Setting the lexical EAP bar for ESL students: Lexical complexity of L2 academic presentations

Abstract

This study was conducted with three primary goals in mind: (1) to determine how the academic presentations of native speaking (L1) college students and Englishas- a–second- or subsequent-language (L2) users compared in their lexical complexity profiles; (2) to establish guiding baselines of several measures associated with lexical complexity, which includes lexical density, lexical sophistication, and lexical diversity as subcomponents of its three-dimensional framework; and (3) to determine the relationship among the subcomponents. The study was based on two corpora of L1 and L2 academic presentations (N = 70) delivered by individuals during regular classes. The analyses allowed us to establish not only the common lexical complexity ground shared by the L1 and L2 presentations but also some typical lexical baselines that both L2 learners and instructors should monitor in courses focused on the use of language for academic purposes. The findings are discussed in light of their pedagogical implications for language programs that include in their curricula and assessments the development of presentational competence in a foreign language.