From number agreement to the subjunctive: Evidence for Processability Theory in L2 Spanish

Abstract

This article contributes to typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998, 2005) by providing empirical data that show that the stages predicted by PT are followed in the second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish syntax and morphology. In the present article, the PT stages for L2 Spanish morphology and syntax are first hypothesized after a brief description of PT theory. The results of a corpus of conversational data by L2 Spanish learners ( n = 21) are then presented. Implicational scaling confirmed the five stages for the syntax and morphology with 100% scalability. Evidence was also found for the existence of discrete stages 1,2, 3 and 5 for the syntax as well as stages 1–4 for the morphology. Syntax was also found to emerge before morphology for all learners.

Applicability of processability theory to Japanese adolescent EFL learners: A case study of early L2 syntactic and morphological development

“…The validity of this PT prediction has been recognized not only among languages that are typologically similar to the target language, such as German L2 with Swedish L1 (Håkansson, Pienemann, & Sayehli, 2002) and Spanish L2 with English L1 (Bonilla, 2014), but also among typologically different languages such as Arabic L2 with English L1 (Mansouri, 2005), Chinese L2 with English L1 (Zhang, 2005), and Japanese L2 with English L1 (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002;Kawaguchi, 2005).…”

In Defense of Tasks and TBLT: Nonissues and Real Issues

“…Evidence for the existence of developmental sequences is long-standing and robust (for review, see Ortega, 2009). They have been documented in a variety of typologically different L2s (e.g., Bettoni & Di Biase, 2015; Bonilla, 2015; Johnston, 1997; Pienemann, 2005), as has the failure of instruction to alter them (R. Ellis, 1989; Håkansson & Norrby, 2010; Mackey, 1999; Pienemann, 1984).…”

Examining Processability Theory's predictions for grammatical gender agreement in intermediate L2 French

“…Further evidence for PT's predicted stages can be found by examining number agreement. For example, in L2 Spanish (Bonilla, 2015) English-L2 Spanish learners (beginner, intermediate, and advanced each n = 7). Learners completed a picture description task and oral interview.…”