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Notes on the acquisition of L2 English intervention structures: a case of Japanese EFL learners

  • Atsushi Fujimori EMAIL logo , Mineharu Nakayama and Noriko Yoshimura
Published/Copyright: November 5, 2024
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Abstract

This paper discusses Japanese-speaking EFL learners’ acquisition of English object relative clauses (ORC), which have intervention (Relativized Minimality) structures. Specifically, we contrast their early understanding of the ORC and the Subject Control constructions with their late understanding of the Subject Raising (seem) construction that exhibits a structural effect of locality on the filler-gap relation. We argue that relativization and the Control structure in Japanese induce hierarchical structures on par with those in English. Therefore, the learners have acquired a way of avoiding intervention during the process of acquiring the ORC and the Control structures in Japanese. L1 grammatical knowledge helps nullify the intervention effect in acquiring the constructions in L2 English. On the other hand, it takes time for them to overcome the effect by learning the seem raising structure with a specific strategy because Japanese does not have a construction similar to it. L1 Japanese critically influences the acquisition of L2 English with respect to the intervention configurations.


Corresponding author: Atsushi Fujimori, Language and Communication Research Center, University of Shizuoka, 52-1 Yada, Suruga-Ku, Shizuoka, 422-8526, Japan, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We thank the two JJL reviewers, and the National Tsing Hua University Institute of Linguistics and the Ohio State University Japanese linguistics seminar audiences for their helpful comments on the earlier versions of this paper. We also thank Manami Sato for her help in designing the test sentences and Sayaka Esu for her drawing of the associated pictures.

  1. Research funding: The research has been partially supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 18K00834 and 20K00806. Their support is gratefully acknowledged.

Appendix: Test relative clauses

Yoshimura et al. (2021) and Fujimori et al. (2022)
Condition 1: [+animate] [RC [-animate] <[+animate]>]
 the dog that the rock is hitting
 the thief that the robot is chasing
Condition 2: [-animate] [RC [-animate] <[-animate]>]
 the truck that the school bus is pushing
 the ball that the falling stone attacked
Condition 3: [-animate] [RC [+animate] <[-animate]>]
 the police car that the sailor followed
 the computer that the suspect found
Condition 4: [+animate] [RC [+animate] <[+animate]>]
 the white rabbit that the child loved
 the old lady that the elephant crashed into
Yoshimura et al. (2023)
Choose X
SRC [-animate] [RC <[-animate]> [+animate]]
 the truck that is pushing a boy
 the village that loves a panda
 the box that hits a girl
ORC C2 [-animate] [RC [-animate] <[-animate]>]
 the computer that the robot found
 the rock that a basketball is falling onto
 the ball that an airplane struck
ORC C3 [-animate] [RC [+animate] <[-animate]>]
 the police car that a sailor is following
 the tractor that a detective is chasing
 the roller coaster that an old lady crashed into
Yoshimura et al. (2024)
Condition 1: the [+animate] head with the [-animate] RC subject
Mari, please select the picture of the sailor who the police car is following
 the picture of the soccer player that the ball struck
 the picture of the detective that the tractor is chasing
Condition 2: [-animate] [RC [-animate] <[-animate]>]
 the picture of the tractor that the bus is chasing
 the picture of the helicopter that the roller coaster struck
 the picture of the basketball that A box touched
Condition 3: [-animate] [RC [+animate] <[-animate]>]
 the picture of the computer that the suspect found
 the picture of the rock that the cat is falling onto
 the picture of the police car that the sailor is chasing
Condition 4: [+animate] [RC [+animate] <[+animate]>]
 the picture of the boy that the girl is hugging
 the picture of the old lady that the elephant is greeting
 the picture of the fan that the player struck

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Received: 2023-12-27
Accepted: 2024-05-10
Published Online: 2024-11-05
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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