Analysing Lexical Density, Diversity, and Sophistication in Written and Spoken Telecollaborative Exchanges

Abstract

In this article, we implement a Corpus Linguistics analysis to compare the differences in lexical density, lexical diversity, and lexical sophistication in the asynchronous written interactions and the synchronous spoken interactions of Japanese and Spanish University students during an English as a lingua franca telecollaborative exchange. A multidimensional analysis of lexical complexity was implemented using three programmes: Text Analyzer, TAALED 1.4.1, and TAALES 2.2. Our results show that although the word count in the written production of both cohorts was very similar, the Spanish learners scored higher for all three of the indices, and produced longer and, therefore, more complex sentences. Regarding oral production, the Spanish cohort used nearly four times as many words in the spoken interactions but the results for the lexical indices in the oral mode were not as unequivocal as in the written production. In this respect, the Spanish learners scored higher in lexical diversity and lexical sophistication but lower in lexical density than their Japanese counterparts. From a pedagogical point of view, our results show that lower proficiency learners can engage successfully in oral telecollaborative exchanges with more advanced students.