Abstract
This longitudinal study analyzes the acquisition of some aspects of Japanese
morphology by two children within the framework of Processability Theory
(PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). Both children were acquiring Japanese in an
English-Japanese bilingual context, but one was acquiring Japanese as a
second language (L2) and the other as a first language (L1) at the time of the
study. The study focuses particularly on the process and rate of acquisition
by the two children and examines whether they acquired selected Japanese
morphological structures in a similar manner. The results show that both the
L2 child and the bilingual L1 child took a similar route in the process of
acquiring morphology in Japanese. However, the acquisition rate of the L2
child was faster than that of the bilingual L1 child. This may be attributed to
the different levels of generic cognitive development and the developmental
stage of the other language on which the two children of different ages built
their acquisition of Japanese.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 30-58 |
Journal | Journal of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences |
Volume | 14 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |