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Working memory capacity and narrative task performance

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)

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Working memory capacity and narrative task performance. / Kormos, Judit; Trebits, Anna.
Second language task complexity: researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance. ed. / Peter Robinson. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. p. 267-289.

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Harvard

Kormos, J & Trebits, A 2011, Working memory capacity and narrative task performance. in P Robinson (ed.), Second language task complexity: researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 267-289.

APA

Kormos, J., & Trebits, A. (2011). Working memory capacity and narrative task performance. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Second language task complexity: researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance (pp. 267-289). John Benjamins.

Vancouver

Kormos J, Trebits A. Working memory capacity and narrative task performance. In Robinson P, editor, Second language task complexity: researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2011. p. 267-289

Author

Kormos, Judit ; Trebits, Anna. / Working memory capacity and narrative task performance. Second language task complexity: researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance. editor / Peter Robinson. Amsterdam : John Benjamins, 2011. pp. 267-289

Bibtex

@inbook{4188de484b4e4abca23136f3954addc6,
title = "Working memory capacity and narrative task performance",
abstract = "This study investigated the link between working memory capacity and narrative task performance. The participants of the study were 44 secondary school students in their second academic year of an English-Hungarian bilingual educational program in Hungary. The backward digit span test was used to measure participants{\textquoteright} working memory capacity. The students performed two narrative tasks of different degrees of cognitive complexity: one with a given story line and another where the content of the narrative had to be invented. Four global aspects performance were measured: fluency, lexical complexity, accuracy, and grammatical complexity. Task specific measures included the ratio of correctly used relative clauses, verbs, and past-tense verbs, as well as the ratio of relative clauses compared to the total number of clauses. The findings suggest that the linguistic variables that differentiate students with different working memory spans are the average length of clauses and the subordination ratio. We hypothesized that high working memory capacity might allow students to produce narratives with high clausal complexity, but it might not be conducive to directing learners{\textquoteright} attention to specific dimensions of the task such as subordination",
keywords = "working memory, narrative, second language speech",
author = "Judit Kormos and Anna Trebits",
year = "2011",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-9027207197",
pages = "267--289",
editor = "Peter Robinson",
booktitle = "Second language task complexity",
publisher = "John Benjamins",

}

RIS

TY - CHAP

T1 - Working memory capacity and narrative task performance

AU - Kormos, Judit

AU - Trebits, Anna

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - This study investigated the link between working memory capacity and narrative task performance. The participants of the study were 44 secondary school students in their second academic year of an English-Hungarian bilingual educational program in Hungary. The backward digit span test was used to measure participants’ working memory capacity. The students performed two narrative tasks of different degrees of cognitive complexity: one with a given story line and another where the content of the narrative had to be invented. Four global aspects performance were measured: fluency, lexical complexity, accuracy, and grammatical complexity. Task specific measures included the ratio of correctly used relative clauses, verbs, and past-tense verbs, as well as the ratio of relative clauses compared to the total number of clauses. The findings suggest that the linguistic variables that differentiate students with different working memory spans are the average length of clauses and the subordination ratio. We hypothesized that high working memory capacity might allow students to produce narratives with high clausal complexity, but it might not be conducive to directing learners’ attention to specific dimensions of the task such as subordination

AB - This study investigated the link between working memory capacity and narrative task performance. The participants of the study were 44 secondary school students in their second academic year of an English-Hungarian bilingual educational program in Hungary. The backward digit span test was used to measure participants’ working memory capacity. The students performed two narrative tasks of different degrees of cognitive complexity: one with a given story line and another where the content of the narrative had to be invented. Four global aspects performance were measured: fluency, lexical complexity, accuracy, and grammatical complexity. Task specific measures included the ratio of correctly used relative clauses, verbs, and past-tense verbs, as well as the ratio of relative clauses compared to the total number of clauses. The findings suggest that the linguistic variables that differentiate students with different working memory spans are the average length of clauses and the subordination ratio. We hypothesized that high working memory capacity might allow students to produce narratives with high clausal complexity, but it might not be conducive to directing learners’ attention to specific dimensions of the task such as subordination

KW - working memory

KW - narrative

KW - second language speech

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 978-9027207197

SP - 267

EP - 289

BT - Second language task complexity

A2 - Robinson, Peter

PB - John Benjamins

CY - Amsterdam

ER -