Advanced Japanese Learners Research Articles

Vocabulary acquisition by advanced learners

AbstractThis paper looks at the acquisition of the vocabulary used in daily conversation by advanced level English speaking learners of Japanese language. Five factors which were found to affect learners’ acquisition are discussed. The aim of this paper is to discuss lexical errors made by advanced learners of Japanese and identify the factors which hinder their lexical acquisition by focusing on intralexical factors and interlexical factors. The data was obtained from interviews with fourteen advanced level students. The findings of the study reveal that interlexical divergence of semantic structure is the most common reason for advanced learners failure to acquire vocabulary in the target language. This finding highlights the difficulty learners face in comprehending the lexical semantic structure in the target language and maintaining all the lexical items which correspond to single word in their native language. Intralexical phonological similarity is also a confounding factor for learners. These findings are relevant in the context of vocabulary teaching from the aspect of facilitating learners’ semantic knowledge.

An analysis of the high and low plateau of Japanese English

The tonal contour of focus in English intonation is H*L−L% in declaratives and L*H−H% in interrogatives, within the framework developed by Pierrehumbert (1980). Consequently, L- or H- show low- or high-plateau patterns, respectively. Japanese intonation does not permit such total deaccentuation after focus because of the need of preserving lexical pitch accents characterized by a sharp rise and fall. In earlier work on intonation, not much attention was paid to the interaction of the intonation of a first and second language. This study will analyze high- and low-plateau patterns of Japanese English. The speech of beginning and advanced Japanese learners of English was compared to the speech of native speakers of American English. The production data show the following patterns. The high plateau was often produced as a low plateau by both levels of Japanese learners due to the sharp pitch fall after the high peak. In contrast, the low plateau was produced as a sequence of downstepped H*. These patterns can be attributed to either the effect of Japanese intonation or possible universal constraints on intonation. These hypotheses will be further evaluated using additional data on Italian learners of English.

Phrase-final lengthening and stress-timed shortening effects in native speakers and Japanese learners of English

This study analyzes the durational patterns of native Japanese speakers learning English, with a focus on the two major prosodic effects: phrase-final lengthening and stress-timed shortening. To investigate the significance of these effects, a production experiment was conducted, adapting the method of Beckman and Edwards [Papers in Laboratory Phonology I, 152–178 (1990)]. Native speakers, beginning Japanese learners, and advanced Japanese learners of English were compared. Results are as follows: (1) The phrase-final lengthening effect is large and the stress-timed shortening effect is small in the speech of the native English speakers and the advanced Japanese learners; (2) all Japanese speakers are more successful in applying phrase-final lengthening before larger prosodic boundaries than before smaller ones. Further analysis shows that the native English speakers make more durational contrast between lexically stressed and unstressed syllables (this is called localcontrast) and also differentiate the three degrees of boundary strength hierarchically (this is called hierarchicalcontrast). These two types of durational contrasts are considered to be effective benchmarks to assess the acquisition of English stress-timing by Japanese learners, due to their considerable correlation with learner proficiency levels.

English and Japanese Demonstratives: A Contrastive Analysis of Second Language Acquisition

Author(s): Niimura, Tomomi; Hayashi, Brenda | Abstract: As seemingly simple and straightforward constructions, demonstratives are taught to foreign language learners at a rather early stage in their language instruction. For native speakers of Japanese, English this and seem fairly easy to acquire, just as the Japanese demonstratives ko, so, and a seem like unproblematic constructions for native speakers of English. However, language teachers often find that even fairly advanced learners of Japanese or English have trouble with many of the less transparent issues surrounding demonstrative usage.The present paper focuses on the demonstratives this, that, ko, so, and a and the peculiar problems that they pose for L2 students. We will show that in accordance with Strauss (1993a, 1993b) and Kinsui and Takubo (1990, 1992), instruction of demonstratives based on the traditional analysis of plus/minus proximity is inadequate. Data from intermediate and advanced L2 learners as well as from native speakers of each language are examined according to recent models (i.e., Strauss' focus schema and Kinsui and Takubo's domain theory of the speaker's experience/perception), which prove to be promising alternatives in teaching demonstratives to L2 learners of Japanese and English.

An acoustic analysis of English liquids uttered by the Japanese and native speakers of English

This research deals with the production of English liquids through an acoustic analysis of speech samples uttered by Japanese college students, advanced Japanese learners of English (college teachers of English), and native speakers of English 13–18 years of age who live in Japan. The speech samples are 64 English words with liquids in initial position. These speech samples were analyzed by the autocorrelation method of linear prediction to estimate the formant frequencies every 10 ms using an analysis window of 20-ms length. The second and third formant frequencies were extracted for each of the liquids. The results showed that: (i) There is a significant difference in the formant values of each liquid between males and females; (2) the formant values of each liquid for advanced Japanese learners of English coincide with those for native speakers of English; and (3) although the values of F2 and F3 of /r/ and /l/ uttered by Japanese students overlapped with each other on the F2-F3 plane, these separated clearly after pronunciation training.