Makiko Hirakawa

A Study of the L2 Acquisition of English Reflexives.

This paper reports on an experimental study which was conducted to examine how native speakers of Japanese acquire syntactic properties of English reflexive pronouns. In particular, the effects of two parameters of Universal Grammar, the Governing Category Parameter and the Proper Antecedent Parameter (Wexler and Manzini, 1987), were studied. The Governing Category Parameter has five values, of which Manzini and Wexler suggest that English represents the most unmarked value while Japanese and Korean represent the most marked one. In a learning situation where the L 1 is marked and the L2 is unmarked, we may ask whether learners observe the Subset Principle and successfully acquire the correct L2 value or whether they wrongly transfer their L1 value to the L2 grammar, or assume a value in between, as found by Finer and Broselow (1986). An experimental study was conducted to examine how Japanese learners of English set values of the above parameters. Results suggest that the L2 learners transferred their L1 parameter setting, leading to transfer errors; i.e., non-operation of the Subset Principle. However, I suggest that parameter resetting is possible, at least for some learners.

L2 Acquisition of Japanese Unaccusative Verbs

This paper reports on an experimental study that investigates the acquisition of Japanese unaccusative verbs by English-speaking learners. Following Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995), it is assumed that unaccusativity is syntactically represented but semantically determined. The experiment is devised specifically to examine whether L2 learners are sensitive to syntactic and semantic properties associated with unaccusative verbs in Japanese, which contrast with the properties of unergative verbs. In particular, the experiment involved picture tasks with two structures: the takusan construction as a syntactic test and the -teiru construction as a semantic test. Overall results of the experiment show that L2 learners generally know the properties investigated; that is, that subjects of unaccusative verbs originate in object position, and semantic notions such as telicity and change of state are aspects of meaning relevant to the classification of unaccusativity in Japanese. Based on these results, it is argued that the mapping of verb arguments to syntactic positions is not random, but rule governed, for most of the L2 learners in the present study.

Alternations and Argument Structure in Second Language English: Knowledge of Two Types of Intransitive Verbs

This chapter discusses nontarget “overpassivization” errors in L2 English by Japanese speakers (e.g., the earthquake was happened last night) and the effects of classroom instruction on such errors. A number of studies have reported that the errors in which intransitive verbs appear in the passive form, be + V-ed, are confined to one type of intransitive verb, so-called unaccusative verbs, and that the errors are often found even among high-proficiency learners. An experimental study was conducted at a university in Japan to examine the effects of explicit teaching on the ungrammaticality of passive intransitive verbs. Learners’ knowledge was examined before and after four weeks of teaching. Results partly suggest that instruction had some positive effect on L2 knowledge of English. Even though the amount of instruction learners received in the present study may not have been sufficient for all the learners to attain knowledge that enabled them to correctly reject the ungrammatical passives, individual analyses revealed there were a few learners who appeared to have overcome overpassivization errors.

Developmental Sentence Scoring for Japanese

This article reports on the development and use of the Developmental Sentence Scoring for Japanese (DSSJ), a new morpho-syntactical measure for Japanese constructed after the model of Lee’s English Developmental Sentence Scoring model. Using this measure, the authors calculated DSSJ scores for 84 children divided into six age groups between 2;8 and 5;2 on the basis of 100-sentence samples collected from free-play child–adult conversations. The analysis showed a high correlation of the DSSJ overall score with the Mean Length of Utterance. The analysis of the DSSJ sub-area scores revealed large variations between these sub-area scores for children with similar overall DSSJ scores. When investigating the high-scoring children (over 1 SD over group average), most children scored high in three to five sub-areas, but the combination of scores for these sub-areas varied from child to child. It is concluded that DSSJ is a valuable tool especially for language acquisition research. The overall DSSJ score reliably reflects the overall morpho-syntactic development of Japanese children, and the sub-area scores provide specific information on individual acquisition patterns.

Explicit instruction, input flood or study abroad: Which helps Japanese learners of English acquire adjective ordering?

This article explores what kind of second language (L2) input influences Japanese learners’ acquisition of adjective ordering restrictions (AOR) in English where Japanese exhibits no AOR. In Study I, an explicit instruction (EI) group (n = 13) and a natural exposure (NE) group (n = 12) responded to a preference task. In Study II, an input flood (IF) group (n = 15) and a NE group (n = 16) were involved in the same task. The EI group received 90-minute EI across three weeks while the IF group received positive evidence with multiple adjectives over 15 weeks. The NE groups participated in three or five-week intensive study-abroad programs in North America. Results from the two studies showed that many of the participants failed to make correct choices at the pre-test indicating difficulty with AOR and that only the EI group improved in their performance at the post-tests. We claim that positive evidence alone does not guarantee L2 acquisition of AOR.