Study on the Correlation between Linguistic Complexity and Audience Recognition in College English Speech Contests

Lin Shi

doi:10.54691/bcpssh.v14i.262

Authors

Lin Shi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/bcpssh.v14i.262

Keywords:

Corpus; Computer Visualized Data Analysis; Linguistic Complexity; Lexical Complexity; Syntactic Complexity; Audience Recognition.

Abstract

From the perspective of linguistic complexity, this paper explores the correlation between linguistic complexity and audience recognition in college English speech contests. By adopting the corpus construction and computer visualized data analysis, this study analyzes the speech of contestants at different levels in FLTRP Cup National English peaking Contest 2019-2020, the most authoritative college English speech contest in China. The study shows that: 1) In college English speech contests, the lexical complexity of the speech is negatively correlated with the recognition degree of the audience (i.e. the final ranking of the competition or the success of the speech). 2) The syntactic complexity of the speech exists reasonable interval to ensure good audience recognition. 3) In college English speech contests, the correlation between the lexical complexity and syntactic complexity of speeches and audience recognition is similar to the correlation between the rhetoric and audience recognition in political speeches which is obtained by previous researchers in the field of political speeches. Therefore, we think this study has a certain practical value. It provides evidence of linguistic complexity for predicting the winner of college English speech contests and helping contestants prepare for the contest better.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Norris, J. & Ortega, L. (2009) Towards an organic approach to investigating CAF in instructed SLA: The case of complexity [J]. Applied Linguistics 30: 555-578.

Lu, X. 2011. A corpus-based evaluation of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college level ESL writers’ language development [J]. TESOL Quarterly 45: 36-62.

Ortega, L. 2015. Syntactic complexity in L2 writing: Progress and expansion [J]. Journal of Second Language Writing 29: 82-94.

Bulté, B. & A. Housen. 2012. Defining and operationalizing L2 complexity [A]. In A. Housen, F. Kuiken & I. Vedder (eds.). Dimensions of L2 Performance and Proficiency: Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency in SLA [C]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 21-46.

Skehan, P. 2009. Modelling second language performance: Integrating complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis [J]. Applied Linguistics 31: 510-532.

Wang Haihua, Li Beibei and Xu Lin, 2015, A case study on the development of written language proficiency of Chinese English learners [J], Foreign Language Teaching and Research (1):67-80.

Wang Chuming, 2008, Language Learning and Interaction [J], Journal of Foreign Languages (6):53-60.

Xu Xiaoyan, Wang Weimin, Xiong Yanyu, Jiang Jing, Pan Xiaoyan, and Sun Nianhong, 2013, A study on the syntactic complexity of English argumentative essays among Chinese English majors [J], Foreign Language Teaching and Research (2):264-275.

Lu, X. 2011. A corpus-based evaluation of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level ESL writers’ language development [J]. TESOL Quarterly 45: 36-62.

Bulté, B. & A. Housen. 2014. Conceptualizing and measuring short-term changes in L2 writing complexity [J]. Journal of Second Language Writing 26: 42-65.

Crossley, S. & D. McNamara. 2014. Does writing development equal writing quality? A computational investigation of syntactic complexity in L2 learners [J]. Journal of Second Language Writing 26: 66-79.

Mazgutova, D. & J. Kormos. 2015. Syntactic and lexical development in an intensive English for Academic Purposes programme [J]. Journal of Second Language Writing 29: 3-15.

Bao Gui, 2009, A study on the change of syntactic complexity of English learners' compositions [J], Foreign Language Teaching and Research (4): 291-297.

Wang Min and Wang Chuming, 2014, The synergistic effect of reading followed by writing [J], Modern Foreign Languages (4):501-512.

Wasike, B. 2017. Charismatic rhetoric, integrative complexity and the U.S. Presidency: An analysis of the State of the Union Address (SOTU) from George Washington to Barack Obama [J]. The Leadership Quarterly 28: 812-826.

Gunawan, S. 2017, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign rhetoric: Making America while again [J]. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences 38: 50-55.

Savoy, J. 2018. Analysis of the style and the rhetoric of the 2016US presidential primaries [J]. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33: 143-159.

Tausczik, Y. 2010. The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods [J]. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 29: 24–54.

Toutanova, K. 2003. Feature-rich Part-of-speech Tagging with a Cyclid Dependency Network in Proceedings of Human Language Technology-North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics [J]. Applied Linguistics 28: 432-458.