Interlanguage: Activity 2
Demonstrative ‘ko-’ ‘so-’ ‘a-’
Through her cross-sectional (Sakoda, 1993) and longitudinal (Sakoda, 1996) studies using interview data, Sakoda proposed developmental sequences that L2 learners of Japanese go through in acquiring anaphoric demonstratives of ‘ko-,’ ‘so-,’ ‘a-’. She found that the beginning level learners rarely used demonstratives and even when they did, they used them incorrectly. The main types of errors she found include the use of ‘ko-’ instead of ‘so-‘ and the use of ‘a-’ instead of ‘so-.’ The former type appeared at the beginning level among all the participants and the latter type was found even at the advanced level when errors decreased.
- Below we list all the anaphoric expressions in Sebastian and Maximus’ interviews. We marked erroneous examples with a blue highlight. Which of the two learner languages seems to be at a lower stage of development in anaphoric reference? Why do you think so?
Sebastian’s Interview
| 28-29 | あのう、多分最初は読み物を読んで、あの後で、単語を習って… |
100 |
あの、たくさん日本人は、あの彼女(referring to a woman in line 97)一緒に、あー話したくありません。 |
109-110 |
あの日本人の父は、あのお父さんは、彼女とたくさん感動しました。 |
113-114 |
はい、はい、死んだから、あの彼女とお父さんは、たくさん、あの、戦っていました。 |
Maximus’ Interview
| 49-51 | 大学の一年の時、特別な大学に行ってー、その大学は日本語の授業がないでー、… |
62-63 |
時々ホストファミリー、昔のホストファミリーと電話をかけて、でもそれ以上はあんまり使わない。 |
81-82 |
あー、あらすじはー、何かー、お父さんがいってー、あ、侍がいて、その人がー、あー特別な侍の家に行ってー、… |
83-84 |
その、その侍は（referring to the samurai in line 81）お父さんだってー、 |
85-86 |
その人が(still referring to the samurai in line 81）お金を探すのことを、あー、できな、できないので、… |
89 |
でも、日本、その時は戦争がないでー、… |
90 |
でも、この特別な、あー、侍のかずか、家族みたいな人たち… |
98 |
でも、この人は（referring to the samurai in line 90）竹の刀で切りました。 |
98-99 |
とても悪い、そんな感じしました。 |
99-100 |
じゃあ、それからこのお父さん(referring to the samurai in line 81)が、… |
100 |
この、えーとー、侍の(referring to the samurai in line 90) 家族を、あー、殺す、殺すことにー、あー、になりました。 |
- Now look at the tables below in which we laid out the way Sebastian and Maximus referred to each other’s pictures in the Jigsaw Task (these are the only examples of demonstratives in the task). Compared to their use of anaphoric demonstratives, what do you observe in their use of demonstratives for spatial references to concrete objects? Why do you think what you observe happened?
Sebastian
| 27 | あのー、あの、あー、あの写真はテレビのことがありますか？ |
46 |
あのしゃし、あの写真のフェンスの色は何ですか？ |
56 |
*あの家の二階はのいくつ窓がありますか？ |
Maximus
| 32 | えーとー、とー、あの家は、の前は、木がありますか？ |
55 |
あの家のは二階がありますか？ |
Please type your answers to the questions in the box below.
When you have finished typing your answer, click to compare your response with the Learner Language staff response.
- Sebastian used demonstratives only four times in his interview and all of them are the typical erroneous use of ‘a-’ instead of ‘so-.’ In contrast, there were 11 examples of demonstratives in Maximus’ interview where he correctly used ‘so-’ and ‘ko-.’ Because Sebastian’s use of demonstratives is less frequent and less accurate than that of Maximus, Sebastian seems to be at a lower stage of development in anaphoric reference.
- Both Sebastian and Maximus used ‘a-’ instead of ‘so-.’ The use of ‘a-’ instead of ‘so-’, according Sakoda (1993, 1996) can be found even among advanced level learners. Surprisingly, however, Maximus incorrectly used ‘a-’ instead of ‘so-’ in referring to concrete objects, while he perfectly used ‘so-’ as well as ‘ko-’for anaphoric references in his interview. Maybe he has not acquired the use of demonstratives for the function of spatial references to concrete objects yet. Or possibly he might have used ‘a-’ in this task in accommodating his language use to Sebastian, who was using ‘a-‘ instead of ‘so-‘ (see Beebe and Giles’ (1984) discussion of accommodation in learner language).
- We particularly found it difficult to identify the demonstrative ‘a-’ in Sebastian’s speech because he frequently used a filler ‘ano’ in his speech and it was challenging to distinguish the demonstrative ‘ano’ from a filler ‘ano.’ We included all instances that were preceded by referents. Thus, examples such as “あの彼女は (that she)” in the tables could have been intended as “あの、彼女は(uhm, she).” Learner language is often indeterminate in this way.
Beebe, L., & Giles, H. (1984). Speech accommodation theories: A discussion in terms of second language acquisition. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 46, 5-32.
