Dynamic Development in Speaking Versus Writing in Identical Twins
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Taking a dynamic usage‐based perspective, this longitudinal case study compares the development of sentence complexity in speaking versus writing in two beginner Taiwanese learners of English (identical twins) in an extensive corpus consisting of 100 oral and 100 written texts of approximately 200 words produced by each twin over 8 months. Three syntactic complexity measures were calculated: mean length of T‐unit, dependent clauses per T‐unit, and coordinate phrases per T‐unit. The working hypothesis was that (a) the learners’ oral texts would become more complex sooner than their written texts and that (b) the two learners would show similar developmental patterns. We found that these two learners initially demonstrated syntactic complexity in their oral language rather than in their written language, yet over time they were found to exhibit inverse trends of development. This observation was confirmed with dynamic modeling by means of a hidden Markov model, which allowed us to detect moments of self‐organization in the learners’ spoken and written output (i.e., moments where the interaction among various measures changes and takes on a new configuration).
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More accuracy in written than oral production after literacy acquisition is possibly due to learners having more time in written production to think about expression.
“Once the learners had acquired literacy skills, more accuracy was found in written than oral production, possibly owing to the fact that learners had more time in producing written language than in producing oral language to think about the way they wished to express their thoughts”
From The Dynamic Multicausality of Age of First Bilingual Language Exposure: Evidence From a Longitudinal Content and Language Integrated Learning Study With Dense Time Serial Measurements (2020) · cites this paper as Chan et al., 2015
The observed differences between oral and written L2 data are a relatively novel finding, as few microdevelopment studies look into mode effects.
“The observed differences between the oral and written L2 data are a relatively novel finding, as there are only very few microdevelopment studies looking into the effects of mode”
From The Dynamic Multicausality of Age of First Bilingual Language Exposure: Evidence From a Longitudinal Content and Language Integrated Learning Study With Dense Time Serial Measurements (2020) · cites this paper as Chan et al., 2015
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Effectiveness of L2 instruction: A research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis
Norris, J. M., & Ortega, L. (2000) · Language Learning · doi:10.1111/0023-8333.00136 · Cited by 2,414 · see citing works
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Yu, H., & Lowie, W. (2020) · Applied Linguistics · doi:10.1093/applin/amz040 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
PFENNINGER, S. E. (2020) · The Modern Language Journal · doi:10.1111/modl.12666 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
- Authors
- Chan, H., Verspoor, M., & Vahtrick, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Chan, HuiPing
- ORCID
- Verspoor, Marjolijn
- Venue
- Language Learning
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-05-14
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 298-325
- ISSN
- 0023-8333 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9922
- OpenAlex
- W1582105504
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 7.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- research.rug.nl
- Licence
- Locations
- Language Learning (publishedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- second language acquisition, syntactic complexity, first language influence, monozygotic twins, T-unit length, subordinate clauses, coordinate phrases, hidden Markov models, self-organization
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