TY - JOUR

T1 - Syntactic and lexical development in an intensive English for Academic Purposes programme

AU - Mazgutova, Diana

AU - Kormos, Judit

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Second Language Writing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Second Language Writing, 29, 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2015.06.004 Date of Acceptance: 27/04/2015

PY - 2015/9

Y1 - 2015/9

N2 - This study investigates how the lexical and syntactic characteristics of L2 learners’ academic writing change over the course of a one-month long intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants were asked to produce two argumentative essays, at the beginning and at the end of the EAP course, which were analysed using measures that are theoretically motivated by previous research in corpus linguistics, systemic functional linguistics, and developmental child language acquisition. The results indicate improvements, with regard to lexical diversity, both for intermediate-level students who were preparing for undergraduate university studies in the UK and upper-intermediate level participants who were planning to continue their studies at postgraduate level. The academic argumentative texts of the students in the lower proficiency group also demonstrate development in noun-phrase complexity and in the use of genre-specific syntactic constructions. The findings suggest that despite no explicit focus on lexis and syntax in the EAP programme, by the end of the course the students’ writing exhibited a developmentally more advanced repertoire of lexical and syntactic choices that are characteristic of expository texts in academic contexts.

AB - This study investigates how the lexical and syntactic characteristics of L2 learners’ academic writing change over the course of a one-month long intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants were asked to produce two argumentative essays, at the beginning and at the end of the EAP course, which were analysed using measures that are theoretically motivated by previous research in corpus linguistics, systemic functional linguistics, and developmental child language acquisition. The results indicate improvements, with regard to lexical diversity, both for intermediate-level students who were preparing for undergraduate university studies in the UK and upper-intermediate level participants who were planning to continue their studies at postgraduate level. The academic argumentative texts of the students in the lower proficiency group also demonstrate development in noun-phrase complexity and in the use of genre-specific syntactic constructions. The findings suggest that despite no explicit focus on lexis and syntax in the EAP programme, by the end of the course the students’ writing exhibited a developmentally more advanced repertoire of lexical and syntactic choices that are characteristic of expository texts in academic contexts.

KW - Second language writing

KW - EAP writing

KW - Lexical diversity

KW - Lexical sophistication

KW - Syntactic complexity

KW - Writing development

U2 - 10.1016/j.jslw.2015.06.004

DO - 10.1016/j.jslw.2015.06.004

M3 - Journal article

VL - 29

SP - 3

EP - 15

JO - Journal of Second Language Writing

JF - Journal of Second Language Writing

SN - 1060-3743

ER -