Syntactic complexity in L2 writing: Individual pathways and emerging group trends

The present study aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of how the L2 production of L2 learners varies over time in terms of syntactic complexity by analyzing a substantive number of English L2 writing samples (n=11) produced by a sizable group of learners (n=10) over a relatively long period of time (19 months), using a judicious selection of quantitative measures of syntactic complexity. The focus is on synchronic and diachronic variation, both within and across learners. Our analyses show that whereas development over time is relatively regular at the group level, individual developmental paths are characterized by a high degree of variability and often deviate from the mean group trends.