Author(s)

Qing Xue, Tianshuang Ge^*

Department of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.

The correlation between phrasal complexity and L2 writers’ writing proficiency has been confirmed by numerous studies, among which the empirical studies on measuring of L2 writing have attracted much attention in English for academic purposes. Based on the hypothesized developmental indices of noun phrase modifications, this study examines, from the corpus-driven approach, the linguistic realization of phrasal complexity on abstracts written by international advanced academic writers and Chinese graduate L2 writers of computer science. The results show that while both groups illustrated the developmental stages of academic writing, many complexity measures of noun phrase modifiers significantly distinguish L2 learners from expert writers, especially in post-modifiers. The findings thus support previous studies on writing developmental stages, presenting a thorough understanding of graduate L2 writers’ and advanced writers’ of EAP writing through analysis of pre-modifiers and post-modifiers.

Phrasal Complexity, Complex Noun Phrases, L2 Academic Writing, Computer Science

Xue, Q. and Ge, T. (2021) A Corpus-Based Study on Phrasal Complexity in Computer Science Abstracts of Novice and Advanced Writers. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 11, 808-822. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2021.115062.