The effect of audience age on measured written performance  

Oleh:

Porter, D. ; O'Sullivan, Barry

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: SYSTEM: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics (Full Text) vol. 27 no. 1 (Mar. 1999), page 65-77.
Topik: Interlanguage variability; Writing; Performance; Audeince age
Fulltext: Porter_D.pdf (148.54KB)

Isi artikel

The linguistic performance of a speaker or writer, whether learner or native speaker, varies systematically with a range of speci®able features of the addressee. This variability manifests itself in choice of linguistic forms and level of formal accuracy in the language deployed. One important area for research into assessment of linguistic ability, therefore, must be the detec- tion of those features which signi®cantly a?ect performance, and the characterisation of the e?ects of those features. Research in this area has tended to focus on L1 variability, while a small number of L2 studies have focused on spoken language. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of L2 variability by exploring the e?ect of the age of the intended addressee on the written performance of Japanese university students. Twenty-six female students each wrote letters to three people they knew from a recent `study abroad' pro- gramme: one signi®cantly older than themselves, one signi®cantly younger, and one approxi- mately the same age. Analysis of the resulting letters reveals systematic variabilty in both orthography and linguistic content. In particular, statistic analysis suggests a stronge age e?ect, so that the addressee age must be seen as one important feature a?ecting performance in writing, at least with Japanese students.

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