CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS RELATED TO L1 KNOWLEDGE
5.2 Relationships between L1 knowledge and surface features of English composition
I now turn to the writing analysis data to demonstrate how the scores for the various measures relate to my hypothesis that participants with more formal knowledge of their L1 will write more highly-scored CPA compositions. As a corollary, I expected the writing analysis scores to decrease as participants had fewer years of formal L1 education and fewer L1 literacy skills.
5.2.1 Accuracy
Recall that I measured accuracy by the percentage of error-free clauses (% EFC) and the percentage of error (% E). Table 5-3 shows the accuracy averages for the compositions by the participants whose education began in another country.
Table 5-3: Average Accuracy of Compositions by Participants with Education Outside the US
Cohort Average % EFC Average % E
L1 into high school 51 76
L1 into middle school 53 63
L1 in elementary only 68 45
The averages in this table are contrary to my hypothesis. I hypothesized that the cohort that received the most education in their own country would write the highest-rated compositions; however, their compositions were the least accurate. Instead, the cohort that came to the US in elementary school wrote the most accurate compositions.
Table 5-4 shows average accuracy scores for the CPA compositions written by the participants who were educated only in US schools.
Table 5-4: Average Accuracy of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools
Cohort Average % EFC Average % E
L1 in school 72 39
L1 at church only 62 53
No formal L1 63 56
Table 5-4 supports my expectation for the US-only educated participants who studied their L1 formally in school. Their CPA compositions score higher for accuracy than the compositions by the participants in the other two cohorts. The accuracy scores for the participants who studied their L1 in a church-sponsored program and the
participants who did not study their L1 are too similar to indicate any difference between the cohorts.
5.2.2 Grammatical complexity
Recall that grammatical complexity was measured by the percentage of dependent clauses (% DC) and the average number of clauses per T-unit (C/T). Table 5-5 presents the average grammatical complexity scores for the participants who began their schooling in another country.
Table 5-5: Average Grammatical Complexity of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools
Cohort Average % DC Average C/T
L1 into high school 55 2.2
L1 into middle school 42 2.0
L1 in elementary only 46 2.1
The averages for the percentages of dependent clauses shown in Table 5-5 partially support my hypothesis. The cohort that received the most education in their L1 wrote compositions with the highest percentage of dependent clauses. On the other hand, the cohort that I predicted would use the least complex grammatical structures, the
participants who entered the US during elementary school, actually wrote with more grammatical complexity than the participants who entered during middle school. The scores for the average number of clauses per T-unit are too similar to be of significance.
Table 5-6 shows the results of the grammatical complexity analysis of the compositions written by the participants who were educated only in the US.
Table 5-6: Average Grammatical Complexity of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools
Cohort Average % DC Average C/T
L1 in school 47 1.9
L1 at church only 51 1.9
No formal L1 40 1.8
The numbers in the table are fairly close. However, the averages in the table mask several interesting comparisons between the individual scores for the participants who were educated in the US. They are displayed in Figure 5-1.
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Figure 5-1: Grammatical Complexity of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools
I would like to make several comments about Figure 5-1. In the cohort with no formal L1 education, we see that participant 27 and 06 wrote markedly more
grammatically complex compositions than their peers—except for participant 22, whose
case I will discuss next. Recall that participant 27’s father taught her and her siblings to read and write Hmong. Participant 06, while not literate in Arabic, had studied the rudiments of Arabic literacy while living in Palestine. In contrast, neither participant 20 nor participant 28 had learned to read or write Hmong. In addition, while participants 27 and 06 wrote more grammatically complex compositions than participants 20 and 28, their scores on this measure were not as high as those of the participants who had studied their L1 at a religious institution. These small data points support my expectation that more formal L1 education will result in more highly-rated L2 writing.
The only two participants whose compositions scored unusually high for grammatical complexity are participants 11 and 22. According to my hypothesis, participant 11’s composition should be exceptionally strong because she is the only participant who attended a rigorous bilingual education program. In addition, participant 11’s high score is not surprising because her composition generally receives high scores.
Table 5-7 compares the writing analysis scores for the compositions by participant 11 and participant 22.
Table 5-7: Comparison of Scores on Measures of L2 Writing by Thirty-third Percentiles for Participants 11 and 22
# EFC E DC C/T WT SWT #W Rhet Coord Logi Topi P&EP
11 H H H H H H H H - - m- -
22 - - H H - - H m - - m- -
H = ranked in the top 33rd percentile m = ranked in the middle 33rd percentile - = ranked in the lowest 33rd percentile
m- (or any two symbols) = ranked between the two percentiles
From Table 5-7, it is clear that while the high grammatical complexity scores are not unusual for participant 11, they are surprising for participant 22. I will discuss this discrepancy in Chapter 7; for now, I will create a new table (5-8) that eliminates
participant 22’s anomalous scores from her cohort’s averages. Recall that participant 22 is somewhat of an enigma; the extremes in her scores and the way her parents’ two different languages forced the family to use primarily English make her situation unique.
Eliminating her scores may skew the results for her cohort, but keeping her scores in the overall average also may skew the results.
Table 5-8: Average Grammatical Complexity of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools – Modified by
Eliminating Participant 22’s Scores
Cohort Average % DC Average C/T
L1 in school 47 1.9
L1 at church only 51 1.9
No formal L1 35 1.5
When participant 22’s scores are eliminated, the difference is more pronounced for the grammatical complexity averages of the cohort with no formal L1 education. The modified table now tentatively and partially supports my hypothesis that participants who had not studied their L1 at all would write with less grammatical complexity than those who had studied their L1. Unlike my prediction, however, there is little difference in scores between those who had formal L1 education and those who studied their L1 in religious settings.
5.2.3 Lexical complexity
I used two measures of lexical complexity: 1) lexical variety, meaning the percentage of different word types (% WT); and 2) the percentage of different sophisticated word types (% SWT). Table 5-9 presents the averaged results for the participants whose education began outside the US.
Table 5-9: Average Lexical Complexity of Compositions by Participants with Education Outside the US Cohort % WT % SWT
L1 into high school 54 4
L1 into middle school 52 8
L1 in elementary only 58 12
The results for this group of participants are contrary to my hypothesis. I hypothesized that the participants who had the most L1 education in their own country would write higher scoring compositions; instead, the participants who had no formal education in their L1 used the most lexical variety and the highest percentage of sophisticated words.
Table 5-10 presents the lexical complexity results for the participants who were educated only in US schools.
Table 5-10: Average Lexical Complexity of Compositions by Participants Educated in US Schools
Cohort % WT % SWT
L1 in school 65 18
L1 at church only 60 14
No formal L1 61 11
While the lexical variety averages are all too close to each other to be particularly meaningful, the use of sophisticated vocabulary shows a spread of averages that supports my hypothesis. As I had expected, the participants educated in their L1 used more
sophisticated vocabulary than the participants without any formal L1 education. The scores for the compositions by the cohort who studied their L1 at religious institutions average between the two extremes, but the differences are not great enough to support or refute my hypothesis.
5.3 Relationships between knowledge of L1 rhetorical features and coherence