English Produced By Japanese L2 Users

This book discusses ten grammatical items, with main focus on prepositions and plural nouns, to illustrate the structure of Japanese English or the English spoken by 32 Japanese nationals who are the L2 users of English. Adopting an inductive, theory-neutral, analysis of empirical data collected from recordings of presentational talks, the author demonstrates how standard and nonstandard grammatical forms are distributed, and categorizes these based largely on functional factors. The book describes grammatical forms as a fundamental aspect of linguistic study and adopts a corpus-driven approach to qualify structural features characterizing usage data. This formalization of language usage patterns also facilitates the development of ‘locally’ relevant norms and thus presents alternatives to the normative varieties traditionally adopted. It examines the effects of multicompetence and unpacks the grammar of Japanese English. The book is of interest to researchers, educators, and students concerned with issues related to World Englishes, English as a lingua franca, English language teaching, and multilingualism, this text is vital to studies in global English language use.

Portraits of the L2 User treats second language users in their own right rather than as failed native speakers. It describes a range of psychological and linguistic approaches to diverse topics about L2 users. It thus provides an innovative overview of current second language acquisition theories, results and methods, seen from a common perspective.

Portraits of the L2 User treats second language users in their own right rather than as failed native speakers. It describes a range of psychological and linguistic approaches to diverse topics about L2 users. It thus provides an innovative overview of current second language acquisition theories, results and methods, seen from a common perspective.

ELF (English as a lingua franca) research counters the monocentric view of English based on norms of native speakers of English, and supports any usages reflecting sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic reality of ELF communication. Such an approach empowers any speakers of English to contemplate their own varieties of English as legitimate, providing them greater options for positive self-identification. Based on qualitative and interpretive methodology, this book illustrates how Japanese L2 English users establish identities related to L2 English as part of their multiple identities, and how they explore new identity options through ELF. Moreover, the author demonstrates how power relations relating to English language are constructed through the participants’ experiences in ELF interactions. Also, analysis of the data reveals that to what degree the Japanese L2 English users wish to affiliate with particular groups in ELF interactions with people from diverse cultural background. Because of the multidisciplinary nature of the study, this book will appeal to a broad audience such as scholars and students who are interested in further understanding of identity and sociocultural issues involved in intercultural communication.

The book concerns the ways in which the new media shape communication along with educational expectations and practices in foreign language classrooms. Although foreign language learners have cheap and easy access to information and ways of communication, they also wrestle with problems that have always accompanied language learning. The focus of the book is two-fold. On the one hand, the authors demonstrate how using social networks, videoconferencing, mobile phones, wikis, and computer-mediated interaction contributes to the development of language skills, negotiated interaction, autonomy, and intercultural competence. On the other, they discuss “old” issues pertaining to the role of vocabulary, corrective feedback, textbooks and inner speech in the process of language learning and use. Every chapter reports original empirical research on issues related to the new media and old problems in foreign language teaching contexts in various countries, and with respect to various age groups.

The focus of this volume in our ongoing series has shifted from the technological advances that were the topic of numerous papers in the previous book to more rigorous and empirical research, especially in the linguistics and methodology section. While the former is represented by the majority of papers, methodology still manages to surprise with new findings in often-overlooked areas, such as how to address students with impairments in English Language Teaching (ELT), the use of gesture, and the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The linguistics section starts out with a look at academic English as a lingua franca (ELF) practices, native and non-native English varieties and ELT, pragmatic markers and hedging, and corpora. The compact literary section correlates with the diversity inherent in the field and concerns ethnic writing, indigenous storytelling, animality and elaborations on postmodernist fiction. As such, this collection of research papers will bring topics and approaches to the attention of a wide spectrum of practitioners as both an impetus and inspiration.

A cogent, freshly written synthesis of new and classic work on crosslinguistic influence, or language transfer, this book is an authoritative account of transfer in second-language learning and its consequences for language and thought. It covers transfer in both production and comprehension, and discusses the distinction between semantic and conceptual transfer, lateral transfer, and reverse transfer. The book is ideal as a text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in bilingualism, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology, and will also be of interest to researchers in these areas.

The studies of the Japanese language and psycholinguistics have advanced quite significantly in the last half century thanks to the progress in the study of cognition and brain mechanisms, and because of technological developments in experimental techniques. This volume contains 18 chapters that discuss the process of Japanese language acquisition as a first/second language and the mechanism of Japanese language perception and production.