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The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE TEACHABILITY HYPOTHESIS AND CONCEPT-BASED INSTRUCTION TOPICALIZATION IN CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE A Dissertation in Applied Linguistics by Xian Zhang 2014 Xian Zhang Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2014 The dissertation of Xian Zhang was reviewed and approved* by the following: James P. Lantolf Greer Professor in Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics Dissertation Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Xiaofei Lu Gil Watz Early Career Professor in Language & Linguistics and Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics Dissertation Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Ning Yu Professor in Applied Linguistics Ping Li Professor in Psychology Robert W. Schrauf Head of the Department of Department or Graduate Program *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Teachability Hypothesis (TH, Pienemann, 1984, 1987, 1989) claims that formal instruction cannot affect the route of acquisition of processing procedures predicted by Processability Theory (PT, Pienemann, 1998). Aligned with Piagetian theory, Pienemann argues that L2 instruction is subordinated to L2 development and therefore cannot override PT’s universal developmental sequences. Vygotsky (1978) argued that psychological development is neither predetermined nor universal. It depends on the quality of cognitive tools and social relationships, most especially in educational settings. This thesis tests the central claim of the Teachability Hypothesis by investigating whether instructions that follow Gal’perin’s (1970) Systemic Theoretical Instruction (concept- based instruction) would change the L2 Chinese developmental sequence predicted by the Topic Hypothesis, an extension of PT (Pienemann, Biase, & Kawaguchi, 2005). According to the Topic Hypothesis, L2 Chinese learners must progress through three sequential stages: SVO, ADJ+SVO, OSV. Eight beginning L2 Chinese learners and two heritage speakers took part in this study. In the first experiment, six participants at the SVO stage were taught the OSV structure. It was found that these learners were capable of producing OSV structure before they could produce ADJ+SVO structure. In the second experiment, two participants at the SVO stage were taught the OSV and the ADJ+SVO structure in the same instruction session. Results indicate that both the OSV and the ADJ+SVO structure were processable to the two learners. In the third experiment, it was found that the two heritage speaker could produce a higher stage grammar structure (the ba-construction, Gao, 2009; Wang, 2012) without the capability of iv processing a lower stage grammar structure (the OSV structure). All these results highlight Vygotsky’s argument that instruction can be an important factor that leads cognitive development. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... x Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. xii Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 Processability Theory .............................................................................................. 6 2.1 An Introduction to Processability Theory .................................................................. 6 2.2 Levelt’s Speech Processing Model ............................................................................ 8 2.3 Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) .......................................................................... 11 2.4 Key Constructs of Processability Theory ................................................................... 15 2.4.1 Processability Hierarchy ................................................................................. 16 2.4.2 Lexical Mapping ............................................................................................. 19 2.4.4 The Teachability Hypothesis ........................................................................... 22 2.5 Summary .................................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 3 A Review of PT Studies .......................................................................................... 25 3.1 Studies Supporting PT ............................................................................................... 25 3.2 Studies on Topicalization in Chinese ................................................................. 27 3.3 Critics of PT ....................................................................................................... 32 3.4 Counterevidence to PT ....................................................................................... 35 3.5 Summary ............................................................................................................ 37 Chapter 4 Sociocultural Theory ............................................................................................... 39 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 39 4.2 Key Constructs of SCT .............................................................................................. 40 4.2.1 Mediation ........................................................................................................ 41 4.2.2 Internalization.................................................................................................. 44 4.2.3 Genetic analysis-methodology domains .......................................................... 46 4.2.4 Zone of proximal development (ZPD) ............................................................ 47 4.3 PT and SCT ................................................................................................................ 49 4.3.1 Cognition ......................................................................................................... 49 4.3.2 Language instruction ....................................................................................... 51 4.3.3 L2 development ............................................................................................... 53 4.3.4 Source of L2 development .............................................................................. 54 4.4 Summary .................................................................................................................... 55 Chapter 5 Systemic Theoretical Instruction in Promoting Scientific Concepts ....................... 57 5.1 Everyday Concept vs. Scientific Concept .................................................................. 57 5.2 Implicit/Explicit Knowledge & Procedural/Declarative Memory ............................. 61 5.3 Gal’perin’s Stepwise Approach ................................................................................. 64 vi 5.3.1 The initial stage ............................................................................................... 65 5.3.2 The materialization stage ................................................................................ 65 5.3.3 The communication stage ................................................................................ 65 5.3.4 The verbalization stage .................................................................................... 66 5.4 Studies Using STI and CBT on L2 Instruction .......................................................... 66 5.5 Summary .................................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 6 Topic and Subject in Chinese and the SCOBAs ..................................................... 72 6.1 The Topic-comment account of Chinese ................................................................... 72 6.2 Word Order in Chinese .............................................................................................. 73 6.3 The Topic Hypothesis and Topic-Comment Approach ............................................. 78 6.4 Materialized and Material Mediations ....................................................................... 82 6.4.1 Materialized mediation: Schema for the Orienting Basis of Action ............... 82 6.4.2 Material mediation: Cuisenaire rods ............................................................... 89 6.5 Summary .................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 7 Study 1 .................................................................................................................... 92 7.1 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 92 7.1.1 Purpose ............................................................................................................ 92 7.1.2 Instruments ...................................................................................................... 93 7.1.3 Participants ...................................................................................................... 98 7.1.4 Procedure ........................................................................................................
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