This study has analysed and compared Chinese learners’ use of 17 types of complex noun phrases (NPs) in English writing from beginner to advanced levels to explore the learners’ development in NP complexity. The findings reveal a correlation between learners’ proficiency levels and noun modification, which progresses from a reliance on pre-modifying adjectives and possessives at beginner levels, through more use of noun+noun and noun+of phrases as postmodifiers at intermediate levels, to finally incorporating coordinated structures (noun+multiple prepositional phrases as post-modifiers and noun+to-clauses as postmodifiers) and nominalized NPs (noun+complement clauses) at advanced levels. These learners’ preference for pre-modifiers in writing, irrespective of proficiency levels, highlights a potential impact from their L1 Mandarin. Qualitative analyses demonstrate beginner-level learners’ reliance on repeated identical NPs from essay topics and prompts in contrast to upper-intermediate learners’ deployment of varied vocabulary to create more complex NPs in writing. The discovery of distinct NP features at various developmental stages confirms L2 learners’ phrasal complexity development from early stages of learning, and the appropriate timing for instruction of specific NP structures is discussed accordingly.
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