The Development of Sentence and Clause Lengths
in Czech L2 Texts
The Development of Sentence and Clause Lengths
in Czech L2 Texts
Author(s): Radek Čech, Michaela Nogolová, Michaela Hanušková, Miroslav KubátSubject(s): Language acquisition, Cognitive linguistics, Computational linguistics, Descriptive linguistics
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro jazyk český
Keywords: sentence length; clause length; Czech language; Slavic language
Summary/Abstract: This study aims to analyse the development of sentence and clause lengths in CzechL2 texts at A1–C1 proficiency levels. The research is based on the material of the Czech NationalCorpus, namely the CzeSL-SGT learner corpus. The final sample contains nearly 6,000 Czechtexts written by non-native speakers. Moreover, these results are compared with the referencecorpus consisting of texts written by Czech native speakers. The material is syntactically annotatedby the Universal Dependencies framework. The research also examines the cross-linguisticinfluence of learners’ first language by comparing the results of native Slavic and non-Slavicspeakers. The results generally show that the higher the level of language proficiency, the higherthe average length of the clauses and sentences. Texts written by Slavic students reach, onaverage, longer sentences and clauses compared to their non-Slavic counterparts at most proficiencylevels, with the gap most visible at beginner levels (A1, A2).
Journal: Korpus - gramatika - axiologie
- Issue Year: 2023
- Issue No: 28
- Page Range: 22-37
- Page Count: 16
- Language: English