Syntactic complexity in a cross-cultural E-mail exchange

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate changes in syntactic complexity in L2 learners' e-mails in a cross-cultural virtual exchange. Learners of German at an American university participated in a twelve-week e-mail exchange with learners of English at a German high school. Syntactic complexity was measured multidimensionally at the beginning and at the end of the exchange in the American students' emails. The results showed that students wrote with statistically significantly more global and subordination complexity in their later emails. The qualitative analysis of the e-mail data revealed that request for provision of feedback and writing to an authentic audience are two main factors impacting L2 writing in an e-mail project that evolve out of students' ability to establish a friendly context for the exchange. The findings from the study suggest that computer-mediated communication projects may increase students' motivation and interest for L2 writing, leading to improvements in syntactic complexity.