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Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region
Edited by Satomi Kawaguchi, Bruno Di Biase and Yumiko Yamaguchi
[Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching 9] 2023
► pp. 282–302

Chapter 11
Testing the validity of Processability Theory through a corpus-based analysis

The acquisition of plural marking in English speaking and writing by Japanese native speakers

| Tokai University
| Tokai University
This chapter presents part of the results of a learner corpus study to test the validity of Processability Theory (PT; Pienemann, 1998, 2005). It also addresses the issues of whether second language (L2) learners are at the same PT stages for speaking and writing. The results of the analysis of spoken and written narratives by 281 Japanese learners, focusing on the acquisition of the English plural marker ‑s on nouns, have demonstrated support for the hypothesised developmental sequence for English morphology in PT. In addition, a positive relationship has been found between the learners’ spoken and written production, suggesting that PT can legitimately be used to examine L2 writing as well as speaking.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Plural marking in English and Japanese
  • 3.Developmental stages: Processability Theory (PT)
  • 4.Literature review
    • 4.1English plural marking
    • 4.2Speaking versus writing
    • 4.3Learner corpus research
  • 5.The study
    • 5.1Research design
      • 5.1.1Participants
      • 5.1.2Materials
      • 5.1.3Data collection procedure
      • 5.1.4Learner corpus construction
      • 5.1.5Data size
      • 5.1.6Data analysis
  • 6.Results and discussion
    • 6.1Output frequency of the plural -s on nouns
    • 6.2Acquisition of plural marking
    • 6.3Comparison of PT stages between speaking and writing
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.9.11yam
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