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In:Widening Contexts for Processability Theory: Theories and issues
Edited by Anke Lenzing, Howard Nicholas and Jana Roos
[Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching 7] 2019
► pp. 73–102

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Chapter 4
Is morpho-syntactic decoding governed by Processability Theory?

Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.7.04buy
This study focuses on the comprehension of English morphological features by adult learners of English based in Belgium. I explore the relationship between their receptive grammatical processing and identified stages of the emergence of productive capacities using the Processability Theory framework. I problematise the notion of emergence in receptive grammatical processing, including recognising the additional challenges of chance performance. I explore the effects of using different acquisition criteria for the same data comparing the learners’ performance across multiple morphological features in relation to PTs proposed developmental stages. I find no developmental systematicity on any of the measures. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Processability Theory: Basic mechanisms
  • 3.PT and grammar decoding: The psycholinguistic plausibility of mirrored processors
  • 4.PT, methodology and receptive grammar tasks
    • 4.1Methodological challenges
    • 4.2Receptive grammar instruments and PT
    • 4.3Previous research
  • 5.Design and methodology
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Instrument
      • 5.2.1Grammatical features
      • 5.2.2Instrument design
    • 5.3Administration procedure
    • 5.4Scoring and analysis
      • 5.4.1‘I do not know’ and ‘time out’
      • 5.4.2Grammatical and ungrammatical test items
      • 5.4.3Emergence criterion
    • 5.5Results
      • 5.5.1Grammatical items
      • 5.5.2Ungrammatical items
      • 5.5.3Grammatical and ungrammatical items
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (42)
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