Measuring the quality of writing in Portuguese L2: idea density
Abstract
The paper proposes to look at idea density as a measure of lexical richness and precision in L2 Portuguese. Idea density (Kemper et al. 2001; Snowdon et al. 1999) is a measure of lexical richness and precision that has been associated with grammatical complexity in a study about the quality of L1 writing at different stages of life. Nevertheless, we argue that the same analysis methodology can be useful in the evaluation of L2 Portuguese writing. Thus, we propose the analysis of a writing task, a synthesis, written by a group of adult learners of advanced L2 Portuguese based on the same method used by Snowdon et al. (1999). The results show that idea density found in the written texts is not very high, which may be due to a lack of motivation for writing, as well as to lack of familiarity with the written register.
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