The Role of Linguistic Explanation in the Acquisition of Japanese Imperfective -teiru

Abstract

Previous studies on the L2 acquisition of -teiru in Japanese have revealed that the resultative meaning of -teiru is learned later than its progressive meaning, as predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis (Shirai and Kurono, Language Learning, 48, 245–279, 1998). It has also been found that learners have problems with the resultative meaning of -teiru when there is L1—L2 crosslinguistic discrepancy in lexical aspect (Nishi, Verb learning and the acquisition of aspect: Rethinking the universality of lexical aspect and the significance of L1 transfer. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, 2008). While researchers have uncovered the universal tendency of the developmental process of -teiru, it is not clear what promotes the learning of more difficult (or less prototypical or more marked) meanings of -teiru, and to what extent instruction affects the learning. It is also a question of whether the lexical aspect of verbs in L2 is learnable. As an attempt to address these issues, this study investigated the role of explicit grammar instruction on the learning of the resultative meaning of -teiru, by teaching L2 learners of Japanese the notion of lexical aspect, and how the aspectual meaning of -teiru is determined by lexical aspect. The results showed a positive effect of explicit form-focused instruction for the beginner group, but not for the intermediate group. The findings suggest that explicit linguistic explanation may facilitate the learning of Japanese imperfective -teiru, at least in the early stages of learning.