The acquisition of temporal categorical perception by Japanese second language learners (original) (raw)
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The Acquisition of Functional Categories: Data from Japanese
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While demonstratives and other determiner-like words in English are part of the functional system, their Japanese counterparts are simple lexical categories. The semantic theory (e.g. Brown & Fraser 1963) predicts that these elements must emerge at a later stage in both languages since they denote relatively abstract and complex meanings; whereas Radford's (1990) maturational theory makes no such predictions about Japanese. In replicating O'Grady's (1993) Korean study, I collected both production and comprehension data for Japanese. The data indicates that despite their categorial status (i.e. lexical categories), these determiner-like elements emerge quite late. Since the late emergence of these elements in both Japanese and English can be attributed to their relatively abstract semantics, there is no reason to attribute the late acquisition of English determiners to their categorial status (i.e. functional categories). Thus, just like O'Grady's Korean data, the Japanese data seems to support the semantic theory.
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2015
Previous research shows that, Spanish speakers studying Japanese face significant difficulties when perceiving Japanese word accent contrasts, particularly between accented and unaccented words. We hypothesise that this is probably due to poorly developed accent categories in the target population. The results of a categorical perception test show great differences between native and non-native listeners in both category definition and boundary positions. Results also show differences between categories, in that some are more clearly defined than others. This partly explains response biases reported in the literature.
This article examines the mechanism of grammar acquisition in a second language and explores how linguistic categories can be acquired effectively. Currently, the mainstream second language teaching approach is the communicative approach. As far as the acquisition of linguistic categories is concerned, however, the communicative approach is based on a 'learning by doing' model, which assumes that learners will acquire linguistic categories through exposure to language input and interaction. Therefore, insights into how individual grammatical items should be taught are still quite limited, and thus investigation concerning effective methods of teaching linguistic categories based on second language acquisition research is sorely needed. Here, I examine two linguistic domains (tense-aspect and relative clauses) for which the acquisition process has been researched and understood to some degree both in Japanese and other languages. I will also consider how acquisition can be facilitated, in particular from a functional-cognitive linguistics perspective. 1
Early Sensitivity to Language-Specific Spatial Categories in English and Korean
Cognitive Development, 1999
This study investigates young children's comprehension of spatial terms in two languages that categorize space strikingly differently. English makes a distinction between actions resulting in containment (put in) versus support or surface attachment (put on), while Korean makes a cross-cutting distinction between tight-fit relations (kkita) versus loose-fit or other contact relations (various verbs). In particular, the Korean verb kkita refers to actions resulting in a tight-fit relation regardless of containment or support. In a preferential looking study we assessed the comprehension of in by 20 English learners and kkita by 10 Korean learners, all between 18 and 23 months. The children viewed pairs of scenes while listening to sentences with and without the target word. The target word led children to gaze at different and language-appropriate aspects of the scenes. We conclude that children are sensitive to language-specific spatial categories by 18-23 months. This paper was supported in part by NSF #SBR-9310494 to Choi and Bowerman, and by NSF #SBR-970895 to Mandler and McDonough. We would like to thank Natasha Brown, Laura Holmes, Miyong Kim, and Debbie Thompson for collecting and coding data, and all the children who participated in the project. We also thank Letty Naigles for her generous assistance in setting up our lab and Carol Riordan for her help in making the videotapes.
Second Language Acquisition Research and Japanese Language Teaching: A Functionalist Approach
Japanese Studies, 2012
This article examines the mechanism of grammar acquisition in a second language and explores how linguistic categories can be acquired effectively. Currently, the mainstream second language teaching approach is the communicative approach. As far as the acquisition of linguistic categories is concerned, however, the communicative approach is based on a 'learning by doing' model, which assumes that learners will acquire linguistic categories through exposure to language input and interaction. Therefore, insights into how individual grammatical items should be taught are still quite limited, and thus investigation concerning effective methods of teaching linguistic categories based on second language acquisition research is sorely needed. Here, I examine two linguistic domains (tense-aspect and relative clauses) for which the acquisition process has been researched and understood to some degree both in Japanese and other languages. I will also consider how acquisition can be facilitated, in particular from a functional-cognitive linguistics perspective.
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This thesis investigates learnability problems and the role of L1 in L2 syntaxsemantics mappings, through a comparison of English-and Korean-speaking Japanese learners' acquisition of two Japanese definiteness properties: overt definiteness marking by the demonstrative sono and covert definiteness distinction through word order change between numeral quantifier constructions. The main objective is to examine distinct predictions based on recent accounts of learnability and L1 influence:
An ongoing debate on second language (L2) processing revolves around whether or not L2 learners process syntactic information similarly to monolinguals (L1), and what factors lead to a native-like processing. According to the Shallow Structure Hypothesis , L2 learners' processing does not include abstract syntactic features, such as intermediate gaps of wh-movement, but relies more on lexical/semantic information. Other researchers have suggested that naturalistic L2 exposure can lead to native-like processing . This study investigates the effect of naturalistic exposure in processing wh-dependencies. Twenty-six advanced Greek-English L2 learners of English with an average 9 years of naturalistic exposure, 30 with classroom exposure, and 30 native speakers of English completed a self-paced reading task with sentences involving intermediate gaps. L2 learners with naturalistic exposure showed evidence of native-like processing of the intermediate gaps, suggesting that linguistic immersion can lead to native-like abstract syntactic processing in the L2.
JASA Express Letters, 2022
Japanese and English use temporal cues within vowels, suggesting an audio-processing advantage for temporally-cued contrasts, while Spanish does not. Using a categorial AXB discrimination task, this study investigated how American English-speaking monolinguals and early and late Spanish-English bilinguals perceive three types of temporally-contrasting Japanese pairs: vowel length (kado/kaado), consonant length (iken/ikken), and syllable number (hjaku/hijaku). All groups performed worse than Japanese controls for the vowel length and syllable number contrasts, but only early bilinguals differed from controls for consonant length. This research contributes to a better understanding of how the first-learned language influences speech perception in a second language.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
This study examines the acquisition of Japanese numeral classifiers in Japanese preschool children, ages 3 to 6, with a primary emphasis on developing comprehension ability. Numeral classifiers, widely distributed in languages of East and Southeast Asia and the New World, are a group of morphemes that usually occur adjacent to quantity expressions. The selection of numeral classifiers is determined by the inherent semantic properties of the noun whose quantity is being specified, suggesting that developing patterns of comprehension should be linked to underlying patterns of semantic and conceptual development. Previous research claims that children acquire certain distributional patterns very early but that the acquisition of the semantic system is a very slow process. We argue instead that different techniques and stimulus contrast sets reveal a much greater sensitivity to semantic relations in young children than was previously considered possible. Reasons for the apparent slownes...