fsca: French syntactic complexity analyzer

This article reports on an open-source R package for the extraction of syntactic units from dependency-parsed French texts. To evaluate the reliability of the package, syntactic units were extracted from a corpus of L2 French and were compared to units extracted manually from the same corpus. The f-score of the extracted units ranged from 0.53-0.97. Although units were not always identical between the two methods, manual and automatically- derived syntactic complexity measures were strongly and significantly correlated (ρ = 0.62- 0.97, p < 0.001), suggesting that this package may be a suitable replacement for manual annotation in some cases where manual annotation is not possible but that care should be used in interpreting the measures based on these units

Applying Phraseological Complexity Measures to L2 French: A Partial Replication Study: Supplementary Materials

This study partially replicates Paquot’s (2018, 2019) study of phraseological complexity in L2 English by investigating how phraseological complexity compares across proficiency levels as well as how phraseological complexity measures relate to lexical, syntactic and morphological complexity measures in a corpus of L2 French argumentative essays. Phraseological complexity is operationalized as the diversity (root type-token ratio; RTTR) and sophistication (pointwise mutual information; PMI) of three types of grammatical dependencies: adjectival modifiers, adverbial modifiers and direct objects. Results reveal a significant increase in the mean PMI of direct objects and the RTTR of adjectival modifiers across proficiency levels. In addition to phraseological sophistication, important predictors of proficiency include measures of lexical diversity, lexical sophistication, syntactic (phrasal) complexity and morphological complexity. The results provide cross-linguistic validation for the results of Paquot (2018, 2019) and further highlight the importance of including phraseological measures in the current repertoire of L2 complexity measures

Phraseological complexity in L2 French : investigating variation across modes

Along with accuracy and fluency, complexity is considered a major component of L2 performance and proficiency (Housen et al., 2012; Housen & Kuiken, 2009; Skehan, 1996, 2009). Until recently, however, most measures of complexity have focused on solely lexical or syntactic aspects of L2 production, disregarding the important role that word combinations play in the development of linguistic competence. The construct of phraseological complexity (Paquot, 2019) addresses this by measuring complexity at the interface of lexis and grammar. In various studies, measures of phraseological diversity (e.g., type-token ratios of phraseological units) and sophistication (e.g., average PMI of phraseological units) have been found to be useful indices of L2 proficiency (e.g., Jiang et al., 2021; Paquot, 2018, 2019; Rubin et al., 2021) and development (e.g., Bestgen & Granger, 2018; Siyanova-Chanturia, 2015). With a few exceptions however, research in this domain has focused predominantly on L2 English, and so relatively little is known about the applicability of phraseological complexity measures to more synthetic languages such as French. In addition, while a handful of studies have investigated phraseological complexity measures in the oral mode (e.g. Paquot et al., in press), there has not yet been an attempt to compare phraseological complexity across modes. This is important because modality may affect both the type of phraseological units used (Biber et al., 2004) as well as the ability to pay attention to linguistic output, which is hypothesized to lead to generally higher levels of complexity in writing as compared to speaking (Kormos, 2014; Manchón, 2014; Skehan, 2014). While research in L2 French has shown that learners use a higher quantity of phraseological units as they increase in proficiency (e.g. Forsberg, 2010), no study thus far has compared phraseological complexity (in terms of diversity and sophistication) across proficiency levels in L2 French or examined the effect of mode (speech vs. writing) on the manifestation of phraseological complexity. This project fills the gap by investigating the extent to which phraseological complexity is an indicator of proficiency and development in L2 French (RQ1), the extent to which phraseological complexity measures relate to other aspects of linguistic complexity (i.e. syntactic, lexical and morphological) in L2 French (RQ2) and the extent to which phraseological complexity differs in oral versus written L2 production (RQ3). These questions are addressed in a series of empirical studies using both cross-sectional and longitudinal corpora of matched oral and written tasks by the same learners. Overall, the results show that in L2 French, both phraseological and non-phraseological complexity measures are significant predictors of proficiency level (as established independently on the basis of expert raters’ holistic proficiency assessments) and that phraseological complexity develops gradually over time. However, in both cases, these effects are small and appear to be moderated by both communicative function and the constraints of online production in speech. These findings speak to the importance of a more ‘organic’ approach to complexity (Norris & Ortega, 2009) that takes into account the effect of aspects such as target language or modality when interpreting the meaning of complexity measures.Tout comme la précision et la fluidité, la complexité est considérée comme une composante majeure de la performance et de la compétence des apprenants L2 (Housen et al., 2012; Housen & Kuiken, 2009; Skehan, 1996, 2009). Jusqu’à récemment, cependant, la plupart des mesures de complexité ont privilégié les aspects lexicaux ou syntaxiques d’un texte, sans tenir compte du rôle important que jouent les combinaisons de mots dans le développement de la compétence langagière. La complexité phraséologique (Paquot, 2019) répond à ce besoin en mettant en lumière la complexité à l’interface du lexique et de la grammaire. Plusieurs études ont montré que les mesures de diversité (p. ex., le rapport entre types et tokens des unités phraséologiques) et de sophistication (p. ex., le PMI moyen des unités phraséologiques) constituent de bons indicateurs de la compétence (Jiang et al., 2021; Paquot, 2018, 2019; Rubin et al., 2021) et du développement (Bestgen & Granger, 2018; Siyanova-Chanturia, 2015) en L2. Or, à quelques exceptions près, ces études ont principalement porté sur l’anglais L2, et on sait très peu de choses sur les langues plus synthétiques comme le français. En outre, très peu d’études ont utilisé des données orales (cf. Paquot, sous presse), et aucune étude n’a pas comparé la complexité phraséologique à travers des deux modalités. Ceci est très important dans la mesure où les unités phraséologiques utilisées ne sont pas les mêmes à l’oral et à l’écrit (Biber et al., 2004). On suppose également que l’apprenant puisse prêter plus d’attention à la production écrite, de sorte que l’on observe, en générale, un niveau de complexité plus élevé dans celle-ci par rapport à la production orale (Kormos, 2014; Manchón, 2014; Skehan, 2014). Les études sur le français L2 ont montré une plus grande quantité d’unités phraséologiques chez les apprenants plus avancés (p. ex., Forsberg, 2010), mais jusqu’à présent personne n’a comparé la complexité phraséologique (en termes de diversité et sophistication) à travers de différents niveaux de compétence en français L2. L’effet de modalité (l’oral ou l’écrit) sur la complexité phraséologique reste aussi une lacune à combler. À cet égard, ce projet vise à déterminer dans quelle mesure la complexité phraséologique est un indicateur de compétence et développement en français L2 (QdR1), dans quelle mesure la complexité phraséologique est liée à d’autres aspects de la complexité linguistique (au niveau syntaxique, lexical et morphologique) en français L2 (QdR2), et finalement, dans quelle mesure la complexité phraséologique diffère entre la production orale et écrite des apprenants L2 (QdR3). Cette thèse comprend trois études empiriques basées sur des corpus d’apprenants, et faisant recours à des données transversales et longitudinales ainsi qu’à des données orales et écrites produites par les mêmes apprenants. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats montrent qu’en français L2, les mesures de complexité phraséologique et non-phraséologique peuvent prédire de façon significative le niveau de compétence d’un apprenant (déterminé sur base d’évaluations holistiques attribuées aux productions par des experts) et que la complexité phraséologique s’améliore progressivement au fil du temps. Cela dit, dans les deux cas, les effets sont faibles et semblent d’être modérés à la fois par la fonction communicative et par les contraintes de production en temps réelle pour la modalité orale. Ces résultats soulignent l’importance d’une approche plus ‘organique’ à la complexité (Norris & Ortega, 2009), qui prend en compte des aspects tels que la langue cible et la modalité lors de l’interprétation des mesures de complexité.(ISP - Institut supérieur de philosophie) -- UCL, 202

Phraseological complexity in L2 French: Investigating variation across modes (PhD Thesis)

This repository contains all supplementary materials for the accompanying PhD thesis. Note that some materials are still under review and will be made publicly available following the review process

Comparing the longitudinal development of phraseological complexity across oral and written tasks

This depository contains supplementary materials for the article with the same name to appear in Studies in Second Language Acquisition

J’ai l’impression que: Lexical Bundles in the Dialogues of Beginner French Textbooks

Formulaic language is notoriously difficult for second language learners of French to master (Edmonds, 2014; Forsberg, 2010). Yet, no study has examined formulaic language in French textbooks despite the fact that in many contexts, textbooks represent a significant proportion of the input that learners receive. The current study addresses this gap. Using a distributional approach (as used in Biber, Conrad, &amp; Cortes, 2004), four-word lexical bundles were extracted from an oral corpus of French. The average number of lexical bundles in oral corpus utterances was compared to the average number of bundles in a corpus of A1-B1 level textbook dialogues. An independent samples t test showed that the average number of lexical bundles per 100,000 words was significantly higher in texts from the oral corpus than the textbook corpus. The average number of stance and referential lexical bundles was also revealed to be higher in the oral corpus. Implications for textbook design are discussed, such as increasing the amount of formulaic language in A2 level textbooks and incorporating more authentic language into textbooks.La maîtrise du langage formulaïque constitue un défi majeur pour les apprenants du français langue seconde (Edmonds, 2014 ; Forsberg, 2010). Néanmoins, aucune étude n’a examiné le langage formulaïque dans les manuels de français langue seconde, malgré le fait qu’ils représentent une proportion importante de l’input que les apprenants reçoivent. La présente étude vise à combler cette lacune. Nous avons utilisé une approche distributionnelle (comme ont utilisé Biber, Conrad et Cortes, 2004) pour extraire des groupes lexicaux de quatre mots à partir d’un corpus oral de français. Nous avons ensuite comparé le nombre moyen de groupes lexicaux dans les énoncés oraux et dans les dialogues dans les manuels A1-B1. Le nombre moyen de groupes lexicaux pour 100 000 mots était plus élevé dans le corpus oral comparé au corpus de manuels et un test t pour échantillons indépendants a révélé que cette différence était significative. Le corpus oral contenait aussi une plus grande proportion de groupes lexicaux de types positionnel et référentiel. Nous traitons des implications que cela engendre pour la conception de manuels, notamment l’augmentation du langage formulaïque au niveau A2 et l’incorporation du langage authentique à tous les niveaux

Phraseological Complexity in Oral and Written L2 French

Recent research has attempted to expand the construct of L2 complexity beyond traditional syntactic and lexical complexity measures to include the ways in which words combine to create meaningful units. Paquot (2019) investigated whether phraseological complexity, that is the diversity and sophistication of phraseological units, could predict proficiency level in a corpus of L2 English essays. Her findings suggested that measures of phraseological complexity were better predictors of L2 English proficiency level than measures which target solely syntactic or lexical characteristics of an L2 text. This finding has not yet been replicated for learner languages other than English. Research in L2 French has shown that as in L2 English, learners use a higher quantity of phraseological units as they increase in proficiency across proficiency levels in L2 French or compared the effect of mode (speech vs. writing) on the manifestation of phraseological complexity. This project aims to fill this gap by providing cross-linguistic validation of the results of Paquot (2019) for L2 French and by investigating the difference in phraseological complexity between oral and written modes. To these ends, we use both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal corpus of matched oral and written tasks Following Paquot (2019), is operationalized as the root type-token-ratio of relational co-occurrences (adjective + noun, adverb + noun, modifier + verb, verb + direct object). Phraseological sophistication is primarily operationalized as the mean mutual information score of those units. We also calculate measures of syntactic and lexical complexity for each text. Syntactic complexity is operationalized as length of production, complexity by subordination and coordination, phrasal elaboration and specific part-of-speech based structures (e.g. verb phrases per unit). Lexical complexity is operationalized using density, diversity and sophistication measures. We expect to find similar results for L2 French as Paquot (2019) found for L2 English, that is, that measures of phraseological complexity will be better predictors of proficiency level (as established independently on the basis of expert raters’ holistic proficiency assessments) than traditional measures of syntactic and lexical complexity, especially for highly advanced learners. However, we expect to find that French learner texts will exhibit a smaller degree of phraseological complexity when compared to L2 English texts due to the higher burden that learners of French have in acquiring inflectional morphology (cf. Stengers, Boers, Housen, & Eyckmans, 2011). We also expect that written productions will exhibit higher degrees of phraseological complexity than spoken productions, echoing findings for lexical complexity by Granfeldt (2007)