Coordination of linguistic subsystems as a sign of automatization?

Abstract

This study explored retrodictively differences in developmental patterns between a learner who makes some progress and one that does not. Their twelve successive writings were analyzed on holistically scored measures of complexity, accuracy, fluency, idiomaticity, and coherence (CAFIC) and on two analytical measures to operationalize syntactic and lexical complexity. Their developmental trajectories were explored with visual graphs (LOESS curves), Monte Carlo analyses, and correlational analyses. The stronger learner showed rather synchronous development in most measures and a significant jump in lexical complexity (operationalized as average word length), suggesting a level of coordination of subsystems and therefore automaticity of the system as a whole. The weaker learner, on the other hand, showed more competitive or random patterns in the measures.

The relationships between the average semester growth rates of lexical sophistication in L2 English writing at secondary school: A learner corpus analysis

“…CAF studies conducted within the CDST framework focus on the development of different language subsystems (de Bot, Lowie & Verspoor 2007;Caspi 2010;Spoleman & Verspoor 2010;Baba & Nita 2014;Baba 2020), inter-and intra-individual variability (Larsen-Freeman 2006Verspoor, Lowie & van Dijk 2008;Rokoszewska 2019aRokoszewska , 2019bRokoszewska , 2020a as well as the competition and coordination among variables (van Geert & Verspoor 2015;Hou, Loerts & Verspoor 2020;Rokoszewska 2020bRokoszewska , 2021. So far hardly any quantitative studies on the growth rates of various language subsystems have been conducted within the CDST framework.…”