L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer

L2 Syntactical Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) developed by Xiaofei Lu at the Pennsylvania State University, is a computational tool which produces syntactic complexity indices of written English language texts.^[1] Along with Coh-Metrix, the L2SCA is one of the most extensively used computational tool to compute indices of second language writing development. The L2SCA is also widely utilised in the field of corpus linguistics.^[2] The L2SCA is available in a single and a batch mode. The first provides the possibility of analyzing a single written text for 14 syntactic complexity indices.^[3] The latter allows the user to analyze 30 written texts simultaneously.

Usage

Second language writing development

The L2SCA has been used in numerous studies in the field of second language writing development to compute indices of syntactic complexity.^[4][5][6]

Corpus linguistics

The L2SCA has also been used in various studies in the field of corpus linguistics.^[7][8]

Indices

No.		Construct	Index	Abbr.1
1.	Syntactic structures		Word count	W
2.			Sentence	S
3.			Verb phrase	VP
4.			Clause	C
5.			T-unit	T
6.			Dependent clause	DC
7.			Complex T-unit	CT
8.			Coordinate phrase	CP
9.			Complex nominal	CN
10.	Syntactic complexity indices	Length of production units	Mean length of sentence	MLS
11.			Mean length of T-unit	MLT
12.			Mean length of clause	MLC
13.		Overall sentence complexity	Clause per sentence	C/S
14.		Amounts of subordination	Clause per T-unit	C/T
15.			Complex T-unit ratio	CT/T
16.			Dependent clause per clause	DC/C
17.			Dependent clause per T-unit	DC/T
18.		Amounts of coordination	Coordinate phrase per clause	CP/C
19.			Coordinate phrase per T-unit	CP/T
20.			T-unit per sentence	T/S
21.		Phrasal sophistication	Complex nominal per clause	CN/C
22.			Complex nominal per T-unit	CN/T
23.			Verb phrase per T-unit	V/T

Notes

• Note 1: Abbreviation

See also

• Coh-Metrix