Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T08:19:05.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FACTORS AFFECTING THE PROCESSING OF JAPANESE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY L2 LEARNERS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2007

Kazue Kanno
Kazue Kanno
Affiliation:
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reports on a crosslinguistic comparative study of the processing of Japanese relative clauses (RCs) by Chinese-, Sinhalese-, Vietnamese-, Thai-, and Indonesian-speaking second language (L2) learners. A robust finding in studies on the acquisition of RCs in L2 English and other European languages is that subject-gap RCs are easier than object-gap RCs, both in production and comprehension. However, in the case of L2 Japanese studies, the picture does not seem to be as clear as in the English case. This study identifies some factors that might contribute to this situation. The results of a listening comprehension test involving reversible and nonreversible test sentences show that the five groups of learners overall found subject-gap RCs easier to process than object-gap RCs, but that their performances are poor and vary for sentence types in which no semantic cue is available to help identify the grammatical function of the overt noun phrase in RCs, yielding inconclusive results with respect to the question of whether subject-gap RCs are easier than object-gap RCs. Results indicate that when RCs are too difficult for learners to process, first language properties such as head direction, word order, and the relative order of filler and gap affect the manner in which they are interpreted.I am grateful to Stephen Matthews, William O'Grady, Yasuhiro Shirai, and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their valuable comments. I would also like to thank Chisako Umeda for her help in collecting data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 197 - 218
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ariel, M. (1990). Accessing noun phrase antecedents. London: Routledge.
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (1981). Functional approaches to grammar. In E. Wanner & L. Gleitman (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 173–218). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (Eds.) (1989). The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Boland, J. & Tanenhaus, M. K. (1991). The role of lexical representation in sentence processing. In G. B. Simpson (Ed.), Understanding word and sentence (pp. 331–365). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Collins, C. (1994). Economy of derivation and the generalized proper binding condition. Linguistic Inquiry, 25, 45–61.Google Scholar
Doughty, C. J. (1991). Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of SL relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 431–469.Google Scholar
Dryer, M. (1992). The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language, 68, 81–138.Google Scholar
Gass, S. M. (1980). An investigation of syntactic transfer in adult second language learners. In R. Scarcella & S. Krashen (Eds.), Research in second language acquisition (pp. 132–141). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Gass, S. M. (1987). The resolution of conflicts among competing systems: A bidirectional perspective. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 329–350.Google Scholar
Hamilton, R. (1994). Is implicational generalization unidirectional and maximal? Evidence from relativization instruction in a second language. Language Learning, 44, 123–157.Google Scholar
Hamilton, R. (1995). The noun phrase accessibility hierarchy in SLA: Determining the basis for its developmental effects. In F. R. Eckman, D. Highland, P. Lee, J. Mileham, & R. Weber (Eds.), Second language acquisition: Theory and pedagogy (pp. 101–114). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harrington, M. (1987). Processing transfer: Language-specific strategies as a source of interlanguage variation. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 351–378.Google Scholar
Hasegawa, T. (2002). The acquisition of relative clauses by children learning Japanese as a second language. Unpublished manuscript, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Honolulu.
Hawkins, J. (1999). Processing complexity and filler-gap dependencies across grammars. Language, 75, 244–285.Google Scholar
Hsiao, F. & Gibson, E. (2003). Processing relative clauses in Chinese. Cognition, 90, 3–27.Google Scholar
Hyltenstam, K. (1984). The use of typological markedness conditions as predictors in second language acquisition: The use of pronominal copies in relative clauses. In R. W. Anderson (Ed.), Second language: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 39–58). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Inoue, K. (1976). Henkeibunpoo to Nihongo (Joo) Toogo-koozoo o chuushin ni [Transformational Grammar and Japanese: Vol. 1. Focusing on the syntactic structure]. Tokyo: Taishuukan.
Kanno, K. (2000, September). Sentence processing by JSL learners. Paper presented at the Second Language Research Forum 2000, Madison, WI.
Kanno, K. (2001). On-line processing of Japanese by English L2 learners. Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language, 4, 23–38.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase accessibility and Universal Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 63–99.Google Scholar
King, J. & Just, M. A. (1991). Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 580–602.Google Scholar
King, J. & Kutas, M. (1995). Who did what and when? Using word- and clause-level ERPs to monitor working memory usage in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 376–395.Google Scholar
Kuno, S. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mak, W. M., Vonk, W., & Schriefers, H. (2002). The influence of animacy on relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 50–68.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Y. (1997). Noun-modifying constructions in Japanese: A frame-semantic approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Miyamoto, E. (2002). Case markers as clause boundary inducers in Japanese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 307–347.Google Scholar
Miyamoto, E. & Nakamura, M. (2003). Subject/object asymmetries in the processing of relative clauses in Japanese. In G. Garding & M. Tsujimura (Eds.), WCCFL 22 Proceedings (pp. 342–355). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
O'Grady, W. (1999). Toward a new nativism. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 621–633.Google Scholar
O'Grady, W. (2001). A linguistic approach to the study of language acquisition. Journal of the Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 5, 57–71.Google Scholar
O'Grady, W., Lee, M., & Choo, M. (2003). A subject-object asymmetry in the acquisition of relative clauses in Korean as a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 433–448.Google Scholar
Ozeki, H. (2005a). Daiichi/daini-gengo ni okeru nihongoshuushokusetu no shuutokukatei: Ruikeironteki apuroochi [The acquisition process of Japanese noun-modifying clauses by first an second language learners: A typological approach]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo.
Ozeki, H. (2005b). Daini-gengo ni okeru nihongoshuushokusetu no sanshutsu wa huhenteki shuutoku-nanido-kaisoo ni shitagau ka [Does the acquisition of noun-modifying constructions in L2 Japanese follow the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy?]. Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language, 8, 64–82.Google Scholar
Roberts, M. (2000). Implicational markedness and the acquisition of relativization by adult learners of Japanese as a foreign language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Honolulu.
Sakamoto, T. & Kubota, A. (2000). Nihongo-no kankeisetu-no shuutoku-ni tsuite [On acquisition of Japanese relative clauses]. Nanzandaigaku Kokusai Kyoiku Sentaa Kiyoo [The Bulletin of the Center for International Education], 1, 114–126.
Sasaki, Y. (1991). English and Japanese interlanguage comprehension strategies: An analysis based on the competition model. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 47–73.Google Scholar
Sasaki, Y. (1994). Paths of processing strategy transfers in learning Japanese and English as foreign languages. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 43–72.Google Scholar
Tarallo, F. & Myhill, J. (1983). Interference and natural language processing in second language acquisition. Language Learning, 33, 55–76.Google Scholar
Traxler, M. J., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E. (2002). Processing subject and object relative clauses: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 69–90.Google Scholar
Weckerly, J. & Kutas, M. (1999). An electrophysiological analysis of animacy effects in the processing of object relative sentences. Psychophysiology, 26, 559–570.Google Scholar
Yamashita, H. (1997). The effect of word order and case marking information on the processing of Japanese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 163–188.Google Scholar