Linguistic precision and syntactic complexity

How far do they compete for the limited resources of the apprentice?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the possible link between linguistic accuracy and syntactic complexity in written skills in a sample of native Greek speakers who are learning Spanish as a foreign language. Considering the syntactic complexity as an index of interest in addressing written production a comparison between the native and nonnative written production was also pursued with regards to the degree of syntactic elaboration. To this end, a narrative task under time pressure was used to measure writing skills while the evaluation of the performance was based on the quantification of two linguistic dimensions: linguistic accuracy and syntactic complexity. The statistical analyses showed that there was no significant association between linguistic accuracy and syntactic complexity which seems to refute the existence of trade off. Moreover, it was observed that native speakers seem to use a more elaborate syntax in their texts, a result that was only partially true if one also takes into account the implications of other factors in the results obtained. The results are discussed based on the postulates of the Cognition Hypothesis and the Tradeoff Hypothesis.