In recent years, there has been extensive research on syntactic complexity in L2 writing. However, a significant research gap remains in understanding the specific association between syntactic complexity measures and the quality of writing among adolescent learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This research study aimed to bridge this gap by examining the connection between syntactic complexity measures and writing quality in 146 argumentative essays by Iranian-speaking learners of English as a foreign language, as assessed by human raters. Syntactic complexity measures were analyzed through computer programs called L2SCA and TAASSC. Two regression analyses were run to assess the relationship between the predictor and outcome variables. The results revealed that syntactic complexity model explained 35.6% of the variance in the outcome variable (students’ writing scores) with “dependent clauses per T-unit”, “Mean length of T-unit”, “Mean length of clause”, and “complex nominals per T-unit” as the strongest predictors. Also, the combined model accounted for 44.1% of the variance in the outcome variable. The findings from this research offer valuable insights into writing assessment and pedagogy, enabling language educators to design more effective instructional strategies tailored to the specific needs of this learner group. پرونده مقاله

Nonnative English speaking (NNES) writers seeking to publish the results of their studies in international English-medium journals may find it challenging because of unfamiliarity with the genre conventions of research articles (RAs). The goal of the present study was twofold: (a) to identify the moves and steps characterizing the discussion section of RAs and (b) to investigate the differences in the use of moves and steps employed by English Writers (EWs) and Iranian Writers (IWs). To these ends, an English Corpus (EC) composed of 50 RAs written by EWs, and an Iranian Corpus (IC), including 50 RAs written by IWs were developed. Drawing on Swales’ moves analysis, this genre-based study used corpus data for genre analysis. The data were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. A series of one-way chi-square procedures was used to analyze the frequency data quantitatively. For qualitative analysis, corpus data were content analyzed to identify moves and steps. A list of moves and steps, including six moves and 10 steps of the discussion section of RAs was proposed based on the analysis of 100 English RAs representing five core subfields. The results showed statistically significant differences in using one of the moves and several steps between EWs and IWs. Unlike EWs, IWs mostly failed to use all steps to linguistically textualize and manifest the overall function of a particular move. The study concludes with some implications for English for specific purposes (ESP) practitioners. پرونده مقاله