A comparison of NNS and NS university students’ writing

초록

The present study compares the writings of low and high proficiency non-native English speaker university students and native English speaker university students for syntactic complexity. Writing samples were collected from non-native low proficiency students (n=15), non-native high proficiency students (n=15) and native speakers (n=15) to investigate whether the writings were statistically significant in respect to length of production unit, amount of subordination, amount of coordination and degree of phrasal sophistication (10 indices). Mean values indicate a linear increase in syntactic complexity across the 3 groups. ANOVA results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in 9 out of the 10 indices between the non-native low proficiency students and native speakers. Results also indicate that there is a statistical difference between the non-native high proficiency students and native students in length of production units and degree of phrasal sophistication.

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