Adjektivgebrauch in Bildbeschreibungen – Eine korpuslinguistische Untersuchung zum Gebrauch von Adjektiven in Texten von Schülerinnen und Schülern

Abstract

In this article, written descriptions by students in the third to sixth grade (N = 288) are examined with regard to the use of syntactically differently integrated and differently complex adjectives. Descriptively, attributive adjectives were used most frequently and participially attributive adjectives were used least frequently. The use of different adjectives correlated positively with each other almost universally across the sample. The use of attributive adjectives increased significantly with increasing age. The use of participial attributive, adverbial, compositional, and derivative adjectives was significantly associated with increasing grade level. The use of compositional and derivative adjectives was significantly associated with increasing grade level. Predicative adjective use did not differ significantly between grades. The results provide important insights into the language acquisition process of adjectives and give indications for didactic starting points for teaching text-sort-specific word types.