Native Japanese Speakers Research Articles

An experimental investigation of the Deep Double-o Constraint in Japanese causative constructions

Abstract The Double-o Constraint (DoC) was proposed to explain the ungrammaticality of having two or more noun phrases (NPs) marked by the accusative case marker -o in a single Japanese clause. It has been argued that there are two types of DoCs: the Surface Double-o Constraint (SDoC) and the Deep Double-o Constraint (DDoC). The DDoC prohibits two accusative arguments in a single argument structure and is not affected by the number of accusative case markers on the surface. The evidence is from Japanese causatives. Our study conducted an experiment to test the DDoC and found that it may only apply to some native Japanese speakers.

Impact of Japanese L1 Rhythm on English L2 Speech.

The study aimed to examine whether L1 speech rhythm affects L2 speech by assessing how the speech rhythm of Japanese L2 English speakers differed from native speakers. We chose Japanese and English because they differ markedly in the phonological properties that likely contribute to speech rhythm. Speech rhythm was measured by the variability of vowel and consonant intervals using rate-normalized rhythm metrics (VarcoV and VarcoC; nPVI-V and nPVI-C) and %V. The study utilized recordings of spoken sentences in English by 10 native Australian English speakers; and in English and also in Japanese by 10 native Japanese speakers (who had limited experience in speaking English). Experiment 1 compared the rhythm of L1 English (by measuring 1,750 vowels and 3,093 consonants from 20 sentences) and L1 Japanese (1,923 vowels and 2,097 consonants from 10 sentences). The results showed that for all measures, Japanese had reduced durational variability in both consonant and vowel intervals compared with English. In Experiment 2, we examined the rhythm characteristics of L1 and L2 English using 40 sentences (including the 20 in Experiment 1). The results showed that vowel and consonant intervals were less variable in L2 (Japanese English) than in L1 (Australian English) speech, mirroring the results of Experiment 1. Overall, the results are consistent with the proposal that L1 (Japanese) speech rhythm influenced L2 (English) speech.

The <i>eye</i> lexeme conceptual sphere in differently structured languages: Based on paroemias

The article is devoted to the comparative typological analysis of Russian, English and Japanese paroemias with the eye lexeme глаз /eye /目[me] in terms of cognitive linguoculturology as one of the most dynamically developing areas in modern linguistics. We focus on the issues of the formation mechanism of the conceptual models within the framework of paremias in differently structured languages. The purpose of the study is to identify and describe paremias with the eye lexeme глаз /eye /目[me] as a micromodel of reality, reflecting the way of understanding, perception and conceptualization of the world by native speakers of Russian, English and Japanese. The subject of the study is the semantics and structure of paremiological units, such as proverbs, sayings and signs reflecting a certain nationally oriented way of the surrounding reality encoding. The comparative analysis, considering the paradigmatic and syntagmatic combinations of the eye lexeme глаз /eye /目[me] in differently structured languages, allows us to conclude that the paremiological units’ analysis contributes to the reconstruction of the so-called naive world picture, referring to earlier, ancient life periods of the particular people. The core of the national concept is the referential lexeme meaning, the peripheral layer is characterized by variability, since it reflects not only the territorial conditions, but also ancient traditions, customs, beliefs of the particular people. To achieve the goal of the undertaken research, we used the traditional descriptive and lexicographic methods, in addition to the comparative linguistic and cultural methods.

The Analysis of Adjunct to Refusal Expressions in a Refusal Discourse: A Contrastive Study between Japanese Native Speakers and Indonesian Japanese Learners

The study reports on the analysis of Adjunct to Refusal Expressions used by Japanese Native Speaker (JNS) and Indonesian Japanese Learners (IJL) in a refusal discourse. The aims are to see whether both use Adjunct to Refusal Expressions in a refusal interaction and to observe what type of expressions they use when refusing in the interaction, investigating the similarities and differences in their use from the first refusal stage to the stage where the intent of refusal is accepted by the refusee. The mixed method research involved 60 participants consisting of 30 pairs JNS female university students and 30 pairs of IJL female university students. The male students were not involved in this study due to the lack numbers of those learning Japanese language in the university. IJL students represented beginner and intermediate levels (N5, N4, and N3). The data were collected by situating the participants in a role play based on the setting given while being videotaped. The setting is a refusal to a close friend’s request. The data were analyzed by using a semantic formula framework, focusing on Adjunct to Refusal expressions modified from Beebe et al (1990), Yoshida (2015) and Hayati (2020, 2023). The results showed that both JNS and IJL employed Adjunct to Refusal expressions in their refusal discourse. There was no significant difference in the use of Adjunct to Refusal by JNS and IJL with χ2(1) = 1.270, p = .2597. However, JNS used higher Adjunct to Refusal expressions (46,7%) than IJL (33,3%). Further, their preferences in using certain type of Adjunct to Refusal expressions were similar in that they highly used information request type, whereas the differences could be seen from the absent use of confusion as Adjunct to refusal in JNS and that of backchannel response in IJL.

Basic study of kanji recognition patterns in non-kanji-background Japanese learners based on eye-movement analysis

Learning kanji is one of the greatest challenges that non-kanji-background Japanese learners face. Kanji have a complicated structure and are fundamentally different from the characters of the Latin alphabet. Recognising them can thus be difficult for learners from places whose writing systems do not include kanji. Studies on the fixation and eye movements observed in kanji recognition by such learners are therefore important to clarify the kanji-recognition and -learning process. The present study attempts to shed light on this subject by using an eye-tracker to study such eye movements.
 The analysis of the data obtained from the fixation and eye-movement experiments shows that students exhibit different kanji recognition patterns depending on how long they have been studying kanji: while students who have been studying kanji for a short time tend to look repeatedly at different parts of the kanji to grasp its shape and structure, those with more experience exhibit a pattern more similar to that of native Japanese speakers.

Exploring auditory recognition: Native Japanese listeners' perception of frequent and infrequent English words in noise with varied phonological neighborhood densities

Native Japanese listeners identified English words embedded in noise (SNR + 6dB) produced by native American English and Japanese speakers. The identical word list used in our previous study (Nozawa and Wayland 2023) was employed. Listeners responded by typing the words they heard. The findings revealed no discernible impacts of phonological neighborhood density, possibly due to the small vocabulary size limiting competition from other words. However, frequent words exhibited greater precision in recognition compared to infrequent words. Despite the introduction of noise, the overall accuracy of responses did not experience a substantial impact. Nevertheless, specific words like “class” and “club,” initially nearly perfect in accuracy without noise, dropped to 0% accuracy. Most errors included phoneme substitution rather than phoneme addition or deletion, and in / CVC/ words, the onset consonant was identified substantially better than the vowel and the coda consonant. Initial consonant clusters, such as /br/, / kl/, and /pl/, were frequently perceived as /l/ or /r/, leading to the initial stops or fricatives being missed. Errors encompassed the substitution of phonemes with others that are not typically perceptually assimilated into the same native language (L1) categories, which would not be revealed through predefined multiple-choice identification or discrimination tasks.

A Contrastive Pragmatics Study of Invitations in British English and Japanese

Abstract This study offers a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective on invitations. It explores invitation seQuences in a symmetrical invitation-refusal situation, performed by 20 female native speakers of British English and 20 female native speakers of Japanese, from a discursive approach using role plays. The qualitative analysis of the data obtained from the adapted version of conversation analysis revealed some similarities and differences in turn designs of the English and the Japanese invitations. Although pre-sequences were highly frequent in the English data, they were more so in the Japanese data. The analysis of the linguistic formats of the invitations in the two sets of data revealed that an approach to handle uncertainty seen in the cases where the invitation was initiated with a preface differed – the English speakers used a syntactic solution whereas the Japanese speakers used a sequential solution. These findings highlight the importance of analysing speech acts in situated interactions.

Effects of social interactions on the neural representation of emotional words in late bilinguals

ABSTRACT This fMRI study explored the relationship between social interactions and neural representations of emotionality in a foreign language (LX). Forty-five late learners of Japanese performed an auditory Japanese lexical decision task involving positive and negative words. The intensity of their social interactions with native Japanese speakers was measured using the Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire. Activity in the left ventral striatum significantly correlated with social interaction intensity for positive words, while the right amygdala showed a significant correlation for negative words. These results indicate neural representations of LX emotional words link with the intensity of social interactions. Furthermore, LX negative words activated the left inferior frontal gyrus more than positive and neutral words, suggesting greater cognitive effort for processing negative words, aligning with a bias in adult social interactions towards more positively-valenced language. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of social interaction experiences in the processing of LX emotional words.

Translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the Standardized Cosmesis and Health Nasal Outcomes Survey in Japanese (J-SCHNOS)

Rhinoplasty is one of the most popular plastic surgery techniques. The evaluation of both functional and cosmetic aspects of rhinoplasty is essential for planning and assessing surgery results. The Standardized Cosmesis and Health Nasal Outcomes Survey (SCHNOS) is a validated questionnaire used to assess both functional and aesthetic symptoms in patients with nasal problems, and it has been translated into several languages. The purpose of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the SCHNOS in Japanese among patients undergoing rhinoplasty. This was a prospective validation study of the Japanese version of the SCHNOS (J-SCHNOS). The first phase involved translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the SCHNOS. The second phase included validation of the J-SCHNOS among native Japanese speakers. In total, 357 participants completed the final version of the J-SCHNOS (219 males and 138 females; mean age 43.4 years). The J-SCHNOS showed high internal consistency with excellent Cronbach's alpha values for both obstruction (SCHNOS-O) (0.96) and cosmetic (SCHNOS-C) (0.93) domains. The reproducibility was high, with an excellent intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) >0.9 for all items. Exploratory factor analysis showed unidimensional structures in both the SCHNOS-O and the SCHNOS-C. The J-SCHNOS is a reliable and valid tool to assess the severity of nasal problems in patients undergoing rhinoplasty.

A Comparative Analysis of Japanese Learners’ Translation Bias Using Neurosemantic Analysis

Abstract In today’s increasingly frequent cultural exchanges between China and Japan, accurate and error-free Japanese translation has become an inevitable choice for cross-cultural communication. In this paper, based on twin neural network and attention mechanism, BiLSTM model is combined with sentence semantic similarity matching algorithm to construct a Japanese translation bias sentence semantic similarity model. The Japanese corpus data were collected and preprocessed by Python technology, and the Japanese translation corpus database was searched and counted using Wordsmith and AntConc tools. For the Japanese learners’ translation bias in the Japanese translation process, a comparative analysis was carried out in several aspects, such as end-of-sentence modal expressions, consecutive translations, and word frequency effects. The study results show that the difference in the frequency distribution of Japanese learners’ modal expressions is only 4.66% compared with that of native speakers of Japanese. Still, the difference between the two is significant at the 1% level, and the difference in the frequency of Japanese learners’ use of the modal expression “yes” is 56 sentences per 10,000 sentences. The frequency of Japanese learners’ use of successive expressions was 30.1 percentage points higher than that of native speakers. The neural semantic analysis method combined with the Japanese translation corpus can clarify the translation bias of Japanese learners in the process of Japanese translation, which can provide a reference for enhancing the translation quality of Japanese learning.

Prediction in SVO and SOV languages: processing and typological considerations

Abstract In this study, we tested the possibility that different word orders engender different processing preferences. Our key hypothesis was that a head-initial language like English (SVO) allows more prediction compared to a head-final language like Japanese (SOV). In Experiment 1, English and Japanese native speakers completed a cloze task in which they heard a sentence fragment (SV_ in English and SO_ in Japanese) and had to complete it with the word they thought best. We assessed cloze probability of the words produced and voice onset times. Experiment 2 examined written completions in English, in which we compared the cloze probabilities in SV_ fragments versus OS_ fragments. Following the central hypothesis, this experiment allowed us to determine (within language) whether there is more prediction from a noun and verb compared to two nouns. Finally, in Experiment 3, we compared written completions in English and Japanese, in which the stimuli given to participants were identical (SV_ in English and S_V in Japanese). Results across all three experiments were consistent with greater prediction in English. We argue that prediction is one important factor in processing, that it is relied on more in English than in Japanese, and that prediction will be especially favored in languages like English in which the verb regularly precedes its direct object.

Profile of Short Vowel ‘A’ in Japanese Language that Determines the Meaning as Pronounced by University Students in Indonesia

The research discussed that certain sounds, like the short vowel ‘a’, which was entirely different from the long vowel ‘a’, were specific to Japanese and had distinct meanings from those of Indonesian. As a result, 60 students majoring in Japanese language instruction from six Indonesian universities were interviewed face-to-face and recorded. Native speakers of the Japanese language were requested to record their voices using the short vowel ‘a’ as the students’ sound reference. After that, the students were asked to identify and produce the short vowel ‘a’. PRAAT was then used to analyze the students’ recordings. Additionally, the students’ sounds were contrasted with those of Japanese native speakers. The spectrogram analysis clearly shows that students are still having trouble telling the difference between the long vowel ‘a’ (OBAASAN) and the short vowel ‘a’ (OBAASAN) because they produce significantly longer short vowels ‘a’ that are almost as long as double vowel ‘a’. This is highly likely to occur since Japanese language learners are not taught to deliberately recognize the distinct sounds, such as the long and short vowels ‘a’, that distinguish the language’s meanings. In addition, their low frequency and energy density of pronunciation of the short vowel ‘a’ suggest they are less confident in their pronunciation.

Perception and production of French oral vowels by Japanese-speaking learners: does dialectal variation play a role?

This paper presents a series of studies on the impact of regional variation in L1 (source language) on L2 (target language) pronunciation, focusing on the high back vowel /u/ in French perceived or produced by native speakers of Japanese from the Kanto area (around Tokyo) and the Kansai area (around Osaka). 1) To serve as a base line, the 5 Japanese vowels were pronounced by 11 speakers (5 women and 6 men) from Kansai with no learning experience of French and their first 4 formants were measured to examine their acoustic properties. 2) 25 naïve listeners from Kansai took part in an AXB auditory discrimination task for French vowels including pairs /u/-/y/, /y/-/ø/ and /u/-/ø/; the results were compared with those of Kanto speakers in previous studies. 3) Some Japanese-speaking learners of French (JSL) from Kansai produced the French /u/ with a lower F2 (around 1,000 Hz for men) than typical values observed for learners from the Tokyo area. These results show limited differences for some of the speakers from Kansai compared to the tendency commonly observed with Kanto speakers

Inanimate antecedents of the Japanese reflexive zibun: experimental and corpus evidence

Abstract This research sets out to challenge a conventional wisdom in Japanese linguistics, that the reflexive pronoun zibun is unable to take an inanimate antecedent. Through careful presentation of the data, including corpus sources, it is unequivocally demonstrated that the reflexive use of zibun can indeed overcome the animacy constraint and be anteceded by an inanimate antecedent, without any personification present. This has specific theoretical consequences in the sense of providing a theoretical simplification behind reflexivity modeling in Japanese. This is followed by a psycholinguistic experiment investigating how native Japanese speakers judge and process sentences with inanimate zibun. The key factors tested are the animacy of the antecedent, and also if the type of sentence, episodic versus generic, will affect the acceptability of inanimate zibun. Results from the experiment show that native speakers indeed do find inanimate zibun acceptable, and appear to process it slightly slower than the animate counterpart. The episodic versus generic distinction does not play a role in either the judgment or processing. Combining the corpus and experimental data anchors the phenomenon firmly. Finally, our attention turns to how to account for inanimate zibun theoretically, where we draw information from how zibun can already take inanimate antecedents if they are construed as agentive, or if zibun is used as an adverbial reflexive, showing that in fact, inanimate zibun does not require additional theoretical treatment – leading to a reformulation of Kuno’s animacy constraint.

Prospects of integration of virtual assistants in the process of teaching speaking to the beginner learners of the Japanese language

Problem statement . Most Japanese textbooks and methodical materials do not contain enough exercises for training productive skills of the students. Japanese Language Proficiency Test also does not include parts dedicated to writing and speaking abilities, which leads to teachers not paying attention to the development of these skills and students not being able to properly evaluate their level of performance. As a method of simplifying and making this training more engaging and motivating, virtual assistants, or intelligent personal assistants (IPA), can be introduced. The purposes of this research are to explore the ways of using the technology of virtual assistants to reenforce speaking performance of the beginner students in Japanese as a foreign language and to evaluate the technology’s readiness for integration. Methodology . In a pedagogical experiment took part 12 first-year students (10 female and 2 male), who attended a Japanese language class at the School of Young Philologist at the Faculty of Philology of Lomonosov Moscow State University, where they used Google Assistant for studying Japanese from December 2021 to April 2022 and then in September 2022. The analysis of theory and methodology, generalization of crucial scientific papers on the studied problem, processing of results were applied. Results. Personal assistant Google Assistant can be advised for training speaking among beginner learners. It can be applied in the form of four main types of exercises: asking for data, giving instructions to IPA, express desires (“wishlist”), conducting a dialog with a robot. Issues that can cause difficulties to students were listed. The results of the questionnaire revealed that students were grateful to have an opportunity to train speaking with a Japanese native speaker in a form of a virtual assistant and could easier track their progress. Conclusion. The use of the Google Assistant in the process of teaching speaking to the beginner learners of the Japanese language at the initial level is seen as highly promising and can be recommended for implementation in the educational process.

A Contrastive Study of Chinese Japanese Learners Pronunciation of Plosives in Japanese

This is a contrastive study. The aim of this study was to discover the reason why learners misunderstand ashi-ta as ashi-da from the acoustic perspective. This paper adopts the method of phonetic experiment. By comparing the VOT of consonants [p], [t], [k], [b], [d] and [g] between Japanese beginners and Japanese native speakers, this paper analyzes the acquisition of Japanese plosives by Chinese Japanese learners, and explores the problems of Chinese Japanese learners in the perception of voiced plosives.The comparison suggsets that Chinese Japanese beginners can not distinguish the opposition of Japanese voiceless stops, and the pronunciation of similar [p], [k] and [t] in Chinese and Japanese is affected by the negative transfer of mother tongue.

A comparative study of the use of honorific-negative form by Japanese native speakers and learners in request and refusal situations―a politeness theory perspective―

<p>本論文從禮貌理論（politeness theory）的觀點，分析在日語對話中，日語母語人士和台灣人日語學習者在行使「請託」和「拒絕」時，所使用的「禮貌體否定型」，即「～ません（か）」及「～ないです（か）」的使用現況。研究結果發現如下三項。（Ⅰ）本研究發現，針對母語人士的對話，在過去的研究之中，被認為「ません」用的比較多的「請託」、「要求確認」以及「かもしれない」，會因為其FTA中較低的D數值(社會關係)之緣由，使得「ないです」的使用頻率增加。再者，（Ⅱ）本研究發現，母語人士在行使「積極禮貌策略：例如，「回答」的場合」和「非公開策略（off-record strategy）：例如，「間接拒絕」及「間接不同意」的場合」，以「ないです」的使用為多。另一方面，（Ⅲ）透過與母語人士進行比較，本研究發現學習者「ません」用的比較多的原因如下。首先，不管FTA的D數值的高低，當學習者面對上位者時，其「ません」的使用意識相當強烈；另外，在行使「請託」時，「ません」定型文的用法相當多（如「いただけませんか」）；再者，與母語人士相反，學習者並沒有意識到「ないです」會多用在「積極禮貌策略」和「非公開策略」的談話策略裡。</p> <p> </p><p>This paper analyzes, from the politeness theory perspective, the current situation of the use of honorific-negative form, “～ません（か）”and “～ないです（か）,” used by native Japanese speakers and Taiwanese Japanese learners in the exercise of request and refusal in Japanese conversations. The results of the study were as follows. (Ⅰ) this study found that the frequency of “ないです” was increased due to the lower D-value (social relationship) in the FTA. (II) this study found that native speakers used “ないです” more frequently when exercising “positive politeness” and “off-record strategy.” (Ⅲ) this study found the following reasons why learners used “ません” more often. Firstly, the learners’ awareness of using “ません” was quite strong when they were facing the superior. Secondly, the set phrase “ません(e.g., いただけませんか)” were used quite a lot, and furthermore, the learners were not aware of the fact that“ないです”would be used more in the positive politeness and off-record strategy.</p> <p> </p>

On null-subject languages and the Overt Pronoun Constraint: A comparison of English, Mandarin and Japanese

This study reports on findings from two experiments investigating the interpretive patterns of overt pronouns in an embedded subject position with three types of matrix subjects (i.e. a referential NP, a quantified NP, or a wh-phrase) in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. According to the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC), overt pronouns in null-subject languages cannot have bound-variable interpretation, i.e. they cannot be bound by a quantified NP or a wh-phrase. This constraint has been assumed to be universal and accessible for learners at early stages of second language (L2) acquisition. The results of Experiment 1 show that, although Mandarin is a null-subject language, Mandarin and English native speakers as well as L2 learners of both languages demonstrated similar patterns of interpretation, accepting both coreference readings and bound-variable readings, the latter being contrary to the prediction of the OPC. The results of Experiment 2 show that Japanese native speakers differed from Mandarin native speakers in that the former accepted both coreference readings and bound-variable readings at chance levels. These findings clearly demonstrate that the OPC cannot be characterized as a property of null-subject languages generally, given the lack of effect in Mandarin, and there are cross-linguistic variations in interpretive patterns for overt pronouns among languages that exhibit the effect.

Analysis of external modification devices and framing moves in request emails

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the pragmatic competence of writing request emails by Chinese learners of Japanese (CLJs). The study focused on the features of the external modification devices and framing moves of request emails by CLJs when compared to emails by native speakers of Japanese (NSJs). Data were collected from 104 CLJs and 53 NSJs, using an Electronic Writing Discourse Completion Test questionnaire. One-way ANOVA results showed that as the CLJs’ levels of proficiency in Japanese increased, their use of external modification devices and framing moves tended to increase. In addition, a Fisher’s exact test showed that as the CLJs’ proficiency increased, a distinct statistical difference only existed in the use of individual framing moves, but not in that of individual external modification devices. This study provides conceptual categories and utterances used in both external modification devices and framing moves for teaching email communication to CLJs.

Politeness when native Japanese speakers and Uzbek Japanese learners give warnings about prohibited acts: a cross-sectional study

Background Based on signs prohibiting certain actions, people warn others using imperative forms of the verb or give a soft warning using politeness strategies. This study investigates actual situations in which native Japanese speakers and Uzbek learners of Japanese give warnings about prohibitions. Methods This study compared warnings given by native Japanese speakers and Uzbek Japanese learners regarding prohibited acts. After clarifying the difference between prohibition and warning of prohibitions, we proposed a classification scheme for the latter speech act in terms of politeness. Data were elicited using a discourse completion task. Results The results showed that the Japanese speakers tended to mitigate warnings by implementing two politeness strategies: expression in hedged forms and positioning the warning as a rule. The Japanese speakers used expressions such as “It is prohibited” to indicate that they warned as a rule. Such expressions may cause the hearer to feel that the speaker is an overbearing person who wields authority. To avoid this risk, the Japanese speakers used hedges, such as “Looks like it’s prohibited,” or “It says it’s prohibited,” to make it clear that the right to forbid is not with them but with the public authority. In contrast, the Uzbek learners of Japanese tended to implement their politeness strategy as an apology to compensate for the explicit warning. They tended to apologize in situations where the Japanese speakers would not. Conclusions The present study presented a framework for categorizing warning of prohibitions. This framework can be applied to languages other than Japanese, Uzbek, and Japanese by Uzbek learners.