The research questions for the present study will be addressed in turn here. These will build on the brief interim discussions in each analysis in the preceding chapters.
RQ1: How strongly is contingency learning at play during the earliest stages of
construction learning in a typologically distant L2? The close matches in frequency distribution, collostructional strength, and Delta P (construction -> lexeme) in each RP point to contingency learning to indeed play a role during early construction learning, given the particular classroom conditions the learners experienced in the present corpus.
RQ1a: Are the frequency distributions in early experience Zipfian (allowing learners to attend to and learn the most frequent lexical items first)? The frequency distribution in MC1 was heavily skewed toward chi 'eat' in the xiang 'feels like' construction. The remaining constructions and lexical items were used in very low token frequency despite some variation in lemma types in each of the remaining two constructions. Each successive MC found high token frequency and skewing for a different construction, i.e. xihuan 'likes' in MC1-2 and then yao 'wants' in MC1-3. In each successive MC, the lexical items in yao 'wants' constructions followed more Zipfian distributions than did either xiang 'feels like' or xihuan 'likes' constructions. The latter two constructions heavily favored chi 'eat' even through the end of RP5.
RQ1b: Does learner use match the relative frequencies in their past experience? In TC1,
xiang chi 'feels like eating' is strongly predicted from frequency distribution, collostructional
strength, and Delta P (construction -> lexeme) in MC1. Delta P (lexeme -> construction) was a less reliable predictor across nearly all constructions in the MCs and corresponding TCs
frequency distribution, collostructional strength, and Delta P (construction -> lexeme) in MC1-2. TC3 witnessed a greater scattering of distinct lexemes across all three constructions, which coincides with a more frequent and Zipfian distribution of lexemes in the yao 'wants'
construction. Whether or not this scattered distribution in TC3 was caused by the distributions in MC1-3 is difficult to judge because the many single-instance patterns (one lexeme in one
construction) are so few in number.
RQ1c: Do these matching frequencies reflect orders of acquisition, i.e. are the first- learned lexical constructions in each grammatical construction those that appeared more frequently in that grammatical construction in prior experience? The order of lexemes used in each construction in each TC largely followed the order of their most frequent orders of usage in the MC of the same RP. The analyses across all five recording periods found frequency
distribution and orders of vocabulary acquisition, as produced by the ten learners in freely written and freely spoken stories (the test corpora, or TCs), to pattern closely on the input and interaction they experienced prior to each TC. Given the particular instructional environments provided, contingency learning appears to have been a productive learning mechanism aiding the acquisition of PROCESS words like chi 'eat' and kan 'see/watch'.
RQ1d: Will the first-learned lexical constructions in each grammatical construction be those that are more distinctively associated with that grammatical construction in prior
experience? This is the case found for collostructional strength and for Delta P (construction -> lexeme), but not for Delta P (lexeme -> construction).
6.2. Concreteness as a limiting factor toward frequency effects
RQ2: To what degree might the salience of individual lexical items interact with frequency, i.e. does lower-rated concreteness of meaning necessitate greater frequency of exposure, whereas higher-rated concreteness allows for learning from less frequent exposure? This analysis touched only lightly on the potentially limiting factor to frequency distribution in experience, namely concreteness as a type of salience. To repeat here, Brysbaert et al. (2013) operationalize concreteness as "the degree to which the concept denoted by a word refers to a perceptible entity" (p. 1). The lexical item zuo 'do' had a low concreteness rating, implying that it could require a higher frequency of encounters to entrench and associate with any particular construction. Conversely, outu 'vomit' had a very high concreteness rating, implying that it would not have to be encountered many times to be entrenched and associated with contexts for use.
6.3. Institutional interaction and the frequent re-use of a linguistic pattern
RQ3: How is the statistical skewing of language-in-use accomplished in the present data's social interaction? In terms of goal-orientation, special constraints on allowable contributions, and institution-specific inferential frameworks, this analysis of institutional interaction found the teacher's frequent use of xiang chi 'feels like eating' to provide choices to the students for
building the story. Some of these choices were open-ended, and some were either-or questions. Waltz (2015) refers to this in a glossary as a "Choice-type question: a question that offers a choice to the student, usually using the word 'or'" (p. 174). In most of the turns at talk, the teacher established the classroom conduct to focus around learning Chinese through building a
the students contribute to this institutional structure. These few extracts offer only an initial glimpse into the 200+ times xiang chi ended up being used in just this lesson--all that repetition in negotiations for just one sentence in the final story product. This also illustrates a concept in the TPRS literature by Waltz (2015), referred to in the glossary as "Proximal repetition:
repeating a new character [i.e. lexical item] several time very close to its initial use, to provide more repetition at the start" (p. 175). The video data, represented in the extracts above, reveal that this "repetition" is manifested in interaction as a sequence of actions as listed in the table above. Proximal repetition is also relevant to Constructionist research (e.g. Goldberg et al., 2007) who found positive effects from introducing a construction not only frequently, but also early in exposure. As a representative of the learning institution who is experienced in managing
classrooms in her particular way, the analysis provided here demonstrates how she takes the lead in "talking the institution into being" and the students complete the interaction to co-construct the institutional practices with her.
The teacher in the TPRS classes also showed frequent word and pattern re-use so the students had the sound-meaning resources ready to use when reading Chinese character texts in CCR (TPRS Reading) class. The teacher was observed to accomplish this by using Chinese to ask students for new story details, ask students to confirm or reject story details, confirm with students the details added to the story canon as the story unfolded, and to check comprehension. After CCR, the students then used printed copies of those texts as physical resources to use when handwriting Chinese character texts. This all served the institutional purpose of maximize
frequency of a narrow net (Krashen, 2013) of language that would be re-used across classes over different days.
CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS