Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T10:20:54.395Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Paths of Processing Strategy Transfers in Learning Japanese and English as Foreign Languages

A Competition Model Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2008

Yoshinori Sasaki
Yoshinori Sasaki
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper reports on a competition model experiment designed to investigate the sentence-processing strategies of English-speaking learners of Japanese (JFL learners) and Japanese-speaking learners of English. The participants were required to identify the sentence subject of a series of English and Japanese word strings, each consisting of one verb and two nouns, in which noun-animacy, word-order, and case-marking cues either competed or were consistent with each other. The results indicated a correlation between learners' proficiency in Japanese and case-marker dependency in Japanese strings. JFL learners primarily resorted to animacy cues to interpret Japanese strings, suggesting a prepotent role for lexical semantics. There was little evidence of transfer of surface word order, although some JFL learners resorted to the Japanese canonical SOV order to a greater extent than the native Japanese.

Type
Articles
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 43 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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

Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1981). Second-language acquisition from a functionalist perspective: Pragmatic, semantic, and perceptual strategies. In Winitz, H. (Ed.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences conference on native & foreign language acquisition (pp. 190–214). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Bates, E., MacWhinney, B., Caselli, C., Devascovi, A., Natale, F., & Venza, V. (1984). A cross-linguistic study of the development of sentence interpretation strategies. Child Development, 55, 351–354.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chandler, J. P. (1969). Subroutine STEPIT finds local minima of a smooth function of several parameters. Behavioral Science, 14, 81–82.Google Scholar
Gass, S. (1987). The resolution of conflicts among competing systems: A bidirectional perspective. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 329–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, M. (1987). Processing transfer: Language-specific processing strategies as a source of interlanguage variation. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 351–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ito, T. (1984). Universal and particular in sentence processing strategies in monolinguals, bilinguals, and second language learners: A cross-linguistic study. Unpublished manuscript, Wako University, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Ito, T., Tahara, T., & Park, W. (1989). Japanese particles as case markers: Developmental psycholinguistic comparison between Japanese and Korean, and within Japanese [in Japanese]. In Peng, F. L., Peng, V., Miyake, H., Sasaki, M., & Watanabe, T. (Eds.), Language in the individual and society (pp. 93–111). Hiroshima, Japan: Bunka-Hyoron.Google Scholar
Kilborn, K. (1987). Sentence processing in a second language: Seeking a performance definition of fluency. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Kilborn, K., & Cooreman, A. (1987). Sentence interpretation strategies in adult Dutch-English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 415–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilborn, K., & Ito, T. (1989). Sentence processing strategies in adult bilinguals. In MacWhinney, B. & Bates, E. (Eds.), The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing (pp. 257–291). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, H., Bates, E., & Li, P. (1992). Sentence interpretation in bilingual speakers of English and Chinese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 13, 451–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1987a). Applying the competition model to bilingualism. Applied Psycholinguistics, 8, 315–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1987b). The competition model. In MacWhinney, B. (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 249–308). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., & Bates, E. (Eds.). (1989). The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Massaro, D. W., & Cohen, M. M. (1983). Phonological context in speech perception. Perception & Psychophysics, 34, 338–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonald, J. L. (1984). The mapping of semantic and syntactic processing cues by first and second language learners of English, Dutch, and German. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
McDonald, J. L. (1986). The development of sentence comprehension strategies in English and Dutch. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41, 317–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, J. L. (1987). Sentence interpretation in bilingual speakers of English and Dutch. Applied Psycholin-guistics, 8, 379–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, J. C. (1974). A non-contrastive approach to error analysis. In Richards, J. (Ed.), Error analysis (pp. 172–188). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Sasaki, Y. (1991). English and Japanese interlanguage comprehension strategies: An analysis based on the competition model. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sasaki, Y. (1992). Paths of processing strategy transfer in learning Japanese and English as foreign languages: A competition model approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.Google Scholar
Whitman, R. L., & Jackson, K. L. (1972). The unpredictability of contrastive analysis. Language Learning, 22, 29–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wulfeck, B. B., Juarez, L., Bates, E., & Kilborn, K. (1986). Sentence interpretation strategies in healthy and aphasic bilingual adults. In Vaid, J. (Ed.), Language processing in bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological perspectives (pp. 199–220). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar