adverbial, predicate)
- Possible to vary the prefield
subjekt
adverbial
Vi
vi
På hvaler
Det
Marisko
ødelegger mer enn noen gang
bygger nye veier og hus hele tiden.
er det en nasjonalpark.
betyr at planter som er Utrydningstruet er der
er en truet plante som er gul og mørk brun rød med grønne stilker rundt.
subjekt
Background: Why study the prefield?
"al Prosas Nerve".
Diderichsen, 1946
- "Mastery of the possibilities of the prefield is a
crucial element in mastering
written language" (Tannert, 2023, p. 321)
- Active and varied use of the prefield is considered a characteristic of a mature and skilled writer. (Iversen & Otnes, 2013).
- The use of adverbial elements in the prefield and subordinate clauses are signs of advanced writing skills. (Myhill, 2008).
- The number of words in the prefield is associated with the quality of students' texts (Crossley, 2020)."
Background: What in the prefield do we study?
Variation
Complexity
- type of syntactical function
- elaborated phrases
- subordinate clauses
- number of words in the prefield
Background: association with text type
"Tannert (2023):
Narrative texts had more long prefields (prefields with 3 words or more) than descriptive texts.
In the descriptive texts, the proportion of long prefields increased from 5th to 9th grade, but not in the narratives.
Nygård and Hundal (2024):
Text type triggers different grammatical choices.
The use of non-subject in the prefield is one of the linguistic factors that vary between the two text types, descriptive and narrative.
The narratives have a higher proportion of non-subject in the prefield."
Methods and data
"Descriptive statistical analysis of 41 narrative, 41 explanatory texts from 5th grade."
"Narrative texts = Story, sequence of events in a timeframe in chronological order."
"Explanatory texts = explanation, interpretation, or presentation of an idea, a concept, or information or knowledge."
(Eksposisjon (Werlich, 1976) / eksplikativen (Adam, 1992))
(Breivega og Johansen, 2016)
What type of function does the words in the prefield have?
preposisjonsfrase
Elaborated phrases
1 utbygde frasar
substantivfrase
0 utbygde frasar
Variation
kjerne
adledd
Complexity
subjekt
kjerne
subjekt
i Spania
adverbial
søsteren
- type of syntactical
function
Det
eg
rett på siden av senga mi
Det
pluseleg
Eg
Eg
var ein gong
sto opp fra den store senga mi,
står det eit stort klesskap.
var ein helt normal dag heima,
rista kleskape mitt.
ville bare kle på meg som vanlig
var redd.
- elaborated phrases
- subordinate clauses
- number of words
preposisjonsfrase
substantivfrase
subjekt
2 utbygde frasar
adverbial
kjerne
adledd
kjerne
substantivfrase
subjekt
adjektivfrase
adledd
kjerne
subjekt
kjerne
adledd
om fire dager
de mest populære albumene hans
Subordinate clause
Number of words
Hvis vi ikke gjør noe nå så kommer det til å være mer plast i havet enn fisk i 2050 i gram.
If we don't do anything now there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean in 2050 in [measured by] grams
Results
Expository texts have more complexity
Subordinated clauses
Number of words in the prefield
Elaborated phrases
Expository
texts have more complexity
Narrative texts have more variation
Non-subject in the prefield
Narrative
texts have more variation
A qualitative look at the texts
Qualitative results
- The descriptive texts have complex noun phrases or prepositional phrases in the prerfield.
- The noun phrases are often nouns with adjectives as expanding elements, where the adjective specifies the noun (the soft cat).
- The prepositional phrases are often prepositions with nouns as expanding elements, and these help specify place or time (in late July; on a deserted island).
- The narrative contains some adverbial elements that are temporal adverbs and thus function as temporal markers.
- Many of the simple phrases are personal pronouns in the first or third person (I or he, she, they). Narrative texts contain a first- or third-person narrator (Senje & Skjong, 2005; Vinje, 1989).
Vocabulary and syntax in fifth grades writing
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
Syntax (article 2)
+
gender
birthmonth
Background
Background
Lexical diversity:
the range of vocabulary used in a text. Operationalised through CTTR (Corrected Type-Token Ratio)
? Lexical sophistication:
the use of infrequent and more complex words
? Lexical density:
the use of content words (nouns, adjectives, verbs etc.) and functional words (prepositions, pronouns etc.)
Methods
Methods
number of unique words (types)
2x number of total words (tokens)
number of polysyllabic words
x 100
total number of words
Lexical diversity =
? Lexical sophistication =
? Lexical density =
number of funcional words
total number of words
Tentative results
Tentative results
the new dataset:
syntactic variation
syntactic complexity
lexical diversity
want to add
-gender
-birthmonth
from the Goban dataset
WP 2:
WP 2
Literacy relevant items from HLE
Quality in written texts (first position + vocabulary)
Scores on National REading Tests
References
Literature
- Berge, K. L., Evensen, L. S., & Thygesen, R. (2016). The Wheel of Writing: a model of the writing domain for the teaching and assessing of writing as a key competency. Curriculum journal (London, England), 27(2), 172-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2015.1129980
- Biber, D., Gray, B., Staples, S., & Egbert, J. (2021). Investigating Grammatical Complexity in L2 English Writing Research*: Linguistic Description versus Predictive Measurement. In The Register-Functional Approach to Grammatical Complexity (pp. 432-457). Routledge.
- Crowhurst, M. (1983). Syntactic Complexity and Writing Quality: A Review. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation, 8(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.2307/1494403
- Diderichsen, P. (1946). Elementær dansk grammatik. Gyldendal. https://books.google.no/books?id=AUUbAQAAMAAJ
- Høigård, A. (2019). Barns språkutvikling: Muntlig og skriftlig. (Vol. 4. utgave).
- Iversen, H. M., & Otnes, H. (2013). Kohesjon og forfelt - to aspekt i skriftlige elevtekster. In D. Skjelbred & A. Veum (Eds.), Literacy i læringskontekster (pp. 281-297). Cappelen Damm akademisk. https://doi.org/oai:nb.bibsys.no:991305564164702202
- McNamara, D. S., Crossley, S. A., & McCarthy, P. M. (2010). Linguistic Features of Writing Quality. Written Communication, 27(1), 57-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088309351547
- Nygård, M. (2023). Setningsemner i elevtekster. In O. Harstad & L. I. Aa (Eds.), Elevtekstanalysar. Nye inngangar. Universitetsforlaget.
- Nygård, M., & Hundal, A. K. (2024). Features of Grammatical Writing Competence among Early Writers in a Norwegian School Context. Languages, 9(1).
- Pallotti, G. (2015). A simple view of linguistic complexity. Second Language Research, 31(1), 117-134.
- Tannert, M. (2022). Skriftsproglig udvikling i grundskolens danskfag: Et korpusbaseret studie af elevtekster fra 5.-9. klassetrin [Ph.d., Aarhus Universitet]. Aarhus Universitet.
- van Rijt, J. H. M., van den Broek, B., & De Maeyer, S. (2021). Syntactic predictors for text quality in Dutch upper-secondary school students’ L1 argumentative writing. Reading and Writing, 34(2), 449-465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10079-5