Variation in syntactic complexity: Introduction

Abstract

This special issue, focusing on different types of variation in syntactic complexity, offers a critical discussion of the role of variation in syntactic complexity research in SLA. Special attention is paid to inter‐learner variation (i.e., individual developmental trajectories of acquiring syntactic complexity) and to interactions with related constructs, for instance between syntax and morphology, and between syntactic and lexical complexity. The overarching focus of the different contributions is to investigate the possible variation of (syntactic) complexity according to various external factors, such as levels of linguistic proficiency (developmental variation), variation in task modality (i.e., oral, written), task types and genres, and variation in source and target languages (cross‐linguistic variation