Structural complexity is useful in linguistics when we take on a more micro approach and aim to study the complexity of the structure of the language ie. utterances and sentences.

For example in studying the word order of languages. For example in English we use a Subject (S) – Verb (V) – Object (O) structure. Japanese on the other hand, uses SOV structure. The image below demonstrates what is meant by word order is various languages.

Here we see the debate that suggests linguistic complexity is dependent on from whose perspective it is being spoken about play out. From the perspective of a native English speaker, English or another SVO language such as Spanish, will be less complex than Japanese. For native Japanese speakers however, these would be seen as complex and other SOV languages like Persian, might be seen as less complex.