Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region

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 Engl