33.2092, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Durrant, Brenchley, McCallum (2021)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-2092. Wed Jun 22 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.2092, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Durrant, Brenchley, McCallum (2021)

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Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 18:24:32
From: Hatice Altun [haticealtun at gmail.com]
Subject: Understanding Development and Proficiency in Writing

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36800197


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1278.html

AUTHOR: Philip  Durrant
AUTHOR: Mark  Brenchley
AUTHOR: Lee  McCallum
TITLE: Understanding Development and Proficiency in Writing
SUBTITLE: Quantitative Corpus Linguistic Approaches
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Hatice Altun, Pamukkale University

INTRODUCTION

The original and thought-provoking book “Understanding Development and
Proficiency in Writing” was written by Philip Durrant, Mark Brenchley, and Lee
McCallum and published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. It comprises
seven major chapters, four of which focus on key areas of language
proficiency: syntax, vocabulary, formulaic language, and cohesion. The book
focuses on the continual debate of evaluating and interpreting development in
L1 and L2 writing and offers evidence-based and objective perspectives to
explore development. It reviews almost 250 quantitative corpus linguistics
(QCL) based studies spanning over 70 years, thanks to its empirical approach.
The historical and theoretical overview of QCL research on written language
suggests a powerful guide map to understand what is already known (and not
known) about written language development. It inspires us about what to do
next to evaluate and assess first and second language writing from a more
robust perspective.

SUMMARY

Beginning with the definition of the key concepts, the first chapter,
“Introduction” (pp. 1-13), sketches the broad parameters of the book and
explains its aim in two dimensions: pedagogical and methodological. The
pedagogical aim of the book is to understand development in written language
in more explicit and descriptive terms rather than seeing it as a mere count
of errors or judgment of how accurate it is based on teacher intuition. The
authors describe development in first and second language in terms of time and
quality, which are taken as two developmental lenses allowing the reader to
grow a fuller understanding of how proficiency can change. Development is
described as using an appropriate set of linguistic features in order to
contrive communicative complexity. With regard to time, learners are expected
to demonstrate proficiency in using some language features at specific time
frames like a semester, year, etc. Quality refers to the interpretation of
evaluators based on linguistic features of the learners’ language. The other
aim of the book is to make methodological contributions to the existing
literature on writing. To develop a more evidence-based and applied procedure
that many can implement, the book adopts an empirical approach. It offers QCL
as a specific lens to interpret the research on writing development. With the
novelties in QCL, it has been possible to make safer generalizations based on
a large body of texts. However, the authors caution the reader about the
shortcomings of QCL approaches. Due to the rapid increase in tools and
analysis in QCL, the researchers need to be aware of the robustness of these
assumptions. Thus, the authors elaborate the methodological aim of the book as
to provide researchers with a guideline for conducting future research in QCL,
clarifying the theoretical basis for research and claims QCL has made so far.

The second chapter, “Theoretical and Methodological Foundations” (pp. 14-55),
elucidates the basic premise upon which writing development rests, presenting
a theoretical and methodological overview of QCL. This chapter consists of
five subsections, laying the basics for the review in the following parts of
the book. After a brief introduction, Subsection 2 focuses on the
specifications of key constructs such as “writing”, “writing proficiency”, and
“writing development”. Though these concepts are controversial in the
literature, the authors still attempt to construe the key terminology mainly
based on “proficiency” in broad terms to refer to both L1 and L2. To deal with
the substantive difficulty of variability in the literature, they incorporated
“genre” as another defining dimension to explore writing development in a more
granular and communicatively nuanced way. “Time” and “quality” are also
examined as other major key variables of writing development as part of
communicative competence. The chapter contains a review of how “time” and
“quality” are operationalized in L1 and L2 studies, and a general framework is
outlined that reflects the pragmatic viewpoint adopted by the authors. The
following part, Section 2.3, unpacks the four linguistic assumptions QCL
depends on to analyze writing development. The authors question the extent to
which linguistic features can be coherently and substantively described to
analyze writing development through QCL. Section 2.4 expands on the basics of
QCL and discusses its strengths and limitations as a specific quantitative
research methodology. The authors warn researchers of the challenges in
defining and measuring the essential variables to establish validity to
explore development. They also suggest not undermining the context-specific
features to strike a balance to provide sufficient contextualization. The last
section, 2.5, elaborates a specific approach to QCL: multidimensional analysis
(MDA), which uses principal components analysis to evaluate co-occurrence
relationships between the various language features studied. MDA provides an
interpretive context that offers some plausible interpretations based on QCL
functioning as a whole.

The following four chapters are a confluence of the applied QCL and
linguistics. Chapter 3, “Development in Syntax” (pp. 56-114), is an impressive
in-depth coverage of studies that exploit syntactic features as categories to
explore writing development through the critical axes of time and quality. The
chapter discusses why syntactic development is the most popular focus for
studies on writing development and offers three plausible explanations. What
follows is a persuasive discussion of what syntactical proficiency is and how
it is regarded in the literature based on two components: the representational
component and usage component. The first is explored as a fuzzy component due
to fundamental disagreements at more or less every level in syntactic
literature. The latter is captured in terms of four separate constructs:
complexity, accuracy, fluency, and appropriacy to unpack syntactic
proficiency. It is emphasized that there is no established system for
categorizing syntactic measures used in the literature, but still, the authors
attempt to provide the reader with a broad, low-level taxonomy that might be
of practical and theoretical interest. The review is restricted to the most
prevalent generic indices, based on Hunt’s (1965) clause-to-sentence factors,
with five measures which offer a fine-grained framework to study development.
The rest of the chapter is devoted to a review categorized according to five
labels. It presents a detailed and well-organized account of L1 and L2
studies, focusing on five specific syntactic categories (sentence length,
T-unit coordination, T-unit length, clause density, clause length) to explore
writing development. The studies returned striking empirical evidence at each
level of these categories concerning both time and quality. For example,
T-unit length and adjective phrases are specific L1 and L2 development markers
for both time and quality. The authors criticize these studies as they mostly
lacked conceptual clarity regarding what is being measured and why. Instead,
they suggest some fruitful further research options to unpack development
through a more systematically and theoretically grounded approach, since
syntax plays a substantive role in writing development.  

The chapter on vocabulary development, “Development in Vocabulary” (pp.
117-146), opens with a discussion of why vocabulary is a popular construct in
QCL and presents some potential limitations regarding the operationalization
of vocabulary in many studies. In the theoretical considerations section, some
basic terminology is identified, such as “vocabulary proficiency” concerning
the measures of “breadth” and “depth”, “receptive” and “productive vocabulary
knowledge”. Also discussed are the two specific aims of vocabulary studies:
testing and development. The studies in the review section are organized
around three classification measures offered by Read (2000) to quantify
writing development: “lexical variation”, “lexical sophistication”, and
“lexical density”. “Lexical sophistication” is analyzed under four headings:
“word frequency”, “register”, “word length”, and “semantic measures”. Most of
the studies focus on lexical diversity and word frequency. Lexical diversity
is positively correlated with time in L1 studies but with quality in L2
studies. Lexical density is too diverse and vague to conclude anything about
development. Methodologically, the authors expanded on less studied measures
such as semantic measures and depth and presented good research topics
concerning the influences of educational context, first language, and text
genre on the features of vocabulary use.      
     
Chapter 5, “Development in Formulaic Language” (pp. 147-182), offers insight
into approaches to defining and identifying formulaic language. It reviews
studies across time and quality constructs, particularly in L2 contexts (as
there are no studies in L1 settings on formulaic expressions except for the
Durrant and Brenchley’s (in press) study on children’s academic collocation
use). The chapter starts with the basics of formulaic language and expands on
why formulaic language is essential for language development. The Theoretical
Framework section explores how formulaic language knowledge is conceived in
the literature, for example, as part of vocabulary depth, social phenomena, or
discourse markers of meaning creation. The following section provides detailed
information about how formulaic language is operationalized, particularly
about frequency-based approaches, which dominate the majority of the studies
in the review. The frequency-based approaches are investigated under two main
headings. The first is based on how often a particular combination of words
appears, and is discussed in relation to ”n-grams”, “lexical bundles”, and
“p-frames”. The second approach is focused on the strength of association
between the components of the combinations, particularly in relation to
“collocations”. The detailed review in the following section shows that
studies of formulaic language have been recently expanding in different ways
in which phraseological sophistication can be understood. Specifically, in L2
studies, formulaic language showed clear patterns of development in terms of
the quality variable and the greater strength of association with collocating
words.

 “Development in Cohesion” (pp. 183-200) is the last chapter where development
in writing is investigated from the perspective of QCL. After a brief
introduction into cohesion as a textual construct and coherence as a mental
construct, two key models of cohesion are discussed: the model of cohesion set
out by Halliday and Hassan (1976) and the Coh-Metrix tool for automated text
analysis (Graesser & McNamara, 2011). The review sketches the general layout
for L1 and L2 writing concerning cohesion under these two classifications.
However, the sparsity of studies explored under cohesion created a problem to
conclude the contextual specificity of cohesion as a linguistic feature.
Coh-Metrix oriented data were relatively narrow because a specific research
group produced it. Still, the authors found some evidence that greater use of
lexical cohesion, explored under Halliday and Hasan’s model, is associated
with higher ratings for quality for L1. Cohesion is therefore described as an
area that needs further studies in the future for more consistent conclusions.
 

The last chapter, “Conclusions” (pp. 201-212), presents a systematic and
detailed summary of all findings in all four research areas. L1 writing shows
clear developmental patterns, along with the construct of time, in terms of
syntax and vocabulary. On the other hand, L2 writing shows consistent
patterns, along with the quality variable, in terms of syntax, vocabulary, and
formulaic language. The authors offer some plausible explanations regarding
the differences between L1 and L2 and suggestions for further research. 

EVALUATION

The book is an essential contribution to Corpus Linguistics, Applied
Linguistics, and Theoretical Linguistics, as it presents a bird’s eye view of
the convoluted topic of writing development for both researchers and
practitioners. It provides the reader with a broad picture of the
interdisciplinary topic of writing development. It then zooms in on each
particular developmental unit by breaking down the construct in a systematic
and organized way, which is one of the most remarkable features of the book.
It walks the reader down the path to understanding the complex elements in all
chapters step by step, so that  readers always know where they are heading. In
that sense, it’s a great reference book for students as it explains every
construct from scratch.

Given the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of writing development, the
book includes cognitive, psycholinguistic, historical, and educational
perspectives on the topic. All the chapters are woven across these different
perspectives. The chapter on syntax is a unique and comprehensive compilation
of studies on fuzzy syntactic constructs. Durrant’s pioneering expertise on
formulaic expressions, specifically on collocations, offers a tangible
empirical approach to dealing with formulaic language in writing development.
The book fulfills its two aims, as it provides empirical insights into the
extent to which meaningful development patterns occur across time and quality
and how the two constructs yield similar results across first and second
language development. It also suggests several directions to further study
writing development across the four major areas of syntax, vocabulary,
formulaic language, and cohesion. The cohesion and vocabulary chapters in
particular present huge gaps to explore development in both L1 and L2. The
book itself is a fine example of how to conduct a quantitative study
methodologically and theoretically, for it presents a consistent empirical and
generalizable roadmap to the readers.

Some small challenges may bother the reader about the interpretations and
layout of some charts and tables. They require further attention from the
reader in order to understand the statistical details discussed. An additional
limitation may be the language of the book. It is a fine example of elaborated
academic writing, and readers might evaluate the language as sophisticated.
However, the long list of citations at the end of each sentence may give the
reader a hard time refining the message in the long and complex sentences.
Although the book is a review study, the long citations may still pose an
unavoidable challenge to the reader. 

The book is a worthwhile read and an invaluable resource for all interested in
writing development and corpus linguistics. 
   
REFERENCES

Durrant, P., & Brenchley, M. (in press). The Development of Academic
Collocations in Children’s Writing. In P. Szudarski & S. Barclay (Eds.),
Vocabulary Theory, Patterning and Teaching. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Graesser, A. C., & McNamara, D. (2011). Computational Analyses of Multilevel
Discourse Comprehension. Topics in Cognitive Science, 3, 371–398.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman.

Hunt, K. W. (1965). Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels: NCTE
Research Report No. 3. Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.

Read, J. (2000). Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Hatice Altun, Ph.D., is a language instructor in the School of Foreign
Languages, Pamukkale University, Turkey. Her major research interests lie in
areas of bi/multilingualism, identity research, discourse analysis, corpus
linguistics, and study abroad.





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