The correlation between morphological awareness and lexical richness in EFL academic writing

Yaqin, Muhammad Ainul (2026) The correlation between morphological awareness and lexical richness in EFL academic writing. Undergraduate (S1) thesis, UIN Syekh Wasil Kediri.

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Abstract

Academic writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) poses a significant challenge for students as it requires a good command of academic vocabulary, including an understanding of word structure and lexical richness. Morphological awareness is believed to play a crucial role in improving the quality of academic writing. However, there is still little research that specifically examines its relationship with lexical richness, particularly among university-level students. This study aims to examine the correlation between morphological awareness and three dimensions of lexical richness, namely lexical diversity, lexical density, and lexical sophistication in EFL academic writing. This study employed a quantitative approach with a correlational design. The sample comprised 80 students consist of 40 students of fourth-semester and 40 students of sixth-semester from the English Language Teaching Programme at UIN Syekh Wasil Kediri, selected via purposive sampling. Morphological awareness was measured using three tests: the Morphological Identification Test (MIT), the Judgement and Analogy Test, and the Morphological Structure Awareness Test (MSAT). Lexical richness was analysed from students’ individual draft writings using the Lexical Complexity Analyser for Academic Writing (LCA-AW) software, which automatically measures three dimensions. The data were analysed using Spearman’s correlation as the data distribution was not normal. The findings revealed a complex and unexpected relationship: morphological awareness showed no significant correlation with lexical diversity (r = 0.110, p = 0.165), but demonstrated significant negative correlations with both lexical density (r = -0.328, p = 0.001) and lexical sophistication (r = -0.328, p = 0.002). These results show a more complex than previously assumed. These indicate that higher morphological awareness may not directly enhances lexical richness in this context. Instead, the findings suggest that students with high morphological awareness may demonstrate a tendency to focus more on grammatical accuracy at the expense of lexical richness, possibly due to cognitive constraints, supporting Krashen's Monitor Model (1985) and Skehan's Trade-off Hypothesis (1998). The study concludes that the relationship between morphological awareness and lexical richness is non-linear, and that potential for high morphological awareness to be associated with reduced lexical richness in certain EFL contexts when students become overly cautious in their lexical choices.

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