The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Processability Theory applied to written and spoken L2 Swedish

På svenska

Author

Editor

  • Fethi Mansouri

Summary, in English

This study investigates grammatical development in foreign and second language learners of Swedish. The hypothesis is that the hierarchy of processability predicted by Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998) guides both written and spoken learner production. The data was collected from 9 foreign language learners studying Swedish at Melbourne University and 11 second language learners studying Swedish at Malmö University, Sweden. The written data was collected twice over an eight months period, and the oral data was collected once at the end of the language course. Specific syntactic and morphological structures were elicited in both data sets. The results showed that both learner groups developed the target structures as predicted by Processability Theory (PT). Most learners performed at the same PT level in writing and speech, but some structures occurred more frequently in writing. The results show that the planning time that is used in writing does not influence grammatical processability (e.g. Swedish subordinate clause word order). However, the lack of contexts for certain structures suggests that monitoring has an influence on language complexity (e.g. subordination).

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

81-94

Publication/Series

Second language acquisition research: theory-construction and testing

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 1-84718-051-5