Communicative adequacy and linguistic complexity in L2 writing

The chapter investigates the relationship between communicative adequacy and linguistic complexity (syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, accuracy) of the written output of L2 writers of Dutch, Italian and Spanish. The main goal of the CALC study (‘Communicative Adequacy and Linguistic Complexity’) discussed in the chapter is to investigate the relationship between the communicative aspects of L2 writing, as defined in the descriptor scales of the Common European Framework of References (CEFR, Council of Europe 2001), and the linguistic complexity of L2 performance. It is argued that the interpretation of
syntactic complexity, lexical diversity and accuracy is not possible without also taking into account the communicative dimension of L2 production.