Edited by Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska and Sandra Götz
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 104] 2022
► pp. 209–240
This learner corpus study tracks the development and interactional dynamics between grammatical accuracy (GrA) and syntactic complexity (SC) at four Common European Framework proficiency levels (intermediate and advanced levels B1/B2/C1/C2). Data from the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger et al. 2020) were error-tagged and submitted to the automatic L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010). Interaction between B1 and B2 is characterised by a competitive relationship between GrA and SC, with the most marked improvement displayed in accuracy. Development between B2 and C1 displays subtle shifts, with GrA improving slightly and SC showing mild signs of reorganisation. Between C1 and C2, a more supportive relationship appears: SC shows the most marked signs of development, with GrA continuing to subtly improve.