چکیده:
The major aim of this paper was to investigate the validity of language and intelligence factors for classifying Iranian English learners` writing performance. Iranian participants of the study took three tests for grammar, breadth, and depth of vocabulary, and two tests for verbal and narrative intelligence. They also produced a corpus of argumentative writings in answer to IELTS specimen. Several runs of discriminant function analyses were used to examine the classifying power of the five variables for discriminating between low and high ability L2 writers. The results revealed that among language factors, depth of vocabulary (collocational knowledge) produces the best discriminant function. In general, narrative intelligence was found to be the most reliable predictor for membership in low or high groups. It was also found that, among the five sub-abilities of narrative intelligence, emplotment carries the highest classifying value. Finally, the applications and implications of the results for second language researchers, cognitive scientists, and applied linguists were discussed.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"Various factors such as lexical proficiency (Nakamaru, 2011), syntactic proficiency (Truscott, 1999), cohesion (McNamara, Louwerse, McCarthy, & Graesser, 2010), coherence (McNamara, Kintsch, Butler-Songer, & Kintsch, 1996), cognitive mechanisms (Bourke & Adams, 2010), and higher-order processes (Sparks & Gonschow, 2001) have been considered in debates over the primary predictors of success in achieving L2 writing proficiency.
Linguistic features under investigation include knowledge of grammar, breadth, and depth of vocabulary; high-order capacities included in the study are verbal and narrative intelligences.
A set of discriminant function analyses (DFA) has been used to explore the relative validity of the above five variables and the five sub-abilities of narrative intelligence for classifying Iranian English learners’ writing performance.
This means that one’s depth of vocabulary (collocational knowledge) and narrative intelligence (discourse management ability) can predict one’s membership in low or high groups of L2 writing ability more efficiently than one’s knowledge of grammar, breadth of vocabulary (vocabulary size), and verbal intelligence.
Table 3: Results of discriminant function analysis – model predictors: Language and intelligence factors Predictor Original Predicted Group Membership Percentage of Writing Scores Correctly Classified Low High Grammar # L 93 80 57.
The statistics presented in Table 3 show how well the scores obtained on language and intelligence tests can classify the participants into low and high ability groups.
Table 5: Results of discriminant function analysis – model predictors: Sub-abilities of narrative intelligence Predictor Original Predicted Group Membership Percentage of Writing Scores Correctly Classified Low High Emplot."