Links between knowledge of derivational affixes and writing proficiency in L2 English.

What is it about?

In the present paper, we studied the relationship between the learners' writing proficiency in English as their foreign language and their word derivational knowledge (WD) in English using a number of tasks often used to measure learners' of derivational affixes and tapping different aspects of WD knowledge, such as syntactic roles or meanings of affixes. We found that learners' WD knowledge correlated fairly well with their proficiency and discovered that while some aspects of learners' WD knowledge develop steadily, for other aspects, there is a particularly rapid increase after level B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference scale (which roughly corresponds to lower intermediate level of English). It also appeared that semantic and syntactic aspects of WD knowledge in English as a foreign language predict learners' proficiency in this language more strongly than other aspects. of WD knowledge.

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Why is it important?

The theoretical importance of the study lies in that it demonstrates that the way that L2 English word derivational knowledge is operationalised matters for the generalisations made regarding its development, i.e., either this development is more or less stable or becomes more rapid at certain level of learners' proficiency as not all of its different aspects develop steadily as learners' proficiency grows.