A longitudinal investigation of connectedness and syntactic complexity in the written production of bilingual children during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2023.1.44413

Keywords:

Bilingualism, Written production, Connectedness, Syntactic Complexity, Graph analysis

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating, in a longitudinal way, connectedness and syntactic complexity in written narratives in Portuguese (L1) and English (L2) produced by 5th and 6th grade children enrolled in a bilingual school. For the evaluation of connectedness (thought organization), we used the computational tool SpeechGraphs (MOTA et al., 2012, 2016, 2019); syntactic complexity was verified through the analysis of T-Units and the Subordination Index (HUNT, 1965). Children were asked to write narratives in both languages based on sequences of pictures twice, first in August 2020 and then in August 2021. The longitudinal analysis showed that children wrote more syntactically complex texts in Portuguese, their L1, in both phases of data collection. In addition, they also wrote more connected narratives (LSC – long-range recurrence) and more syntactically complex texts in Portuguese in 2021, in comparison to 2020. With respect to their L2, however, no significant growth was perceived in the connectedness or complexity scores, which could also be interpreted as an effect of the pandemic on the development of students' L2 writing, since children had significantly fewer opportunities to interact in English in online classes, which may have impacted their development of productive skills in their L2.

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Author Biographies

Cristiane Ely Lemke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, PPG Letras, LABICO, IENH, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.

PhD in Letras, with emphasis in Psycholinguistics, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Master’s in Applied Linguistics (UNISINOS). Member of the Laboratory of Bilingualism and Cognition (LABICO) at UFRGS.

Larissa da Silva Cury, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, PPG Letras, LABICO, IENH, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.

PhD student at the Post Graduation Program of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), under the supervision of professor Ingrid Finger, her academic advisor. She is a member of the Laboratory of Bilingualism and Cognition (LABICO) at UFRGS. She holds a Summa Cum Laude distinction in Licentiate in Arts: Portuguese and English Languages Degree from The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Her biggest research interest concerns the Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. She is also interested in Statistics and programming languages.

Janaína Weissheimer, Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, CNPq, Natal, RN, Brazil

Associate Professor at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at UFRN, a permanent member of the Graduate Program in Language Studies and coordinator of AprendiLab (Learning and Reading Lab) at the Brain Institute at UFRN. She holds a PhD in English from UFSC (2007), was a visiting scholar at the Kutas Cognitive Electrophysiology Lab at the University of California San Diego UCSD (2014-2015) and is currently a visiting scholar at the Bilingualism Mind and Brain Lab at the University from California in Irvine (2023), with a CAPES/PRINT scholarship.

Natália Bezerra Mota, Institute of Psychiatry – IPUB/Propsam – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Research department at Motrix Lab, Motrix, Rio de Janeiro, Rj, Brazil

A computational psychiatrist and current professor at the Institute of Psychiatry (IPUB) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ. Having experience in multiple aspects of computational neuroscience and psychiatry research and practice with Post-Doctorate, Ph.D., and Master in Neuroscience and Bachelor in Medicine (residence and clinical practice in Psychiatry) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).

Ingrid Finger, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, PPG Letras, LABICO, IENH, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.

Ingrid Finger is an Associate Professor at the Modern Languages Department and the Graduate Program in Linguistics and Literature at UFRGS, where she coordinates the Bilingualism and Cognition Lab (LABICO). PhD in Linguistics (Applied Linguistics) from the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) Visiting Scholar at the Brain and Language Lab, Georgetown University in 2010 –2011, working with Prof. Michael T. Ullman at the Department of Neuroscience, and at the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1998, working with Prof. Gita Martohardjono. Visiting scholar at the Bilingualism Mind and Brain Lab at the University from California in Irvine (2022). She is a CNPq researcher and integrates the National Science for Education Network in Brazil.

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Published

2023-11-23

How to Cite

Ely Lemke, C., da Silva Cury, L., Weissheimer, J., Bezerra Mota, N., & Finger, I. (2023). A longitudinal investigation of connectedness and syntactic complexity in the written production of bilingual children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Letrônica, 16(1), e44413. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2023.1.44413

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2023): Single Volume

Section

PSICOLINGUÍSTICA E NEUROLINGUÍSTICA EM INTERFACES

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