Abstract

Today’s world has embarked upon a new global era, in which cross language communication gains ever-increasing significance. To break and bridge the language barriers and gaps, a growing number of people are now studying more than one foreign language; thus, the researches on bilingualism, trilingualism and even multilingualism is afoot in a no small scale. Chinese Ministry of Education requires English majors to take up another second foreign language other than English, and Japanese is among the most popular choices. The thesis is a brief study on the negative transfer from English to Japanese. Compared to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), Third Language Acquisition (TLA) is relatively under-explored. Nevertheless, language transfer in TLA is undeniable and has been manifested, but more detailed research is needed to clarify. 

As English loanwords take up no small proportion in Japanese, and “Japanized English words” is the very kind of loanwords undergoing semantic and lexical changes from their English derivation, therefore, English (L2) learners, who are unaware of the changes, are expected to transfer the previously-learned English knowledge to Japanese and thus miscomprehend “Japanized English words”. In this sense, the thesis might help to arouse the awareness of the changes, to avoid negative transfer in the course of Japanese lexical acquisition, and thus to facilitate Japanese acquisition.

The thesis is conducted based on the research on TLA and language transfer, not only to facilitate the English majors’ Japanese acquisition on the part of learners and but also to advance the development in the linguist field of language transfer in TLA. The study of the negative lexical effect will be manifested and exemplified by data collected both from a revealing survey done in Nagoya University; and the commonly-used textbook by Japanese as L3 students in China, “Standard Japanese for Sino-Japanese Communication (new edition)”.

Key Words: Third Language Acquisition; Negative Transfer; Lexical Change; Semantic Change; “Japanized English Words”

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.-Introduction-1

1.1-Background and Motivation-1

1.2-Significance-2

1.3-Layout-3

2.-Literature Review-5

2.1-Third Language Acquisition-5

2.1.1-The Definition of TLA-5

2.1.2-The Main Researches in TLA-6

2.1.3-TLA and SLA-7

2.2-Language Transfer-8

2.2.1-Definition of Language Transfer-8

2.2.2-Language Transfer in TLA-9

2.2.3-Negative Transfer-10

2.3-Summary-11

3.-Japanized English Words-12

3.1-The Definition of Japanized English Words-12

3.2-The Development of Japanized English Words-13

3.3-Lexical and Semantic Changes of Japanized English Words-14

3.4-Summary-15

4.-Data Analysis-17

4.1-The Introduction of Data-17

4.1.1-Survey done at Nagoya University-17

4.1.2-The Textbook-20

4.2-Lexical Change of Japanized English Words-20

4.2.1-Coinage·-21

4.2.2-Clippings-22

4.2.3-Blendings-22

4.2.4-Acronyms-23

4.2.5-Functional Shifts-23

4.3-Semantic Change of Japanized English Words-24

4.3.1-Semantic Broadening-24

4.3.2-Semantic Narrowing-24

4.3.3-Semantic Shift-25

5.-Conclusion-26

5.1-Major Findings-26

5.2-Limitations-27

Bibliography-29

Acknowledgements-33