1. 1 Measuring maturity Richard Hudson Institute of Education, London July 2009

2. 2 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

3. 3 Plan What is maturity? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

4. 4 Non-linguistic maturity in writing Age of writer –KS1 – KS4 –age 20 – 30 – 40 – 50 …. Quality of writing –as judged by experienced examiners –National Curriculum Level –GCSE grade

5. 5 Less linguistic maturity He had just been in a horrible battle and he had killed lots of people. When he had finished his battle he was exhausted and he was tottering and came across a beautiful lady who was singing beautiful songs … Sarah, Year 6 NC Level 3

6. 6 More linguistic maturity Giles Harvey, a former Eton pupil was one and a half times over the limit when he was involved in a head on crash while he was racing his BMW sports car. Joanne, Year 9 NC Level 7

7. 7 Non-linguistic and linguistic maturity How do we know what’s‘mature’ in language? Ask what linguistic features tend to be used: –only by older writers –only in more highly valued writing This avoids circularity.

8. 8 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

9. 9 Measures of vocabulary Lexical diversity (type/token ratio) –Sarah: 0.66 –Joanne: 0.84 (first 32 words) Lexical sophistication (e.g. word length) Lexical density (grammatical/lexical) Errors (e.g. spelling) Nouniness Nouniness?

10. 10 Nouniness What percentage of word tokens are nouns? –Noun = common or proper noun –Sarah: 15% –Joanne: 31% Nouniness increases with maturity

11. 11 Nouniness x maturity

12. 12 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

13. 13 Why is nouniness mature? In 2007 I had no idea. I now have some relevant data –thanks to Gwillim Law and Jasper Holmes Conclusion: nouniness increases with maturity because … Rarer words tend to be nouns. So nouniness is part of sophistication

14. 14 Rarer words tend to be nouns % of lemmas frequency Nouns increase share with rarity

15. 15 Nouniness x task Narrative tasks produce less nouny writing.

16. 16 Is this the same as Nominality? ‘Nominal’ style favours: –noun, adjective, preposition –favoured by adult ‘informational’ writing ‘Verbal’ style favours: –verb, adverb, pronoun –favoured by adult ‘imaginative’ writing Is nominal/verbal ratio relevant to children? –Sarah: 0.61, Joanne: 2.0

17. 17 So what? Mature writers use more rare words. So they must have a wider vocabulary. So their linguistic maturity can be measured in terms of: –word frequencies – how many rare words? –vocabulary diversity – type/token ratio.

18. 18 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

19. 19 Two kinds of syntactic measure General –e.g. Sentence length or T-unit length Specific –e.g. apposition Giles Harvey, a former Eton pupil (written by Joanne)

20. 20 General measures T-unit length –T-unit = words in a main clause, including all subordinate clauses Coordination –shows immaturity –and: Sarah = 3, Joanne = 0 Subordination –subordinate clauses: Sarah = 2, Joanne = 2

21. 21 But subordination is mature steady rise in KS1 and KS2 fall in best writers at KS3/4 (if you’re young) subordinate clauses per 100 words

22. 22 Specific syntax apposition ‘swapping places’ about three miles down the road a little town called Sea Palling was preposition-initial relative clauses the box I put it inwhich

23. 23 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why syntax correlates with maturity. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

24. 24 Why? General syntactic measures These show increasingly complex syntax. Two possible non-linguistic reasons: –increasingly complex ideas –increasingly powerful working memories. Maybe complexity increases with age throughout life.

25. 25 Why? Specific syntactic measures These show increasingly diverse syntax. One linguistic reason: growth of linguistic knowledge. Assumption: we do not ‘know the grammar of our language by age 5’! There’s a great deal of grammar to be learned at school.

26. 26 Errors as signs of growth … he seems a little excited by the encounter of aliens … … he also described their difficulty to move … …it was now that I was so disappointed I did not have a camera …[inappropriate] The creature I estimate was surfaced at the most for one minute, of which all I had spent just staring at the creature, …

27. 27 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

28. 28 How can teachers promote maturity? Ignore general syntax –this depends on cognitive development Focus on specifics: –vocabulary –specific syntax Help learners to notice new patterns. Teach new patterns explicitly.

29. 29 Plan What is maturity as applied to writing? How vocabulary correlates with maturity. How syntax correlates with maturity. Why vocabulary correlates. Why syntax correlates. Implications for teaching. Implications for assessment.

30. 30 Assessment of writing Why not use automated assessment? –at least as a supplement to humans All these measures can be mechanised –if children use word processors. Research question: –Is the agreement between two humans better than between a human and a machine?

31. 31 Conclusion Maturity of language can be defined – in relation to age and grading. So it can be measured –in terms of identifiable linguistic features. Specific linguistic features can be taught. They can also be identified automatically.

32. 32 Thank you This presentation is available at www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/talks.htm