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Article published In:
Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education
Vol. 5:2 (2020) ► pp.258–280

The impact of learning context on L2 Chinese word order structure development

From the beginning

| The Australian National University

Studies on the impact of learning context in second language (L2) acquisition seldom look at ab-initio learners and their learning journey from the very beginning. Consequently, it is difficult to know for certain whether the findings of study-abroad vs. at-home research are applicable to this group of learners. The present study examines six ab-initio learners’ L2 developmental processes of three Chinese word order structures in two settings: China and Australia. The analysis of two longitudinal corpora showed no impact of the learning setting on the acquisition sequence. The impact, however, was found in learning efficiency. Measured by the number of hours of formal instruction, the three learners in Australia progressed faster than the three learners in China although the latter had received much more classroom instruction and were in an immersive environment. The findings suggest that learning an L2 at home is not inferior for early L2 grammatical development.

Keywords: learning context, ab-initio learners, learning processes, acquisition sequences, rate of learning word order
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Learning contexts and L2 learning
  • 3.Chinese word order structures and developmental processes
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Informants and pedagogical structures
    • 4.2Data elicitation and analysis
    • 4.3Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.16021.zha
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