Learning Japanese as a Second Language: A Processability Perspect ...

In spite of these contributions, morpheme studies also attracted much criticism, mainly due to methodological problems. The main concerns, as summarised by Ellis (1994), are with task variation (i.e., what would happen if a task different from BSM was used) and statistical problems (morpheme studies measure the accuracy order rather than the acquisitional sequence); also, that cross-sectional data may not reflect linguistic development, that very few grammatical items are used, and that no explanations are offered for either sequence (that is, why this order?) or what makes acquisition possible. Despite these limitations, Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) defended the existence of a fixed acquisitional order and concluded:

My own conclusion is that accuracy order has been proven at least for English, but cross-linguistic evidence for a fixed acquisition order is needed, and an explanation for the order should also be established. More powerful evidence of a fixed acquisition order would be provided later by the Zweitspracherwerb Italienischer und Spanischer Arbeiter (ZISA) research group (Clahsen et al., 1983; Meisel et al., 1981; Pienemann, 1980) in studies of the L2 acquisition of German.

Krashen’s Monitor Theory

Krashen proposed his monitor model (1976) in order to provide explanations for the findings of morpheme studies. After undergoing a number of modifications, it eventually became ‘monitor theory’ (Krashen, 1978, 1982, 1985). Krashen (1982) proposed five hypotheses, summarized as follows:

1. The acquisition-learning hypothesis: It hypothesised that there are two distinctively separate ways of developing competence in SLA,