| 研究実績の概要 |
・ Data from native Thai speakers were collected at Chiang Mai University (Thailand) during a trip there in August-September 2019.
・ Data from native Japanese speakers and native English speakers were collected along the year at the University of Tsukuba.
・ A trip to Taiwan to collect data from native Chinese speakers in February 2020 had to be interrupted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
・ Preliminary results for Thai speakers were presented at an international conference (PACLIC 33, September 2019). The presentation was in collaboration with assistant professor Teeranoot Siriwittayakorn (Chiang Mai University). The results indicate that contrary to previous literature, native speakers of a language such as Thai, which lacks number agreement, are sensitive to number agreement violations when reading in English as a second language. The sensitivity was observed in slower reading times to sentences containing number agreement violations compared to sentences in which number agreement followed grammatical rules. Such sensitivity is similar to what has been reported for native English speakers. The result suggests that the native languages does not necessarily restrict the ability to learn number and number agreement in a second language even for learners who have never lived abroad. However, the participants were English majors, therefore we are in the process of collecting data from non-English majors to determine if the result extends to other types of learners.
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| 今後の研究の推進方策 |
Plans for the current year remain uncertain because of the ongoing pandemic.
If trips abroad become possible, trips to Taiwan and Thailand will be planned to collect data in those countries. Priority will be given to Taiwan to compensate for the trip that was interrupted in February 2020.
If trips abroad are not possible, time will be spent analyzing and possibly publishing currently available data, as well as planning and preparing future experiments.
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