Acceso usuarios
Hungría
This study investigates the relationship between metalinguistic awareness (MLA), lexical diversity (LD), and writing competence in bi - and multilingual adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL) in the Hungarian educational context. It also explores students’ performance on the MLA, LD, and writing tasks across B2 and C1 proficiency levels. Empirical research exploring how these constructs interact is particularly scarce if nonexistent, especially in the Hungarian context where a monolingual mindset still prevails and studies on MLA are remarkably limited. Ninety-two university students, in Hungary, were administered a language profile questionnaire, a metalinguistic awareness test, and a written narrative task. The participants’ written narratives were holistically scored on a scale from 1 (weak) to 5 (excellent) in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency, to assess their writing competence and were also used to calculate Vocd-D scores as a method for measuring the diversity of text units. The results showed a positive relationship between learners’ level of MLA, LD, and writing competence. Concerning the controversial nature of the connection between proficiency and MLA, the findings revealed that MLA provided some explanatory power to the variance in proficiency levels.
