Category: Language Acquisition
Japanese ESL Students’ Willingness to Communicate in English: The Effects of L2 Self-Confidence, Acculturation, and Motivational Types
This study aimed to identify the factors that affect English learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in the second language (L2) (L2 WTC) and particularly focused on self-confidence in the second language (L2 self-confidence), acculturation, and motivational types. L2 self-confidence was hypothesized to predict L2 WTC and to mediate the correlation between acculturation and L2 WTC …
Bilingual Transition of Address Terms for Family Members: A Longitudinal L1 Case Study from Birth
This longitudinal study focuses on the bilingual transition of address terms for family members used by a Japanese-English speaking child from birth. The child has been raised in Japan, mostly in English at home, and in Japanese at nursery since 0;4; and has been in a regular Japanese schooling system since 3;0. In a broad …
Gender Differences in Subjective Age of Word Acquisition
Studies in language development have shown that throughout childhood and adolescence girls are more advanced in language acquisition than boys. However, researchers in psycholinguistics have paid little attention to gender differences in subjective age of acquisition (AoA) – people’s reports of the age at which they think they learned a particular word. The aim of …
Contrasting Pragmatic Elements of L2 Japanese and L2 English Learning: A Closer Look at Refusals and Indirect Opinions
This paper examines the acquisition of pragmatically correct refusal and indirect opinion strategies by first language (L1) English learners of Japanese, and mirror image pragmatic acquisition of L1 Japanese learners of English. The scholarly evidence seemingly indicates that both L2 learners of English and Japanese can acquire and adopt pragmatically correct refusal and indirect opinion …