Modeling the linguistic complexity of language input and output – and linking the two

Detmar Meurers
University of Tübingen, Department of Linguistics

A number of research strands investigate the complexity of the representations and processes at different levels of linguistic modeling, including readability research investigating the difficulty of reading particular texts, and Second Language Acquisition research measuring the language development of learners in terms of the complexity of the learner output. With computational linguistic methods providing empirically rich perspectives on the nature and development of complexity in texts and learner writing, we explore some factors which so far have received less attention: How do characteristics of the task impact the complexity of the writing? What happens when linguistic complexity meets mathematical complexity in word problems? Can the linguistic complexity of an input text being read prime the complexity of a text  subsequently written, even for aspects of linguistic complexity that the subject is not aware of?