영어 논술문에서의 성별의 차이 : 통사적 복잡성의 분석

Gender differences in L2 argumentative writing: An analysis of syntactic complexity

This study aimed to examine whether there are any gender differences in linguistic ability when comparing Korean males’ and females’ English writings regarding measures of syntactic complexity. For the purpose of the study, the Yonsei English learner Corpus was used as data and L2 Syntactical Complex Analyzer as a tool for analyzing the level of syntactic complexity. The results of the study demonstrated three different outcomes. First, when comparing two gender groups, regardless of English proficiency, the level of syntactic complexity was very similar in general. Secondly, when comparing groups of the same proficiency between the two genders, only beginner and intermediate groups demonstrated a significant difference in the level of syntactic complexity. On the other hand, there was no significant gender difference in the high-intermediate and advanced groups. For the high-intermediate and advanced groups, gender as a variable does not directly affect the syntactic development. Lastly, when comparing groups within the same gender, there was a trend showing linear progression of the level of syntactic complexity.