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In:Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region
Edited by Satomi Kawaguchi, Bruno Di Biase and Yumiko Yamaguchi
[Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching 9] 2023
► pp. 115–143

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Chapter 5
Acquiring content questions in Japanese child second language

 | Western Sydney University
 | Edith Cowan University
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.9.05kaw
Abstract
This longitudinal study examines the development of Japanese content questions in an English L1-Japanese L2 child within the Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). Our informant, John, started learning Japanese from 6;3 at a Japanese school in Australia. The data were collected between 7;0–8;9, where John produced 373 content questions. The developmental stages of content questions in Japanese L2 were hypothesised based on the Prominence Hypothesis. The analysis revealed that after the production of single-word questions, content questions appeared with a copula followed by lexical verbs, mostly in-situ, consistent with the Prominence Hypothesis. John produced errors concerning incorrect case particles being attached to the question words and NPs. These errors were not reported in monolingual and bilingual first language studies on content questions. These can be explained in terms of his current language acquisition stage.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Content questions in English and Japanese
  • 3.The acquisition of content questions
    • 3.1Acquisition of content question in L1
    • 3.2Acquisition of content questions in L2
    • 3.3Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA)
  • 4.The Prominence Hypothesis in PT
  • 5.The study
    • 5.1The informant
    • 5.2Data collection and tasks
    • 5.3Data analysis
  • 6.Results and discussion
    • 6.1Question words
    • 6.2Developmental sequence of content questions
    • 6.3Prominence Hypothesis-based developmental sequence of content questions
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • References
  • Appendix
References (46)
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