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Chapter 5. Acquiring content questions in Japanese child second language

  • Satomi Kawaguchi and Junko Iwasaki
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Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region
This chapter is in the book Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines the development of Japanese content questions in an English L1-Japanese L2 child within the Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). Our informant, John, started learning Japanese from 6;3 at a Japanese school in Australia. The data were collected between 7;0–8;9, where John produced 373 content questions. The developmental stages of content questions in Japanese L2 were hypothesised based on the Prominence Hypothesis. The analysis revealed that after the production of single-word questions, content questions appeared with a copula followed by lexical verbs, mostly in-situ, consistent with the Prominence Hypothesis. John produced errors concerning incorrect case particles being attached to the question words and NPs. These errors were not reported in monolingual and bilingual first language studies on content questions. These can be explained in terms of his current language acquisition stage.

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines the development of Japanese content questions in an English L1-Japanese L2 child within the Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). Our informant, John, started learning Japanese from 6;3 at a Japanese school in Australia. The data were collected between 7;0–8;9, where John produced 373 content questions. The developmental stages of content questions in Japanese L2 were hypothesised based on the Prominence Hypothesis. The analysis revealed that after the production of single-word questions, content questions appeared with a copula followed by lexical verbs, mostly in-situ, consistent with the Prominence Hypothesis. John produced errors concerning incorrect case particles being attached to the question words and NPs. These errors were not reported in monolingual and bilingual first language studies on content questions. These can be explained in terms of his current language acquisition stage.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Processability Theory, second language learning and teaching in the Asia-Pacific region 1
  5. Part 1. Asian languages as second languages
  6. Chapter 2. Studies of Japanese as a second language and their contribution to Processability Theory 27
  7. Chapter 3. The development of lexical mapping in Chinese L2 63
  8. Chapter 4. Extending PT to split ergative marking and differential object marking 91
  9. Chapter 5. Acquiring content questions in Japanese child second language 115
  10. Chapter 6. Japanese L2 corpora and SLA research 144
  11. Part 2. Bilingual first language acquisition and PT
  12. Chapter 7. The bilingual development of plural marking in a Malay-English child 165
  13. Chapter 8. Development of Japanese and English polar questions in bilingual first language acquisition 192
  14. Part 3. English as Foreign Language (EFL) in Asia
  15. Chapter 9. Developmentally moderated focus on form in an Indonesian kindergarten EFL programme 231
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of polar questions in Chinese learners of English as a foreign language 258
  17. Chapter 11. Testing the validity of Processability Theory through a corpus-based analysis 280
  18. About the authors 301
  19. Index 305
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.9.05kaw

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Processability Theory, second language learning and teaching in the Asia-Pacific region 1
  5. Part 1. Asian languages as second languages
  6. Chapter 2. Studies of Japanese as a second language and their contribution to Processability Theory 27
  7. Chapter 3. The development of lexical mapping in Chinese L2 63
  8. Chapter 4. Extending PT to split ergative marking and differential object marking 91
  9. Chapter 5. Acquiring content questions in Japanese child second language 115
  10. Chapter 6. Japanese L2 corpora and SLA research 144
  11. Part 2. Bilingual first language acquisition and PT
  12. Chapter 7. The bilingual development of plural marking in a Malay-English child 165
  13. Chapter 8. Development of Japanese and English polar questions in bilingual first language acquisition 192
  14. Part 3. English as Foreign Language (EFL) in Asia
  15. Chapter 9. Developmentally moderated focus on form in an Indonesian kindergarten EFL programme 231
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of polar questions in Chinese learners of English as a foreign language 258
  17. Chapter 11. Testing the validity of Processability Theory through a corpus-based analysis 280
  18. About the authors 301
  19. Index 305
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