Transcript Document

Measuring maturity
Richard Hudson
Institute of Education, London
July 2009
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Plan
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Plan
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What is maturity?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Non-linguistic maturity in writing
• Age of writer
– KS1 – KS4
– age 20 – 30 – 40 – 50 ….
• Quality of writing
– as judged by experienced examiners
– National Curriculum Level
– GCSE grade
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Less linguistic maturity
• He had just been in a horrible battle and he
had killed lots of people. When he had
finished his battle he was exhausted and he
was tottering and came across a beautiful
lady who was singing beautiful songs …
• Sarah, Year 6
• NC Level 3
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More linguistic maturity
• Giles Harvey, a former Eton pupil was one
and a half times over the limit when he was
involved in a head on crash while he was
racing his BMW sports car.
• Joanne, Year 9
• NC Level 7
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Non-linguistic and linguistic
maturity
• How do we know what’s‘mature’ in
language?
• Ask what linguistic features tend to be
used:
– only by older writers
– only in more highly valued writing
• This avoids circularity.
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Plan
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Measures of vocabulary
• Lexical diversity (type/token ratio)
– Sarah: 0.66
– Joanne: 0.84 (first 32 words)
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Lexical sophistication (e.g. word length)
Lexical density (grammatical/lexical)
Errors (e.g. spelling)
Nouniness Nouniness?
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Nouniness
• What percentage of word tokens are nouns?
– Noun = common or proper noun
– Sarah: 15%
– Joanne: 31%
• Nouniness increases with maturity
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% noun
Nouniness x maturity
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16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
KS1
KS2
KS3
KS4
1
2b
3 4/F
5
grade
6 7/C 8
A
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Plan
•
•
•
•
•
•
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Why is nouniness mature?
• In 2007 I had no idea.
• I now have some relevant data
– thanks to Gwillim Law and Jasper Holmes
• Conclusion: nouniness increases with
maturity because …
• Rarer words tend to be nouns.
• So nouniness is part of sophistication
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Rarer words tend to be nouns
% of lemmas
Nouns increase share with
rarity
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Preposition
65
53
6
11
18
21
16
38
4
32
76
8
81
92
40
96
20
48
10
24
51
2
25
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Adverb
frequency
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Nouniness x task
• Narrative tasks produce less nouny writing.
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16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
nonnarrative
narrative
KS1
KS2
KS3
KS4
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Is this the same as Nominality?
• ‘Nominal’ style favours:
– noun, adjective, preposition
– favoured by adult ‘informational’ writing
• ‘Verbal’ style favours:
– verb, adverb, pronoun
– favoured by adult ‘imaginative’ writing
• Is nominal/verbal ratio relevant to children?
– Sarah: 0.61, Joanne: 2.0
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So what?
• Mature writers use more rare words.
• So they must have a wider vocabulary.
• So their linguistic maturity can be measured
in terms of:
– word frequencies – how many rare words?
– vocabulary diversity – type/token ratio.
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Plan
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•
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•
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Two kinds of syntactic measure
• General
– e.g. Sentence length or T-unit length
• Specific
– e.g. apposition
• Giles Harvey, a former Eton pupil
• (written by Joanne)
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General measures
• T-unit length
– T-unit = words in a main clause, including all
subordinate clauses
• Coordination
– shows immaturity
– and: Sarah = 3, Joanne = 0
• Subordination
– subordinate clauses: Sarah = 2, Joanne = 2
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But subordination is mature
steady rise in KS1 (if you’re young)
and KS2
5
4
KS1
KS2
KS3
KS4
3
2
subordinate
1
clauses per
100 words0
1
2b
3 4/F 5
6 7/C 8
grade
A
fall in best writers
at KS3/4
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Specific syntax
• apposition
• ‘swapping places’
a little town
called Sea Palling
was
about three miles
down the road
• preposition-initial relative clauses
• the box
which I put it in
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Plan
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why syntax correlates with maturity.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Why? General syntactic measures
• These show increasingly complex syntax.
• Two possible non-linguistic reasons:
– increasingly complex ideas
– increasingly powerful working memories.
• Maybe complexity increases with age
throughout life.
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Why? Specific syntactic measures
• These show increasingly diverse syntax.
• One linguistic reason: growth of linguistic
knowledge.
• Assumption: we do not ‘know the grammar
of our language by age 5’!
• There’s a great deal of grammar to be
learned at school.
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Errors as signs of growth
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… he seems a little excited by the encounter of
aliens …
… he also described their difficulty to move …
…it was now that I was so disappointed I did
not have a camera …[inappropriate]
The creature I estimate was surfaced at the most
for one minute, of which all I had spent just
staring at the creature, …
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Plan
•
•
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•
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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How can teachers promote
maturity?
• Ignore general syntax
– this depends on cognitive development
• Focus on specifics:
– vocabulary
– specific syntax
• Help learners to notice new patterns.
• Teach new patterns explicitly.
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Plan
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What is maturity as applied to writing?
How vocabulary correlates with maturity.
How syntax correlates with maturity.
Why vocabulary correlates.
Why syntax correlates.
Implications for teaching.
Implications for assessment.
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Assessment of writing
• Why not use automated assessment?
– at least as a supplement to humans
• All these measures can be mechanised
– if children use word processors.
• Research question:
– Is the agreement between two humans better
than between a human and a machine?
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Conclusion
• Maturity of language can be defined
– in relation to age and grading.
• So it can be measured
– in terms of identifiable linguistic features.
• Specific linguistic features can be taught.
• They can also be identified automatically.
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Thank you
• This presentation is available at
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/talks.htm
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