Bruno Di Biase | Western Sydney University (original) (raw)

Papers by Bruno Di Biase

Research paper thumbnail of Processability approaches to second language instruction

Instructed Second Language Acquisition

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Trends in Language and Literature: Asia and the 21st century

GUEST EDITORS' COLUMN Introduction to the special issu

Research paper thumbnail of Towards a New Framework of English Language Learning in Malaysian Preschools

Southeast Asia Early Childhood Journal, Dec 11, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Bilingualism and environment: from childhood to adulthood

Research paper thumbnail of PT @UP Universality&Language Specificity in SLA

Research paper thumbnail of Processability Theory: Current issues in theory and application

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring new issues

Research paper thumbnail of Grammatical Development in Second Languages: Exploring the Boundaries of Processability Theory

ProcessabilityTheory (PT from now on) is a psycholinguistic theory of second language acquisition... more ProcessabilityTheory (PT from now on) is a psycholinguistic theory of second language acquisition (SLA from now on), first formulated in a book-length publication by Manfred Pienemann in 1998. Since then, PT has earned a place in many SLA introductions, handbooks, companions and encyclopedias such as Doughty & Long (2003), Gass & Mackey (2012), Kroll & de Groot (2005), Macaro (2013), Ortega (2009) and Robinson (2012). It is one of nine theories of SLA singled out and discussed by VanPatten & Williams (2007), along with four others sharing a cognitive processing approach. Like other theories, PT has its strengths and weakenesses, and does not deal with all the phenomena and processes constraining SLA or contributing to it. However, few theories seem to accommodate such a variety of phenomena or offer the basis for so many new developments. What PT offers is a principled transitional paradigm that deals specifically with grammatical development, and accounts for it. It also contributes an explicit and universal definition of developmental stages, which may be applied in principle to any language-specific developmental trajectory, and which in turn offers a stable point of reference for investigating typologically diverse L1-L2 constellations, learning modalities, environments and populations. From a practical point of view, PT can help in assessing language development in individual learners as well as in constructing a syllabus appropriate for their stage of development. In terms of new directions, as Jordan (2004: 227) remarked, PT “can be seen as ‘progressive’ […] extending its domain, refining its concepts, making the variables more operational, attracting more research.

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of English grammar among bilingual Malay- English primary school children

This paper presents the acquisition of English grammar among 7 Malay-English bilingual primary sc... more This paper presents the acquisition of English grammar among 7 Malay-English bilingual primary school children. Studies to document the English acquisitional trajectory of Malaysian learners are scant and this normative data is imperative for syllabus-designers, policy-makers, teachers as well as linguists to understand the root cause of the students’ low proficiency in English. In this study, the children, aged 9 years old, have attended the same primary school which employed the national KSSR syllabus for 2 years (since 7 years old). Other than the school domain, the children’s home language factor was also examined. The speech output of the children was elicited from an individual English recording session where each child was asked to narrate a wordless storybook and describe the differences between two pictures. Their English grammatical acquisition was then analysed using the Processability Theory framework. The results indicate that other than the home language environmental factor, the children’s language aptitude also contributes to their English grammatical acquisition. In terms of PT’s developmental stages, it was also found that the children’s English morphological development adheres to the stages predicted by PT. The findings also lend credence to PT’s typological applicability across different populations

Research paper thumbnail of The onset of English lexical acquisition among Malaysian preschoolers

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of The Acquisition of Mandarin Classifiers in English-Mandarin Bilingual development in a Childcare Centre in China: Implications for Processability Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Acquiring V2 in declarative sentences and constituent questions in German as a second language

Research paper thumbnail of Italian roots in Australian soil : coronal obstruents in native dialect speech of Italian-Australians from two areas of Veneto

We will discuss the maintenance of the heritage dialect coronal fricatives in the speech of Itali... more We will discuss the maintenance of the heritage dialect coronal fricatives in the speech of Italian-Australian trilinguals (dialect/Italian/English) originating from North Veneto, Italy, as compared to the variability found in the productions of comparable Italian-Australian trilinguals originating from Central Veneto. Results on coronal fricatives’ distribution based on narrow phonetic trancriptions and on their acoustic characteristics based on spectral moments analysis show that the immigrants have generally maintained the fine-grained features of their dialect. After more than five decades of residence in Australia, traces of interlinguistic influences exerted by L3-English are evident in one speaker only. We consider both internal (linguistic) and external (sociolinguistic) factors for this difference in maintenance of first language speech features between immigrants from two geographical areas of the same province of origin in Italy (Veneto).

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring the typological plausibility of Processability Theory: language development in Italian second language and Japanese second language

Second Language Research, 2002

This article aims to test the typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, ... more This article aims to test the typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998). This is ‘a theory of processability of grammatical structures... [which] formally predicts which structures can be processed by the learner at a given level of development’ (p. xv). Up till now the theory has been tested mainly for Germanic languages, while here we propose to test it for two typologically different languages, namely Italian and Japanese. Language specific predictions for these two languages will be derived from PT, and the structures instantiating them will be described within a Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) framework. The occurrence and distribution of relevant structures will then be analysed in empirical, naturalistic data produced by adult learners. To test whether PT is typologically plausible we will demonstrate the following points for Japanese and Italian: • The notion of ‘exchange of grammatical information’ is a productive concept for typologically di...

Research paper thumbnail of Developing a second language : acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, Swedish

Research paper thumbnail of Sviluppo obbligato e progresso morfosintattico : un caso di processabilita in Italiano L2

... Bettoni, Camilla, 1947-,; Università Di Verona,; MARCS Auditory Laboratories,; Di Biase, Bru... more ... Bettoni, Camilla, 1947-,; Università Di Verona,; MARCS Auditory Laboratories,; Di Biase, Bruno. ... In questo contributo intendiamo prima presentare i cardini di questa teoria, e poi illustrare con dati italiani quale possa essere il progresso, lungo il percorso di sviluppo, di una ...

Research paper thumbnail of Developmentally moderated focus on form 1 Developmentally moderated focus-on-form

Research paper thumbnail of PART I Introducing and developing Processability Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Perception of English codas in various phonological and morphological contexts by Mandarin learners of English

The present study aims to explore how phonological, morphological and prosodic features of an utt... more The present study aims to explore how phonological, morphological and prosodic features of an utterance affect perception of English codas by Mandarin listeners. A phoneme detection task was conducted with the word-final target phoneme /s/ appearing utterance-medially or finally in various phonological (consonant cluster vs. singleton) and morphological (plural morpheme vs. coda of a stem word) contexts. The results indicate that the patterns of second language (L2) perception of /s/ are influenced by the utterance position and phonological complexity of the coda and cannot be explained exclusively by presence or absence of plurality in Mandarin.

Research paper thumbnail of The development of Italian as a second language

Research paper thumbnail of Processability approaches to second language instruction

Instructed Second Language Acquisition

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Trends in Language and Literature: Asia and the 21st century

GUEST EDITORS' COLUMN Introduction to the special issu

Research paper thumbnail of Towards a New Framework of English Language Learning in Malaysian Preschools

Southeast Asia Early Childhood Journal, Dec 11, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Bilingualism and environment: from childhood to adulthood

Research paper thumbnail of PT @UP Universality&Language Specificity in SLA

Research paper thumbnail of Processability Theory: Current issues in theory and application

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring new issues

Research paper thumbnail of Grammatical Development in Second Languages: Exploring the Boundaries of Processability Theory

ProcessabilityTheory (PT from now on) is a psycholinguistic theory of second language acquisition... more ProcessabilityTheory (PT from now on) is a psycholinguistic theory of second language acquisition (SLA from now on), first formulated in a book-length publication by Manfred Pienemann in 1998. Since then, PT has earned a place in many SLA introductions, handbooks, companions and encyclopedias such as Doughty & Long (2003), Gass & Mackey (2012), Kroll & de Groot (2005), Macaro (2013), Ortega (2009) and Robinson (2012). It is one of nine theories of SLA singled out and discussed by VanPatten & Williams (2007), along with four others sharing a cognitive processing approach. Like other theories, PT has its strengths and weakenesses, and does not deal with all the phenomena and processes constraining SLA or contributing to it. However, few theories seem to accommodate such a variety of phenomena or offer the basis for so many new developments. What PT offers is a principled transitional paradigm that deals specifically with grammatical development, and accounts for it. It also contributes an explicit and universal definition of developmental stages, which may be applied in principle to any language-specific developmental trajectory, and which in turn offers a stable point of reference for investigating typologically diverse L1-L2 constellations, learning modalities, environments and populations. From a practical point of view, PT can help in assessing language development in individual learners as well as in constructing a syllabus appropriate for their stage of development. In terms of new directions, as Jordan (2004: 227) remarked, PT “can be seen as ‘progressive’ […] extending its domain, refining its concepts, making the variables more operational, attracting more research.

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of English grammar among bilingual Malay- English primary school children

This paper presents the acquisition of English grammar among 7 Malay-English bilingual primary sc... more This paper presents the acquisition of English grammar among 7 Malay-English bilingual primary school children. Studies to document the English acquisitional trajectory of Malaysian learners are scant and this normative data is imperative for syllabus-designers, policy-makers, teachers as well as linguists to understand the root cause of the students’ low proficiency in English. In this study, the children, aged 9 years old, have attended the same primary school which employed the national KSSR syllabus for 2 years (since 7 years old). Other than the school domain, the children’s home language factor was also examined. The speech output of the children was elicited from an individual English recording session where each child was asked to narrate a wordless storybook and describe the differences between two pictures. Their English grammatical acquisition was then analysed using the Processability Theory framework. The results indicate that other than the home language environmental factor, the children’s language aptitude also contributes to their English grammatical acquisition. In terms of PT’s developmental stages, it was also found that the children’s English morphological development adheres to the stages predicted by PT. The findings also lend credence to PT’s typological applicability across different populations

Research paper thumbnail of The onset of English lexical acquisition among Malaysian preschoolers

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of The Acquisition of Mandarin Classifiers in English-Mandarin Bilingual development in a Childcare Centre in China: Implications for Processability Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Acquiring V2 in declarative sentences and constituent questions in German as a second language

Research paper thumbnail of Italian roots in Australian soil : coronal obstruents in native dialect speech of Italian-Australians from two areas of Veneto

We will discuss the maintenance of the heritage dialect coronal fricatives in the speech of Itali... more We will discuss the maintenance of the heritage dialect coronal fricatives in the speech of Italian-Australian trilinguals (dialect/Italian/English) originating from North Veneto, Italy, as compared to the variability found in the productions of comparable Italian-Australian trilinguals originating from Central Veneto. Results on coronal fricatives’ distribution based on narrow phonetic trancriptions and on their acoustic characteristics based on spectral moments analysis show that the immigrants have generally maintained the fine-grained features of their dialect. After more than five decades of residence in Australia, traces of interlinguistic influences exerted by L3-English are evident in one speaker only. We consider both internal (linguistic) and external (sociolinguistic) factors for this difference in maintenance of first language speech features between immigrants from two geographical areas of the same province of origin in Italy (Veneto).

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring the typological plausibility of Processability Theory: language development in Italian second language and Japanese second language

Second Language Research, 2002

This article aims to test the typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, ... more This article aims to test the typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998). This is ‘a theory of processability of grammatical structures... [which] formally predicts which structures can be processed by the learner at a given level of development’ (p. xv). Up till now the theory has been tested mainly for Germanic languages, while here we propose to test it for two typologically different languages, namely Italian and Japanese. Language specific predictions for these two languages will be derived from PT, and the structures instantiating them will be described within a Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) framework. The occurrence and distribution of relevant structures will then be analysed in empirical, naturalistic data produced by adult learners. To test whether PT is typologically plausible we will demonstrate the following points for Japanese and Italian: • The notion of ‘exchange of grammatical information’ is a productive concept for typologically di...

Research paper thumbnail of Developing a second language : acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, Swedish

Research paper thumbnail of Sviluppo obbligato e progresso morfosintattico : un caso di processabilita in Italiano L2

... Bettoni, Camilla, 1947-,; Università Di Verona,; MARCS Auditory Laboratories,; Di Biase, Bru... more ... Bettoni, Camilla, 1947-,; Università Di Verona,; MARCS Auditory Laboratories,; Di Biase, Bruno. ... In questo contributo intendiamo prima presentare i cardini di questa teoria, e poi illustrare con dati italiani quale possa essere il progresso, lungo il percorso di sviluppo, di una ...

Research paper thumbnail of Developmentally moderated focus on form 1 Developmentally moderated focus-on-form

Research paper thumbnail of PART I Introducing and developing Processability Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Perception of English codas in various phonological and morphological contexts by Mandarin learners of English

The present study aims to explore how phonological, morphological and prosodic features of an utt... more The present study aims to explore how phonological, morphological and prosodic features of an utterance affect perception of English codas by Mandarin listeners. A phoneme detection task was conducted with the word-final target phoneme /s/ appearing utterance-medially or finally in various phonological (consonant cluster vs. singleton) and morphological (plural morpheme vs. coda of a stem word) contexts. The results indicate that the patterns of second language (L2) perception of /s/ are influenced by the utterance position and phonological complexity of the coda and cannot be explained exclusively by presence or absence of plurality in Mandarin.

Research paper thumbnail of The development of Italian as a second language