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Non-nativelike outcome of naturalistic child L2 acquisition of Japanese: The case of noun–verb collocations

  • Tomomi Nishikawa EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 15, 2019
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 60 Issue 2

Abstract

Many second language (L2) studies have shown that naturalistic L2 acquisition beginning from childhood leads to nativelike proficiency. The current study investigated whether the acquisition of such proficiency would be guaranteed, by examining a potential gap in the seemingly nativelike L2 proficiency of child L2 starters. At issue was the productive knowledge of noun–verb collocations by child L2 starters of Japanese (n=74, age 13–18) whose age of arrival (AOA) was between 0 and 11 and whose length of residence (LOR) was between 5 and 18 years. The collocation test included only items that were easy for native speakers (NSs) (n=162, age 13) age-matched for the youngest L2 participants. About one-third of the L2 participants, including the earliest arrivals, scored below the NS range on the collocation test. The current study concludes that early L2 onset does not guarantee nativelike productive knowledge of collocations, even when the collocations in question are very easy for NSs. The study also discusses pedagogical implications for child L2 starters, who are generally believed to become nativelike with ease.

Keywords: age; child L2 acquisition; collocation; critical period; Japanese

Funding statement: This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research C, Grant Number: 23520619

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Published Online: 2019-06-15
Published in Print: 2022-06-27

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
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  4. Transfer in L3 cognate language acquisition: The role of language background on instructed L3 Portuguese acquisition
  5. Task complexity, language proficiency and working memory: Interaction effects on second language speech performance
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  8. The refusal of request speech act in Persian, English, and Balouchi languages: A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study
  9. Non-nativelike outcome of naturalistic child L2 acquisition of Japanese: The case of noun–verb collocations
  10. Effects of mixed instruction on Chinese EFL learners’ perception of phonemic contrasts
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  12. Nominal agreement in the interlanguage of Dutch L2 learners of Spanish
  13. Picture or non-picture? The influence of narrative task types on lower- and higher-proficiency EFL learners’ oral production
  14. Grammatical aspect and world knowledge in second language reading
  15. An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish
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  17. Aspect semantics and ESL article use
https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2018-0292
Keywords for this article
age; child L2 acquisition; collocation; critical period; Japanese

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Speech-accompanying gestures in L1 and L2 conversational interaction by speakers of different proficiency levels
  4. Transfer in L3 cognate language acquisition: The role of language background on instructed L3 Portuguese acquisition
  5. Task complexity, language proficiency and working memory: Interaction effects on second language speech performance
  6. Typology and contexts of article errors: Investigation into the use of English articles by Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners
  7. Gender assignment strategies used by L1 and L2 speakers of Spanish
  8. The refusal of request speech act in Persian, English, and Balouchi languages: A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study
  9. Non-nativelike outcome of naturalistic child L2 acquisition of Japanese: The case of noun–verb collocations
  10. Effects of mixed instruction on Chinese EFL learners’ perception of phonemic contrasts
  11. Dynamism of collocation in L2 English writing: A bigram-based study
  12. Nominal agreement in the interlanguage of Dutch L2 learners of Spanish
  13. Picture or non-picture? The influence of narrative task types on lower- and higher-proficiency EFL learners’ oral production
  14. Grammatical aspect and world knowledge in second language reading
  15. An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish
  16. Negotiation of meaning in child-child vs. adult-adult interactions: Evidence from low proficiency EFL learners
  17. Aspect semantics and ESL article use
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