Gender differences in writing complex sentences: A case study of Indonesian EFL students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25170/ijelt.v11i1.1490Keywords:
gender differences, Indonesian EFL students, complext sentences, T-units, writingAbstract
This study investigated the Indonesian EFL students’ proficiency in writing complex sentences and explored the gender differences in their writing products. Thirty-eight (38) high school students – 19 males and 19 females – were instructed to write a narrative account of the silent movie, The Pear Film, immediately after watching it. The result of the study revealed that the students’ production of sentence complexity exhibited a sequential degree of difficulty from simple sentence (1 T-unit) to more complex sentences (2 T-units or 3 T-units). Female students had higher frequencies in producing T-units, and they also exhibited a more powerful imagination and creativity in building complex sentences. However, the males outnumbered the females in the production of lexical variety. This indicated that longer sentences are not always directly related to the breadth of vocabulary knowledge.
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Williamson, G. (2009). Type-token ratio. Retrieved from http://www.sltinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/type-token-ratio.pdf.
Bijami, M., Kashef, S.H., & Khaksari, M. (2013). Gender differences and writing performance: A brief review. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 1(2), 8-11. Retrieved from http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/ IJELS/ article/view/ 164/160
Cameron, D. (2005). Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions. Applied Linguistics, 26 (4), 482-502.
Chafe, W. (1975). Pear film [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bRNSTxTpG7U.
Cornett, H.E. (2014). Gender differences in syntactic development among English speaking adolescents, Inquiries, 6(3). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com /articles/875/ gender-differences-in-syntactic-development-among-english-speaking-adolescents.
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://culturaldiplomacy. org/academy/pdf/research/books/nation_ branding/English_ As_A_ Global_ Language_-_David_Crystal.pdf.
Gaies, S.J. (1980). T-unit analysis in second language research: Applications, problems and limitations. TESOL Quarterly, 14(1), 53-60.
Eckert, P. (1989). The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation. Language Variation and Change, 1(03), 245-267.
Eriksson, M., Marschik, P.B., Tulviste, T., Almgren, M., Perez Pereira, M., Wehberg, S., & Gallego, C. (2012). Differences between girls and boys in emerging language skills:Evidence from 10 language communities. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30(2), 326-343.
Hunt, K.W. (1965). Grammatical structures written at three grade levels (Research Report No. 3). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Hunt, K.W. (1970). Recent measures in syntactic development. In C.J. Fillmore & D.T. Langendoen (Eds.), Studies in linguistic semantics (pp. 115-149). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and woman's place. New York: Colophon/Harper & Row.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1983). Assessing global second language proficiency. In H.W. Seliger & M. H. Long (Eds.), Classroom oriented research (pp. 287-304). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Kamari, E., Gorjian, B., & Pazhakh, A. (2003). Examining the effects of gender on second language writing proficiency of Iranian EFL students: Descriptive vs. opinion one-paragraph essay. Advances in Asian Social Science, 3(4), 759-763. Retrieved from http://worldsciencepublisher.org/ journals/index.php/AASS/ article/ viewFile/1062/830
Krashen, S.D., & Terrle, T.D. (1983). The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Mukminatien, N. (1997). The differences of students’ writing achievements across different course levels. Unpublished Dissertation. IKIP Malang.
Mulac, A., Seibold, D.R., & Farris, J.L. (2000). Female and male managers’ and professionals’ criticism giving: Differences in language use and effects. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 19(4), 389–415.
Ng, S. (2010). Gender differences in learning English writing in Hong Kong (Master's thesis, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://dx.
Robinson, P. (1995) Task complexity and second language narrative discourse. Language Learning, 45, 99–140.
Saeed, A., Ghani, M., & Ramzan, M. (2011). Gender differences and L2 writing. International Research Journal of Arts & Humanities, 39, 29-40.
Tannen, D. (1990). In You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation (pp. 110-115). Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/ACER/ Downloads/Tannen_D_1991_You_just_don't_ understand_Women_ and_%20(1).pdf
Tsang, W.K., & Wong, M. (2000). Giving grammar the place it deserves in process writing. Prospect, 15, 34-45.
Tse, S., Kwong, S., Chan, C., & Li, H. (2002) Sex differences in syntactic development: Evidence from Cantonese-speaking preschoolers in Hong Kong. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26(6), 509-517.
Vidakovic, I., & Barker, F. (2009). Lexical development across second language proficiency levels: A corpus-informed study. Paper presented at the BAAL Annual Conference, Newcastle University.
Wang, S., & Slater, T. (2016). Syntactic complexity of EFL Chinese students’ writing. English Language and Literature Studies, 6(1), 81-86.
Williamson, G. (2009). Type-token ratio. Retrieved from http://www.sltinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/type-token-ratio.pdf.
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2016-05-31
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