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AComparative Study on the Acquisition of Japanese as a First and Second Language

Research Project

Project/Area Number 08680319
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Section一般
Research Field Japanese language education
Research InstitutionAichi University of Education

Principal Investigator

INABA Midori  Aichi University of Education, Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (50273298)

Project Period (FY) 1996 – 1997
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 1997)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 1996: ¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Keywordsfirst language acquisition / Japanese / language development / local structure / narrative / discourse / global structure / second language acquisition / 第一言語 / 第二言語
Research Abstract

This study investigated the development of first-and second-language narrative structure to show similarities and differences between them. The narratives produced by Japanese children from ages 3 to 11 and adults and JSL (Japanese as a Second Language) learners at five different levels of JSL proficiency (ten subjects in each group) were analyzed with particular attention to the global structure of the story.
The background of this study is Berman and Slobin's crosslinguistic study of the development of children's narrative discourse competence in the field of first language acquisition. Their study manifests that the development is a joint process of event comprehension and language production (Berman and Slobin, 1994, p.50).
The main concern of the study is L2 learners, who are supposed to have mature narrative discourse competence in their L1 but do not have full L2 linguistic command present. The results of the present study indicate that Japanese children and adults showed a clear age-related development in constructing the global structure of the story. In the case of L2 development, on the other hand, the knowledge of narrative structure or mature narrative competence does not suffice for JSL learners to produce well-constructed narratives. Rather, whether they can construct a narrative with thematic organization largely depends on L2 linguistic command itself.

Report

(3 results)
  • 1997 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report Summary
  • 1996 Annual Research Report

URL: 

Published: 1996-04-01   Modified: 2016-04-21  

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