Japan's Built-in Lexicon of English-Based Loanwords (Second Language Acquisition)

Japan's Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editor: Professor David Singlet...

Author: Frank E. Daulton

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Japan's Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editor: Professor David Singleton, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers and teachers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Other Books in the Series Focus on French as a Foreign Language: Multidisciplinary Approaches Jean-Marc Dewaele (ed.) Second Language Writing Systems Vivian Cook and Benedetta Bassetti (eds) Third Language Learners: Pragmatic Production and Awareness Maria Pilar Safont Jordà Artificial Intelligence in Second Language Learning: Raising Error Awareness Marina Dodigovic Studies of Fossilization in Second Language Acquisition ZhaoHong Han and Terence Odlin (eds) Language Learners in Study Abroad Contexts Margaret A. DuFon and Eton Churchill (eds) Early Trilingualism: A Focus on Questions Julia D. Barnes Cross-linguistic Influences in the Second Language Lexicon Janusz Arabski (ed.) Motivation, Language Attitudes and Globalisation: A Hungarian Perspective Zoltán Dörnyei, Kata Csizér and Nóra Németh Age and the Rate of Foreign Language Learning Carmen Muñoz (ed.) Investigating Tasks in Formal Language Learning María del Pilar García Mayo (ed.) Input for Instructed L2 Learners: The Relevance of Relevance Anna Nizegorodcew Cross-linguistic Similarity in Foreign Language Learning Håkan Ringbom Second Language Lexical Processes Zsolt Lengyel and Judit Navracsics (eds) Third or Additional Language Acquisition Gessica De Angelis Understanding Second Language Process ZhaoHong Han (ed.) For more details of these or any other of our publications, please contact: Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England http://www.multilingual-matters.com

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 26 Series Editor: David Singleton, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Japan's Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords Frank E. Daulton

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Daulton, Frank E. Japan's Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords / Frank E. Daulton. Second Language Acquisition: 26 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Japanese language–Foreign words and phrases–English. 2. English language–Study and teaching–Japan. I. Title. PL664.E5D38 2008 495.6'2421–dc22 2007029788 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-030-2 (hbk) Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2008 Frank E. Daulton. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Datapage International Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd.

Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction: The Importance of Cognates for EFL in Japan . . . . . . . . 1

Part 1: Japan’s Importation of English 1 The Assimilation of English into Japanese A Historical and Linguistic Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2 Today’s Generation of Gairaigo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Part 2: Gairaigo and Language Acquisition 3 Resolving the Paradox of Cognates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 4 The Effect of Loanwords in Japanese on the Learning of English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Part 3: The Built-in Lexicons 5 Common Loanword Cognates for High-frequency and Academic English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 6 Quantifying the Overlap and Quality of Japanese/English Cognates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Part 4: Exploiting Japanese Loanword Cognates 7 Barriers to Accessing Cognates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 8 Extending Word Knowledge Within Word Families. . . . . . . . . . 110 Epilogue

New Horizons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Appendix 1. The Standard Set of Katakana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2. The List of Common Loanwords Corresponding to the BNC 3000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 3. Academic Borrowed Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 4. The Similarity of 1K Sampled Borrowed Words and Japanese Loanwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 5. The Similarity of 2K Sampled Borrowed Words and Japanese Loanwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

. . . . . 131 . . . . . 133 . . . . . 156 . . . . . 164 . . . . . 168

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Japan’s Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords

Appendix 6. The Similarity of 3K Sampled Borrowed Words and Japanese Loanwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Acknowledgements Thanks to Ha˚kan Ringbom for providing supportive comments throughout the preparation of this book. Sections have been read and commented on by John Crosetto, Tyrone Daulton, Susan Krashinsky, Mayumi Okamoto, Linh Pallos, Paul Stapleton, Jeannet Stephen, Meredith Stephens and Emi Uchida; I am very grateful for all this help. Ryukoku University has provided support for this publication. This book is dedicated to my parents, who loved books. A note on scripts: English vocabulary items will appear in the Roman alphabet underlined (e.g. word). Japanese loanwords will appear in the Roman alphabet underlined and italicised (waado), using a modified Hepburn Romanisation; occasionally loanwords will appear in their katakana forms ). (e.g.

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Introduction: The Importance of Cognates for EFL in Japan Sometimes worlds are linked by words. English night, for example, is related to nuit (French), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), nicht (Scots), nat (Danish), noc (Czech, Polish), noch (Russian), noc (Serbian), nox (Latin), nakti- (Sanskrit), nate¨ (Albanian), noche (Spanish), nos (Welsh), noite (Portuguese), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), noapte (Romanian), no´tt (Icelandic) and naktis (Lithuanian), all deriving from Proto-Indo-European nekwt- . Moreover, as a result of the Norman Conquest and other historical events, French and Latin have strongly influenced English, leading to cognates such as promenade and focus. English, in turn, has spread across the globe and is spoken by some two billion people. Native English speakers are greatly helped in learning related languages because of this web of linguistic connections. In contrast to English, the Japanese language developed in relative isolation. Japanese belongs to the Japonic language family, which is shared only by the Ryukyuan languages spoken around Okinawa. When the Japanese needed a writing system and to enhance their lexicon, they borrowed from their immediate neighbours, China and Korea. Japanese is essentially spoken only in its homeland, and being fluent in Japanese requires mastery of a complex system of honorifics that reflect the hierarchy of Japanese society. In many aspects, English and Japanese are completely dissimilar languages; we say potato, the Japanese say jagaimo ; ) ... we say tomato, the Japanese say tomato ( In fact, while Japanese phonology, syntax, pragmatics and discourse have remained relatively impervious to outside influence, a distant and exotic language English has extensively and fundamentally transformed the Japanese lexicon. Through the activities of certain Japanese individuals, a flood of English words have been ‘borrowed’ to become gairaigo ( ) Western loanwords in Japanese. Even English-based poteto (potato) has arrived as an alternative to Japanese jagaimo . The scale of Japan’s borrowing of English is virtually unparalleled in the world. 1

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However, Japanese EFL (English as a foreign language) has largely neglected this potential resource, and research on loanword cognates has languished; this is unfortunate, in light of the arguably dismal state of English education in Japan.

The State of English Education in Japan The late Edwin O. Reischauer, renowned US ambassador to Japan, satirically listed Japan’s miserable performance in English as one of the Seven Wonders of the World (Honna, 1995). Despite the vast resources devoted to English education, and the vast amount of English circulating in forms ranging from billboards to everyday loanwords, Japan is among the world’s monolingual societies where English-speaking visitors have great difficulty communicating. For more than 100 years, there has been formal English education in Japan with most Japanese people today having studied it for at least six years. Ninety-nine percent of the Japanese study English for three years at middle school, and about 92% for a further three years at high school (Morrow, 1987). The average Japanese person has had at least 3120 hours of English instruction (Honna, 1995); more if they attended college. However, Japanese EFL is characterised by not only its dependence on grammar-translation and focus on entrance exams, but by large classes of taciturn students. Sociocultural factors such as self-efficacy, fear of failure, anxiety and intolerance of mistakes afflict learners. Language learners without the confidence to produce require much greater time to achieve any measure of fluency, as they are not actively engaged in theory testing, and have limited reception and production opportunities (Ringbom, 1987). Indeed, Japanese learners lack what Ngeow (1998) calls a ‘positive disposition towards learning’, which should include: high motivation; risk-taking attitudes; mindfulness or attentiveness; and a sense of responsibility for learning. Even the linguistic circumstances work against English education, and most Japanese consider English to be very distant and not useful in daily life. First, Japan is not a society in which English plays a meaningful role as a language of international communication. The lack of opportunity to use it weakens the motivations of learners to acquire a working command of English. This is true in many places other than Japan. (Honna, 1995: 57)

Introduction: The Importance of Cognates for EFL in Japan

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Indeed, the situation of Finnish EFL used to be quite similar (Ringbom, 1987); learners in such situations spend only a very limited time on learning. The results of Japan’s universal English education system are poor indeed. Loveday (1996: 153) describes the Japanese public as ‘basilectal’; ‘distant non-bilingual’ (p. 95); and having ‘a low, pidgin-like level covering only the most basic of needs’ (p. 99). Almost no graduate can communicate with foreigners beyond a few formulaic expressions. Not surprisingly, Japan ranks near the bottom of nations in TOEFL scores (Bronner, 2000), and English is one of the most unpopular subjects among students (Loveday, 1996).

The Potential of Cognates in Japanese EFL Most researchers believe communicative competence is heavily based on the lexicon. Vocabulary acquisition was once the neglected area of language study, but this tendency has been replaced by a growing awareness that a solid vocabulary is necessary in every stage of learning. Vocabulary knowledge enables language use, language use enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge, knowledge of the world enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge and language use and so on. (Nation & Waring, 1997: 7) Not surprisingly, vocabulary ability correlates positively with overall linguistic ability (e.g. Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Read, 2000). Numerous studies confirm the crucial role of vocabulary in both L1 (e.g. Carroll, 1972) and L2 acquisition (Coady & Huckin, 1997; Huckin et al ., 1993; Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997; Schreuder & Weltens, 1993). Japan’s English education system encourages learners to memorise complex and obscure grammar rules, but fails to provide the massive vocabulary expansion, passive and active, needed to attain communicative competence. It is a maxim that without grammar, very little can be communicated, but without vocabulary, nothing can. For instance, if someone were to ask you on the street, ‘Telephone box, where?’, you could guess what he or she means, whereas if the questioner does not know the expression ‘telephone box’, nothing beyond gestures can be communicated; fortunately, almost any Japanese tourist knows ‘telephone box’, as it exists in Japanese as a cognate (Uchida, 2001a). Throughout the world, learners’ L1 (first language) can be their most important asset in acquiring a second language. This is, for instance, the

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case for Korean learners of English, despite their preconception that English is very difficult. The effort of vocabulary learning is necessary to achieve a certain result desired by the learner, and the learner may be encouraged by seeing how fast he can go. The learner is interested primarily in accomplishment. He is interested in effort only in so far as it is conducive to the accomplishment which he desires. In particular, with cognates, it is easy for him to recognize the form and meaning of vocabulary items and to produce such sentences as he would like to express. (Lee, 1958: 57 58) English words in Korean are called Oi-rae-eo, which, like Japanese gairaigo , means literally ‘words coming from abroad’. There are numerous other parallels to English borrowing in Japan, including: transliteration; phonological transformation; and that loanwords have reached almost every aspect of Korean life. It is noteworthy that most English loanwords in Korean, e.g. kola (cola), kopi (coffee), plaet-fom (platform), cham-pu (shampoo), ais-krim (ice cream), taeksi (taxi), wiski (whiskey), nait-klop (nightclub) and koktel pati (cocktail party), also exist in Japan’s more extensive loanword lexicon. For a start, similarities between native language and target language vocabulary can reduce the time needed to develop good reading comprehension (e.g. Odlin, 1989), and enhance motivation and confidence (e.g. Ngeow, 1998; Pea, 1988), both of which are crucial for continued learning. Most students of English in Japan are at a relatively low level in their studies. For such learners, intralingual cues are unavailable, as they lack target language knowledge concerning phonology, orthography, morphology and syntax (Palmberg, 1987). Contextual cues are likewise problematic as such interpretations are biased by sociocultural perceptions. Fortunately, Japanese can draw upon their previous language knowledge, particularly the phonological and orthographic correspondences that arise through borrowing. Because of the vast number of English words that have been borrowed, the Japanese have access to countless potential cognates, which include high-frequency and academic words. English loanwords in Japanese are a built-in lexicon of English words learners have yet to encounter. Unfortunately, the role of L1 in L2 acquisition has been actively neglected in Japan.

Introduction: The Importance of Cognates for EFL in Japan

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An Investigation When two distant fields of research are linked, often remarkable possibilities are revealed. Such an important link pertains for Japanese individuals learning English. On the one hand, much has been written about the importance of certain types of English vocabulary, such as high-frequency and academic words. On the other hand, there are an enormous number of English-based loanwords in Japanese. What if the Japanese are already familiar with many of the most important words of English, due to the English-based vocabulary stored in the Japanese lexicon as gairaigo ? This book is divided into four parts. The first part will introduce the borrowing of English into Japanese and the modern generation of gairaigo . The second part will attempt to resolve the ‘paradox of cognates’ and clarify the effect of loanwords in Japanese on the learning of English. The third part will examine the common loanwords in Japanese that are based on high-frequency and academic English, and attempt to assess the quality of these cognates. The fourth part will focus on the barriers to Japanese learners of English in utilising their L1 resource, particularly their ability to extend borrowed word knowledge within English word families. The epilogue presents some general principles and concrete suggestions about how to make use of gairaigo in teaching. Japan offers a prime example of lexical borrowing, which relates to the important phenomenon of language transfer (in second and foreign language learning). Many of the characteristics of lexical borrowing in Japan, and its effects on L2 learning, can be found elsewhere in the world; inquiries regarding my research on Japanese loanword cognates have included those from English teachers in Malaysia and Rwanda. Swahili, for instance, has imported a substantial number of high-frequency loanwords from English, mainly key concepts in modern society such as hospitali (hospital), sukari (sugar) and tikiti (ticket) (Ringbom, 2007). Moreover, because of the wide influence of English vocabulary throughout the world, a Tanzanian learning Finnish, for instance, will be aided by the English words (e.g. doctor) that exist in both Swahili (e.g. daktar ) and Finnish (e.g. tohtori ) (see Ringbom, 2007: 79, 121). The insights gained by examining language borrowing in Japan can be applied wherever language contact has occurred and foreign languages are learned.

Part 1

Japan’s Importation of English

Chapter 1

The Assimilation of English into Japanese A Historical and Linguistic Overview Languages have always been greedy. As seen in ancient Coptic codices containing Hebrew loanwords, virtually every language has from time to time increased its vocabulary by borrowing from other languages. Still, Japan has distinguished itself by the scale and alacrity of its borrowing, and foreign words have had an immense influence on Japan’s language and society. In the following two chapters, we will examine gairaigo the Western loanwords, which are integral to Japanese. First, let us examine the historical context of Japan’s borrowing, and its linguistic repercussions, beginning with the arrival of a remarkable visitor.

Japan’s First Native English Teacher Ranald MacDonald, Japan’s first documented native speaking teacher of English, is among the most important figures history has overlooked. According to biographer Schodt (2003), MacDonald was born in 1824 in the Oregon Territory, the son of a Chinook Indian princess and a prominent Scottish official. MacDonald grew up with tales of exotic and forbidden Japan, whose castaway sailors were occasionally rescued by American whaling ships; because of Japan’s draconian policy of isolation, such hapless Japanese were forbidden to return to their country. MacDonald got the outlandish idea of becoming a castaway himself to enter Japan, despite the danger of being executed in the terra non grata. In 1845, shunning a comfortable life as a clerk, MacDonald became a sailor in America’s burgeoning whaling fleet. After three years at sea, at age 24, MacDonald embarked on what his ship’s captain described as a ‘wild and fool-hardy expedition’ (Schodt, 2003: 187) having himself set adrift in a tiny boat off the coast of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. After feigning distress offshore, he was ‘rescued’ by aboriginal Ainu, who cared for him in their village. However, MacDonald was eventually 9

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Part 1: Japan’s Importation of English

reported to the samurai stationed nearby, who examined, interrogated and incarcerated him. He was next moved to Nagasaki, on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu; here was the only port where the government permitted limited trade with the Dutch on a tiny artificial island in the harbour. MacDonald was again examined and interrogated, and forced to step on an image of the Virgin Mary to prove he was not a Catholic missionary. Then MacDonald was imprisoned in a small room of a local temple. Several American sailors who had deserted their whaler were also being held in Nagasaki; two would perish in captivity. MacDonald, however, was well treated, for not only did his captors see him as bold, affable and well educated (he had arrived with a trunk full of books), the authorities were desperate to learn English. In order to conduct trade with the Dutch, a contingent of professional interpreters resided in Nagasaki. With American and British influence in the outside world growing, several interpreters realised their need to learn English. MacDonald became their teacher, and for seven months regularly taught a group of 14 from his confinement. One of the interpreters, Einosuke Moriyama, became his friend and later played an important role in negotiations when Commodore Matthew Perry and the legendary ‘Black Ships’ forcefully ended Japan’s isolation in 1853. After 10 months in Japan, MacDonald was released to the American warship USS Preble, which had approached Nagasaki to retrieve the deserters and attempt (unsuccessfully) to open trade relations. The positive impression MacDonald made on his captors likely influenced Japan’s later relations with the USA. Certainly, MacDonald’s serendipitous arrival in Nagasaki inaugurated English education in Japan. Thereafter Japan gradually turned its attention to the English world with, it turns out, some affinity. In 1854, George Henry Preble,1 who accompanied Commodore Perry’s second expedition to Japan, to receive its reply to US demands for trade, wrote: They have a great aptitude at catching English sounds and ask the American name of everything they see, and so pick up a vocabulary of our language. (cited in Miller, 1967: 266) Contact with Americans was at first limited to designated Japanese at isolated trading posts such as that in Nagasaki. However, following the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Japanese rushed to introduce Western culture and technology, eventually including a vast number of words.

The Assimilation of English into Japanese

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Japan’s Borrowing of English Historically speaking, English during the first few centuries following the Norman invasion (Miller, 1967), or perhaps Polish after the fall of the Soviet Union (Arabski, 2006), are among the few languages that have been as hospitable to loanwords as Japanese. Japanese contact with English began more than 200 years ago, contact with other European languages goes back 500 years and heavy linguistic borrowing from China preceded that. Although Japan experienced no colonisation and is geographically isolated, loanwords have long been a feature of Japanese; the Japanese language has undergone a number of periods of massive borrowing, mostly from Chinese (including thousands of Chinese characters). English words have become especially important since WWII, and these loanwords have become genuine parts of the Japanese lexicon, found in daily conversation and the world of letters.

The variety of words in Japanese English-based loanwords coexist in Japanese with various types of vocabulary. The three major types of words in Japanese by origin are: native vocabulary (wago); Sino-Japanese vocabulary (kango ); and Western vocabulary (gairaigo ). Other noteworthy words are those of Ainu (indigenous Japanese) and Korean origin. The first major language borrowing was from Chinese, which continued over 1500 years. Most borrowed words in Japanese are of Chinese origin, however their number has remained relatively constant while Western-based words (i.e. gairaigo ) have greatly increased (Shibatani, 1990). According to an 1859 dictionary, 60% of words were Sino-Japanese, but by 1956 this had decreased to 47.5% as the total number of contained words nearly tripled (Park, 1987). Indeed the flow of language from the Middle Kingdom has long ago ceased, and American English is the overwhelming source of new words. In Japanese, among Western languages, English is dominant. The periods of borrowing of Portuguese, Spanish, Latin, Dutch, French and German predate the large-scale borrowing of English, and many of these words still remain in the active Japanese lexicon. Yet whenever a loanword from another European language competes with an English word, the English word usually prevails (Miller, 1967). For example, betto from German bett (originally used in Japanese for a hospital bed) has been replaced by beddo from English bed. Occasionally, competing loanwords give rise to a choice of synonyms and collocations (Kay, 1995);

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for instance, gurasu comes from English and refers to a glass for drinking, while garasu comes from Dutch glas and refers to the material. Among borrowings from the West, the portion of English loanwords has grown to dominance this century: between 1912 and 1925, 51.9% of gairaigo came from English and in 1964, 80.8% (Shibatani, 1990); in 1968, 87% (Seward, 1968); and by 1975 about 90% (Yazaki, 1975; cited in Kimura, 1989). The recent explosion of konpyuuta tekunorojii (computer technology) has accelerated this trend. The growth and number of Western loanwords The steady growth of Western loanwords following Commodore Perry’s historic visits can be seen in Japanese/Japanese dictionaries. The 1859 dictionary Genkai already contained 551 loanwords, constituting 1.4% of the total words (Shibatani, 1990). About one century later, the 1956 Reikai Kokugo Jiten contained 1428 loanwords, about 3.5% of its content, and by the 1989 dictionary Nihongo Daijiten , 13,300 items or 10% of words, were of Western origin (Tomoda, 1999). Since the end of WWII, loanwords have been the driving force in Japan’s lexical expansion. For instance, 60 70% of the new words in the annually revised dictionary of neologisms, Gendai Yougo no Kiso Chishiki (1980), are Western loanwords (Honna, 1995). The expansion of loanwords is not limited to dictionaries. In the 1960s, one study of Japanese magazines found that 4% of words were of Western origin (Seward, 1968), while another estimated that 10% of the Japanese lexicon consists of non-Chinese and non-Japanese words, not including hybrid elements, which make up an additional 6% (Loveday, 1996: 47 48). The percentage of loanwords in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper rose from 2.5% in 1952 to 10.1% by 1997 (Oshima, 2004: 93). And in conversation, one estimate found that 13% of words used were loanwords (Honna, 1995: 45). The absolute number of Western words borrowed into Japanese is extremely high. Specialty dictionaries devoted to gairaigo typically list 20,000 30,000 loanwords and can exceed 50,000. One dictionary with 52,500 loanwords, published in 2000, contained 45,000 loanwords written in katakana and 7,500 written in the original Roman alphabet (MacGregor, 2003); the first edition of this dictionary, published in 1972, contained only 20,000 loanwords. However it is virtually impossible to establish the number of loanwords. Besides the fast pace of borrowing and their often ephemeral nature, there is a problem of standards. The distinction between a


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recognised loanword and an English word appearing in katakana is ambiguous. Specialised loanword dictionaries vary greatly in size, usually in accordance with publishers’ wishes. General dictionaries are a better measure of a loanword’s bona fide acceptance into the overall lexicon, but also involve arbitrary criteria. And while the rather exclusive dictionaries of ‘common’ loanwords ostensibly apply the strictest standards for loanword selection, in reality, authors tend to be quite subjective in their methods (see Daulton, 2001). In the end, however comprehensive a dictionary is, it will fail to include the newest loanwords, and however exclusive a dictionary is, some portion of loanwords will be obscure to the public. Considering that Japanese and English are linguistically unrelated languages remote in origin, space and culture that around 10% of the Japanese lexicon is of English origin is astounding. Conventional wisdom explains this phenomenon by crediting Japan’s legendary knack for adapting foreign ideas and technology; however, this overlooks the crucial role of the Japanese script katakana .

Katakana and Borrowing Japanese uses a variety of scripts, and among those katakana has allowed Western words to be easily incorporated into Japanese. Japan’s near-exclusive use of a unique script for borrowed words may be unique in the world. The scripts of Japan The Japanese use a complex mixture of orthographic forms; the typical ‘Japanese’ orthographic systems can generally be divided into kanji , and kana hiragana ( ) and katakana ( ). Kanji means literally ‘Chinese characters’, and is a meaning-based script (logography), wherein one character represents the meaning of a whole word or morpheme. Thousands were imported from China before the 8th century when Japanese had no writing system. Kanji strongly influenced the subsequent creation of kana . Kana is a sound-based system where the mora (i.e. a short syllable) rather than the phoneme is the basic unit. For instance, the loanword (friend; more commonly tomodachi ) is written in four kana that correspond to the Japanese morae fu rendo. The two types of kana , hiragana and katakana , were formed in the 8th and 9th centuries respectively (Uchida, 2001a). Each contains 46 basic letters (71 with the use of diacritics, used for voicing). In contrast to the round shape of

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hiragana (e.g. ), katakana (e.g. ) has bold and simple lines. As loanwords are written almost exclusively in katakana , they are distinguished at a glance from words of native Japanese or ancient Chinese origins.2 Most of Japanese writing is a combination of kanji and hiragana with occasional appearances of katakana . In general, kanji are used for content words of native Japanese origin (i.e. wago), or for various words of Chinese origin (i.e. kango ). Hiragana is used for some content words, most of which are of native Japanese origin, as well as grammatical function morphemes (i.e. inflections and particles). Kanji is generally preferred to hiragana , partly because knowledge of kanji reflects intellectual ability and because logographic kanji is semantically more transparent than syllabic kana . However, as hiragana has near universal legibility, (most) candidate names on election posters, for instance, are written in hiragana . An average sentence consists of about 65% hiragana , 25 30% kanji and 4% katakana (Taylor, 1981), with Roman numbers and the Roman alphabet appearing sporadically. While Roman numbers are far more common than their Japanese counterparts (written in kanji ), the most common use of the Roman alphabet is in marketing (e.g. magazine titles and numerous shop names), and in graphic design (e.g. product names and on T-shirts). Although the principal use of katakana is for foreign words and foreign names, it has a diverse variety of uses. Other applications include: a wide range of proper nouns; onomatopoetic expressions; the texts of telegrams; some colloquial forms; many non-loan plant and animal names; and emphasis (Seeley, 1990). On the other hand, a few Western loans such as tabako (tobacco) are so integrated into Japanese that they are written in hiragana and are thought of as native Japanese words (Takashi, 1990). Japanese children learn these four scripts in school. At the age of six, they learn the basic hiragana and then katakana . Kanji education begins immediately after katakana , lasting until age 18 because of its difficulty. In the fourth grade of elementary school, two years before English education starts, the Roman alphabet (known as rooma-ji ) is taught.3 Prior to the end of WWII, foreign ideas were typically adopted into the Japanese language by loan translation. Under this system, calques were created with the Chinese kanji that either captured a foreign word’s meaning or simply provided a phonetic equivalent. For example, airport is calqued as kuukoo ( ), which comprises one kanji for air and one for port. However, the national policy at the request of the American Occupation Forces was to promote literacy and democracy by limiting the use and education of kanji , indirectly leading to the demise of the


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system of loan translation (Honna, 1995). Furthermore, it was decreed that Western loanwords be encoded in katakana , greatly encouraging the creation and use of loanwords.4 How katakana facilitates borrowing Katakana allows any foreign word to be borrowed into the Japanese language, even on a temporary basis, making the loanwords immediately legible to even monolingual Japanese. Using katakana to transcribe foreign words is far more convenient than creating new combinations of Chinese characters, which would require a consensus or official approval before coming into general use. It gives any individual the ability and freedom to write an English word in native script, without having to assign or learn characters for it, nor know its spelling in the original. (Kay, 1995: 72) Transcription is typically based on the sound of the English word, and any foreign word can easily be transcribed into katakana . Another way to view the use of katakana is as an aid to literacy, such as how italics in English alert readers that a word is foreign. However, no matter how widely used a Western loanword in Japanese becomes, with few exceptions, it will always be written in katakana , whereas French de´ja` vu, for example, is so widely used in English as to no longer require italics (or French accent marks). The linguistic segregation of gairaigo (literally ‘words from outside’) caused by katakana is not stigmatising. Indeed, katakana was originally chosen to represent loanwords because of its higher prestige historically than hiragana , having been used to notate Buddhist scripture (Loveday, 1996). The result is not a linguistic apartheid , but a clear compartmentalisation of the two cultures, instilling confidence in the integrity of the native language (see Kay, 1995). This partially explains why there has been very little attempt to limit the number of gairaigo . Occasionally Western loanwords appear in their original, Roman alphabet form, and the use of all capital letters is common. Some are abbreviations written in the Roman script, for example the innovative form OL (from office lady female clerical worker) and CD , pronounced as if they were written in katakana , that is, ooeru and shiidii . An acronym such as GATT, too, is pronounced as a Japanese word, gatto. English words appearing in their unchanged Roman alphabet form occurs in the media and particularly as graphic design elements. These are typically decorative, sometimes misspelled, and usually not clearly


16

understood. Various mixtures of katakana and the Roman alphabet can ING (‘golfing’). For a listing of the basic occur as well, such as katakana and their English equivalents, see Appendix 1.

The Transformation of English to Japanese Like expatriates ‘gone native’, English words are greatly transformed by Japan. Compared to English loanwords found in languages such as French and Dutch, those in Japanese undergo much more drastic changes crossing the considerable linguistic distance. It follows that for native speakers of English, English-based loanwords are indecipherable when written and typically incomprehensible when spoken. Former Ambassador to Japan Reischauer commented: It is pathetic to see the frustration of Japanese in finding that English speakers cannot recognise, much less understand, many of the English words they use. (cited in Shibatani, 1990: 150) In addition to the obvious change to Japanese katakana , major changes include: phonological transformation; shortening and other morphological changes; hybridisation and coinage; grammatical transformations; and semantic change. Phonological transformation Typically around the world, loanwords are initially marked as foreign by retaining close to their original pronunciations and spellings; by contrast, English loanwords in Japanese are phonologically transformed and almost always transliterated. Such changes are stark as the phonological system of English and Japanese are quite different; English utilises a much larger inventory of phonemes and permits quite elaborate consonant clusters, which are absent in Japanese. English vowel and consonant sounds absent in Japanese must be represented by rough Japanese equivalents. This process has both consistent and systematic elements, and irregular and innovative ones as well. Moreover, as Japanese is a consonant/vowel (CV) language, consonant clusters are broken up by the insertion of vowels (a process known as anaptyxis or vowel epenthesis ), and final consonants and consonants coming at the end of syllables are generally not allowed. Thus English becomes ingurishu. The degree of phonetic deviation often depends upon whether loanwords were originally borrowed from the spoken or written medium. While phonological transformation based on aural input tends


17

to resemble the original English (e.g. takushii corresponding to taxi), a large number of gairaigo have been adapted based on their written form, which results in pronunciations quite dissimilar from the original (e.g. sutajio for studio). As Japanese lacks many English phonemes, it sometimes fails to make various important distinctions, resulting in homonyms that only exist in ) has two Japanese. For the Japanese, a word form such as rinku ( distinct meanings that correspond to English rink and link. Other examples are: raito (light and right); korekushon (collection and correction); furai (fly and fry); hooru (hall and hole); and besuto (best and vest). Once assimilated, pronunciations of English words are quite resilient vis-a`-vis native models. The general public seldom attempts to imitate native English pronunciations. In short, most Japanese seldom or never hear spoken English; they do not attempt to pronounce English words, and they do not borrow English words . . . They pronounce them the way they hear them pronounced on radio and television, and they spell them the way they see them spelled in the popular press, that is, as fully assimilated Japanese words with a minimum of departures from the sounds and sound sequences and spelling principles that characterise native Japanese words. (Quackenbush, 1974: 64) Although there is generally consensus over the katakana spellings of loanwords, alternative phonological forms occasionally persist with, notwithstanding, a tendency to move closer to the original English given widespread use (Hatch & Brown, 1995; Seeley, 1990), such as nyuusu (news) changing to nyuuzu . A remarkable development in modern Japanese is the general and official (since the 1980s) acceptance of innovative combinations of existing katakana that enable foreign words to be pronounced more accurately. New combinations include: as in sherifu (sheriff); as in tisshu (tissue); and as in viza (visa). Many changes are too subtle to as to be expressed by the Roman alphabet, for instance in iesu (yes). Some newer innovations such as (va ) are rarely used, in (paatii /party) are while older innovations such as well established. These innovations reflect the desire among some Japanese for a more accurate reproduction of foreign sounds; they begin with the youth and intelligentsia, and can eventually become part of the mainstream phonological system of Japanese (see Uchimoto, 1994).

18


Shortening The most obvious morphological change is shortening (sometimes called clipping or truncation ), where usually the most semantically important morphemes are all that remain of the original word. Shortening can occur as soon as an English word is borrowed or later on. Although abbreviations can occur in English (e.g. perm, perp), they are far more abundant in Japanese. Loanword shortening is common because loanwords tend to be awkwardly long. When English words are assimilated into Japanese, all spoken consonants except ‘n’ must have a vowel attached to them to make a proper Japanese syllable, thus the fast food franchise ‘McDonalds’ becomes ‘makudonarudo’. Because each mora in Japanese takes about the same length of time to pronounce, in theory, pronouncing sutoraiku takes five times as long to say as strike (Uchida, 2001a). Back clipping is the most common means of shortening, and other examples include depaato (department store) and masukomi (mass communication). Fewer words have their first syllables cut, such as hoomu (platform) and neru (flannel), and rarely middle syllables are omitted, as in boorupen (ballpoint pen). There are more varieties of shortening. When a phrase consisting of several morphemes is borrowed, grammatical morphemes tend to be omitted, for instance ‘-ed’ or ‘-d’ as in condensu miruku (condensed milk). Meanwhile, in truncated compounding , which is also common for native Japanese words, two shortened loanwords are combined, as in paso-kon (personal computer) and han-suto (hunger strike). Another form of shortening is abbreviation. Examples include: OL (‘office lady’); PR (public relations); OB (‘old boy’); and CM (commercials). Most of these abbreviations, such as OL (pronounced ou-eru ), are Japanese coinages, incomprehensible to non-Japanese. Shortening can also lead to semantic confusion because of homonymy. For example, restaurant can be shortened to ‘REST’ in Roman alphabet signs, such as ‘CAFE´ REST’. However, shortening simplifies the pronunciation of loanwords and facilitates their integration into Japanese Hybridisation and coinage The semantically transparent roots of Western-based loanwords can be quite productive in coinages, and Japanese affixes are easily applied to foreign words. Hybrids (also known in English as loanblends and in Japanese as konshugo) are formed by combining Western words with native Japanese


19

words and words of Chinese origin. Hybridisations such as dai-hitto (Japanese big English hit) and nouveau-dai (French new Japanese era) make compounds of European bases and Sino-Japanese nominal bases. These hybridisations can also occur between different European languages, such as bakansu-uea (French vacances English wear). They include very common words such as that for an American person amerika-jin ‘-jin ’ ( ) being the kanji affix for person. Creative coinages using Western elements are common. Newly created expressions combining existing gairaigo have been referred to as ‘pseudo-loanwords’ (Stanlaw, 1987). One example is sukinshippu (skin -ship), denoting (normal) physical intimacy, usually between parent and child; however this is not a combination of skin and -ship, but rather an original variation of the English word kinship. Another example is baajin-roodo (‘virgin road’), which refers to the red-carpet aisle trod by a bride and her father in a church wedding. It is in this realm that linguistic confusion between native speakers of English and that of Japanese often peaks, and such creations are derided as ‘Japlish’ or ‘Engrish’. Innovative compounding is increasingly popular, and it includes three-part compounds such as hea-meiku-aatisuto (literally ‘hair and makeup artist’) and hybrid compounds involving different scripts. Japanese linguistics authorities do not always officially recognise such radical forms, although they may become orthodox over time. Innovative compounding involves the ‘independent, creative, evolutionary reworking of transferred elements in order to meet local needs’ (Loveday, 1996: 155). Many English words in Japanese, indeed, occur only in compound phrases. Basic English words such as man, woman, boy, girl, baby, care, home, air, tree, sun and food, which have well established Japanese equivalents, are not used on their own but are highly productive when combined with other forms in Japanese such as sararii-man (‘salaryman’) and mai-hoomu (‘my home’). Grammatical transformation Most loanwords are nouns, followed distantly by adjectives. Roughly 90% of loanwords are nouns (see Honna, 1995; Loveday, 1996), which are easier to borrow than other parts of speech as they do not require major grammatical modification such as nominal inflections for gender, person or number. As Japanese does not mark plurality, the absence or presence of the English plural morpheme /s/ occurs arbitrarily, depending on whether the originally transferred model was singular or plural.

20


Examples of loanwords appearing only in the plural are shuuzu (shoes), sokkusu (socks) and taitsu (tights); examples of loanwords incongruently appearing only in the singular are sunikaa (sneaker) and sutokkingu (stocking). The number of adjectives, adverbs and verbs borrowed are relatively few, and they require particular affixes (e.g. -na , -ni , -suru ) to enter the same inflectional paradigms as Japanese words of the same part of speech. Although the assignment of word class tends to correspond to the original language, it can be freely changed when entering Japanese.5 Any word to be borrowed is treated as an uninflected noun or bound base that does not belong to a word class, potentially convertible by means of suffixation (Loveday, 1996). Examples include how the English adjective cool (not coolly) is borrowed and used as an adverb in ‘kuuru ni asoberu ’ (‘to play coolly’). Grammatically speaking, the Japanese equivalents of many English adjectives are effectively nouns plus -na {as in ‘romanchikku na’ (romantic)}, and the equivalents of many English adverbs are nouns plus -ni {as in ‘romanchikku ni ’ (romantically)}. These converting devices are uniquely reserved for the grammatical integration of loanwords, making morphological changes unnecessary in the loan-bases. Practically any loanword can be verbalised. This is done so easily by adding -suru , which some refer to as the ‘magic power of suru ’ (Sato, 1995: 134). For example, the loanword noun enjoi (based on the verb enjoy) becomes ‘enjoi suru ’ (‘to enjoy’). Gerunds can be verbalised, as in ‘jogingu suru ’ (literally ‘to jogging’), and as with enjoy, above verbs can be (redundantly) verbalised as in ‘arenji suru ’ (‘to arrange’). Verb forms can also be obtained from nominal loan-bases by applying Japanese verbs, as in ‘paama wo kakeru ’ (‘to perm one’s hair’). Rarely loanwords are innovatively inflected in ways usually reserved for native words. This unorthodox suffixation is a favourite of nonstandard registers such as youth slang. Examples include ‘paniku-ru ’ (‘to panic’) and ‘nau-i ’ (now adjectival inflection). A few other verbs do not require any affix since they naturally end with -ru sounds (after assimilation), making them immediately compatible to the Japanese inflectional system. These include daburu , meaning ‘to double’ or ‘to repeat a year’, and toraburu , meaning ‘to meet with trouble’. Semantic change English words inevitably acquire, to some degree, meanings culturespecific to Japan. Usually lexical borrowing is driven by cultural


21

borrowing (Arabski, 2006); Japan may have often been an exception to this, as can be seen in the slogan from Japan’s 19th-century rush for modernity: ‘Western technology, Japanese spirit’. Indeed, some believe that it is the incomplete linguistic assimilation of foreign loanwords that allows Japanese traditional concepts and culture to be maintained (Kay, 1995). It would be difficult to find a borrowed word that has retained exactly the same meaning or context of use as its word of origin. Words often take on adapted meanings to serve the needs of a changing society. Loanwords are especially open to modification, both on entering the language, and with time. One reason is that the meaning or usage of a word in its original language may not be fully understood; nor need it be, as loanwords are used without reference to their source words. Another is that, with words of foreign origin, there is no deep cultural motivation to protect their original meanings. The flexibility of form and meaning of loanwords enables them to adapt easily to the structure of the host language, and current trends and needs. (Kay, 1995: 71 72) Loanwords are malleable and tend to shift meanings much more quickly than a Japanese or Sino-Japanese word (Miura, 1979), and the more Japanese come to use a loanword, the more its meaning(s) can evolve. Some loanwords may stray farther and farther from the donor language, while individuals familiar with English may use other loanwords in ways increasingly similar to the original (Kay, 1995). In most cases, native speakers will experience confusion in Japan, as a fairly detailed acquaintance with the intricacies of modern Japanese urban life is necessary to fully understand loanwords. Semantic changes can be generally summarised into three types: Semantic Shift: In extreme cases, the meaning of a loanword and the English word on which it is based are completely dissimilar. An example is the loanword kanningu (cunning), which has the meaning of ‘cheating on a test’. Such semantic shift is rare, although colourful examples are conspicuous. Semantic Restriction: Also know as ‘semantic narrowing’ or ‘semantic specialisation’, this phenomenon accounts for the loanword sutoobu (stove), which means only a room heater in Japanese, not a device for cooking. Semantic restriction allows new cultural distinctions without expanding the meanings of existing words, as in Japanese

22


okaasan (mother) versus English-based mazaa , which refers only to Catholic nuns. Semantic restriction is the most common type of semantic change throughout the world, as loanwords are usually borrowed to fill specific lexical gaps (Hatch & Brown, 1995). Semantic Extension: Here, the loanword includes more meanings than its original borrowed word. The loanword handoru (from handle) has a variety of meanings in Japanese, from the steering wheel of a car to the handlebars of a bicycle. Semantic extension is relatively rare in Japanese. Semantic restriction and extension lead to cognates being convergent or divergent, which will be discussed in Chapter 3. Subtler varieties of semantic change involve connotation or feeling. Semantic downgrading , or pejoration , can be seen in words like bosu (boss), which means the powerful head of a group of gangsters or politicians, or aisu (ice), meaning a usurer. In semantic upgrading, positive connotations are attached to loanwords for the purpose of ‘sociolinguistic profit’ or ‘impression management’ (Loveday, 1996: 202), which is often seen in marketing. Over time, loanwords can lose one connotation and even come to hold the opposite.

Conclusion Today, there is no linguistic barrier to the absorption of foreign words into Japanese. Yet the transformations that English words undergo when assimilated into Japanese effect their learnability. We will see in Chapter 6 that the resemblance of English words and Japanese loanwords is quite sufficient for learning to be facilitated. Before we address that complex issue, to more fully understand the nature of gairaigo , let us examine the modern process of loanword creation. Notes 1. George Henry Preble came from an illustrious naval family, and the abovementioned USS Preble was named in honour of his uncle, Commodore Edward Preble. 2. Other features that mark loanwords as foreign are: the use particular affixes (i.e. na , -ni and suru ); certain sequences of syllables that are uncommon or unknown in Japanese; a larger number of syllables than is common in Japanese words; or innovative combinations of katakana created specifically to allow foreign words to be pronounced in a form nearer to their original.


23

3. Some believe the early introduction of the Roman alphabet is to the detriment of later English studies; confusion results from children experimenting with the Roman alphabet in writing Japanese (Fukunishi, 2001). 4. Rarely, both systems are applied to a concept; for example, the early loanword Asia can be written either with three Chinese characters ( ) or phonetically in katakana ( ) (Kay, 1995). 5. The actual patterns of class conversion for Western loans today are extremely complex and idiosyncratic. For a detailed explanation, see Loveday, 1996.

Chapter 2

Today’s Generation of Gairaigo The process of gairaigo ’s creation is bewildering. Since WWII, Japan has been inordinately disposed to borrowing words from English, eclipsing that from other European languages. Particularly in the areas of popular culture and science, borrowing has accelerated. New loanwords tend to be used indiscriminately, and most are not well understood and face obscurity or eventual extinction. Nevertheless, the minority of loanwords that reach the linguistic mainstream is sufficient to maintain and expand the already vast gairaigo lexicon in everyday use. This chapter presents an overview of the modern mechanisms of gairaigo generation. For perspective, it will begin with brief etymologies of some noteworthy loanwords. Next, the borrowing and dissemination of gairaigo will be examined, with a focus on its key player the mass media. A study of the Mainichi newspaper reveals the development of loanwords in vivo , through nonce borrowing and idiosyncratic usage. As for the public’s response to the massive influx of English, individuals’ comprehension, acceptance and usage of loanwords varies. Yet we will find that the vitality of loanwords is such that they can coexist redundantly with Japanese words and even come to replace them.

The Biographies of Some Noteworthy Gairaigo The two fates for a loanword according to Loveday (1996: 78) are: ‘. . . Either integration and acceptance into the community code or rejection and oblivion’. Well established loanwords enjoy prominence in daily conversation and print, and in some cases further adjustments in pronunciation, morphology and semantics. However most loanwords spend tenuous lives confined to large gairaigo dictionaries. Indeed, the majority of English words ever borrowed have, in the words of Motwani (1991: v), already decayed into ‘trite, ineffective expressions not basic to the Japanese lexicon and everyday speech’. To understand how a given loanword can be created and evolve, let us examine five noteworthy examples (see Maeda, 2005).1

24

Today’s Generation of Gairaigo

25

Aisu-kuriimu life is sweet Ice cream was first sold in Japan in the summer of 1869, in sweltering Yokohama, as kouri-gashi (‘ice sweets’), a name that gained notoriety for being homonymous with ‘loaning money at a high interest rate’. In 1888, the famed sweets company Fugetsudo began selling ice cream in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo, followed by another company in 1899. Thereafter, ice cream spread throughout Japan and came to be known as aisu-kuriimu and for a while aisu-kuriin (‘ice clean’) in its lowfat version.

Depaato size matters On 6 December 1904, Mitsui Clothing Shop changed its name and began offering a wide variety of goods and services. Soon ‘Mitsukoshi Depaatomento-sutoa ’ (department store) earned a reputation for superior quality and service. In the 1910s and 1920s, the nomenclature was shortened to depaatomento and later simply depaato . However, this imported business model did not proliferate until the late 1920s and 1930s, when many depaato flourished and came alternatively to be known as hyakkaten , which literally means ‘a hundred shops’. Both words are commonly used today, although depaato is preferred in conversation.

Mai-kaa made in Japan In a 1956 Aichi Toyota public relations magazine, editor Haruo Hamaguchi coined the expression mai-kaa (‘my car’) to refer to and promote private car ownership, a new phenomenon. Then in December of 1961, Professor Yoshihiro Yoshino of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto wrote the best seller entitled Mai-kaa, which drove the expression to prominence. The expression mai-kaa christened a social revolution, leading to today’s ‘mai-kaa-shakai ’ (‘my car society’) with over 50 million private cars on the road.

Aji-ru life as a hybrid Amid the social unrest of the early 20th century, an English/Japanese hybrid was created to express ‘to urge to action’. The stem of the English noun agitation was spliced to a Japanese verbal affix to produce the conjugatable verb aji-ru . At first, aji-ru was used only in reference to the labour movement. However on 1 September 1931, aji-ru was featured in an Osaka Asahi Shimbun newspaper column on popular neologisms; at this point, it was also said to mean ‘to encourage’ and ‘to encourage with


26

praise’. Ironically, the student protest era of the 1970s saw the demise of aji-ru and it is linguistically extinct today.

Beesubouru a comeback to the majors American teachers introduced baseball to Japan in the 1870s. Various names for the sport competed, including tama-asobi (‘ball play’), teikyuu (‘bottom ball’), and even dakyuu-onigokko (‘hitting ball demon’), but after many seasons only beesubouru (baseball) was retained. However, in 1893 a particular baseball club introduced yakyuu (‘field ball’) in the title of its club history, and this appellation went on to win the title of baseball. Thereafter in a slump, beesubouru was benched as the Pacific War approached and all English was banned from the game. Still today, yakyuu is the authorised name of Japan’s most popular sport, although beesubouru left retirement to become a pinch-hitting alternative. Countless more foreign players have been brought back, such as sutoraiku (strike) and houmuran (homerun), and fresh additions to the lineup include naitaa , coined by a reporter three years after the first night game in 1948.

The Modern Borrowing of English by the Elite While gairaigo literally means ‘words that came from outside’, two less common but descriptively accurate expressions are kariirego (literally ‘words borrowed in’) and shakuyougo (‘borrowed words and terms’). Indeed, English words do not infiltrate the Japanese language by their own initiative but are ‘borrowed’ by someone. However, linguists can seldom identify who precisely created a loanword. Indeed, it may be surprisingly common for loanwords to be introduced simultaneously or successively by unrelated individuals. What can generally be said is that elite groups in society, those in the government (e.g. bureaucrats and lawmakers), academia (e.g. translators and researchers), and particularly the media (e.g. copy-writers and journalists), are the main actors in the flood of new gairaigo (Loveday, 1996; Tomoda, 1999). A typical borrowing is unilaterally carried out by what Quackenbush (1974: 60) calls ‘a very small number of individuals’. Indeed, most people have never heard of the English word before: . . . Words like these do not ‘filter into’ Japanese they are created deliberately and sprung on an unsuspecting public. (Quackenbush, 1974: 66)


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The tendency is to borrow from English rather than other Western languages. The activity of these elite borrowers has led to various levels of lexical penetration. For illustration, the percentage of loanwords among technical words (i.e. jargon) for certain academic fields is summarised in Table 2.1. It can be seen that while the academic fields on the left are dominated by loanwords, those to the right are linguistically conservative by comparison. In very conservative fields, such as law and politics, the only loanwords used consist almost entirely of hybrid compounds (Loveday, 1996), combinations of foreign words with native ones. Despite this, a survey conducted by NHK (Japan Broadcasting) found that out of a sample of 11,835 names of local government projects, 25.2% contained gairaigo (Mogami, 1984; cited in Tomoda, 2005). Within a given field, there is some variation among branches; while economics is a rather conservative field (see Daulton, 2006), monetary and financial economics is dominated by loanwords such as hejji-fando (hedge fund). Regarding loanwords in secondary education, the Vocabulary Survey of Junior-High School Textbooks (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuusho, 1987; see also 1986) examined four science books that covered physics, chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy; and three social studies textbooks that covered politics, economics, geography and history, and found that 10 of the most frequent 330 words (3.3%) were English-based. The most frequently appearing words were amerika (America), igirisu (England) and then furansu (France). Although mostly nouns relating to material items are borrowed, those for abstract concepts are increasing. Moreover, there is an increase in the borrowing of other more-difficult-to-understand English words, such as verbs, adjectives and phrases (Tomoda, 1999). Table 2.1 Academic fields and presence of English-based technical words Computer science

99%

Chemistry

39%

Broadcast

82%

Finance

35%

Trade

80%

Biology

30%

Journalism

75%

Philosophy

23%

Marketing

75%

History

17%

Adapted from : Loveday (1996)

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In regards to Japan’s uninhibited borrowing of English, many linguists refer to the principle of ‘total availability’: Since the end of World War II, and particularly during the occupation of Japan by English-speaking troops, total availability has been exercised. Today any English word is fair game for Japanization. (Park, 1987: 34) This is as true for public speaking as for writing. Typically borrowing involves a kind of codemixing, where a single foreign word usually a noun but sometimes an adjective is inserted into a phrase (see Grosjean, 1982). However, when Junichiro Koizumi visited the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attack, the mediagenic prime minister included in his statement to the Japanese press verbatim English phrases such as ‘haato-bureikingu ’ (‘heart breaking’) and ‘ui masuto faito terorizumu ’ (‘we must fight terrorism’) to emphasise Japan’s solidarity with the USA (see Rebuck, 2002). Although English words and phrases are typically borrowed to fill lexical gaps such as in kechappu (ketchup) and CD-pureiyaa (CD player), they have myriad uses. Activists electively introduced the loanwords sutoukaa (stalker) and domesuchikku-baiorensu (domestic violence) to draw attention to pre-existing social issues (Rebuck, 2002). English-like expressions are used as well; bureaucrats coined ‘safety driver’ (in the Roman alphabet) to promote ‘anzen-unten ’ (‘driving safely’) (Seaton, 2001). English words are borrowed not to create vocabulary, per se , but to achieve a goal, such as promoting a product or idea. Thereafter, a borrowing gains foothold in the lexicon if more individuals exploit it for their own purposes. Eventually, a loanword can snowball into prominence through the proverbial 800-pound gorira the Japanese mass media.

The Dissemination of Loanwords by the Media Once a loanword has been conceived and launched, it is the mass media, more than the government and academia, that is able to disseminate it. Itself a borrower, Japan’s mass media is technologically advanced and far reaching. Japanese watch more television than even North Americans, the Internet is exploding, literacy is universal and bookstores thrive. New loanwords are adopted by media personnel according to their usefulness and promoted to the extent that they can be


29

further exploited. Meanwhile, an underground of utilitarian loanwords (e.g. scientific terminology) circulates largely out of the mainstream.

Anglicisation of the mass media Some new loanwords fill lexical gaps the public had been unaware of, such as puraibashii (privacy) did for premodern, community-centred Japan, and cutting-edge technical jargon such as nanotekunorojii (nanotechnology) does today. Anglicisation is intense in the mass media. The National Language Research Institute (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuusho, 1995; 1997) examined the words used by the six major television networks from April to June of 1989. It found that 64 of the most frequently spoken 1186 words (5.4%) were either a loanword or were a hybrid with English; the top three were amerika (America), terebi (television) and then nyuusu (news). Among written words (e.g. those used in graphics), 38 of the most frequent 492 words (7.7%) were or contained a loanword; the top three were puroduusaa (producer), ‘nihon terebi ’ (literally ‘Japan Television’, the name of a network) and then ‘GIANTS’ (the name of a baseball team, appearing in the Roman alphabet). By contrast, while Western scientific terminology such as arukaroido and saikurotoron can be passively disseminated by mass media channels, its currency tends to be as restricted as alkaloid and cyclotron are in the English world. Shibatani (1990) found that loanwords accounted for a substantial portion of words used in newspapers as well. The distribution of native words, Sino-Japanese words, loanwords and hybrids in the newspapers from 1971 examined is summarised in Table 2.2. Tokens are every occurrence of a word, even repeated, and types are unique words. Loanwords (including borrowing from all Western Table 2.2 Varieties of words in newspapers Range of proportion of tokens

Range of proportion of types

Native

26.6 43.9%

50.7 65.3%

Sino-Japanese

50.7 65.3%

44.4 46.9%

Loanword

4.0 6.0%

12.0 12.7%

Hybrid

1.4 2.1%

4.8 5.1%

Variety of word

Adapted from : Shibatani (1990)

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languages) constituted 4 6% of tokens, and a more consistent 12 12.7% of types. It should be noted that ‘hybrid’ in this study included not only combinations of Western and native words or Western and Chinesebased words, but also combinations of native and Chinese-based words. Around the world, the three typical reasons lexical items are borrowed are: new political and economic situations; technological developments; and new lifestyles (Arabski, 2006). This generally pertains in Japan as well, even where English and English-based loanwords are used most conspicuously and intensely in marketing. However a distinctive feature of Japanese marketing is that the actual use of gairaigo is essentially decorative and discourages comprehension. English and loanwords to serve the consumer society The typical Japanese person encounters most new loanwords and many English words through marketing and advertising, where they are prominently featured. Takashi (1990) reported that 22.3% of word tokens in a sample of print advertisements were classed as gairaigo . First contact is usually written, sometimes spoken, but seldom both. Loanwords are typically transcribed into the bold, angular katakana , giving them a visual quality that is modern, foreign, hip and cutting-edge. Alternatively, English can be transcribed in the original Roman alphabet literatim as in ‘SALE’ and innovatively as in ‘I feel Coke’. Both katakana and the original Roman alphabet enhance the attention-grabbing potential of English, making it an effective tool in promotional strategies. The majority of Japanese live in crowded urban areas, where citizens can be efficiently bombarded with advertising through what Rollins (1999) refers to as ‘ . . . TV screens, billboards and subway car interiors like societal wallpaper’. The market for goods is highly competitive, and marketers aggressively and innovatively appeal to consumers. Because of its ubiquity and appeal, marketers exert a strong impact on the shaping of future colloquial Japanese. . . . The activity of the mass media in disseminating new terms, coupled with almost universal basic English-language education, has resulted in a rapid absorption of new gairaigo. (Tomoda, 1999: 251) When marketers use or adapt loanwords, they take advantage of the public’s superficial knowledge of basic English. The collective energy and time spent by more than sixty million Japanese who compulsorily studied English for six years is truly


31

enormous, and it must certainly have been useful for something. I propose that it has been used for facilitating the influx of English loans into Japanese. (Honna, 1995: 59) Marketers generally draw from the basic English to which all Japanese people have been exposed. When the public meets the new loanword, their knowledge of the corresponding English word is activated through interlexical activation regardless of phonetic similarity (see Tamaoka & Miyaoka, 2003). This makes the resulting brand names and advertising text more memorable. The public’s typically vague understanding of English allows a loanword to be used quite flexibly. Indeed, the value of loanwords and foreign words often depends on their obscurity; loanwords’ intrinsic novelty helps marketers break through the advertising clutter, and loanwords’ obscurity engages the imagination. Therefore, the intelligibility and intrinsic meanings of loanwords are often knowingly sacrificed, and the writer’s motto in Japan could be stated as: ‘Let the reader beware’ (Miller, 1967: 245). Particularly in advertising, we find numerous instances of not lexical borrowing, per se , but decorative language mixing and switching to appeal to people’s emotions and influence consumer behaviour. A recent where coffee advertisement introduced the hybrid the first kana (i.e. katakana character) of the rather obscure loanword insupireeshon (inspiration) was replaced with the Chinese character for drink, in- ; the resulting enigmatic expression is unlikely to spread far outside the advertising campaign.2 In a study of advertising, it was found that 45% of loanwords were such ‘special-effect givers’ and 23% demonstrated another sort of decorative use brand names {e.g. ‘Rigein ’ (regain)} (Takashi, 1990: 330 331). As for other classifiable uses of loanwords, 16% were lexical gap fillers {e.g. pen (pen)}, 13% technical terms {e.g. fakushimiri (facsimile)} and 0.5% euphemisms {e.g. basuto (bust)}. Because of how marketers use loanwords, the language of the mass media can be considered a special variety distinct from colloquial Japanese (Haarmann, 1984). From the stereotypes the Japanese hold, each foreign language evokes specific connotations. English words suggest that products have a practical use, are of high quality and enjoy international appreciation (see Haarmann 1984; 1986), thus they are used to introduce cars, stereos, sportswear, alcoholic drinks, and so on. Similarly, it is common for foreign models and celebrities to appear in advertisements. Some argue that the images Japanese individuals hold of English speakers is much

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more favourable than those held by English speakers towards them (Seaton, 2001). The degree to which marketers expose the Japanese to gairaigo depends on demographics and interests. For instance, Takashi (1990) found more loanwords appearing in advertisements directed towards students than towards business workers and homemakers, with no notable difference relating to gender. The fashion-conscious and/or internationally minded (e.g. wine drinkers) are more likely to encounter English and gairaigo in advertising than the conservative and/or nationally minded (e.g. sake drinkers).

The Development of Loanwords After dissemination through mass media channels has begun, loanwords attain some level of intelligibility with the public. At first, because of the speed of borrowing, their obscure nature, and that they are not written with meaning-based Chinese characters, new loanwords often exist at or beyond the public’s level of comprehension. Some are never included in even the loanword dictionaries ranging to around 50,000 entries. The obscurity of loanwords can persist. In 1973, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) conducted a survey of the comprehension of foreign loanwords (cited in Shibatani, 1990), and of the 100 loanwords presumed to be widely known, about 40% were misunderstood by half the respondents. In a follow-up survey, NHK tested the recognition and comprehension of 15 of the most commonly used words in the media. While the average recognition rate was 77%, only half were actually understood, showing that people were not always familiar with even the most frequently used loanwords and did not necessarily understand those they claimed to know. Moreover, Daulton (2001) found the ‘common’ loanwords in two loanword dictionaries (Kamiya, 1994; Motwani, 1991), partially collected from mass media sources, were far less established than presumed; even when tested among university students, arguably the group most adept with loanwords, an average of 16.5% of loanwords were not well understood. If the litmus test of a loanword’s dissemination is how well the public understands it, the efficacy of the mass media is unclear. On the one hand, the most radical and active use of loanwords, e.g. by marketers, has limited effect among the public, whose needs involve lexical gaps for concrete objects. On the other hand, although new loanwords are often perceived with but vague comprehension, the media’s use of them can


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lead to a deepening understanding. In a best-case scenario, how well are loanwords understood and what general insights can be obtained regarding the generation of gairaigo ?

A Case Study: Loanwords in the 2001 Mainichi Newspapers In the news media, one would expect a greater focus on intelligibility and thus a more circumspect use of loanwords. Oshima (2004: 91) asserts that newspapers ‘can be considered the standard, as it were, for common gairaigo usage in society.’ In principle, newspapers only use loanwords that are understood by most if not all readers (e.g. Iwasaki, 1994; Oshima, 2004). However, there are no absolutist rules regarding the usage of English borrowings, and content is left to writers. It follows that standards vary, and loanwords are increasingly prominent in sports and culture stories, for instance, and increasingly avoided in economics and society stories (Oshima, 2004). Overall, a study of a recent year’s editions of a nationally distributed newspaper showed that loanword usage in the news media is hardly as conservative as commonly presumed.3 The Mainichi loanwords The Mainichi Shimbun (literally ‘Daily Newspaper’) is one of the four major dailies in Japan. In its 2001 editions, about 15,000 different loanwords appeared in articles, from tero (terrorism) with 11,584 occurrences, to words like inkurain (incline), with but one. Not included in this count were loanwords from headlines, where many abbreviated loanwords are used to conserve space and heighten interest, and advertisements, where highly opaque loanwords are prominent. For reporters and their editors, events dictate lexical choices, and this was never truer than in 2001. An examination of the most repeated loanwords in the 2001 Mainichi editions presents a microcosm of world events. They are listed in Table 2.3. Tero (terrorism) was by far the most frequent loanword, occurring 11,584 times, followed by other general lexicon such as kiro {kilo(gram/ meter/watt)}, terebi (television) and doru (dollar). Proper nouns were very common, and one conspicuous variety was ‘place related’, the most frequent being roshia (Russia), ajia (Asia), washinton (Washington) and afuganisutan (Afghanistan) {followed closely by its derivation afugan (Afghan)}. Amerika (America) ranked below these top five perhaps because of the common use of specific place names such as washinton .


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Table 2.3 The most common gairaigo in the 2001 Mainichi newspapers

Variety of word

Most frequent (total occurrences)

2nd most frequent (total occurrences)

3rd most frequent (total occurrences)

4th most frequent (total occurrences)

General

tero

kiro

terebi

doru

terrorism

kilo-

television

dollar

(11,584)

(7378)

(6107)

(5114)

roshia

ajia

washinton

afuganisutan

Russia

Asia

Washington

Afghanistan

(5326)

(4070)

(3855)

(3805)

tariban

busshu

binradin

usama

Taliban

Bush

Bin Laden

Usama

(5609)

(4817)

(2089)

(1058)

Place related

Other proper noun

Of other proper nouns, tariban (Taliban) was the most frequent, followed by busshu (as in George Bush), binradin (Bin Laden) and usama (Usama). For an overall prećis of world events, after excluding the ambiguous kiro, the overall top 10 loanwords in 2001 were: tero ; terebi; tariban ; roshia; doru ; busshu ; biru (building); ajia ; washinton ; and afuganisutan . The comprehension of basic loanwords Such often repeated loanwords were certainly familiar to most readers, but of the thousands of others, were loanwords such as kyacchaa , gureito, mirakuru and baryuu that had originated from basic English words such as catcher, great, miracle and value well understood? To answer this question, the 1231 loanwords that corresponded to the most frequent 3000 word families (headwords plus inflected forms and common derivations) of the British National Corpus (see Nation, 2004) were tested with Japanese university students non-English majors more or less representative of the general public. The results indicated that the general media’s liberal usage of loanwords vis-a`-vis public comprehension likely extends to journalism. Of the 1231 loanwords, roughly a quarter (299 words) were poorly


35

known. Of the above examples, kyacchaa (catcher) gureito (great) and mirakuru (miracle) were well recognised by participants, but baryuu (value) was not. That so many loanwords were disavowed by the university students is remarkable on a number of points. All the loanwords had corresponded to the ‘high-frequency’ word families of English, representing relatively everyday concepts. Most were nouns, and nouns are highly salient in news stories. And ‘knowing’ a loanword in this study did not necessarily mean fully comprehending it in a newspaper story, but simply self-reporting its familiarity. Nonce borrowing and idiosyncratic usage That so many loanwords in the Mainichi newspaper are not well known is indicative of the birth and development of gairaigo , as it reflects nonce-borrowing and idiosyncratic usage the initial stages of loanword generation. A nonce borrowing is a one-time use of English to create an ad hoc loanword. Some nonce borrowings fill lexical gaps. However, more often than not, they are elective, as when an appropriate native language form is available, or when Sinofication (creating words from a new combination of Chinese characters) is possible. Some examples of nonce borrowings were anakuronizumu (anachronism) and tanpuringu (tampering); each occurred only once in 2001, and for both, common Japanese equivalents already exist. For highly technical nonce borrowings, occasionally a parenthetical explanation or note at the end of a story is provided; this is more likely when the readership is broad, as with economics stories, than when the readership is relatively exclusive and savvy, as with sports stories (see Oshima, 2004). In contrast, idiosyncratic usage is topic-specific and largely predetermined. Once the terminology of a topic has been introduced as a nonce borrowing, if repeated, it transitions from a nonce usage to an idiosyncratic usage. The loanword megaton (megaton) was used but once in the Mainichi newspapers in 2001, but a future appearance is likely as there is no Japanese equivalent. Newspapers present an ideal environment for idiosyncratic usage, as developing stories require topic-specific terminology. If a loanword is used more often and in a wider range of situations, it may break into the linguistic mainstream. The pre-eminent loanword of 2001, tero (terrorism), was likely to have first appeared as the nonce borrowing terorizumu . And as its idiosyncratic usage and recognition increased, it came to be known mainly in its shortened form; tero proceeded to become part of the everyday Japanese

36


lexicon. That it and other terrorism-related loanwords rose to such prominence in the roughly three months following September 11 demonstrates the potency of the mass media. Loanwords such as tero and perhaps someday saibaa-rinri (cyberethics) and tetorabaito (tetrabyte) achieve widespread currency as time passes. Other loanwords, not actively promoted by the mass media, will be restricted to a narrow range of topics and only vague understanding by the public, including the many highly technical loanwords that appear only sporadically in newspapers, such as poripuropiren (polypropylene).

Gairaigo and the Public After dissemination, loanwords are used throughout Japanese society as part of the native language. Most loanwords are limited to specific registers or fields, such as rekuchaa (lecture) for students and academics and kyapitaru-rosu (capital loss) for economists. A portion of loanwords are used universally in daily life, such as banana (banana) and intaanetto (Internet); these loanwords can be quite productive, having various manifestations such as banana-no-ki (banana tree) and intaanetto-akusesuprobaidaa (internet access provider). Few estimates exist for the proportion of loanwords in spoken Japanese, although Tomoda (1999) believes that the proportion of loanwords used in speech is similar to that in prose, but considerable variation could be expected between different topics and speakers. Indeed, on an individual level, the public embraces loanwords to differing degrees. It is possible to examine individuals’ reaction to new loanwords from three perspectives: acceptability, comprehension and use.

Individuals’ acceptance of gairaigo Most loanwords are readily identifiable as foreignisms by their katakana script and other distinguishing characteristics; as foreignisms, individuals embrace them to varying degrees. Two determinants of an individual’s disposition to loanwords are youth and profession, with gender not playing a significant factor (Loveday, 1996: 180). Japanese individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 have the most affinity to gairaigo , with those so inclined tending to be students and white-collar workers. Meanwhile those over 60 have the least tolerance for gairaigo , with unskilled workers being relatively hostile to foreignisms.


37

Overall, the Japanese public’s acceptance of loanwords in general, and acceptance of the presumptuous and decorative use of loanwords in particular, is quite high vis-a`-vis English-speaking countries.4 Although occasional, isolated outcries against gairaigo are heard, and opinions for curbing their use are voiced, only natural attrition effectively limits the loanword lexicon. Words borrowed from English tend to be adopted, gain and lose popularity and be abandoned much more quickly than Japanese or Sino-Japanese words (Miura, 1979; Shibatani, 1990). Individual’s comprehension of gairaigo Gairaigo are too abundant, diverse and in flux to be known by any individual. The Japanese frequently encounter unfamiliar loanwords, which accounts for the popularity of loanword dictionaries. But even in their bewilderment, there is considerable variation among individuals. Comprehension of loanwords correlates especially to education and occupation, as well as to age. For instance, the 1973 NHK survey (cited in Shibatani, 1990: 152) revealed that rural housewives (in their 40s and 50s) averaged only 40% comprehension on tested loanwords, compared to 60% comprehension for a group of nursery school teachers (late teens and 20s), a group of urban housewives (30s and 40s) and a group of male company employees (20s and 30s). Meanwhile, for certain radically innovative loanwords, the degree of intelligibility among older and less educated Japanese people is quite low. The public’s use of gairaigo The ultimate indicator of an individual loanword’s dissemination is its spontaneous use by the public. By this measure, the king of loanwords might be baibai (bye bye), so intrinsic to conversation that many Japanese are surprised to learn its foreign origin; loanwords such as baibai , mama , papa and toire (toilet) are among the first words learned by Japanese children. Other loanwords are nearly as irreplaceable albeit in particular circumstances; many loanwords thrive in semantic fields where the influence from American culture is great. The Japanese could hardly carry on a conversation without loanwords. Because of the abundance of loanwords in certain academic fields, students’ use of gairaigo in academic discussions tends to exceed that in everyday speech (see Stanlaw, 1982). When speaking of romance, sex or relationships, perpetually interesting topics brimming with English, men in particular tend to use gairaigo more than Japanese

38


terms. And today’s computer geeks could not survive without their pasokon (personal computer), sofuto (software) and mausu (mouse). Not only are students attracted to gairaigo , their ‘in’ talk also reveals extremely creative adaptation of loanwords. This includes the combining of already established loanwords such as bideo (video), kopii (copy) and dekoreeshon (decoration) to a Japanese verbal affix (written in hiragana ) to create conjugatable verbs such as bideo-ru (‘to videotape’), kopi-ru (‘to copy’) and deko-ru {‘to decorate’ (e-mails)}. Such arcane expressions occasionally become mainstream; sabo-ru , whose stem comes from sabotage, originally meant ‘to cut class’, but is now widely used in regards to neglecting any responsibility. The special use of redundant gairaigo Regardless of the original intent of an English word’s borrowing, the public may embrace a special use for it. Many gairaigo have become popular even though there already existed Japanese words for the concepts expressed. This is because loanwords can be used flexibly to express sentiments or situations not as easily described by Japanese (Kay, 1995), as well as fresh nuances (Rebuck, 2002). . . . Japanese has borrowed even those words whose equivalents already existed in the language. This may appear at first to be unmotivated and uneconomical. However, ostensibly synonymous words are often associated with different shades of meanings and stylistic values, thereby enriching the Japanese vocabulary and allowing for a greater range of expression. (Shibatani, 1990: 144) Such parallel vocabulary items are used ‘for a new version of an old thing to impress that something is different between the two’ (Honna, 1995: 53). For instance, the connotations triggered by colour loanwords are different from their Japanese counterparts; yellow, for instance, is associated with brightness more than ki-iro (Nakamura, 1995). The ability of loanwords to express special meanings has made them indispensable to modern society. To distinguish between Japanese and Western things: By contrasting English loanwords, Chinese-origin words and indigenous Japanese words, different feelings and connotations can be expressed. For example, while raisu , gohan and meshi all describe rice: raisu seems fresh, elegant, cosmopolitan and even exotic; gohan is more stiff and formal; and meshi is used colloquially and exclusively by men with a warm and informal ring. Moreover, these variations are used in different


39

contexts: raisu is preferred in Western-style restaurants, gohan in traditional Japanese-style ones and meshi at home. As an affectation: Loanwords can be employed as a mannerism to create a desired impression. For example, even though konpurekkusu (complex) in reference to an ‘inferiority complex’ has the non-loan counterpart rettoukan , some Japanese people feel using konpurekkusu makes them seem more educated, modern and sophisticated. However, complicated or esoteric loanwords may sound pretentious, so there is some pressure to not use large numbers of English loanwords at first meetings (Shibatani, 1990; Stanlaw, 1982). It has also been generally noted that loanwords used for simple affectation or snobbery are quick to disappear from usage (Manczak-Wohlfeld, 2006). To distinguish between natural and other states: In such parallel vocabulary, sometimes the Japanese word refers to the ‘natural’ condition of the phenomenon in question, and the English-based one refers to a modification. For instance, in contrast to sutoroberii-sheeku (strawberry shake), Japanese usually refer to raw strawberries as ichigo. It should also be noted that many redundant loanwords usually appear in compounds rather than singly. As a euphemism: As newspapers use gairaigo to avoid Japanese expressions that are politically incorrect, and bureaucrats use gairaigo when responding to reporters to heighten ambiguity (Oshima, 2004), the public also uses loanwords euphemistically. Indeed, throughout the world, loanwords are often useful for being less offensive than their L1 counterparts. In Japanese, for instance, by using mai (my) as in mai-kaa (‘my car’) and mai-peesu (‘my pace’), the selfish connotations of the native watashi-no or jibun-no can be avoided (see Stanlaw, 1987). Similarly, redundant loanwords can refer to unpleasant (Miura, 1979) or taboo (Loveday, 1996) topics. For example, toire (toilet) can substitute for the non-loan benjo, which sounds blunt and tactless, and herusu (health) refers to sexually oriented massage parlours. Ultimately, loanwords can outrival native vocabulary. When modern objects come to replace traditional ones, the native vocabulary is phased out along with its referents, as pen (pen) has come to replace fude (brush; Loveday, 1996). Moreover this replacement can occur with ostensibly synonymous loanwords; for example, although kisu (kiss) is equated with seppun in dictionaries, it has become far more common in conversation, the use of seppun now restricted to writing (Miura, 1979). As writing loanwords does not require the memorising of Chinese characters, it follows that each subsequent generation, with growing familiarity with English, technology and the emerging global culture,

40


may increasingly prefer loanwords to the exclusion of indigenous words. Such an erosion of the native language is considered by some a grave problem.

Conclusion The principal engine of word generation in contemporary Japanese is borrowing from English. In every meaning, today’s Japanese are living in the generation of gairaigo , witnessing a revolution of words. Although English and Japanese are historically unrelated languages, they are lexically wed by the ongoing massive borrowing. And related languages can be mastered in much shorter times than unrelated ones. Various researchers have written in great detail about particular aspects of gairaigo . So far in this book, I have attended but a broad overview of English-based loanwords. We have seen that English words are transformed in many ways when borrowed, and that their vast number belies how poorly understood many of them are. Nevertheless, loanwords are a dynamic and integral part of modern Japanese. With these points in mind, let us investigate how loanwords are a great resource for Japanese learners of English. Notes 1. These loanwords are representative of the variety of loanwords existing today: a ‘true cognate’ (also known as a ‘helpful cognate’); a shortened loanword; an original coinage; an innovative hybrid that went extinct; and a ‘redundant’ (parallel) loanword. The basic facts of these loanwords appear in a dictionary of etymology (Maeda, 2005). 2. Although the hybrid in-supireeshon already appears in some personal blog sites, directly or indirectly referring to the advertising campaign, marketers of other products will be unable to use it because of copyright law. 3. This study was originally reported in Daulton (2004a). 4. By contrast, although one can indulge in conventional borrowings such as in vivo and vis-a`-vis , gratuitous use of extinct Latinisms and personal importation of foreign words is, generally speaking, verboten .

Part 2

Gairaigo and Language Acquisition

Chapter 3

Resolving the Paradox of Cognates Many languages are linked by the cognate pairs they share sets of words that learners perceive to be similar. Japan’s massive lexical borrowing, for instance, has created many such intersections between Japanese and English. However, loanwords (e.g. apuroochi) and their corresponding borrowed words (e.g. approach) are seldom identical in form or meaning. Therefore, the effect of the mother language (i.e. L1) on the learning of a target language (i.e. L2 or TL) is multifaceted, and negative and positive affects can be observed. This has led to two antithetical views: that cognates are a great pitfall for learners; and that cognates greatly assist acquisition. Particularly in the case of gairaigo , both points of view are abundantly represented in the literature. This chapter will attempt to resolve the ‘paradox of cognates’ (see Carroll, 1992: 94). First, we will review some basic concepts in language learning: previous knowledge, language transfer and cognate relationships. Next, the semantic and phonological ‘pitfalls of cognates’ will be discussed, and then contrasted with empirical studies. To resolve the contradictions that arise, the theoretical foundations for the misunderstanding of learner errors will be presented, as well as the research flaws that have contributed to an unbalanced view of cognates. These theoretical foundations will enable us to examine the particular case of English loanwords in Japanese in Chapter 4.

Basic Concepts To understand the effects of cognates (including loanwords), it is necessary to put some basic concepts into perspective: the role of previous knowledge in learning; what lexical transfer is; and what cognates are. The role of previous knowledge ‘What we know is how we learn’ summarises the fundamental role that previous knowledge plays in all learning; it is a process of finding the best way of mapping new learning onto old (e.g. Baddeley, 1990). With any learning task, in a process known as transfer, we optimise our 43

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Part 2: Gairaigo and Language Acquisition

effort by making as much use of previous knowledge as possible. Imagine snowboarding for the first time anxiously gazing down a snowy slope, we instinctively grasp for whatever previous knowledge is available, be it from skiing, skateboarding or slipping on an icy sidewalk. Before we begin, we already know stopping will be difficult, falling down will hurt and which parts of our body are vulnerable. Such knowledge is precious, and although we may wipe out down the slope, we have done far better than would a typical nomad from the Serengeti. Our previous knowledge will serve us in many ways, and lead us astray in others. When boiling soba (buckwheat) noodles for the first time, how we prepare pasta can be our mental template. We will already know to preheat the water to a boil, open the package, measure out an appropriate amount of noodles and dump it in. Yet our pasta knowledge may lead us to overcook the soba , and the salt we add to the water is unnecessary. When I attempted to play the shamisen , I drew heavily from my closest available knowledge guitars. I experienced positive transfer from guitar techniques such as slides and tremolo picking, putting me on a par with advanced shamisen players. However, I also experienced negative transfer (also known as interference ), and my venerable teacher did not appreciate radical electric guitar techniques such as fret board finger tapping ala Eddie Van Halen. In general, the process of drawing upon one’s L1 knowledge in learning an L2 is known as language transfer, sometimes referred to as cross-linguistic influence (Kellerman & Sharwood-Smith, 1986), which is the many different ways in which one language may influence (the learning of) another. While infants can learn multiple languages effortlessly, older learners must largely resort to an analytical approach, and the L1 becomes the language paradigm to be repeatedly referred to. Learners do not need to build a conceptual framework totally separate from their first language; rather they can add to and integrate their first language system with the second language. (Hammer & Giauque, 1989: 37) Thus a learner’s L1 is fundamental in determining the successes, errors and speed of acquisition. Language transfer affects various aspects of language learning, including: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling and meaning (i.e. semantics); for speakers of a Subject Object Verb (SOV) language (e.g. Japanese) learning a Subject Verb Object (SVO) language (e.g. English), the effect of L1 grammar may be the least facilitative. In contrast to SVO

Resolving the Paradox of Cognates

45

languages, SOV languages have a strong tendency to use postpositions rather than prepositions, to place auxiliary verbs after the action verb, to place genitive noun phrases before the possessed noun, to place a name before a title or honorific, and to have subordinators appear at the end of subordinate clauses. Relative clauses preceding the nouns to which they refer usually signal SOV word order. Some SOV languages have special particles to distinguish the subject and the object, such as the Japanese ga and o . SOV languages also seem to exhibit a tendency towards using a ¯ Time-Manner-Place ordering of prepositional phrases.

Lexical transfer The several types of L1 knowledge and processing abilities that persistently affect the L2 learning process include lexical transfer, through which the L1 lexicon directly affects L2 vocabulary acquisition. Lexical transfer notably includes the knowledge of L1 phonology, lexical semantics and morphology. Learners tend to employ lexical transfer whenever possible. When faced with the task of comprehending a new language, learners at especially early stages tend to associate new words with primary counterparts (Arabski’s 1979 term). In comprehension, or reception, lexical transfer affects learners’ perceptions of input over time as they develop their interlanguages the L2 system developing in their brains. Phonetic and orthographic decoding are the key processes involved. Comprehension focuses on decoding of contextual meaning while structural details remain in the background; grammaticality and acceptability are typically nonissues. Learners’ search for cognates is facilitated by formal similarity; if such similarity can be perceived, transfer is likely. In production, lexical transfer affects learners’ retrieval of knowledge when they face linguistic knowledge gaps that simple avoidance cannot aid; a learner may attempt to communicate with a word drawn from L1, or find it easier to recall an L2 word that is cognate with a native item. Grammaticality and acceptability become quite important as learners strive for communicative competence and acceptance into the foreign language culture.Comprehension and production are distinct processes, making use of the store of words in the mind in different ways. Part of the production process must consist of the selection of appropriate words according to the meaning to be conveyed. The word is then converted into a phonological shape for onward processing into speech. Thus the direction is meaning to sound. In

46


comprehension, the direction of mapping is sound to meaning. (Channell, 1988: 85) In both, the logical possibilities are that the mother tongue can support, fail to support, or hinder someone who is learning or using the vocabulary of a second language. Lexical transfer is particularly important at the lower levels of competence, regardless of language background. We will meet this point again in this chapter. What is a cognate? Definitions of what a cognate is vary. In general, there is a diachronic viewpoint and a synchronic viewpoint; in both schools of thought, there is a narrower and a broader approach. According to the strict diachronic point of view, a cognate has a related form and meaning in two or more languages with a common ancestor (Anthony, 1953). Such a classical definition of cognates with its focus on etymology does not recognise incidental/accidental homographs such as French pain and poisson , and English pain and poison. It may also exclude words that are the result of borrowing, despite that it is not always easy to distinguish historically descended cognates from loanwords. In response, some modern linguists embrace a broader historical definition of cognates that extends the definition to loanwords. The reluctance of some teachers and researchers to embrace loanwords is influenced by a misapplication of the diachronic view of cognates. While a diachronic view is useful for linguists considering the origins of words, it is not appropriate for the study of cognates, where what matters is not the relationships linguists see but those learners see. By contrast, a synchronic viewpoint focuses on words with recognisable similarities between modern languages, irrespective of etymology. Different word types including accidental cognates and borrowed words are recognised as potential cognates. Yet there are narrower and broader forms. Under the strict synchronic viewpoint, cognates have to be similar in meaning as well as form. Meanwhile, the broader viewpoint includes words that are similar in form but may have partially or completely different meanings. The broader synchronic viewpoint is the most appropriate in the study of language transfer. In applied linguistics, research should focus upon perceived cross-linguistic similarities, rather than upon linguistically based analyses. ‘Words do not wear their historical origins on their


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sleeves’ (Carroll, 1992: 102), and ‘accidental cognates’ such as poisson and poison shows that etymology is irrelevant for learners. It is similarity in form rather than similarity in meaning that triggers learners’ recognition of cognates. We will return to this fundamental point in Chapter 6. Learners do not seek differences, and they are perceived only when similarities cannot be established. However, when differences exist, they are likely to result in errors.

Pitfalls of Cognates English words are transformed in various ways when adopted into Japanese (see Chapter 1), and much research has focused on the inhibitory aspect of cognates whose meanings imperfectly overlap. In this context, foreign language instruction in the 20th century can be characterised by among other things teachers’ and researchers’ desire to avoid the L1 in the classroom (Cook, 2002). Sheperd (1996) is among those to use the expression ‘pitfalls of cognates’; other hyperbole includes ‘sure-fire traps’ (Lado, 1957: 84) and ‘a veritable minefield’ (Granger & Swallow, 1988: 108). Errors of various sorts originate from cognates and can be disruptive to communication; native speakers rate lexical errors as more disruptive and more serious than grammatical errors (Johansson, 1978), and indeed they greatly outnumber them (Meara, 1984). Although semantically identical cognate pairs exist, especially with words firmly grounded in physical reality, imperfect correlations are common, especially for abstract concepts. If learners assume that an L2 word’s meaning is identical to an L1 word applying a semantic equivalence hypothesis the errors that can result range from blatant to subtle, the latter being difficult to notice and correct. Semantic differences are typically of the greatest interest to researchers and teachers, some of whom hold that when meanings do not match, the sum influence of cognates on L2 learning is negative (e.g. Hatch & Brown, 1995; Yip, 1995). Because the influence of L1 on L2 learning is robust, errors can be quite persistent. Words that are similar in form but different in meaning are difficult to learn even once the speaker is aware they are different in meaning. (Abberton, 1968: 167 168) The influence of L1 is resistant to teacher intervention (Ijaz, 1986), and it is often the most intellectually gifted of students who are the most frustrated by inappropriate generalisations (Suzuki, 1984).

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The strong influence of cognates on L2 acquisition is complex and not easily described. Part of the complexity is the myriad ways in which members of cognate pairs can differ semantically. (The particular case of cognates in Japanese will be discussed in Chapter 6.)

Convergence and divergence Varying ranges of meaning can result in either convergence or divergence. Convergence is when more than one word in L1 is equivalent to a single word in L2; divergence is the opposite case. With errors of convergence, learners who read or hear an L2 word assume it refers to the single meaning of an L1 word they know. These errors are most common in receptive tasks such as reading and listening. Fortunately, there may be contextual clues telling the learner that such an assumption is not correct. Compared to those of convergence, errors of divergence are more serious in production, i.e. speaking and writing, which requires learners to select one word from several options. For instance, as the English words discuss and argue are both expressed by a single Spanish word discutir, Spanish learners are likely to use them interchangeably (Macaulay, 1966). Moreover with errors of divergence, it is not always obvious to a listener what the intended meaning is, making correction less likely.

False friends Some cognates are known as false friends (or false cognates ), originally from the French ‘faux amis ’. There are several possible forms, the most common being homography, where the spelling is identical but the meaning is not. The second most common form is homophony, where the pronunciation is similar, but the meaning is somehow different; this form occurs with Japanese loanwords. Close false friends , where meanings are deceptively close, may be the most treacherous for learners, as some occur in much the same context as the appropriate words. Distant false friends , where meanings are clearly different, cause some of the most glaring errors (see Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984; Ringbom, 1982). Yet distant false friends are generally easier than close false friends; in production, learners are less likely to make and continue blatant errors; and in comprehension they can often spot that the meaning they are trying to apply to a word does not fit the immediate context (Holmes & Ramos, 1993).


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Frequency and register One of the more subtle difficulties of cognates involves the proper frequency of their use and register restrictions. There is a natural tendency for learners to rely heavily upon the L2 words with which they are comfortable, their ‘lexical teddy bears’: . . . Learners even as advanced as Norwegian university students hold on tightly to words they feel safe with. Sometimes they will be led astray by their lexical teddy bears, but often they will get away with them. The types of teddy bears available are a function of relationships between the L1 and the L2. Some teddies are handed to learners on a plate such as cognates . . . (Hasselgren, 1994: 256) Even advanced learners may rely on cognates in production at the expensive of a more varied vocabulary, or to the exclusion of more appropriate words, such as using gasoline instead of petrol in England as a ‘stylistic false friend’ (Granger & Swallow, 1988: 53). An important aspect of mastering cognates is learning how their frequency and stylistic registers differ from the corresponding L1 words, and that words that may have a harmless or neutral connotation in L1 might be offensive or arrogant in L2, or vice versa .1 On the other hand, frequency may not be so serious a problem when languages borrow lexis mostly from high-frequency vocabulary, and register is not a problem with technical terminology. Moreover, concepts such as frequency and register are much less important in the receptive skills or reading and listening (Ringbom, 1990). Nativised L2 The most extreme instance of non-correspondence between L1 and L2 is ‘nativised L2’. For instance, French has pseudo-English expressions such as rugbyman meaning rugby player and Japanese has sarariiman for businessman. Their influence on L2 acquisition is not necessarily bad because they are relatively likely to be corrected by listeners.

Experimental Data on the Effect of Transfer on Vocabulary Acquisition A second language learner is confronted with a formidable task when acquiring the related lexicon, and the L1 can be of great assistance. This task may be facilitated if the learner is able to apply the system of meaning he already possesses in his first language. More rapid

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learning of a new vocabulary may be achieved if learning is guided from the known to the unknown. (Hammer & Giauque, 1989: 36) Errors are frequent because cognates encourage learners to produce, and eventually the facilitation of cognates outweighs the early errors they cause. Just as errors from negative transfer have been catalogued at length, the facilitating effects of cognates have been persuasively described. Cognates are the easiest vocabulary to learn (e.g. Laufer, 1990), and learners who have access to cognates do much better than those who do not (e.g. Odlin, 1989). Learners can identify cognates in L2 and guess or inference their meanings even before they have learnt much of that language (e.g. Richman, 1970). Cognates allow rapid expansion of vocabulary for various language students. For the Spanish speaker learning English, the number of such lexical items that he can add to his vocabulary is enormous. This is important especially for the beginner, for he often feels himself in a linguistic straightjacket, bursting with things to say, but frustrated by his belief that he lacks vocabulary. This must not be taken to mean the phonemic and grammatical (difference) of the language is to be ignored . . . but the psychological impetus gained by the student’s realisation that he knows something about English words simply because his own language contains similar words is tremendous. (Anthony, 1953: 79 80) Learners should approach cognates with appropriate caution (e.g. Holmes & Ramos, 1993). The effects of cognates on L2 acquisition are multifarious, yet research has shown a generally positive result. While they may interfere with precision-demanding tasks such as spelling accuracy (Ard & Homburg, 1992; Ringbom, 1987), cognates can: improve learners’ performance in vocabulary tests (e.g. Ard & Homburg, 1992); be retained more easily than other words (e.g. De Groot & Keijzer, 2000); enhance reading fluency for readers who are able to recognise them readily in L2 text (e.g. Koda, 1989); and play a role in production in being more accessible than other L2 words, although this may lead to over-use (e.g. Hasselgren, 1994).

Cognates’ effect on spelling accuracy The effect of cognates on spelling accuracy seems to depend on the linguistic environment.


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Cognates can cause spelling errors; Ringbom (1987) found that spelling errors occur more frequently with Swedish Finns than with Finnish Finns because of the superficial similarity between Swedish and English. He posits that this negative effect occurs because ‘ . . . Spelling is a rather special task in that accuracy is all important’ (Ringbom, 1987: 91). If the task is of this rigidly defined nature, previously acquired knowledge and abilities which are similar to those required for the new task very often do not work well, because they lead the learner away from the straight and narrow path in which there is only one correct way of doing things. (Ringbom, 1987: 132) By contrast, Japanese learners of English abroad (Hashimoto, 1993) and at home in Japan (Daulton, 1998) found English words borrowed into Japanese (i.e. cognates) easier to spell than non-borrowed words. It seems learners whose native language uses a Roman script have more confusion with English spelling than those learners whose L1 used a non-Roman script (Oller & Ziahosseiny, 1970). Superior performance on vocabulary tests Many researchers have found that cognates can support learners’ performance in vocabulary tests. For example, Ard and Homburg (1992) compared 194 Spanish and 100 Arabic learners of English who took the Michigan Test for English Language Proficiency. Spanish possesses many more English cognates than Arabic, and the scores of Spanish speakers were remarkably higher than those of Arabic speakers on not only cognates but also noncognates. Apparently Spanish speakers have more time to spend on noncognates, whereas Arabic speakers must expend equal effort on both cognates and non-cognates. That learners with access to cognates do better not only on cognates but overall has been confirmed in a study involving subjects from 20 countries (Laufer-Dvorkin, 1991). Finland provides an ideal situation for investigating transfer because while the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations closely resemble one another culturally and educationally, only Swedish is related to English. Palmberg (1987) found that Swedish-speaking Finns at elementary levels were drawing particularly upon formal similarity between Swedish and English to successfully identify unknown English words in a written text; they managed to assign a correct meaning to most of the unfamiliar words, although the meaning was sometimes approximate rather than exact.

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Their potential vocabulary . . . consists of those words which they have not come across before, either in writing or in speech, but which they can nevertheless understand on first encounter. (Palmberg, 1987: 70) Similarly, Sjoholm (1979) found that Swedish speakers performed better than Finnish speakers in a partial dictation entrance exam. Such findings demonstrate that positive transfer is a stronger influence than negative transfer (Ringbom, 1987). Superior retention of cognates Not only were cognates easier to remember for Dutch learners of English at university level, they were harder to forget. De Groot and Keijzer (2000: 22 23) found that: ‘The words that were the easiest to learn in the first place also left the more permanent traces in memory’. Subjects were trained with six presentations of the same 60 translation pairs followed by a test after the second, fourth and sixth presentation round. In a productive re-test one week after training, cognates were recalled at a rate of 73.3% and non-cognates at 52.5%; in a receptive retest, cognates were recalled at 90.7% and non-cognates at 63%. Moreover, retrieval time for cognates deteriorated less after one week than for noncognates. A similar advantage in recall was also detected for concrete words over abstract words, which indicates that cognateness and concreteness have a similar effect on the learner’s mind. Intra- and cross-linguistic cues play a major role in anchoring words in the mental lexicon. Occasionally the learner may make erroneous assumptions about the exact meaning of a new word, and checking the linguistic similarities against top-down processes is essential to avoid this; as learning progresses, the learner’s mistaken or oversimplified hypotheses can be rectified. By contrast, guessing word meanings from context generally does not foster the retention of meanings (e.g. Pressley et al ., 1987). Positive effect on L2 reading and listening comprehension As opposed to rigid tasks such as spelling and oral production, tasks that allow learners some leeway, such as reading comprehension, are those where learners with related L1s are likely to excel: . . . The learner then has available so much relevant knowledge from his L1 that he need do relatively little learning to understand the new language, since the use of his previous knowledge works


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adequately. The task is one that leaves him a great deal of freedom: the understanding in early stages of learning may be only a partial understanding, but it works in many instances. (Ringbom, 1987: 132) Indeed, Swedish-speaking, Finnish youths are able to understand spoken English words before having started to read English at school, because of the large number of cognates. In Palmberg (1985), concrete high-frequency words were tested, and all of 74 children knew some of them. In a receptive listening comprehension task, the children successfully identified more than half of 40 spoken English words and 14 expressions; close phonological similarity between English words and Swedish equivalents was a powerful factor in many cases, for instance subjects scored 100% on English sister because of Swedish syster. In another Finnish comparison study, Ringbom (1990) examined the mean figures for the English listening and reading comprehension tests in Finland’s National Matriculation Examination, which were of a multiple-choice type. Candidates from Swedish-speaking schools in Finland attained consistently higher marks than those from the Finnish-speaking schools over a 12-year period. . . . Whereas a Finn is often at a complete loss as to the meaning of a particular word he has not met before, a Swede can much more easily infer at least its approximate meaning from its similarity or partial similarity to a word in his L1, making use of his knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, cognates, etc. (Ringbom, 1987: 153) The difference in scores was greater in listening comprehension than in reading comprehension, perhaps because of the extreme time pressure involved in catching someone’s utterances.

Resolving the Paradox of Cognates. Part One: Contrasting Views of Errors Particularly in Japan, many teachers and academics have a deepseated mistrust of cognates (and loanwords). That cognates can appear both harmful and helpful is the paradox of cognates. One root of the apparent contradiction is the absence of a coherent model for transfer. Error as failure Behaviourist Learning Theory set out to explain behaviour by observing the responses that occurred when particular stimuli were present, and particularly the way old habits interfere with learning new habits (such as rats or pigeons pushing bars for food). Skinner’s (1957) Verbal Behavior

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applied this doctrine to higher-order human processes, and the notions of positive transfer (i.e. facilitation) and negative transfer (i.e. interference) became central to behaviourist accounts of L2 learning, with errors being considered failures of learning. Moreover, by comparing the learner’s L1 with the target L2, differences could be identified and used to predict potential errors a procedure known as Contrastive Analysis . It followed that interlingual differences were the prime cause of difficulty and errors, or even the sole cause a strong form of the hypothesis that has few supporters today. Contrastive Analysis works fairly well on the phonological level, at least on the surface. The closed system of phonology lends itself best to systematic contrastive analysis, and many, though not all, learner problems can be referred back to the L1 (Ringbom, 2007). For instance, Japanese learners will certainly have trouble with the English distinction between /r/ and /l/ as in rice and lice. While L2 phonology seldom constitutes a major learning problem for comprehension after the initial stage of learning (Lehtonen et al ., 1977), if there are numerous exclusive forms and patterns between L1 and L2, these will almost certainly cause obstacles for the learner’s early progress in oral competence, and accents may persist a lifetime. However, Contrastive Analysis eventually revealed itself as an oversimplification, as interlingual differences do not always cause problems, and not all learning difficulties could be predicted by it (Swan, 1997). A weak version of Contrastive Analysis later emerged, which attempted to account for learning difficulty by focusing on learner errors, with both pedagogical and psycholinguistic aims Error Analysis. With its assumption that errors indicate learning difficulty, Error Analysis more deeply established the belief that all but formally and semantically identical cognates are detrimental. More realistically, while error data can provide us with the best possible ‘window into the learner’s mind’ (Ringbom, 1982: 86), a preoccupation with errors is a ‘one-sided and incomplete approach to learner language’ (Ringbom, 1987: 69). L1 influence does not manifest itself exclusively, probably not even primarily, in errors. Moreover, while the difficulty of a given item or structure may sometimes correlate with its error frequency, lower error frequency does not necessarily mean the point is less difficult (Duskova, 1969). Avoidance a covert kind of language transfer (Odlin, 2006) demonstrates the limitations of Error Analysis, as learners often avoid errors by simply not producing. Schachter (1974) investigated the relative clauses produced by adult L2 learners from different


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language backgrounds. She found that Chinese and Japanese learners, whose first languages do not contain English-like relative clauses, made fewer associated errors simply because they made fewer attempts at production. Unfortunately, only negative transfer is immediately visible to the researcher, and to this day, L1 is often regarded as simply a source of difficulty and errors. So, to the extent that the lexical entries of the cognate-pair match, learning will be facilitated. To the extent that they differ, learning will be hindered. (Carroll, 1992: 108) L1-based errors can be observed in learner production; without further analysis, the implication can seem a straightforward condemnation of transfer. Discussion: A proper role for errors When one views the acquisition process over time, cognates can be seen to facilitate learning, albeit to various degrees. The question of cognates becomes more interesting when we move away from a Contrastive Analysis of words in isolation and begin to examine the processes that cause learners to recognise cognate relationships and construct their understanding of the language. . . . Mother-tongue influence is responsible not only for errors, but also for much of what is correct in an interlanguage. If we did not keep making cross-linguistic correspondences, we might never manage to learn new languages at all. (Swan, 1997: 167) Errors need to be examined in the broader context of the process of language acquisition. Errors are a sign of the deeper process of theory testing. Many studies have demonstrated how the appearance of errors in learners’ speech is an excellent indicator of rule development in the learners’ interlanguage (Cohen & Aphek, 1981). The errors that the L1 induces likely propel developmental progress along the ‘universal’ route to item acquisition when and where the L1 resembles the L2 (Corder, 1983). Naturally, when the resemblance of cognate pairs is high, it will have a lighter ‘learning burden’ (Nation, 1990: 35). However, it is more accurate to not refer to additional difficulty, per se , but rather lesser facilitation. . . . Failure to facilitate is by no means the same thing as inhibition or interference. Where languages are distantly related there is no

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inhibition, simply little facilitation, which is not at all the same thing. (Corder, 1983: 21) Swedes and Japanese learning English are in a much better position ceteris paribus than Finns and Chinese who have access to very few English-based loanwords. The learner of a closely related L2 certainly makes errors in production due to the over-simplified one-to-one equivalences he has established at an early stage of learning. Yet it remains a relatively minor problem by comparison with those of a corresponding learner for whom it is difficult or even impossible to establish such equivalences to his L1. The latter still remains at a stage when he has to grapple with some of the basic organisational problems in the target language . . . If the learner is able to perceive structural lexical similarities between L1 and L2 there will be an absolutely essential absence of some important learning problems at the early stages, especially as far as comprehension and vocabulary learning are concerned. (Ringbom, 1987: 60) Inevitable oversimplifications will be modified as learning progresses. Communication can work in spite of the learner’s comprehension being only partial. The distinction often made between positive transfer and negative transfer may apply only at the product level as a temporary surface phenomenon whereas the distinction is irrelevant to the underlying processes of L2 learning. Previous theories failed to acknowledge the strong evidence that the long-term benefits of cognates far exceed their short-term drawbacks. Partisan feelings regarding transfer in some cases result in ‘a shrill rejection of its significance based on irresponsibly little evidence’ (Kellerman, 1984: 98). The search for valid evidence has been hampered by flawed research.

Resolving the Paradox of Cognates. Part Two: Research Flaws Contrastive Analysis was too shortsighted to appreciate cognates, and the misunderstandings it caused have been compounded by researchers’ failing to make various important distinctions.


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Types of cognates In research comparing the difficulty of cognates versus non-cognate, many studies have failed to distinguish between types of cognates (Uchida, 2001a). These studies ignore the semantic varieties such as true cognates, close/distant false cognates and convergent/divergent cognates, key distinctions in determining the degree of facilitation. The anecdotal condemnation of certain cognates has often led to the guilt by association of all. The problem is so endemic that much previous research is in need of re-evaluation; cognates could be made to look quite difficult by including only false friends. Types of errors Some researchers have failed to adequately distinguish between types of errors . Among learners’ L2 errors, some research has shown that fewer than half are attributable to L1. Dulay and Burt (1973), when calculating the frequencies of various types of errors of Spanish-speaking children learning English, focusing on morphological features, found that 85% were developmental, 12% unique and only 3% interference. There has been little agreement as to what proportion of errors can be attributed to L1, probably due to the numerous other variables such as tasks and individual differences, but the average seems to be about 33% (Ellis, 1985: 29). Tasks A third, commonly neglected, distinction is between types of skills or tasks , for instance, comprehension versus production. It is relatively easily to establish relationships between incoming data and existing knowledge structures in the mind, and at least for languages that share a writing system, cognate recognition takes place most easily in reading (Holmes & Ramos, 1993). However, in L2 production the knowledge structures have to be self-activated, and deceptive cognates are much likelier to cause errors because there is no facilitative context (Ringbom, 2007). Another important distinction is the level of control required by a given task (Ringbom, 2007). For instance, control is more important for oral than for written communication because of the more intense time pressure. And when perception or production of pronunciation is tested, there is generally task rigidity involved; the learner’s reactions or output must be fully native-like in order to be regarded as correct.

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If the unreasonable goal of native-like ability were applied, learners with unrelated L1s may come to outperform those with related L1s because of the possibility for (faulty) information from L1 to fossilise in the L2 at an early stage (Ringbom, 1987). However, in reality, few learners ever reach native-speaker proficiency, and such a measure of perfection need never be applied; at the typical level of highest accomplishment for most L2 learners, those with related L1s still have the advantage. Moreover, elicited utterances may contain more cross-linguistic influence than spontaneous ones; thus translation appears to be a task where cross-linguistic influence is especially strong (Holmes & Ramos, 1993). Generalisations regarding transfer also ignore the interaction between comprehension and production, particularly how cognates’ facilitating the development of receptive competence in turn facilitates productive competence (Ringbom, 1990).

Individual learner characteristics Another neglected distinction is individual learner characteristics . For one, how willing a learner is to infer meaning from interlingual cues will affect the extent of L1 influence, as well as how sensitive he or she is to interlingual similarities. In particular, the perceived distance between the L1 and L2 (i.e. the psychotypology ) affects how much is transferred and which forms are avoided (Corder, 1983). Moreover, learners who are interested in learning English are able to identify more cognates than those who are not (Uchida, 2001a). Among individual characteristics, perhaps the next most influential is age and stage of learning. Age and stage of learning are very important considerations, and the role of formal similarity in the organisation of the beginner’s mental lexicon is especially critical (Ringbom, 2007). Without controlling for the varying ages of test subjects, the percentage of ‘interference errors’ can vary from 3 to 51% (Ellis, 1985). Beginners have little else to rely upon other than their L1 and the hypothesis that the L2 will work in a similar way to the L1. At early stages of learning, the learner seeks to reduce his learning task by finding similarities to his L1 whenever possible . . . In learning to understand a related language, the learner gets enormous help from cognates, which are usually similar, though not identical, in meaning. (Ringbom, 1983: 210 211)


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Early on, learners tend to focus on form rather than the more abstract concepts of meaning or function, and perceived formal similarities help them to establish cross-linguistic relations in long-term memory (Ringbom, 2007). Beginners’ ability to recognise cognates increases rapidly as their knowledge of L1 and L2 (e.g. phonology and morphology) improves (Uchida, 2001a). At later stages learners rely more and more on their L2 knowledge, and organise their vocabulary knowledge more semantically. Intermediate and advanced learners will show a complex interaction of L1- and L2influence, with the former gradually decreasing as the learner becomes more proficient (Ringbom, 1987). For truly advanced learners, the influence of L1 becomes much harder to detect, or may even have a predominantly negative effect (Ringbom, 2007).

Variability of subject performance over time Related to age and stage of learning is the variation in learners’ performance over time. Research on L2 vocabulary is often one-shot estimates of ability, not longitudinal studies, which can reveal learning as a process in which errors play a vital role (Cohen & Aphek, 1981). Learners are constantly adjusting their hypotheses regarding L2. At first, simplified equivalences work well for developing receptive competence, even though these equivalences will have to be modified by later learning (Ringbom, 1986). The systematic errors observed by many researchers are not wrecked attempts at learning, but snapshots of a learner’s ‘transitional competence’ (Swan, 1997: 179). When learners’ progress is followed over time, researchers are more likely find transfer a successful learning strategy; those students who make successful associations between L1 and L2 retained words even if they had no contact with the word out of class (Cohen & Aphek, 1981). The frequency of cognates naturally affects learning in that it is closely connected with acquisition over time. High-frequency false cognates are easily confused at early stages of learning . . . but since it is a high-frequency word this is generally a passing stage. The more the learner progresses in learning, the more input of the correct meaning of the word he gets, and this leads to a diminishing number of errors. (Ringbom, 2007: 76) For this and other obvious reasons, loanword cognates for highfrequency English are particularly valuable.

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Conclusion When learners draw upon their L1 to learn a foreign language, because of the various interlanguage differences, errors are inevitable. However, a myopic focus on errors, fed by outdated paradigms, hides their developmental role. Indeed the early stages of acquisition, where transfer errors are most abundant, is where the L1 plays its most beneficial role. L1-based errors are common because the L1 encourages production. The increased production and errors impel learners along the interlanguage continuum. This process is comparable to the lexical over- and undergeneralising errors of young children in their L1. The advantage of errors over avoidance is especially stark in the context of Japanese EFL. Japanese learners are typically passive and reticent to communicate, responding with silence or set expressions. When coerced to produce English, it becomes obvious that students’ are most comfortable using cognates; the ‘overuse’ of ‘lexical teddy bears’ is trivial when L2 avoidance is the norm. This and other benefits of cognates for the Japanese is the focus of the next chapter. Note 1. A related problem is when learners are not aware of the various sources of loanwords; for instance, Japanese learners will occasionally produce nonEnglish loanwords {e.g. arubaito from German arbeit (part-time job)} in their English output. Languages are stored together in the brain, and the neural circuits for different languages are highly overlapping and interconnected, which can be confirmed with neuroimaging (Crinion et al ., 2006).

Chapter 4

The Effect of Loanwords in Japanese on the Learning of English Japanese is a language unrelated to any other in a strict etymological sense, yet for its native speakers there are abundant cognates. Similarities can be perceived not only across related languages, but sometimes also across wholly unrelated languages. Occurrence of large numbers of high-frequency loanwords may facilitate vocabulary comprehension of English for speakers of very distant languages such as Japanese. (Ringbom, 2007: 98) Indeed, positive transfer has been known between languages as distant as Swahili and Finnish (Ringbom, 2006). While most researchers and educators in the West recognise that cognates are a helpful resource for learners, within Japan, a strong bias against English-based loanwords persists. An excerpt from an e-mail I received from a Japanese teacher of English expresses how many regard gairaigo : . . . To tell the truth, until I read your papers, I was sort of prejudiced about loanwords. I never thought that the knowledge about loanwords helped Japanese students. Even among mainstream linguists, there is a palpable hesitancy to embrace gairaigo as a lexical resource; in a recent special issue on vocabulary of The Language Teacher (published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching), there was no reference to L1 except a brief warning against interference and errors.1 There exist many anecdotal accounts of transfer errors, usually including hyperbolic condemnation of English-based loanwords (e.g. Rollins, 1999; Sheperd, 1996). This chapter will contrast these with the mounting empirical evidence that English-based Japanese loanwords assist the learning of their corresponding English borrowed words (i.e. the source words). There is a gap in the literature regarding learner 61

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production; a study of the written output of Japanese learners indicates that borrowed words are more easily learned as they are preferred over non-borrowed words.

Shrill Arguments for a Negative Relationship The argument that loanwords in Japanese are of (great) detriment to learners of English has been generated from observations of errors and evidenced with anecdotes. These studies have focused on perceived interference in pronunciation and word meaning. As with Contrastive Analysis itself, there is little empirical evidence presented, only descriptions of gross, superficial features of produced language. It is sometimes implied, sometimes asserted, that cross-linguistic influence is predominantly or entirely negative. Moreover, the distinction between linguistics and social commentary is often obscured. Sheperd (1996), in a paper entitled ‘Loanwords A Pitfall for All Students’, warns that English loanwords in general pose ‘serious problems’ for Japanese students learning English. While focusing on loanwords as a major source of pronunciation problems, he extends his argument to their effect on society. The over reliance on loanwords may tend to weaken and cheapen the Japanese language. And it may lead to a kind of intellectual and cultural malaise. Rollins (1999) echoes that gairaigo undermines and impedes language learning for both Japanese students and foreigners studying Japanese, adding that the adoption of English-based jargon will cause ‘the dumbing-down of Japanese and all of Japan’. Some essays and papers catalogue various loanword pitfalls (e.g. Sheperd, 1996; Simon-Maeda, 1995), mostly involving the transformations that loanwords have undergone, but including peripheral phenomena such as differences between British and American English. Kobayashi (1992) demonstrates how researchers can draw questionable, long-range conclusions from a single test. Kobayashi’s Japanese ESL (English as a second language) students sometimes overlooked certain presented errors because of L1 loanwords with semantically shifted meanings. An example presented is students’ consideration of the sentence ‘Master always scolds me’ to be correct because of masutaa in Japanese, which is a bar owner. While native speakers replaced master with boss, only 10 out of 62 Japanese spotted the ‘error’ and only four of the 10 could provide the word boss. That master would be correct if one

The Effect of Loanwords in Japanese on the Learning of English

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imagined a slave/master relationship was not addressed. More importantly, Kobayashi neither acknowledged the developmental nature of errors nor appreciated that some Japanese participants were indeed aware of the subtle differences in lexical gridding between master and boss. There are numerous books of false cognates and Japanised English with titles such as Katakana Words that will Get in the Way (Masden & Miura, 1990), Full of Mistakes Katakana Words (Oshima, 1995) and English That Americans Don’t Know (Yamada, 1995). Authors are typically motivated by their own experiences of making mistakes based on false cognates (Uchida, 2001a). Meanwhile, Japanese/English cognates have rarely been acknowledged in mainstream English teaching materials (see Uchida, 2001a). The reticence and hostility towards loanwords may have roots deeper than errors.

The Katakana Crutch and Teacher Confidence Two ubiquitous features of Japanese classrooms may contribute in subtle and profound ways to the negative feelings at the intersection of English and Japanese. These are the misuse of the katakana syllabary in the learning of English, and the lack of confidence of Japanese teachers of English (JTEs). As a shortcut to English, teachers and students often resort to katakana English, sometimes never venturing beyond the katakana replicas. As the L1 phonological system of Japanese creates an obstacle for learners, English teachers, for instance, are often lured into pronouncing English with a Japanese (i.e. katakana ) accent to be easily understood: Teacher: What is your name? Student: Ee ? (Huh?) Teacher: What is your neemu ? Student: Mai neemu izu Kenji. As the student has responded, the teacher is not inclined to explain the difference, for instance, between neemu and name (/neym/). Similarly, students making titanic but misguided efforts to transliterate long passages into katakana , typically scratching notes above the English in textbooks, are praised because they can recite the passages rapidly; meanwhile, students who struggle without the katakana crutch are directly or indirectly criticised.

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According to Daulton (1996: 50 51), in a survey of nine JTEs in middle school, two thirds admitted to using katakana on the blackboard ‘sometimes’ to explain English pronunciation, only one claiming ‘never’ to use it. By contrast, only one third of the teachers reported ‘often’ using a phonemic alphabet, in Japan usually the Daniel Jones Phonemic Alphabet, while five of nine used it ‘rarely’ or ‘never’. JTEs not only lack confidence in their students’ ability to comprehend English, they lack confidence in their own pronunciation (Murphey & Sasaki, 1998). Three of Daulton’s (1996: 51) JTEs ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ corrected students’ pronunciation errors, claiming, ‘I think it is very difficult to teach the students correct pronunciations’ and ‘I can’t pronounce correctly’. Not only do many JTEs avoid teaching pronunciation, many avoid speaking English entirely, using Japanese for over 90% of their talking time (see Kluge, 1997: 43). Such teachers may be missing a golden opportunity to mould young ears and pronunciation. Although some children start earlier at private conversation schools, most Japanese begin their formal English study at age 12, in their first year of middle school. The transition from childhood to adulthood is likely a crucial point for maturational constraints in language acquisition (Long, 1990), and pronunciation misconceptions are unlikely to have yet fossilised. Most JTEs are aware of the harm of using katakana as a crutch, and may extend their ambivalence about this practice to loanwords. Katakana ’s intimate connection with gairaigo places loanwords in a dubious light another reason to shun them in the classroom.

Empirical Research on the Effect of Gairaigo A focus on errors is not an appropriate way to approach cognates. Lexical acquisition is much more complex, and there is strong evidence that the effect of gairaigo is predominantly positive on various aspects of English word knowledge in various learning situations, although not exclusively so. The findings parallel those of other language contact situations. Childhood acquisition Over seven months, Yoshida (1978) observed a facilitating effect of English/Japanese cognates on comprehension for a three-year old Japanese boy recently arrived in the USA. The data were gathered from three sources: (1) his daily utterances; (2) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests (PPVT); and (3) word book tests. English loanwords


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in Japanese helped the boy learn English words more quickly, and were particularly helpful in enlarging his receptive vocabulary. Presented with 22 English borrowed words in a PPVT, he was able to comprehend 19, words such as table (teeburu ) and orange (orenji); also there was no comparison data for non-borrowed words. Regrettably, in production of borrowed words, English speakers could not always understand the boy’s pronunciation; for example, while table was changed to English / teybl/ from Japanese teeburu , orange remained as orenji . The importance of correct pronunciation and correct word stress was apparent. While Yoshida’s study dealt with the oral production of a young child, other studies (Brown & Williams, 1985; Daulton, 1998; Hashimoto, 1992; 1993; Kimura, 1989) have focused on college-level learners of English. Word recognition While the Japanese phonological system is an obstacle for L2 English pronunciation, loanwords, per se , are not. English words are rendered into the Japanese sound system when borrowed, which is an obstacle for L2 pronunciation. However, the positive effect of cognate familiarity is stronger than the inhibiting effect of formal difference. English loanwords in Japanese do not impede the mastery of spoken English and may be an aid in some cases, especially for word recognition. In Hashimoto (1992), students were given an oral production test, with word list and sentence list components. As Japanese lacks some of the vowels and consonants found in English, English loanwords adjusted to the Japanese phonological system might hinder learners’ acquisition of English pronunciations, as in Yoshida (1978). Hashimoto focused on the /l/ and /r/ distinction because it is a well known problem for the Japanese, and as expected, subjects had trouble producing English /l/ and /r/, especially with borrowed words. However, she found that the Japanese do not, as is commonly thought, substitute /r/ for /l/ and /l/ for /r/; rather they use the same Japanese sound (neither an English [r] nor an English [l]) for both /r/ and /l/. In other words, rather than phonetic confusion, many production errors involved phonetic approximation. {Similarly, Finns frequently render English and Swedish /p/ and /b/ by the Finnish /p/, which is intermediate between the Germanic /p/ and /b/ (see Suomi, 1976)}. Hashimoto (1992) also considered how the Japanese katakana transcriptions of English words known by learners might interfere with English borrowed word recognition and production. She tested whether Japanese learners of English make more errors with borrowed words

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than with non-borrowed words. She moreover looked for differences between recognition skills and production skills. Tasked with writing down the words and sentences they heard, contrary to expectations, her university students had a relatively easy time recognising and producing English words that have been introduced into Japanese, in particular when it came to the English /l/ and /r/ phonemes. For instance, four of the six highest recognition percentages were for loanwords. Hashimoto concluded that it is the everyday nature of loanwords that facilitates borrowed word recognition. Spelling It appears that Japanese are generally able to spell borrowed words better than non-borrowed words. Hashimoto (1993) focused on the influence of loanwords on the spelling accuracy of their related English words. Her subjects were Japanese ESL students in the USA. Her results are summarised in Table 4.1. and Table 4.2.; the figures are straight numerical means derived by computer to compare levels within the same variable but not across different variables. As also noted below in Daulton (1998), borrowed words are easier to spell than non-borrowed words. Moreover, the rate of correct spelling increased in proportion to the word frequency in English, as seen in Table 4.2. That is, more frequent words were easier to spell. Also of interest to Hashimoto was that the knowledge of word meanings helped the subjects to spell words correctly. Table 4.1 Word variety and spelling accuracy (Hashimoto, 1993: 56) Variety

Mean

Non-borrowed

4.38

Borrowed words

5.06

Table 4.2 Word frequency and spelling accuracy (Hashimoto, 1993: 56) Word frequency

Mean

Low

4.27

Middle

4.49

High

5.37


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Listening comprehension Quick and effective learning for comprehension is above all what distinguishes the learning of a related language from that of an unrelated language (Ringbom, 2007); by this definition, English and Japanese are related by loanword cognates. As cross-linguistic similarity facilitates automatisation, cognates are particularly useful for the oral skills of listening and speaking, where quick and efficient retrieval is needed. Cognates contribute to building an extensive associative L2 network for receptive competence. Receptive knowledge of a target language can be attained so quickly that the gap between passive and active proficiency may widen. Generally, listening comprehension is a far more difficult challenge than reading comprehension; perhaps that is why the positive effect of loanwords is so notable in listening comprehension. In Brown and Williams (1985), second-year English majors selected from four choices the correct definition (presented in Japanese) of the English words they heard on three tapes. ‘Tape A’ contained nonborrowed words. And while the remaining two tapes both contained borrowed words, in the case of ‘Tape B’, students were given no particular instruction, while with ‘Tape C’ they were informed that the items were borrowed words. The level of tested vocabulary was relatively easy at or below the 2000-most-common-word level of a Japanese/English learners’ dictionary. Words were presented without context, and choices were displayed in writing on a video monitor. Brown and Williams (1985: 140) found that the Japanese students of English, when they heard English words, understood the meanings of borrowed words better than non-borrowed words. Remarkably, students did the best when not told that the test items were borrowed words. The study had various limitations. As all tested words were at the level studied in high school textbooks, the scores were more a measure of retention than inferencing. Another limitation was that cognates were treated as a unitary class without reference to which types of cognates (e.g. true or divergent) were used. Retention of spoken and written English Both Japanese EFL and ESL learners retain borrowed words better than non-borrowed words, although it is ESL learners who are best able to subsequently acquire the full range of borrowed word meanings. In Kimura (1989), Japanese EFL and ESL university students chose the correct definitions of 34 English words from the three bilingual choices; the tested items consisted of borrowed words and non-borrowed words.

92%

59%

30%

Jr. high school

High school

University

Word level

Borrowed words

3%

14%

90%

Non-borrowed words

1000%

421%

102%

Difference

26%

44%

92%

Borrowed words

2%

10%

83%

Non-borrowed words

Table 4.3 Cloze test comparison of borrowed words and non-borrowed words (Daulton, 1998: 21)

1300%

440%

111%

Difference

68



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Borrowed words in this study corresponded to either true or convergent cognates, and two thirds were chosen from the most common 908 words of English. Non-borrowed words were selected to be comparable in level with borrowed words. For borrowed words, the definitions were: the typical English meaning (which may or may not have been adopted by Japanese); a correct English meaning that was different from the Japanese loanword meaning; and a nonsense meaning. Both EFL and ESL groups scored about 5% better for borrowed words over non-borrowed words (Kimura, 1989: 44, 47), the relative advantage of borrowed words being comparable to that found in Brown and Williams (1985). Kimura (1989) asserted that because borrowed words are the most accessible, they can be an effective tool for learning related vocabulary. Recognition and recall at different levels of vocabulary While Brown and Williams (1985) and Kimura (1989) chose relatively easy vocabulary items, in his study of the recall of borrowed words versus non-borrowed words, Daulton (1998) expanded the range of vocabulary to three levels: junior high school, high school and university, as measured by an English/Japanese learners’ dictionary. First-year junior college students late in the academic year were given blank-filling questions that provided the first and last letter of each item. For example:

As the first and last letters of target words (e.g. cold) were provided, the test employed recognition as well as recall; the prompt for each fill-in was the first Japanese definition listed in the English/Japanese dictionary. While replicating the results of Brown and Williams (1985) and Kimura (1989) at the lower level of vocabulary, remarkable results were found in the more difficult levels (e.g. elegant and bilingual), using both the easier measure of at least a phonetically acceptable spelling (e.g. ‘eligant’), and a stricter measure of correct spelling. The results are summarised in Table 4.3. The shaded area represents data for acceptable spellings, and the clear area for correct spellings. We see that at the university level, for instance, subjects were 13 times more likely to recall and spell correctly borrowed words than non-borrowed words, in contrast to only a marginal difference in performance at the junior high level. Although cognates were treated as a unitary class, a sampling of 24 loanwords revealed only one false cognate, with the rest of the meanings

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matching one of the three most common meanings of a monolingual dictionary (Daulton, 1998: 22). More details of this revealing study appear in Chapters 5 and 6.

Study: The Effect of Gairaigo on Written English Production While Japanese cognates have been shown to assist the learning of borrowed words in English under various testing conditions, only one study has dealt with Japanese students’ choice of English words. Brown (1995) found that Japanese EFL university students preferred borrowed words such as imitation over equally appropriate non-borrowed words. He presented students with sentences in English where one word was missing, followed by four vocabulary choices, all of which were grammatically and logically possible. For instance: In Hong Kong tourists can buy a lot of ______ name brand goods. a. exceptional b. cheap c. foreign d. imitation Despite there being four choices, participants chose borrowed words 49.6% of the time. Brown attributed this preference for borrowed words to the ‘borrowed word recognition phenomenon’ and posited that loanwords are a ‘latent English vocabulary base’. However, this experiment did not control for the intrinsic difficulty of the 20 test items. Beyond Brown (1995), the question of whether the Japanese prefer borrowed words has not been thoroughly explored, although this phenomenon has been observed in other language settings (e.g. Hasselgren, 1994). It is commonly thought that recognition skills develop ahead of production skills (e.g. Hashimoto, 1992). Good learners may acquire a considerable receptive proficiency in a surprisingly short time, especially as interlingual, potential knowledge is available before learning takes place. However, achieving speaking or writing proficiency is much more complex and time consuming, as individuals are faced with multiple choices not only between different words, but also between different forms of the same word. Above all, the speaker/writer has to activate the knowledge of words without external stimuli. If the Japanese were to prefer borrowed words to non-borrowed words in the English they produce, this would be evidence that loanwords are pushing their corresponding borrowed words into production, thus facilitating acquisition. In an examination of students’ writing, if variables were controlled for, then conclusions could be drawn from the ratio of borrowed to non-borrowed words.2


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Method Thirty-three first-year Economics majors in a required English class at a Japanese university in Kyoto, between the ages of 18 and 19 were asked to ‘Write about your plans for summer vacation’. As the students were about to begin their vacations, potential topics were plentiful, and they completed the task during a 30-minute period in class. Dictionaries were not allowed. Pilot testing indicated that the topic ‘plans for summer vacation’ would not skew the data towards borrowed words. As the study did not examine orthographic accuracy, reasonable misspellings (e.g. ‘lisence’) were admitted, as the participants had displayed correct phonological knowledge. The resulting corpus The 33 participants produced 2360 tokens (occurrences of words, even repeated) and 505 types (distinct words). Individual compositions ranged from 28 tokens to 150 tokens, with an average of 71.5. To aid the analysis, the VocabProfile (VP) computer program divided the English text into frequency categories including the 570-word Academic Word List (AWL ; Coxhead, 1998).3 The statistics for tokens and types by word level (as determined by the WebVP) are presented in Table 4.4. Within the first 500 words were 1784 of the total 2360 tokens, 75.6% of the corpus. The first 1000 words include many function words (49.9% of the entire corpus). However, excluding the function words (e.g. about, the) still left more than 840 tokens (238 types) within the first 1000 words far greater than the 87 tokens (43 types) produced at the 1001 2000 Table 4.4 Lexical summary of student compositions Number of tokens (types)

Percent of total corpus by tokens (%)

1784 (149)

75.6

501 1000

254 (89)

10.8

1001 2000

87 (43)

3.7

AWL

24 (10)

1.0

211 (214)

8.9

Word level 1 500

Off-list Total

2360 (505)

100

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level. As very few tokens and types were produced at the AWL level (about 1% of tokens), and the ‘Off List’ words consisted of mostly Japanese words written in Roman alphabet (e.g. matsuri for festival) and proper nouns, these levels were not examined further. A fraction of the ‘Off List’ words were English words not appearing in the VP frequency list, including beach, vacation and festival, items of lower frequency but particular relevance to the topic of summer vacation.

Results The abundance of borrowed words can be seen in a cursory examination of three example compositions, with the borrowed content words appearing in bold. Keep in mind that a ‘borrowed word’ can be either an actual word borrowed into Japanese (e.g. book) or a member of the same word family (e.g. books). (See Chapter 8 for a thorough discussion of word families.) Only common, freestanding loanwords are involved. I will go to the sea in summer vacation I will also go to hanabi . I hope to take a car license. Although summer is very hot I will exercise. I will back to my home in Okayama prefecture. First, I am going to play and play football (soccer) with some friends. Second, I plan to have to take a driver license and practice to drive a car of my father’s because I finished going to driving school. Third, I wanna buy a lot of books. So, I will read some books. All is done, if I don’t fail to exam. This summer I want to go to sea. Last year I have studying for university exam so I didn’t go anywhere. If possibly I want to go to overseas but I don’t know. I talk with friend and talking about Awaji island. We want go to Awaji island because that land is no railway and no busy car and there is clean sea. I want to tan and swimming a little. Summer’s sunshine is very hot but I want to lay on the beach absorb a sunshine’s light. Next I want to go to flower fire festival. I want to see a big fire flower when I see it. I thought summer and I want to working a job. I want to make a many money and I want to lay a lot of so no class. Want to late wake up and lay all night and sleep very much. Upon examination, most of the content words are directly borrowed words, such as back (bakku ), home (hoomu ) and first (faasuto ), as opposed to being related by word family. Even when subjects needed to referred to fireworks in English, they often resorted to directly translating


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Japanese hanabi (literally flower fire) into ‘flower fire’; both flower and fire are directly borrowed words. In order to make conclusions based upon the proportion of borrowed to non-borrowed words, one must know their natural proportion. As the following chapter will make clear, we should expect roughly half the first-2000 word families of English to correspond to Japanese; borrowed word production in the present study far exceeded this level indicating a borrowed word effect. The complete data for how many borrowed words and non-borrowed words at the high-frequency level participants produced is summarised by level in Table 4.5. and explained here. The borrowed word effect is calculated by dividing the number of borrowed words by the number of non-borrowed words. For instance, at the 501 1000 level, a student was 546% (i.e. five times) more likely to use a borrowed word than a non-borrowed word. Without a borrowed-word effect, participants would have produced roughly equal numbers of borrowed and non-borrowed words; to the contrary, at all levels participants preferred borrowed words. The results of the study (which exclude function words) are described by level here:

1 500 Vocabulary: Of the 601 tokens, 436 were borrowed words. And of the 149 types, 112 were borrowed words. That is, about three quarters of both tokens and types at this level were borrowed words.

501 1000 Vocabulary: Although participants produced fewer words at this level, there was an even greater proportion of borrowed words. Of the 239 tokens, 202 were borrowed. And of the 89 types, 73 were borrowed. Apparently, as the intrinsic difficulty of vocabulary within the first 1000 words increased, participants were relying increasingly upon borrowed words. Table 4.5 Student use of borrowed and non-borrowed words (function words excluded) Number of borrowed tokens (types)

Number of nonborrowed tokens (types)

Borrowed word effect

1 500*

436 (112)

165 (37)

264% (303%)

501 1000*

202 (73)

37 (16)

546% (456%)

1001 2000

60 (30)

27 (13)

222% (231%)

Word level


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1001 2000 Vocabulary: Although far fewer words were produced at this level, borrowed words were still clearly preferred. Of the 87 tokens, 60 were borrowed. Of the 43 types, 30 were borrowed. Thus, about two thirds of both tokens and types at this level were borrowed words. The ratios of borrowed versus non-borrowed words produced at each level probably are not immutable constants. Rather, these ratios will likely differ somewhat with the ages of learners, their academic interests, the task at hand and so on. The clear indication of the data is that lowproficiency Japanese learners of English will prefer borrowed words to varying but substantial degrees at all levels.

Conclusion Although Japanese phonology is an obstacle for the Japanese to master correct English pronunciation, the effect of loanwords is positive overall. English-based loanword knowledge in Japanese facilitates various aspects of English word knowledge, among these, production. It is likely that English loanwords in Japanese are promoting production itself, as having easily accessed vocabulary facilitates communication overall. The size and quality of the ‘built-in lexicon’ of common English-based loanwords will be discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. Notes 1. Laufer’s warning to pay attention to interlingual semantic differences (Laufer et al ., 2005). 2. A pilot version of this study appeared in Daulton (2003b). 3. The web version of the program (WebVP) is available at http://www.lextutor. ca/vp/ and is based on the original, off-line program (see Laufer & Nation, 1995), which is known as ‘Range’ in its latest version.

Part 3

The Built-in Lexicons

Chapter 5

Common Loanword Cognates for High-frequency and Academic English Sometimes noticing useful connections between seemingly unrelated things produces a blinding glimpse of the obvious. For instance, early in the 1920s, Harry Burnett Reese, a former dairy employee, got the idea to combine peanut butter and chocolate in a candy; he eventually sold his company to his former boss Milton S. Hershey for a fortune. Not long after, in 1930, the Galvin manufacturing company combined car driving (‘motor’) and radio sound (‘ola’) to introduce the first commercial car radio, the Motorola model 5T71. Some intuitive leaps are painfully obvious in retrospect. At Temple University in Japan, I first learned of the extremely useful high-frequency vocabulary of English, and I began to wonder how many words were already familiar to Japanese as English-based loanwords. Typically in historically unrelated languages, lexical similarities tend to refer to low-frequency words (see Ringbom, 2007), which are relatively useless as cognates (Granger, 1993). However, the number of highfrequency cognates I found in Japanese astounded me. In this chapter, after discussing the frequency types of English and word lists, I will describe how I assembled lists of common loanwords corresponding to high-frequency English as well as academic English.

Frequency Types of English Vocabulary While we have not learned the alphabet until we can recite and recognise every letter, such is not the case with a foreign lexicon. In fact, most native speakers know but a fraction of their mother tongue the part that has significance in their lives. Educated native speakers of English know around 8000 9000 word families, excluding proper names, compound words, abbreviations and foreign words (Nation, 2004). Vocabulary sizes of much less than 5000 word families is typical of foreign learners of English (Nation & Waring, 1997: 8). 77

Part 3: The Built-in Lexicons

78

This being the case, L2 learners and teaching professionals must determine what words need to be known. In the earliest stage we need the maximum power of expression possible with the smallest number of words. (West et al ., 1934: 51) One tool is vocabulary lists. Carefully prepared word lists present the vocabulary appropriate for the particular circumstances under which the language is to be taught and used (Richards, 1974).

Types of vocabulary and their utility We can distinguish words by their percentage of text coverage. Nation (2001a) cites four types of vocabulary: high-frequency, academic , technical and low-frequency. High-frequency words provide the most coverage as they are basic to English communication. Naturally, these words (sometimes called ‘general service vocabulary’) draw much academic attention. They not only include virtually all the function words such as a and the, but many of the content words that are likely to be encountered. Research on spoken vocabulary shows that high-frequency words are particularly important in spoken English (Schonell et al ., 1956). Academic and technical words are quite useful for those in particular circumstances, i.e. university students and those in particular fields of study. These words have high-frequencies, albeit within specialised areas (Nation, 1993). Academic words (e.g. lecture) are shared by several fields of study and are supportive of but not central to the topics (see Coxhead, 1998). Meanwhile, technical words (e.g. quark and myocardial infarction) are high-frequency words for special purposes (e.g. quantum physics and cardiology) and are highly salient. What remains is the vast number of low-frequency words (e.g. bodacious and iguana), which occur very infrequently and cover only a small proportion of any text. They number close to 100,000 items. The boundary between high-frequency and low-frequency vocabulary is somewhat arbitrary in practice; it can be set by various criteria. Ninetyfive percent coverage of text and 3000 word families may strike the optimal balance between results and learning effort. Note that where there is only 90% coverage of a text, then one word in every 10 or one word per line will be unfamiliar. Gaining 95% doubles the amount of context available. (Nation, 1999: 254)

Common Loanword Cognates

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When learners’ vocabularies are large enough to enable 95% coverage, there is then on average one unknown word in every 20 running words. Nation (1999) believes the 19 known words allow successful guessing from context, and research by Laufer (1986) also supports this as a crucial threshold for learners. In order to achieve good comprehension of informal conversation and reading in English, as well as to have a well-rounded arsenal for production, around 3000 word families is the crucial threshold (see Nation, 1993; 2001b). With proper nouns as a given (i.e. understood from context), this level provides over 95% coverage in conversation and nearly 95% coverage of most non-academic texts (Nation, 2006).1 Early acquisition of frequent words will help the learner to function more satisfactorily in the target language in the initial stages (Ringeling, 1984). The high-frequency words are of a number manageable over the span of a long-term English program (Nation, 2001a). Nation (1990: 14) writes, ‘Any time spent learning them will be well repaid because they cover a lot of text and will be met often.’ High-frequency words are so valuable that they should be learned to the point of automaticity (West et al ., 1934). In general, high-frequency words are dealt with individually due to their proven utility, and low-frequency words are dealt with as a group utilising learner strategies (e.g. guessing and referring to a dictionary). After mastering the mostly Anglo-Saxon high-frequency vocabulary, those proceeding to tertiary education in an English-speaking country should additionally master the Graeco-Latin vocabulary of the English of academic study. Word lists Word lists are a first step in ensuring that learners spend time on the most valuable words (see Nation, 2001a). One prominent use of word lists is in graded readers, such as the Oxford Bookworms series. In creating lists, one way to distinguish words is by their percentage of coverage within certain types of texts. There have been various frequency lists over time, the most venerated being West’s (1953) A General Service List of English Vocabulary (GSL ). While frequency lists may disagree about the frequency ranking of their items, there is about 80% agreement about what words appear (Nation, 1999). A certain set of English words with great usefulness in a wide range of communication environments will appear in any well designed frequency list. Although well designed lists are likely to be

80


relatively stable over time, lists prepared from more recent corpora provide better prima facie credibility. The most modern frequency lists are based on the British National Corpus (BNC), a 100-million-word collection of 90% written and 10% spoken language compiled between 1991 and 1994. Word type and lemma (a headword and inflected forms without derivations) lists from the BNC, containing frequency, range and dispersion information, are available from: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ucrel/bncfreq/ flists.html. They are also published in Leech et al . (2001). Detailed information on the development of the lists is available at http:// www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/nation.aspx. The BNC 3000 (Nation, 2004) is a frequency list of the first 3000 word families of the BNC, considering both frequency and range of usage. The academic words of English appear in Coxhead’s (1998) An Academic Word List (AWL ). The AWL contains 570 word families that are frequent and of wide range in a variety of academic texts. It is based on a corpus of 3.5 million running words from the Arts, Sciences, Law and Commerce and was designed to help students prepare for tertiary education (Coxhead, 1998). The AWL is also available online at http:// www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/. Limitations of frequency lists Users of frequency lists need to remember that their validity and usefulness are limited by various factors, some procedural, some conceptual. Frequency lists are compiled under differing criteria. Some variations include: using differing definitions for a ‘word’ (e.g. Nisbet, 1960); having a strong written or national bias (Nation, 1999); and differences regarding whose language among a population is being considering (Preller, 1967). Some word counts and frequency lists do not distinguish between homonyms, or consider idioms (Nisbet, 1960) or colloquial words (Engels, 1968). Frequency lists are imperfect snapshots that begin to fade immediately. As the lexicons of languages are constantly changing, word frequencies are always in flux, and in some cases, words may even disappear from usage entirely. Moreover, word frequency alone should not be the sole criteria in vocabulary teaching. It is often the words that fall outside the high-frequency words that constitute the high-information content of communications (Richards, 1974).


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A general criticism of all word lists rejects that knowledge of one word grants access to its related family members. While high-frequency lists imply a limited and reasonable number of words to be learned, the word counts given refer to headwords in word families that, in fact, contain a headword and its related inflected forms and derivations a word family. This criticism, as it applies to the Japanese EFL context, will be examined in Chapter 8. Another criticism is that frequency lists do not reflect learnability because they fail to take into account how the learner’s L1 is affecting the learning of words. . . . In spite of the care and experience that has gone into the preparation of such lists, they cannot give us a vocabulary sample graded as to difficulty because by their very nature they fail to take into account the most powerful factor in acquiring the vocabulary of a foreign language, namely, the vocabulary of the native language. (Lado, 1957: 30 31) As will be shown below, for Japanese learning English, there are a substantial number of loanword cognates for the high-frequency and academic words they must learn.

Japanese Cognates for High-frequency English Ideally a learner’s L1 will contain many cognates corresponding with the most useful words of a target language, thus providing a ‘built-in lexicon’ of high-frequency words. Ikegami (1983) found that 29% of 3990 basic English words in a list prepared by The Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET) were borrowed from English into Japanese; indeed Ikegami (1983: 136) reported great difficulty in finding words below the 2000 word level that had not been borrowed. More than a decade later, Daulton (1998: 22) reported 38% of the word families in West’s A General Service List (1953) similarly corresponded to Japanese. Yet this study understated the number of cognates by relying on a single loanword dictionary for common loanwords. A more thorough study found that nearly half of the 3000 most frequent word families in English have correspondences with common Japanese loanwords. This study is described in detail below.2 Collecting loanwords The first step in finding cognates is collecting loanwords that are likely to be well known by the Japanese. Although there are numerous gairaigo

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dictionaries with tens of thousands of loanwords, many or most of the items contained are obscure; what is needed is a dictionary of loanwords in common usage. Two dictionaries that purport to contain such loanwords exist: Motwani’s A Dictionary of Loanwords Usage (1991) and Kamiya’s Tuttle New Dictionary of Loanwords in Japanese (1994). However, only 80.8% (Motwani) and 86% (Kamiya) of contained words were familiar to college students in the year 2001 (Daulton, 2001: 275), in part reflecting the high turnover rate of loanwords and the ages of the dictionaries. Despite such concerns, the two loanword dictionaries would be a valuable source of lexical data if used in combination; there were an estimated 4350 distinct word types to be found in the two dictionaries combined, with just over 2000 overlapping in both. Corpus data can complement the loanword dictionary data. Finding corpus information on loanwords is difficult, however, because gairaigo are a small subset of the overall Japanese lexicon. Fortunately, an extensive word-frequency list based on a recent year’s issues of the Mainichi newspaper (also described in Chapter 2) was obtained a corpus large enough to provide thousands of loanwords (whose comprehensibility varies from everyday use to total obscurity).3 It is based on the complete set of 2001 Mainichi newspapers and includes data from sentences followed by a kuten (the Japanese version of a period). With no headlines and no ads, there were 48,097,418 characters in the corpus, or if one averages that two characters in Japanese make the equivalent of one English word, then it was roughly a 24-million-word corpus. The resulting frequency list of katakana types ran to almost 13,000; from tero (terrorism) with 11,584 occurrences to words like inkurain (incline) occurring once. Another list was produced of the two thousand most common, katakana word types not recognised by the text analysis software (ChaSen). Although proper nouns dominated this ‘unknown’ list, it also contained a small number of loanwords. The combination of loanword dictionaries and newspaper corpus provided a diverse base of loanwords in which to find BNC 3000 correspondences. However, the usefulness of the newspaper corpus is limited by factors such as: the nature of loanword use in the mass media; the idiosyncratic nature of news itself; and its fixed genre. To ensure the most thorough results, those BNC 3000 word families not having already been found to correspond to Japanese loanwords were scrutinised by a native informant. She added bout 300 additional correspondences, many involving clearly well established loanwords that so far had been


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overlooked. The commonness of these items, too, would later be tested empirically. Determining the commonness of loanwords A high degree of fluency in the L1 from which transfer will take place is necessary (e.g. Nagy et al. , 1993; Ringbom, 1983). Cognate pairs could be of questionable value as the Japanese often do not understand even often-used loanwords (e.g. Loveday, 1996). Self-appraisal was used to validate the 2381 word types corresponding to the BNC 3000 with 140 students at a Japanese university; they were not English majors rather typical students taking compulsory English classes. Each of 24 test versions contained about 100 loanwords and was given to 10 students; seven out of 10 students needed to recognise a loanword for it to be retained. In this manner, 573 poorly understood loanwords were eliminated. The results are presented in Table 5.1. As can be seen, the frequency of the English words appears to correlate positively to the number of correspondences between common Japanese and high-frequency English. This supports the idea that it is the most useful concepts that are most likely to be borrowed into a language. Keeping in mind that a word family is a headword with its inflected forms and common derivations, a single loanword (e.g. akusesu) corresponding to an English word family headword (e.g. access) may help learners with the borrowed word’s inflected forms (e.g. accessed) and common derivations (e.g. accessible). Thus, while 1808 individual English words from the frequency list corresponded to common Japanese loanwords, it may be more consequential that 1356 word families did. At the first 1000 level, in 54.8% of word families one or more members Table 5.1 Loanword correspondences to the BNC 3000

Word frequency

Word types corresponding to loanwords (no. words)

Word families corresponding to loanwords

% word families corresponding to loanwords

First 1000

803

548

54.8

Second 1000

634

492

49.2

Third 1000

371

316

31.6

1808

1356

45.2

Overall

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(e.g. ability and young) corresponded to common loanwords in Japanese (e.g. abiriti and yangu). At the second 1000 level, 49.2% of word families had members (e.g. academy and zone) corresponding to common loanwords (e.g. akademi and zoon ). At the third 1000 level, 31.6% had members (e.g. accent and zero) corresponding to common loanwords (e.g. akusento and zero ). This is a conservative count. It dealt only with free-standing loanwords and ignored the abundant hybrid and (sometimes innovative) compound forms. A broader approach to cognates would acknowledge an even greater presence of high-frequency English in the everyday Japanese lexicon. The list of high-frequency cognates appears in Appendix 2. It can also be found online, but without the Japanese equivalents, at: http:// iteslj.org/lists/Daulton-BasewordVocab2.html.

Japanese Cognates for Academic English As so many of the high-frequency words of English correspond to common loanwords in Japanese, cognates were sought for the next most useful vocabulary for learners, the academic words of English. Daulton (2005) identified the correspondences between common loanwords and academic English.

Procedure The academic words of English appear in Coxhead’s (1998) An Academic Word List (AWL ), which contains sublists based on the frequency of the words in the academic corpus. Word family members from the AWL were first sought in Motwani’s (1991) A Dictionary of Loanwords Usage . There are 3019 headwords in Motwani’s dictionary, with many other words embedded under particularly productive headwords. One hundred and eighty-two AWL words were found to correspond to words in the Motwani dictionary. A native informant located 82 additional correspondences, bringing the total to 264 correspondences. Again, self-appraisal with Japanese university students validated the comprehensibility of the corresponding loanwords. Eightyseven poorly understood loanwords (33% of the original 264) that had corresponded to 58 AWL word families were eliminated, including academic (akademikku ) itself. The remaining correspondences between common loanwords and the AWL are summarised in Table 5.2.


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Table 5.2 Verified loanword correspondences to the AWL (Daulton, 2005) Word types corresponding to loanwords (no. words)

Word families corresponding to loanwords

% of word families corresponding to loanwords

Sublist 1

29

23

38

Sublist 2

23

19

32

Sublist 3

30

22

37

Sublist 4

20

19

32

Sublist 5

19

16

27

Sublist 6

12

12

20

Sublist 7

19

18

30

Sublist 8

14

13

22

Sublist 9

9

9

15

Sublist 10

2

2

7

177

153

27

Sublist

Overall

One hundred and seventy-seven words from 153 word families in the AWL corresponded to common Japanese loanwords 27% of word families. At each Sublist of the AWL, the percentage of correspondences generally decreased with vocabulary frequency. At Sublist 1, the rate of correspondence is 38% and by Sublist 10 it is 7%. On average, each word family correspondence involved roughly 1.2 family members. That about one quarter of the academic words of English have entered the everyday Japanese lexicon is also a conservative figure, as it ignores the abundant compound forms and deals only with free-standing loanwords. Due to internationally defined and accepted concepts, academic words in English and Japanese are likely to closely share meanings, as is the case with technical and scientific terms (see Nishiyama, 1995). The AWL words corresponding to common loanwords can be found in Appendix 3, and online (without Japanese equivalents) at http:// www.angelfire.com/wa/yakineko/academic.html.


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Conclusion To be considered advanced EFL learners, Japanese must master the high-frequency and academic words of English (see Miura, 2005). Fortunately for them, around half of high-frequency word families correspond to common Japanese loanwords, as do around a quarter of academic word families. These are extraordinary, built-in lexicons for Japanese students of English. Fluency and pronunciation practice will be necessary. And as we will see in Chapter 7, learners’ knowledge of English affixation must be improved. Already, the search for high-frequency English cognates has begun in other language settings. For instance, a doctoral candidate at the University of Auckland, Jeannet Stephen, has commenced similar research to benefit Malaysian ESL learners. Since the 1980s, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature Malaysia) has purposefully adopted thousands of technical terms into Malay, from fields ranging from aeronautics to zoology, and much of this English has come into everyday use, such as tradisional (traditional). The next chapter will address the quality of the cognate correspondences between English and Japanese. Notes 1. This level still requires a great deal of work: guessing 7 words in every minute of speech at 150 words per minute; or one word in every two lines of text (Nation, 2006: 79). Ideally, learners will achieve 98% coverage, however this would require 6000 7000 word families for conversation and 8000 9000 word families for written text; not a reasonable goal for most learners. 2. This study was originally reported in Daulton (2003a); there have been various revisions since then. The lexicons of languages are complex and dynamic, and procedural judgements are necessary when establishing correspondences between Japanese and English. Researchers wanting to replicate the procedure described herein will have to resolve issues involving: . . . . . . .

compound words (hybrids, innovative forms, unhyphenated forms), letters and innovative abbreviations, innovative words (‘Japlish’), semantically shifted loans, multiple forms (spellings and lengths), proper nouns and family member additions to the BNC 3000.

3. Special thanks to Dr Masaki Murata of the Keihanna Human Info-Communication Research Center (Nara prefecture, Japan).

Chapter 6

Quantifying the Overlap and Quality of Japanese/English Cognates When the Japanese recognise English-based cognates, they may assume more similarity than actually exists. Contrasting scripts and phonological systems necessitate the adaptation of English words when borrowed into Japanese; Japan’s unique society and culture result in further changes to English. Depending upon the relatedness of items in cognate pairs, different levels of facilitation and arguably difficulty and interference will result. Although many of the most valuable words of English correspond to common loanwords in Japanese, there has been no systematic attempt to assess the quality of these cognates. Lexical similarity has semantic (i.e. meaning-related) and formal (i.e. appearance- and sound-related) elements, and we shall see that these play differing roles in transfer. First in this chapter, the semantic varieties of cognates will be listed, as well as their relative learnability, followed by a discussion of the overlap of dictionary definitions. Next, the primary role of formal similarity will be discussed, as well as the disruptive effect of shortening. Finally, a sampling of borrowed words from ‘the built-in lexicon’ of high-frequency words will be appraised as cognates.

Semantic Overlap in Cognate Pairs When considering how similar words are, people tend to focus on the semantic aspect how well and fully meanings overlap. This section will delineate the ways Japanese loanwords and their corresponding English borrowed words can semantically diverge, and to quantify its impact on language learners.

Semantic varieties of cognates Learners tend to assume one-to-one correspondences between native and foreign words in their function/meaning; however, this is often misguided. 87


88

The learner’s tendency to assume one-to-one cross-linguistic relationships is frequently in conflict with the actual network of one-to-many or many-to-many relations in the real world. (Ringbom, 2007: 56) Various researchers have proposed systems for classifying cognates (e.g. Carroll, 1992; Lado, 1957; Nagasawa, 1958; Uchida, 2001a). Uchida’s (2001a: 47) system identifies six types of cognates that describe the semantic overlap between English and Japanese and ‘ . . . exhausts the logical possibilities of L1 L2 relationships’. It is summarised in Fig. 6.1. and described here. True cognates : English/Japanese cognate pairs that share exactly the same definitional/denotational meaning (e.g. homesick and hoomushikku ). Convergent cognates : When more than one Japanese word converges on a single English word. Convergence is also known as restriction or merger. For instance, English tuna corresponds to multiple Japanese words: the loanword tsuna , which refers only to the canned variety; and maguro, the actual fish. In other words, English tuna has more meanings than Japanese tsuna . Divergent cognates : The opposite of convergence is divergence; one word in Japanese is represented by several words in English. For example, the loanword feminisuto contains the meanings of English feminist and gentleman. Thus the English word has fewer meanings than 1. True cognates

2. Convergent cognates E

J

J

E=J

J

3. Divergent cognates

E E

J J

4. Close false friends

E

J

E

5. Distant false friends

E

E

J

6. Japanized English

E

Figure 6.1 Types of cognates Adapted from : Uchida (2001a)

J

Quantifying the Overlap and Quality of Japanese/English Cognates

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the Japanese one. Divergence is also known as extension or split , and divergent cognates are sometimes called deceptive cognates or unreliably false cognates as they are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. Both convergence and divergence are incongruencies in the lexical gridding of two languages (see Dagut, 1977). Frantzen (1998) believes the following three types are never helpful. Distant false friends : Sometimes referred to as completely false friends . These have meanings that are distant or totally unconnected, such as when uetto (from English wet) has the meaning of sentimental, or mentaritii (from mentality) means intelligence. In terms of semantic features, there are practically none shared except sometimes very general ones. Close false friends : This second type of false cognate is also called partially false friends . They have meanings clearly different but close to one another, neither including fully the meaning of the other, e.g. sain (sign) for signature, and saabisu (service) meaning ‘free of charge’. While cognates with totally different meanings often lead to errors in the initial stages and are usually mastered thereafter, close false friends create: . . . One of the most enduring types of interference, giving rise to errors even in the most advanced learning stages. (Granger, 1993: 49) For the Japanese, there is one more type of treacherous cognate. Japanised English : These are completely the creation of Japanese, so they have no counterpart in English. For example, a stapler is called hotchikisu in Japanese from the name of its inventor, B.B. Hotchkiss. And a bossy person is described as wan-man (‘one-man’), an allusion to wanman densha , a passenger train with a single operator. Japanised English is often derided as ‘Japlish’. Uchida (2001a) tested five types of cognates (excluding Japanised English), using two independent variables: a cognate being previously met versus newly met, and a neutral context versus a helpful context. The overall order of difficulty of cognate types is summarised in Table 6.1. In the table, learning burden is represented as a spectrum from helpful cognates as the easiest (no shading) to close false friends as the most Table 6.1 Types of cognates and spectrum of difficulty (adapted from Uchida, 2001a) helpful cognates

convergent cognates

divergent cognates

distant false friends

Japanised English

close false friends

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difficult (darkest shading). Japanised English has been added to the chart in the place it most likely would appear, reflecting an earlier study (Uchida & Scholfield, in preparation). Measuring the overlap of word definitions While English loanwords in Japanese typically carry but a single meaning, this is certainly not the case for English borrowed words. Facilitation/difficulty will differ according to how many meanings an English word has, and the frequency of the particular meaning (or meanings) of loanwords (see Nagasawa, 1958). Fortunately, loanwords’ meanings tend to be the most common English ones. This is because the primary meaning of a word is usually more transferable to another language (see Kellerman, 1982). Moreover, loanwords typically describe semantically well defined concepts such as the names of plants, animals, things, ideas, social developments, and technical and scientific terms (Honna, 1995; Nishiyama, 1995). Daulton (1998) examined the overlap of the single meanings of loanwords and the meanings of borrowed words, and whether there were morphological restrictions such as speech part modification or shortening. His sample was 24 borrowed words that begin with ‘A’ (e.g. action). Only akushon (action) had a shifted meaning one severely limited or totally different from native English; akushon is always a modifier that refers to movies. The other 23 ‘A’ loanword definitions matched to within the top-three native meanings in an English dictionary. Furthermore, 18 of the 24 ‘A’ loanwords had the first listed definition (i.e. the primary meaning). Of these 18 loanwords, 11 words, including aachi (arch), adobaisu (advice) and akutibu (active), had no morphological restrictions.

Formal Similarity The second aspect of cognate similarity is the formal aspect how closely written or spoken forms of words resemble one another. The primary role of form The relative importance of semantic and formal similarity varies over time, and beginning learners are particularly sensitive to form. Recognising similarity in form is typically the key to lexical transfer, as it draws the learner’s attention and provides the basis for assuming semantic similarity. When words are quite similar in both form and meaning, not much effort is necessary to learn them.


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Yet even if the meaning is somewhat or completely different, perceived formal similarities provide a cognitive, mnemonic ‘peg’ on which to attach lexical information in long-term memory. Similarities, both cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic, function as pegs on which the learner can hang new information by making use of already existing knowledge, thereby facilitating learning. (Ringbom, 1987: 134) The keyword technique, where learners make a link between the form of an unknown word and its meaning by assembling creative mental images, works for similar reasons. If initial assumptions require adjusting, new information is remembered more easily as well. Facilitated comprehension, retention and recall pushes new forms into output, impelling learners along the interlanguage spectrum. While native speakers’ lexical entries are clustered semantically, the L2 lexicon is more loosely organised and driven by phonological factors such as the chance resemblance between an L1 and L2 word (Meara, 1984). Henning (1973) showed that in a vocabulary acquisition task, while advanced learners and native speakers made errors indicating semantic clustering, there was an apparent predominance of acoustic clustering for beginning learners. Storage based on formal similarities rather than semantic ones may characterise beginners. As a learner’s foreign language lexicon expands, it becomes organised more along semantic lines; learners moreover come to grasp the different parameters of lexical knowledge, modify oversimplified one-to-one hypotheses and transition from receptive to productive competence (Ringbom, 2007). When L2 words remind learners of L1 words, such reminding whether from borrowing or even accidental orthographic or phonological similarity can eventually facilitate the learning of the L2 word (Ellis & Beaton, 1993). Cognate pairing (e.g. lexical associations between loanwords and their borrowed-word counterparts) is robust and extends to morphologically complex words. It is based on formal similarity and is blind to semantics (see Carroll, 1992); indeed, words that show the greatest formal difference can be the most difficult for learners (Sjoholm, 1979). The effect of semantic overlap is limited to the ready applicability of cognate knowledge that is, how many errors are likely to occur before mastery. Because of the use of katakana for loanwords, cognate pairing for the Japanese usually involves homophony, where the pronunciation evokes the target word. However, in most other language contact situations, homography, where the written form (or a section of the form) is similar to

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the target word (e.g. house and German Haus ), is more prominent. Learners’ ability to employ lexical transfer depends on the degree of formal similarity and how readily they can recognise it. Of course, especially in the receptive skills, learners get enormous help from cognate pairs that have at least some semantic features in common. The katakana transcriptions and phonological transformations of loanwords complicate cognate recognition. However, the Japanese are aided in perceiving cognates by their katakana filters a mental process whereby English forms (e.g. cheese) are grasped in a phonologically altered form (e.g. chiizu ) (see Chapter 7). However, this mechanism can be impeded by shortening.

Shortening A key feature of Japanese loanword cognates is their length. The effect of word length is not simple, and there are competing arguments for the relative ease of shorter (e.g. Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Uchida, 2001a) and longer words (e.g. Clark, 1993; Laufer, 1997). In the case of gairaigo , it is most productive to focus on the relative lengths of loanwords and borrowed words, and how they come to diverge. English consonant clusters in particular increase relative word length as well as disharmony between borrowed words and loanwords, as they require vowel insertion (e.g. checklist and chekkurisuto ). In response to this awkward lengthening, shortening can occur, especially with common loanwords, as predicted by Zipf’s (1935) ‘Law of Abbreviation’. During shortening, Japanese loanwords might gravitate towards certain lengths; four-mora loanwords may be the most common in Japanese (e.g. sekuhara for sexual harassment), followed by three-mora (hoomu for platform) and five-mora (e.g. the hybrid josei-ana for ‘female announcer’) loanwords, possibly indicating that they are the most comfortable to the Japanese ear and easier to process (see Honna, 1995). Shortening presents an obstacle for recognising cognates particularly when loanwords lose crucial morphological elements. For example, the Japanese may have difficulty recognising that transformer is related to toransu .

Study: Quantifying the Similarity and Quality of the ‘Built-in Lexicon’ Although there are a great number of correspondences between Japanese and English, the level of interlingual resemblance is not well


93

understood. Following is an overall assessment of the quality of the common loanword cognates for high-frequency English vocabulary. Method As described in Chapter 5, 1808 types in the BNC 3000 corresponded to common loanwords in Japanese, and 1356 BNC 3000 word families corresponded to at least one common loanword. As cognate pairs needed to be examined in some detail, a sample of every 20th word family was conducted 5% of the word families, or 68 families out of 1356. Loanwords were divided by the frequency of their borrowed word counterparts into: the first 1000 (1K); the second 1000 (2K); and the third (3K). An integrated system of evaluation was employed, including both semantic and formal elements. There are many aspects of cognate similarity (e.g. phonemic) and intrinsic difficulty (e.g. markedness), some of which are beyond simple definition, comparison and measurement. This study examined four aspects of similarity that are fundamental and easily assessed, and each was assigned a range of point values whose sum would reflect a cognate’s quality. Admittedly, the relative point values are somewhat arbitrary. Semantic features

First, points were awarded to loanword cognates based on their semantic type. In Uchida (2001a), under most conditions helpful cognates were found to be ‘least difficult’, with divergent cognates of ‘medium difficulty’, convergent cognates ‘more difficult’, and distant false friends, close false friends and presumably Japanised English being the ‘most difficult’. Point values were assigned as described in Table 6.2. Second, while most loanwords in Japanese have but one meaning, their corresponding English borrowed words may have many, and it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is the most common English meaning Table 6.2 Type of cognate point values and type Points

Types of cognates

3 points

Helpful cognates

2 points

Divergent cognates

1 point

Convergent cognates

0 points

Distant false friends; Japanised English; close false friends

Adapted from : Uchida (2001a)


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Table 6.3 Definitions point values and correspondence description Points

Description

3 points

Loanword definition corresponds to the 1st listed definition in an English dictionary.

2 points

Loanword definition corresponds to the 2nd listed definition in an English dictionary.

1 points

Loanword definition corresponds to the 3rd listed definition in an English dictionary.

0 points

Loanword definition corresponds to the 4th or lower listed definition in an English dictionary.

that is used in Japan. Thus the frequency of a loanword’s meaning vis-a`vis the English meaning(s) was examined. The point system described in Table 6.3. was applied. The Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners , 3rd Edition (Sinclair, 2001), based on the 400-million-word Bank of English corpus, provided the definitions for English words. Japanese definitions were obtained through: the two Japanese/English dictionaries of ‘basic’ loanwords Motwani’s (1991) A Dictionary of Loanwords Usage and Kamiya’s (1994) Tuttle New Dictionary of Loanwords in Japanese ; and an extensive Japanese/Japanese loanword dictionary, Ishiwata’s (1998) Kihon Gairaigo Jiten . The two semantic measures, cognate type and definition correspondence, were averaged together, resulting in a number from zero to three. For instance, kyanbasu (canvas) received three points as a helpful cognate, and two points for corresponding to the second listed definition in the COBUILD dictionary, leading to an average of 2.5 (semantic) points. Formal features

Among formal modifications, shortening stands out because of the radical and sometimes arbitrary changes it involves. While Japanese should be able to filter and process L2 input with facility (see Chapter 7), cognate recognition may be impossible when loanwords are shortened, especially if crucial morphological elements are lost. Thus, points were assigned as described in Table 6.4. Note that there is no point value of zero. The reason is that without formal similarity, there is no cognate. The formal score was added to the


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Table 6.4 Shortening point values and description Points

Description

3 points

No shortening of borrowed word.

2 points

Mild shortening of borrowed word preserving the semantically important elements (e.g. stem).

1 point

Major shortening of borrowed word, where half or less of the original words remains.

averaged semantic score (a figure from zero to three) for a subtotal of between one and six. A loanword such as kyanbasu (canvas) receives three points for being unshortened, and this score is added to its semantic average of 2.5 for a subtotal of 5.5 points. Other restrictions

There are various other restrictions on the usage of a loanword vis-a`vis its borrowed word. They are numerous in variety, relatively rare and best dealt with on a case-by-case basis. For instance: the loanword anaunsaa (announcer) is only used in the context of television broadcasting; - man (man) never stands alone, but always modifies, as in ‘Walkman’; and an English noun might be used only as a verb in Japanese.1 In each case of a restriction, one point was subtracted from the subtotal per restriction. However, kyanbasu , for instance, has no restrictions, and 5.5 points (out of a possible six) was its final cognate score.

Results The average cognate quality scores for the three levels of vocabulary are summarised in Table 6.5. Overall average scores improved with increasing vocabulary level. The average total scores rose from 4.3 at 1K, to 5.1 at 2K, and to a near-perfect 5.7 at 3K. As the shortening scores for all word levels were virtually perfect, the source of the overall score improvement was semantic in nature, and to a lesser degree involved a decrease in (other) restrictions on usage. Let us scrutinise the semantic and formal aspects of cognate pairs, as well as their various other restrictions. The data for each sampled word appear in Appendices 4 6.


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Table 6.5 Average cognate quality results Average type score (0 to 3)

Average definition score (0 to 3)

Average shortening score (0 to 3)

Percent with restrictions (minus 1)

Average total score (1 to 6)

1K

1.5

2.6

3.0

42

4.3

2K

2.2

2.8

3.0

13

5.1

3K

2.8

3.0

3.0

0

5.7

Word level

Semantic

Convergent cognates were quite common, supporting the observation that Japanese loanwords generally have one meaning in contrast to English words, which can have many especially when involving highfrequency English. Although many cognates got low marks for being convergent (the majority at the 1K level), it was common for their single meaning to correspond to the first-listed English meaning in the Cobuild dictionary.2 A few loanwords were divergent, having multiple meanings. For instance teepu has the meanings of: ‘adhesive tape’, ‘coloured paper ribbon’ and ‘audio tape’. Only one clear example of Japanised English was found. Japanese bea did not correspond to any meaning of English bear (as first assumed), but is an abbreviation of ‘beesu appu ’ (‘base up’) a pay increase. Thus it received zero points in both semantic categories but received 3 points in the formal category as an accidental cognate. Form

Virtually no loanwords in the sample were shortened. The only instance was arumi , which is a common variation of the still-extant loanword aruminiumu , both corresponding to English aluminium/ aluminum. Upon reflection, the list of loanword cognates corresponding to the BNC 3000 had excluded the likeliest to be shortened compounds and hybrid compounds. Many of these compounds are known as waseieigo (‘English words made in Japan’) and include coinages such as sarari-man (salaryman) meaning ‘male office worker’ and truncations such as omu-raisu (omeletterice). By being longer, compounds are likelier to be shortened into contracted compounds, retaining only the initial parts of their constituent word.


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Other restrictions

Notably, restrictions decreased with increasing level of vocabulary from nearly half of loanwords at 1K, to none at 3K. The commonest restriction was a word’s not being able to be used independently (‘always modifies’). Nine out of 20 restrictions were of this type. This means a given loanword, such as -man (man), never appears as a free-standing word, instead it is used with other words, as in wan-man densha (‘one-man train’). It is reasonable that such a restriction effects processing and reduces the value of a cognate. The second commonest restriction was a loanword’s having only a narrow range of collocations compared to English. For instance, uin (win) in Japanese is typically used only in connection to sports, and raito (light) does not refer to room lights (according to the Japanese dictionaries; but recently this restriction has recently loosened). The other restriction encountered involved ‘Sankusu ’ (‘Thanks’), which, according to the dictionary sources, is only the name of a convenience store chain.

Conclusion This study indicated that the quality of Japanese loanword cognates for high-frequency English vocabulary is rather high. Although loanwords tend to be convergent, such L1 knowledge can encourage learners to add more meanings to the loanword meanings they already know (Kimura, 1989). While other aspects of the cognate pairs require analysis, the list of high-frequency cognates compiled in Chapter 5 should be quite useful to learners. By contrast, Japanese learners of English should be particularly careful of Japan’s innovative compound loanwords (excluded from the list), as they are likely to be semantically and formally unreliable as cognates. In the built-in lexicon, there are many cases where practically all members of an English word family have been borrowed into Japanese. For instance: + DRIVE

DRIVEN DRIVER DRIVERS DRIVES DRIVEWAY DRIVING DROVE

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The interaction of multiple word family correspondences is likely to have a significant influence on the learnability of borrowed words, however it is not addressed in this study. Future analyses could consider semantic content (see Ijaz, 1986) and part of speech (e.g. Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Gentner, 1982; Laufer, 1997; Swan, 1997) with the related issues of word imageability/concreteness (e.g. Carter, 1987; Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Laufer, 1997; Paivio, 1990); word meaningfulness (e.g. Gentner, 1982; Holmes & Ramos, 1993; Postman, 1962), frequency of the concepts (Ellis & Beaton, 1993); the length of the words involved (e.g. Brown & Williams, 1985; Clark, 1993; Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Laufer, 1997; Uchida, 2001a); collocations, learners’ stage of learning and mode of presentation (Granger, 1993); whether learners have had previous encounters with both words in cognate pairs; and so on. Notes 1. Cognates are difficult to perceive without an assumed underlying functional equivalence (Ringbom, 2006). In comprehension, word forms are first recognised and comprehended, while the part of speech which may have been altered is fully understood only later (Ringbom, 2007). 2. In assigning points for definition correspondence, judgements about what are different meanings or subtle distinctions of the same meaning were unavoidable and consequential. For instance, the Cobuild dictionary’s distinction between the cost of seeing a movie and the cost of making a movie was ignored as this distinction is likely insignificant to learners.

Part 4

Exploiting Japanese Loanword Cognates

Chapter 7

Barriers to Accessing Cognates Although cognates are not booby traps set to spring upon unsuspecting Japanese, there are substantial obstacles to their use. The key challenge for Japanese learners of English is cognate recognition; cognates will fail to facilitate acquisition if they are overlooked. Among other barriers to accessing Japanese cognates are: learners’ ability to trust cognates; pronunciation; additional meanings; and extending word knowledge within word families (to be dealt with in Chapter 8).

Recognising Cognates Learners’ recognition of formal similarity not semantic differences is crucial for language transfer to occur. The difficulty of a foreign language will be largely determined, not by the linguistic differences between L1 and L2, per se , but by how naturally the learner establishes equivalences between the languages at the initial stage of learning (Ringbom, 1987). Researchers struggle to grasp how learners perceive similarity, as it is subjective and involves individual learner variation. Moreover, although cognate pairing occurs naturally in L2 word processing, learners’ aptitudes will vary. Learners’ failure to recognise interlingual similarities has been noted in various language situations (e.g. Banta, 1981; Hammer & Giauque, 1989; Holmes & Ramos, 1993; Manczak-Wohlfeld, 2006; Nagy et al ., 1993; Odlin, 1989; Palmberg, 1987). For instance, Banta (1981: 129) reports on English-speaking learners’ inability to recognise even obvious cognates in German. A number of words . . . will probably be understood at first sight or sound, although one is sometimes astonished at the inability of some students to recognise even . . . obvious cognates and common borrowings. Or is it inability? Is it perhaps mistrust? Difficulty in recognising cognates has been observed with Japanese as well (e.g. Hashimoto, 1993; Van Benthuysen, 2004). Indeed the Japanese may not be aware of many aspects of a given loanword, including: the original language of the loanword; the original borrowed word; and the borrowed word’s spelling, pronunciation or meaning (Kay, 1995). 101

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Moreover, lexical transfer depends on Japanese individuals’ L2 knowledge of loanwords; unfortunately, many are not well known. Cognates play a pivotal role at the beginning levels, and this is when cognate identification skills improve most. Uchida (2001b) found that Japanese learners’ cognate identification skills improved dramatically in their first year of middle school. At this time, learners typically begin their formal English study and absorb many basic aspects of English (i.e. the alphabetic system and basic everyday vocabulary); as cognate identification skills are founded on basic knowledge of English, cognate identification improves tremendously. Afterwards, the Japanese learn more advanced vocabulary and grammar, however these do not contribute to their cognate identification skills as much. A re-examination of the data of Van Benthuysen (2004) confirms that Japanese university students’ ability to recognise cognates in English text correlates with their overall English proficiency. Students were presented 20 borrowed words (e.g. bath and mechanic) and 10 non-borrowed words (e.g. fold and invent) from the 1001 2000 word level of West’s GSL (1953). Students’ ability to provide the Japanese equivalents to borrowed words varied greatly, with lower-level students (with an average TOEIC Bridge score of 106) scoring an average of 57%, and the higher-level students (with an average TOEIC Bridge score of 145) scoring an average of 76.5%. The correlation between English proficiency as measured by TOIEC scores and performance can be seen in Table 7.1. The close correlation between English proficiency and cognate recognition is revealed when the highest TOEIC scores and loanword test scores (shaded) are set as ‘1.00’ and lower scores are expressed as a percentage of this.

Table 7.1 Correct spelling by word variety and word frequency Average TOEIC Bridge score (no. students)

Average score on loanword test

Adjusted TOEIC scores

Adjusted loanword test scores

106 (17)

11.4/20

0.73

0.75

125 (14)

13.6/20

0.86

0.89

145 (18)

15.3/20

1.00

1.00

Adapted from : Van Benthuysen (2004)

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The L1 lexicon is a ‘potential vocabulary’ of related L2 words, and while this potential knowledge of English is largely passive at first, cognate recognition helps bridge the gap to active knowledge. Ears and eyes trained to recognise their cognates and common loans will help brains to build new passive vocabulary more rapidly in the target language. All vocabulary is at first passive; by practice it becomes active. (Banta, 1981: 136) The focus of initial teaching needs to be on increasing the size of the learners’ recognition vocabulary, as the active/passive distinction regarding knowledge is probably related to which properties have been mastered and which have not (Nation, 1993). Yet differences in the orthographic and phonological systems of English and Japanese have a strong effect upon cognate recognition. The various barriers include: the differing scripts of Japanese and English; the vagaries of English spelling; and the irregularities of transliteration and pronunciation. Differing scripts When languages use differing scripts, recognising cognates becomes a more complex task. There are three major orthographic systems in the world logographic, syllabic and alphabetic. In logography, one graphemic unit usually represents the meaning and the sound of an entire word or morpheme. In syllabary, each graphemic unit represents a syllable. In alphabetic scripts, as the unit of representation approximates the phoneme, a small number of symbols are needed. While Japanese kanji (Chinese characters) are logographic, loanwords are written in the syllabic katakana script in contrast to the Roman alphabet of English words. For instance, car, a three-letter word, is written with the two (kaa ), and the two-syllable word hotel has katakana (i.e. mora) (hoteru ). The innovative hybrid three characters in Japanese (dai-baagen) and consists of one kanji for ‘big bargain’ is and four katakana . The transliteration and rendering of English into katakana doubles the challenge for learners, at least initially. English borrowed words and Japanese loanwords will not look the same, nor will they sound the same to an untrained ear. The effect of English cognates in Japanese may differ from that for languages that share the Roman alphabet. Transfer is easier when languages share a script. Furthermore, transfer is easier if both scripts

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move in the same direction (Nation, 1987); while English is written horizontally from left to right, Japanese can be written this way or vertically from above to below, and on occasions horizontally right to left. Japanese and English orthography have so little in common that some believe that no orthographic facilitation is to be expected for Japanese because they are rarely exposed to the Romanisation of words (e.g. Kitagawa, 1998). However, the use of the Roman alphabet in Japan is considerable. Although it is the least familiar, the Roman alphabet is encountered in English classes and in English-based words or short phrases in the mass media (e.g. product names and decorative text), constituting about 1% of Japanese writing (Taylor, 1981). Moreover, the syllabic katakana of loanwords and the alphabetic script of English both are sound-based phonography, unlike logographic Chinese kanji . Due to this, Japanese are not handicapped in learning English in the same way that learners in China might be, where essentially only Chinese characters are used, even for transcribing foreign words. Indeed, Uchida (2001b) found that Japanese junior high school subjects were able to identify the interlingual correspondences of about half of the unknown borrowed words presented. Moreover, the fact that gairaigo are always distinguished in the L1 by the use of katakana raises learners’ awareness of loanwords’ foreign origins. The vagaries of English spelling The three major writing systems differ in the regularity of symbol-tosound correspondence (Koda, 1997); the Roman alphabet and English orthography ‘fall far short of being ideal’ (Taylor, 1981: 33 34). Only 26 letters are available to represent 40 or so phonemes, one letter can represent multiple sounds and one sound can be expressed in many different ways. The degree of sound script correspondence in a word is particularly important when word knowledge requires correct pronunciation and correct spelling (Laufer, 1997). Because of spelling irregularities, English words sometimes provide poor orthographic clues to pronunciation, and identifying correspondences with katakana -encoded loanwords may be impeded (e.g. Koda, 1997). Indeed, for the Japanese, it seems visual identification is a more difficult task than aural identification. In Hashimoto (1993: 179), only 13 of 49 Japanese ESL subjects could identify tough as a word that had been borrowed into Japanese (tafu ), and 9 of these were the higher-level


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students. Uchida (2001a) confirmed that it is relatively harder for junior high students to spot cognates in reading than in listening. Yet learners’ initial advantage with spoken cognates compared to written cognates erodes over time as their visual identification strategies begin to catch up with their audio ones (Uchida, 2001a: 165). This is likely caused by teachers’ tendency in Japan to focus on reading and writing rather than listening and speaking. Processing spoken English and the katakana filter Although cognate recognition in listening is easier than in reading, at least initially, it is challenging as well. When words are written or spoken in isolation, they have a certain stability, but when they occur in connected speech, they exhibit a great deal of variation. Sounds may be slurred and cardinal vowels reduced, and the segmentation of speech into words poses problems for the untrained L2 listener, who is frequently uncertain where words begin and end. Not only are cognate pairs with a low degree of sound similarity harder to identify, the correlation is much stronger than that for the number of phonemes/ syllables (Uchida, 2001a). To deal with the challenge of processing spoken English, Japanese turn to their native language. While transfer may wreak havoc on pronunciation, it works well for the learner’s perception of phonology, because L1 phonology creates a filter of sorts, through which all L2 input is processed, facilitating recognition. The Japanese have their unique way of perceiving English. For instance, the expression ‘not at all’ sounded to the Meiji Era Japanese like ‘notte touru ’, meaning ‘to ride and pass through’. Such odd phrases are occasionally used in Japanese as mnemonic devices; ‘Hotta imo ijiruna ’, which means, ‘Don’t touch the potato that was dug from the ground’, is used to phonetically approximate ‘What time is it now?’ It is as if the Japanese can experience English through a katakana filter. During my research sabbatical in the USA, my children began referring to Mexican salsa as ‘monkey sauce’. My Japanese wife and I wondered how this had started. The explanation was that salsa sounded to them like ‘saru sa ’ saru being Japanese for monkey and ‘saru sa ’ meaning, ‘It’s a monkey, you know’. Humans’ ability to filter incoming language through the native phonological system can aid cognate recognition. For instance, when they read or hear cheese, novice Japanese learners of English are likely to perceive it as ‘chiizu ’, thus allowing their native knowledge to be applied

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in the English context. Phonetic mimicry is one kind of evidence that individuals can recognise sounds rather different from those in the native language (Odlin, 1989). It parenthetically follows that L2 spoken by a teacher sharing the learners’ L1 should optimise what Krashen (1985) referred to as ‘comprehensible input’. As beginners are better at perceiving spoken cognates than written cognates, for the sake of motivation, the initial presentation of cognates is perhaps best through listening. As auditory stimuli are held in shortterm memory and are fleeting, learners could be taught to hold unrecognised sound patterns in memory while awaiting elaboration and confirmation of their guesses (Uchida, 2003). Certain after-class activities involving spoken English appear to improve learners’ ability to perceive lexical correspondences; in a survey of Japanese ESL and EFL students, Kitagawa (1998) observed the importance of time spent listening to music and watching movies. Irregularities in gairaigo Irregularities in the assimilation of English into Japanese may create difficulty in recognising cognates. While the rules of the transformation of Japanese to English, i.e. which phoneme(s) replace an English phoneme, are simple and fairly regular, there is considerable variation. Some loanwords have arrived from the oral medium (e.g. jiruba from spoken jitterbug) and others from text (e.g. sutajio from written studio), the prior resembling authentic English more. Another variable is the innovate combinations of katakana recently adopted to more closely resemble authentic English. For instance, while dollar is usually represented as doru , in some compounds the more faithful variation of dara is employed, as in yuuro-dara (Eurodollar). Some innovations are not well accepted in every case, leaving condoned and uncondoned versions of the same loanword (e.g. aachisuto and aatisuto for artist) in the lexicon. Yet other variations are simply stylistic variations, for which there seems to be a great tolerance (e.g. kontena and kontenaa for container; and nuusu and nuuzu for news). As a result, multiple transliterations are not uncommon for a single borrowed word.

Trusting Cognates Cognate recognition ability is related to individual learner differences, including trust in cognate intuitions. Learners’ lacking confidence in their L1-based intuitions has been noted in Brazilian EFL students:


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Cognate identification seemed to be personal, with some subjects inclined to be more liberal than others in admitting a word as a cognate. (Holmes & Ramos, 1993) Japanese learners, as well, have been observed to lack confidence in cognates (e.g. Kimura, 1989). Factors that can contribute to a lack of confidence in cognates include the fear of making errors and the perception that English is more distant than it actually is. False friends often produce ludicrous or otherwise memorable errors, which can easily assume an importance in learners’ and teachers’ minds that is out of proportion. The dangers of false friends should not be exaggerated, as good cognates usually outnumber deceptive ones (Ringbom, 2007). Simon-Maeda (1995) proposes that teachers emphasise the different meaning of false cognates by using dialogues. Lado (1972) claims that the correct target word should be presented before its corresponding false cognate to minimise L1 interference. And teachers can help students distinguish cognates that have been radically altered from those that have not, and distinguish actual borrowings from original Japanese coinages.

Pronouncing English One of the clearest signs of L1 influencing L2 is a learner’s foreign accent. Especially in the early stages of learning, the more different the phonological systems, the more pronunciation errors will occur (Lehtonen et al ., 1977), and the substitution of L1 phonemes with L2 ones may result in ‘ . . . If not disaster, at least a strong foreign accent’ (Ringbom, 1987: 54). It compounds the problem in Japan that students often make pronunciation notes for English words with katakana , and teachers sometimes explain pronunciation by writing katakana transcriptions on the chalkboard (Daulton, 1996). L1 phonology patterns are deeply entrenched in the learner’s mind and thus are more resistant to modification and development than grammatical or lexical patterns (Ringbom, 2007). Even with more advanced learners, the typical poor pronunciation of Japanese leaves the unfair impression that Japanese are inept in all aspects of English. The various means to teach pronunciation, and to teach English pronunciation to Japanese, are beyond the scope of this book. In general, it is likely that teachers provision of accurate pronunciation models is very important. Advanced students could use the International Phonetic

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Alphabet (IPA) to transcribe one another’s pronunciations to compare with native transcriptions. The explicit goal for learners should be intelligible English rather than perfect pronunciation. For Japanese learners of English, Hashimoto (1993) recommends giving ample aural practice in distinguishing confusing sounds, and asserts this will improve learners’ spelling as well. Phonemes such as / o/ and /a/, and /l/ and /r/, are often confused in pronunciation and spelling, and vowels may be more difficult for the Japanese than consonants.

Additional Meanings Even when learners can identify a cognate, this does not necessarily lead them to the correct L2 meaning. Especially beginners tend to disregard peripheral meanings and semantic ranges (see, for example, Jarvis, 1997; Ringbom, 2007; Swan, 1997). As their proficiency develops, learners realise that many words do not have a consistent one-to-one relation to words in another language. They will encounter polysemy and homonymy and understand that the same word may have different meanings in different contexts of occurrence. (Ringbom, 2007: 72) Learners must make adjustments to the oversimplified equivalence relationships they presume. While some researchers have worried that loanwords can limit the range of English meanings learners acquire (e.g. Lado, 1972), Kimura (1989: 49, 80) determined that Japanese loanwords do not limit and might even help expand the correct range of meanings of borrowed words for ESL learners leading to a native-like intuition but not necessarily for EFL learners. . . . Loanwords tend to be the easiest and the most familiar meanings to the ESL learners; they are quickly solidified once the learners are in an environment where they can see their native English use. EFL learners do not have appropriate socio-cultural environments to enhance English native-like intuition; therefore, they can not yet see to take advantage of their loanword knowledge as much as ESL learners do. (Kimura, 1989: 79) Fortunately, core meanings are more frequent and easier to learn than peripheral meanings, and they tend to be the most borrowed into Japanese.


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After predicting the meaning of an English word, learners should see if this meaning works in the presented context. If not, referring to a dictionary or intelligent guessing is to be encouraged (see Banta, 1981). Simple reading exercises that feature helpful loanwords and false friends might benefit learners, who could work individually or in pairs to focus on the unknown loanwords.

Conclusion While there are ‘pitfalls’ associated with loanword cognates in Japanese, they are not those usually discussed. In most cases, the peril is not that cognates will lead learners astray, but that they will be overlooked, or not heeded, and thus fail to facilitate learning. The only pitfall in the conventional sense is pronunciation, where L1 phonological habits may linger and interfere with communication; thus pronunciation warrants special attention. Although Japanese loanwords tend to have fewer meanings than their English counterparts, learners can be nudged to add additional meanings to the ones they know. A growing awareness among teachers of the advantage offered by loanwords will likely result in growing confidence among students to exploit lexical transfer. There is one additional hurdle towards fully utilising the built-in lexicon of English cognates in Japanese, which, because of its importance and complexity, will be focused on in Chapter 8.

Chapter 8

Extending Word Knowledge Within Word Families As mentioned in Chapter 5, a general criticism of lists of high-frequency words is that while they imply a reasonable number of words to be learned, only headword counts are given, without reference to the many inflected forms and derivations. It is assumed that knowledge of any word family member grants knowledge of all other family members (a kind of intralingual transfer). Critics reject this very assumption; West et al. (1934: 10) summarise the criticism of what some see as an ‘understatement of learning task’: While the number of (head)words is limited, the number of items developed from them is not. The learner is therefore at first led to believe that he is faced with a small and calculatable task, but actually finds later that he is faced with a very large, indeed incalculable, one. (This is bad for motivation and liable to produce discouragement, as well as distrust of the teacher). This issue is crucial for Japanese learners of English. As Japanese has rabu , learning English love is easy, but what of loved, loving, lovable, unlovable, and so on? If learners can generalise knowledge within English word families, then their built-in lexicons will provide great vocabulary coverage. However, if learners are largely unable to do this, the impact of English-based cognates in Japanese will be limited to direct correspondences rather than entire word families. In the case of common loanwords corresponding to the BNC 3000 (Nation, 2004), the theoretical difference is between a built-in lexicon of over 10,000 words (45.2% of word families) versus 1808 words. How well Japanese EFL learners can generalise and extend knowledge within word families will be scrutinised. First, the definition of a word family will be refined, and the distribution of inflected and derived words in English, as well as how these complex words are constructed, will be discussed. Then, after reviewing research that quantifies the intrinsic difficulty of various affixes, an experiment examining whether 110

Extending Word Knowledge Within Word Families

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learners can extend their cognate-based knowledge of headwords to understand derivations will be presented.

The Ambiguity of Word Families When one speaks of a high-frequency word or an academic word, etc., one is often referring to a group of related words called a word family. A word family is taken to include a headword (sometimes referred to as a base word), its inflected forms and a small number of reasonably regular derivations made from certain uses of certain affixes; for example, win would be the headword in the family that also includes wins, won, winning, winner and winners. In English, the inflectional morphology is confined to suffixes, whereas the derivational morphology includes both prefixes and suffixes. However, researchers differ in their criteria for word family inclusion, and thus the average number of members varies. Using inclusive, flexible criteria, Nagy and Anderson (1984) estimated that an average word family contains 7.64 types (i.e. unique word forms), while a more exclusive definition that allows only very transparent family members produces a figure of 4.66. When Bauer and Nation (1993) converted the first 5000 words of English into word families, they omitted unproductive affixes ones appearing in too few words to be worth learning and produced 3000 families, with an average of only 1.67 types per family. However, most linguists agree that word families should be transparent , in that learning a new item related to one already known should involve a minimum of learning burden. Readers are assumed able to undertake minimal morphographemic analysis in order to recognise regular inflected forms and derivations. For instance, if a learner knows govern and is familiar with the prefix mis- , then misgovern requires little if any additional learning (Goulden et al. , 1990). Derivations that do not meet the transparency criteria are not included in a word family but given separate listings; for instance, business (busy). {Business occurs so commonly that it is probably stored separately in the brain (Bauer & Nation, 1993).} Although the concept of transparency is relatively straightforward, individuals’ ability to process related word family members varies, in particular with stage of learning. That is, what might be a sensible word family for one learner may be beyond another’s present level of proficiency (Nation, 1999), depending on the learners’ developing knowledge of affixation (Bauer & Nation, 1993).

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Inflectional and derivational transformation is crucial in English acquisition, and it is generally assumed that the principles of word families and transparency apply as well in the L2 context, although this topic has been largely unresearched.

Affix Productivity and Irregularities Most of the content words of English can change their form by the addition of prefixes or suffixes. Given the concept of transparency, a systematic approach to describing the word-building patterns of inflected forms and derivations (also known as complex words ) is possible, yet its efficacy is affected by irregularities inherent in English. Inflected forms and derivations are fundamental to vocabulary building and communication, as they constitute a large percentage of words used in English. By one estimate, 21.9% of words in a given text are inflected, while 12.8% are derived (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Detailed statistics are summarised in Table 8.1. Inflected forms and derivations (shaded) are built by modifying a word stem. The stems of complex words may be free or bound forms. Free forms can stand alone as words with no affixes (e.g. form), while bound forms only occur with a prefix or suffix (e.g. plic as in applicable). Headwords are the most morphologically basic form present in word families. Table 8.1 Percentage of inflected and derived types in a corpus of texts (Nagy & Anderson, 1984) Type of inflection or derivation

Percentage

Regular inflections

16.9

Irregular inflections

0.3

Inflections w/proper names

4.7

Total inflections

21.9

Suffixation

7.6

Prefixation

4.0

Derived proper names

1.2

Total derived forms

12.8


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In word building, the inflected forms are the third person -s, -ed , -ing , plural -s, possessive -s, comparative -er and superlative -est (Hirsh & Nation, 1992), and sometimes the past participle is included (Bauer & Nation, 1993). Inflections do not change part of speech, and can be added after a derivational suffix, if a word has one. The set of word inflections is small in number and largely regular. By contrast, the relationship of derivational affixation to individual words is largely idiosyncratic, their number being much greater and their usage and frequency irregular. Affixes include prefixes and suffixes. Most of the derivational suffixes and a few prefixes change a word’s part of speech. Moreover, certain prefixes in particular can alter the meaning of a word substantially. According to Hirsh and Nation (1992: 692), ‘reasonably regular’ derivations are made from certain uses of: -able , -er, -ish , -less , -ly, -ness , -th , -y, non -, un -, -al , -ation , -ess , -ful , -ism , -ist , -ity, -ise , -ment and in -. Certain affixes are particularly productive in inflectional and derivational word building. The four most common prefixes are: un -, re-, in (not) and dis - (White et al. , 1989). As they constitute 58% of prefixed words (White et al ., 1989: 303), students who know them can make use of word-form clues in over half of all prefixed words. The top 10 suffixes are: -s and -es , -ed; -ing ; -ly ; -er and -or (agentive); -ion , -tion , -ation, and -ition ; -ible and -able ; -al and -ial ; -y; and -ness , constituting 85% of suffixed words. Knowledge of these assists learners in understanding word meanings or at least part of speech. However, because of irregularities, the most common affixes are not necessarily the easiest to learn. For instance, many prefixes are inconsistent or have more than one meaning; e.g. un - and dis - usually denote a negative meaning but can also indicate reversing as in undo and disconnect. In around 15 20% of cases, the combination of prefixes and stems results in meanings that are not easily resolved (White et al ., 1989). Moreover, some affixes such as a - as in ashore and a- as in atypical share the same form. Inflectional complexity (e.g. irregularity of the plural form), and derivational complexity (i.e. how morphemes can or cannot combine to create meanings), or the multiplicity of these meanings, can facilitate or hinder the recognition of a new word and its subsequent pronunciation (see Laufer, 1997). ‘Deceptively transparent words’ are ones that appear to be the outcome of the combination of regularly used morphemes, but are not (e.g. outline).

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Word Relatedness and Learning Burden The level of relatedness, i.e. closeness, between word family members affects how well learners process them. For instance, the nature of suffixes can influence their speed of recognition (Nagy et al ., 1989). The nature of derivational affixes in particular presents varying levels of transparency, and learners must employ various strategies to understand derivations. In word families, there can be close members as well as distant relatives. Headwords are the most basic (free) form present in word families, both morphologically and semantically, and having no inflection or derivation makes them the simplest for language learners. Affixation comes next, and the more common and regular affix application is, the more closely related to a headword an inflected form or derivation is likely to be. While some affixes leave the root fully visible with no alterations, others change the root. Among affixes, suffixes are generally simpler than prefixes in that they leave the root more visible. While common inflections such as plural and possessive are relatively few in number, relatively regular and familiar to most learners, there are many more derivational affixes, and their applications can be quite irregular. Neutral suffixes such as -er, -ness and -ment make few changes in the spelling and pronunciation of words, and are usually attached to stems that can stand alone as words. Meanwhile, non-neutral suffixes such as -ion often make substantial changes in spelling and pronunciation of the stems they are attached to, and are often added to stems that cannot stand alone, e.g. nation.

Knowledge of Affixes and English Vocabulary Expansion for Japanese Affix knowledge helps learners recognise the relationships between known words and unfamiliar words they encounter (see Nagy et al ., 1993). The rapid expansion of L1 vocabulary seen in children usually starts around the 4th grade as a result of their learning derived words (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). However, relatively little is known about how L2 learners’ affix knowledge develops, although Jarvis and Odlin (2000) have shown that transfer of bound morphology (i.e. affixes) is possible. It is likewise unclear how well Japanese understand the inflectional and derivational system of English. Although the Latin-based affix


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system for building words conceptually resembles the Chinese kanji based system of Japanese, a fundamental differences is that kanji is a meaning-based script (logography), which is highly transparent for (most) Japanese and more regular in its application. In addition to a propensity for borrowing, Japanese and pidgin languages share ‘an output characterised by linguistic reductionism and invariance no derivational, inflectional, declensional, or conjugational variation in the transferred forms’ (Loveday, 1996: 154). On the other hand, some affixes occur so commonly in loanwords as to be listed in loanword dictionaries, and English education in Japan has created at least a cursory familiarity with many common ones. Schmitt and Meara (1997) found the English suffix knowledge of Japanese high school and university students to be surprisingly poor. In a study of word associations and grammatical suffix knowledge, using both productive and receptive tasks, subjects generally did not show good mastery of suffixes other than inflectional suffixes and -ment. The subjects as a group have a rather weak awareness of derivative suffixes and their use, although they also lack convincing mastery of even inflectional suffixes. (Schmitt & Meara, 1997: 26) Mochizuki (1998; cited in Mochizuki & Aizawa, 2000) found great variation in Japanese learners’ understanding of affixes. Just as supposedly familiar affixed words were not always familiar to subjects, the assumed unfamiliar, low-frequency ones were not always unknown. The presence or lack of cognates was felt to play a role in this discrepancy. Mochizuki and Aizawa (2000) investigated the relationship between the English vocabulary sizes of Japanese learners and their derivational affix knowledge, as well as the order of affix acquisition. The test subjects were high school and university students in Japan, and 13 prefixes and 16 suffixes were tested.1 It was found that affix knowledge correlated with vocabulary size, the implication being that while affixes can be ranked by their relative difficulty, no absolute measure of difficulty is possible without reference to an individual’s stage of learning. Prefixes were ultimately classified by means of facility values and vocabulary size, then the results across all vocabulary-size groups were averaged. The order of facilitation (i.e. ease) of 13 prefixes and 16 suffixes produced is shown in Table 8.2. These L2 results and the L1 results found by Bauer and Nation (1993) differ somewhat. For instance, while Mochizuki and Aizawa place reand -ist within the top third for ease for Japanese, Bauer and Nation (1993) found these to have the highest level of intrinsic difficulty for

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Table 8.2 Average facilitation ranking of prefixes (shaded) and suffixes with facility values (Mochizuki & Aizawa, 2000) Prefix and rank

Facility value

Suffix and rank

Facility value

1. re-

0.98

1. -ation

0.91

2. un-

0.81

2. -ful

0.84

3. pre-

0.80

3. -ment

0.81

4. non-

0.76

4. -ist

0.76

5. anti-

0.71

5. -er

0.75

6. semi-

0.59

6. -ise

0.75

7. ex-

0.57

7. -al

0.75

8. en-

0.54

8. -ly

0.75

9. post-

0.50

9. -ous

0.70

10. inter-

0.37

10. -ness

0.67

11. counter-

0.34

11. -ism

0.66

12. in-

0.27

12. -able

0.65

13. ante-

0.11

13. -less

0.54

14. -ish

0.46

15. -y

0.42

16. -ity

0.34

native speakers. The existence in Japanese of common loanwords such as risaikuru (recycle), anrakki (unlucky), nonsutoppu (non-stop) and anchikyojin (‘anti-Giants’) likely explains the discrepancy; remarkably, even students with vocabularies of only 2000 3000 words were quite familiar with these prefixes.

Study: The Generalisability of Borrowed Word Knowledge within Word Families in Japanese ESL2 How well do the Japanese understand English derivations, and how does this impact their built-in lexicons of English? The following study examined how well Japanese learners can extend their cognate-based knowledge of English headwords to related derivations.


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Method and procedure As inflectional affixes are few in number and generally regular, this study focused on the difficult challenge posed by derivational affixes. Subjects were presented with English words (e.g. finality) related by word family to borrowed words (e.g. final), which are cognates of common loanwords in Japanese (e.g. fainaru ); they were also presented with comparable English words unrelated to borrowed words (e.g. legality). If more borrowed word relatives were comprehended than control items, ceteris paribus , this would indicate a borrowed word effect students using their loanword-based knowledge of English cognates to comprehend word family members. Thirty-eight Japanese university students, Economics majors in a required English class, were instructed to circle the English words they knew or could figure out. Drawing a triangle was an option when students lacked confidence in their response, but this was counted the same as leaving the word unmarked. Test items were divided into the three frequency levels of the BNC 3000 (Nation, 2004): the first 1000, second 1000 and third 1000 word families by frequency, hereafter referred to as 1K, 2K and 3K. The test items were further divided into ‘easy’ and ‘moderately hard’ prefixes and suffixes, based on the average facilitation rankings of Mochizuki and Aizawa (2000). As vocabulary level was controlled for, experimental and control items would be comparable regarding the overall effect of previous knowledge. There were a total of 60 experimental and 60 control items, and the affixes used in the test instrument appear in Table 8.3. Especially ‘easy’ should be taken as a relative term, as Schmitt and Meara (1997) have asserted that Japanese lack competency in practically all derivational suffixes. Table 8.3 Affix type and facilitation value for prefixes (shaded) and suffixes used in test Affix type and facilitation value

Prefixes

Suffixes

Easy (0.65 and above)

re-, un-, pre-, non-, anti-

-ation, -ment, -ist, -er, -ise, -al, -ous, -ism

Moderately hard (0.33 and above)

semi-, ex-, post-, inter-, counter-

-less, -ish, -y, -ity


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Typically, English headwords (e.g. copy) are borrowed into Japanese, although borrowed derivations (e.g. treatment) are not uncommon. This test focused on the generalisability of cognate-based knowledge of headwords to understand derivations. Because of the difficulty in finding appropriate test and control items, the 1K, 2K and 3K tests used a somewhat different batch of ‘easy’ suffixes. Results The results are described below for the three levels of vocabulary. The value expressed below as ‘borrowed word effect’ refers to the subjects’ relative facility in understanding derivations related to borrowed headwords. It is calculated by dividing the number of positive responses borrowed word relatives received by that of the comparable control words. Any percentage larger than 100% (parity) indicates a borrowed word effect. Let us examine the results at each vocabulary level individually, beginning with the 1K vocabulary, in Table 8.4. Data for prefixes is shaded, and for suffixes unshaded. At the 1K level, the values for borrowed word effect ranged from 102% to 141%. For example, using easy prefixation, derivations (e.g. reprocess) related to borrowed headwords (e.g. process) were recognised 114 times (60% of cases) while derivations unrelated to loanwords (e.g. reoccur) were recognised 98 times (52%) indicating a moderate borrowed word effect of 116%. All values were above the threshold 100%, although that for ‘easy’ suffixation was barely so. At the more difficult 2K level of vocabulary, a substantial borrowed word effect was indicated with prefixed words but not suffixed ones. The data are summarised in Table 8.5. Table 8.4 Borrowed word effect in 1K words Level of affixation

Type of derivation

Recognised related derivations

Recognised non-related derivations

Borrowed word effect (%)

Easy

Prefixation

114 (60%)

98 (52%)

116

Easy

Suffixation

129 (68%)

127 (67%)

102

Mod. hard

Prefixation

42 (22%)

30 (16%)

140

Mod. hard

Suffixation

100 (53%)

71 (21%)

141


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Table 8.5 Borrowed word effect in 2K words Type of derivation



Easy

Prefixation

116 (61%)

73 (38%)

159

Easy

Suffixation

100 (53%)

122 (64%)

( 82)

Mod. hard

Prefixation

63 (33%)

41 (21%)

154

Mod. hard

Suffixation

104 (55%)

124 (65%)

( 84)

Level of affixation


The borrowed word effect ranged from 84% to 159%. While the value was negative for ‘easy’ and ‘moderately hard’ suffixation, for prefixation it was extraordinarily high at 159% and 154% respectively. Ambiguous results continued at the hardest level of vocabulary, the 3K level, where only the data for ‘easy’ prefixation indicated a borrowed word effect. The data are summarised in Table 8.6. The borrowed word effect value was virtually neutral in three of the four categories; only in ‘easy’ prefixation was there a value over 100%, and it was 123%. Table 8.6 Borrowed word effect in 3K words Type of derivation



Easy

Prefixation

85 (45%)

69 (36%)

123

Easy

Suffixation

69 (36%)

68 (36%)

Mod. hard

Prefixation

46 (24%)

45 (24%)

Mod. hard

Suffixation

73 (38%)

78 (41%)

( 94)

Level of affixation


Discussion A value greater than 100 would indicate a borrowed word effect that learners were extending knowledge within word families. The results suggested a borrowed word effect can be expected but only when learners confront prefixed derivations, not suffixed ones. Prefixes are generally considered harder than suffixes in that they tend to conceal the


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root, and this was generally supported in the data. And it is with derivational prefixes that the benefits of transfer were most apparent. Mochizuki and Aizawa’s (2000) ranking of the difficulty of derivational affixes for Japanese learners was generally validated. Words with ‘easy’ affixes were usually considerably easier than words with ‘moderately hard’ affixes. There are many facets to intralingual transfer that future research should clarify. This study did not consider: the effect of cognate knowledge of one derivation in understanding its headword or other derivations; the generalisability of knowledge of words consisting of multiple affixes, such as unselfishness; or the multiple meanings of certain affixes.

Conclusion It seems imprudent to assume that Japanese learners can extend word knowledge within word families even those assembled on the criteria of transparency and minimum learning burden. Word frequency lists offer great coverage with a limited number of words, but only for those who have mastered the building blocks of English. For the Japanese to fully take advantage of their built-in lexicon, teacher intervention is likely required. Developing learners’ awareness of the common inflectional and derivational affixes will assist the learning of unfamiliar words by relating these to known words, and learners can check whether an unfamiliar word has been successfully guessed from context. Teaching can initially focus on the most common four prefixes and 10 suffixes (White et al ., 1989). In one study, Japanese studying new English vocabulary using a root/affix method were found to gain relatively more receptive vocabulary than subjects receiving five different methods of traditional instruction, who gained relatively more productive vocabulary (Clark, 1991). This indicates the importance of a well balanced approach to vocabulary-skill development. As English word families become psychologically real for L2 learners, teaching words together as a family will have a number of advantages. First, if the most frequent words in the family are already known, this procedure builds a bridge from familiar to new. (Nagy & Anderson, 1984: 326) Such teaching also reinforces learners’ knowledge of word-formation processes.


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Notes 1. Derivational affixes to be tested were selected using two criteria: affixes in Levels 3 6 of Bauer & Nation’s (1993) Affix Levels and those used in more than two words in the ‘Vocabulary Lists’ (Nation, 1996). 2. This study was originally reported in Daulton (2004b), but is interpreted somewhat differently here.

Epilogue: New Horizons While Japan presents a stellar example of language borrowing, with tens of thousands of loanwords in circulation, in some senses it is an aberrant one. Language contact typically involves the borrowing of culture more so than words (see Arabski, 2006), however, the situation in Japan is typically reversed English words are sought as tools whose culture can be distorted and exploited. Nor has Japanese been impoverished by the influx of foreignisms, introduced by bilinguals closely imitating the L2 models (see Manczak-Wohlfeld, 2006) but failing from ignorance (see Ringbom, 2001). Despite its unique aspects, there is much to be learned from Japan’s lexical borrowing, including that loanword cognates useful in EFL and ESL can be plentiful. Unfortunately, mainstream education in Japan has shunned the builtin lexicon of English. Japanese/English cognates have rarely been included in mainstream English teaching materials or in classrooms, although they are mentioned in L1 Japanese classes. Thus we face a virtually wide-open field of possibilities for the application of the knowledge presented in this book. In addition to the various teaching suggestions already presented (see particularly Chapters 7 and 8), some general principles and a few concrete suggestions are offered below.

Cross-linguistic Similarity and Learner Motivation Teaching that compares the native and target languages can more effectively guide students’ learning. In countries such as Japan, the active promotion of such an approach may be necessary to overcome the longstanding bias against loanwords in the English classroom. The ambitious project known as EuroCom, which utilises cross-linguistic similarities among the languages of the European community, could be emulated in the Pacific Rim. Future research will better establish to what extent cognates already affect learning, and how cognates can be further exploited. While errors can sometimes be anticipated, developmental errors should neither be dreaded nor avoided. Error paranoia has contributed 123

124


largely to the taciturn nature of Japanese classes, smothering the sole factor more fundamental than L1 learner motivation. Having reached a basic receptive competence, what the learner especially needs in order to be successful at producing the target language fluently is a strong drive to communicate and interact, leading to a lot of practice in using the language. (Ringbom, 2007: 123) Naturally, the ease of cognates supports the larger picture of learner motivation. And motivated learners are empowered to produce the language they are meant to learn. Comprehension alone does not leave a permanent mark in the mental lexicon, and a word that is easily guessable may not be as easily learnable (Ringbom, 2007). A further point regarding motivation is that while native-speaking teachers offer learners direct contact with the target language culture, it is those who share the learners’ L1, in Japan the JTEs (Japanese teachers of English), who can be model learners/users of English for students to emulate.

Item Learning and System Learning An item/system framework is useful for understanding learners’ progress with English cognates in Japanese. Item learning (e.g. learning discreet words and establishing one-to-one cognate relationships) precedes system learning (e.g. understanding the relationships among words and languages) (see Cruttenden, 1981). Moreover, comprehension precedes production. With beginning learners, item learning for comprehension is the natural starting point for learners and teachers, as cross-linguistic similarity is a powerful and typically positive influence (see Ringbom, 2007; also Odlin, 2003). A young Japanese learner of English will be greatly aided in the comprehension of words such as cat (kyatto ), in (in ) and hat (hatto ). Following the initial stage of item learning for comprehension, item learning for production and system learning for comprehension commence. In item learning for production, the formal similarity of cognates will help language learners find the words they need, but the likelihood of errors is relatively high. Concurrently, system learning will gradually modify the oversimplified one-to-one relations perceived in comprehension. Learners will learn, for instance, that one word can have several meanings, and about verb inflections and pragmatic aspects. In system learning for comprehension, formal similarity plays a subordinate role, if any.

Epilogue: New Horizons

125

While all stages are ongoing, the final stage to commence is system learning for production. In production, accuracy is required, the learner must make appropriate use of ostensible synonyms, and realise that one form can have various functions and meanings. Known words are used in new senses, collocational restrictions are considered and links to other words are established. As learning progresses towards advanced proficiency, cross-linguist similarity loses importance at the same time as intra-lingual similarity becomes more important. (Ringbom, 2007: 100) Systematic knowledge of cognates can greatly help Japanese learners of English. One major challenge for the Japanese is the convergent nature of cognates; learners will have to add new meanings to already familiar ones. Another challenge is semantically shifted cognates and Japanised English. And the item/system framework is useful for the timely introduction of cognates and high-frequency vocabulary.

Timing in the Introduction of Cognates and Highfrequency Vocabulary Opinions differ somewhat about how and when to discuss cognates with learners. Because of maturity, a greater attention span, power of analysis and L1 language competence, Hammer and Giauque (1989) believe the best age levels for cognate instruction are secondary school and above. However, rather than age, the stage of the learner may be central. At early stages, overemphasis on cross-linguistic similarities as they are manifested by cognates probably facilitates the learning task, while more advanced learners, who have already developed their own individual learning strategies, may profit from at least some supplementary information on deceptive cognates and on the differences in register and frequency in the use of cognates. (Ringbom, 2007: 83) Uchida (2003) concurs that the usefulness of cognates should be emphasised particularly to beginners as a tool to make up for their lack of L2 knowledge. Regardless of the stage of learners, it is reasonable for cognates to be presented earlier than non-cognates in order to motivate learners and to provide them with basic vocabulary.

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Nation (1993) believes that teachers should start with the explicit presentation of high-frequency vocabulary through explanations and exercises, and gradually move to teaching learning strategies. Uchida (2001a) asserts the same rule applies to cognate teaching, i.e. teachers should shift from teaching actual cognate words individually to teaching cognate spotting or checking strategies. Again, it is practical to focus on high-frequency English cognates first.

General Approaches to Teaching with Cognates In the learning of English, non-natives are faced with a daunting amount of vocabulary, and the English words that have become common loanwords in Japanese constitute a marvellous resource. Cognates can and do facilitate the learning of their L2 counterparts, and this natural process can be even further developed through skilful intervention. The many successful strategies for general vocabulary learning (for an overview, see Nation, 2001a) should achieve greater success with borrowed words, due to the lighter learning burden of cognates. Techniques such as the ‘keyword approach’ are naturally enhanced when students are aware of their loanword resource, and have confidence to use their intuitions about unknown English vocabulary. Kimura (1989: 79, 89) is among the proponents of paying special attention to loanwords in formal instruction, and further asserts that the loanword lexicon may even be used to develop a native-like semantic intuition in at least ESL. Nation (1990: 49) observes: The more the teacher or the course designer draws attention to the similarities and patterns (between first language and target-language vocabulary), the greater the opportunity for transfer. Uchida (2003) suggests that textbooks for beginners should include more true cognates, as they are easier to process and learn. Of course, true cognates should not be emphasised to the point that students trust cognates blindly. Hashimoto (1993) believes that ample pronunciation practice greatly assists spelling ability. For example, as the Japanese often confuse the phonemes /o/ and /a/ in spelling, as well as /l/ and /r/, it would be beneficial to give aural practice in distinguishing confusing sounds to Japanese in addition to orthographic instruction of English. For pronunciation and audio recognition, it may be that the learning of motor-perceptual skills in language is indeed rather a process of classical


127

conditioning than of discovery, and that imitation drill and pronunciation practice are appropriate techniques.

Flash Cards In Japan, there is a growing demand for teaching materials aimed at very young learners. Among these are numerous English/Japanese flash card sets focusing on basic vocabulary. Their colourful and simple illustrations reflect their young target market. None of these flash card sets focuses on loanword cognates, although many cognates are naturally present. It would be quite simple to design bilingual flash cards that focus on high-frequency words, ideally from among the first 500 or 1000, which represent the lion’s share of everyday communication. As English pronunciation can be deceptively difficult, providing an audio CD would allow teachers or parents to assist children in pronouncing English words more closely to native norms; because of the danger of error fossilisation, the earlier English phonology is introduced, the better for the learners. Many loanword cognates are very common in Japanese, such as: gurasu (glass); rajio (radio) and teeburu (table). However, many loanwords exist although their concepts are typically expressed by Japanese alternatives, such as: faiyaa (fire; hi ); bukku (book; hon ); and -man (man; otoko ). Such distinctions, examples of systematic knowledge, can be clearly illustrated with English and Japanese example sentences. As for subtle distinctions such as how -man is a bound morpheme in Japanese, always modifying as in the animation character ‘Anpan-man’ (‘Sweet, Red Bean Paste Bun Man’) and ‘wan-man densha ’ (‘one man train’), young learners may be quite intuitive and not require explicit instruction.

Adapting Reading Materials Awareness of learners’ lexical strengths and weaknesses allows for the effective adaptation of reading materials. Lower-level learners whose immediate goal is communicative competence need to master the highfrequency vocabulary of English, including cognates. Brown (1995) writes: Reading texts, built up around the many words that have been borrowed from English into Japanese, might prove to be effective tools in the development of English vocabulary among Japanese university students.

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Stories are an excellent means for the presentation of vocabulary. In contrast to four-skills communication textbooks, stories include novelty, humour, conflict and surprise, which help students maintain interest and learn from context (Elley, 1989). As stories encourage learners to focus on meaning rather than form, they promote deep processing of input. And stories extend the learner’s knowledge of the world. Many publishers offer graded reader series, for example, Oxford and its Oxford Bookworms series. Such materials are well suited for extensive reading learners have access to a great range of topics and levels, and they are generally well designed and reinforce previously met vocabulary. However, because of budgets and logistics, graded readers may not be practical for some classes and programmes. As an alternative to commercial materials, teachers can adapt authentic materials to the level or pedagogical needs of their students. There are various advantages in doing so. The teacher assumes full responsibility for students’ progress and can make adjustments to teaching materials during the year. Moreover, adapting materials oneself is extremely economical, although it requires a great deal of time and labour. The books I have adapted are the ones that have resonated in my life. I have adapted The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950) and two non-fiction books: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948). My general approach has been to place a limited number of 1001 2000 level, high-frequency vocabulary in a nourishing environment of 1 1000 level vocabulary (a ‘petri dish approach’). An important exception is made for cognates relating to common loanwords, which I allow to remain in the text regardless of vocabulary level, as learners can easily process them. Naturally in adapting texts, one must obey the intellectual property (I.P.) laws. In the case of Japan, the relevant laws are quite lax. According to the Copyright Research and Information Center, as a signatory to the Berne Convention since 1975, Japan protects foreign works up to 50 years from the death of the author. However, this is not retroactive, and foreign works published prior to 1975 are in the public domain. Therefore, teachers have a free hand in adapting and using older works. (Ironically, Japanese works benefit in other signatory countries from the much stricter copyright laws that prevail overseas.) Of course, with completely original materials, there is no concern about copyright infringement.


129

Non-conscious Priming For language learners, cognate recognition is crucial; however, remarkably, explicit instruction can, in the short-term, interfere with the automated processes of transfer. Brown and Williams (1985: 140) found that Japanese students of English understood the meanings of borrowed words they heard better than non-borrowed words, especially when not told that the test items were borrowed words a 5% loanword effect versus a 3% one. The authors concluded: . . . Students will probably understand borrowed words better than they will non-borrowed words even if they have been exposed to the non-borrowed words in some previous context. If the students are told the words are borrowed, however, they understand them less well than if they are simply allowed to make the association on their own. (Brown & Williams, 1985: 141) Indeed, the automated procedures that guide human behaviour, such as snow boarding and playing the koto , function most effectively at the non-conscious level (see Bargh & Ferguson, 2000). Although explicit direction to cognates can limit the advantage of cognates on a given task, the long-term consciousness raising that results is likely beneficial. Banta (1981: 134) writes of English speakers learning German that, ‘Probably the most useful fact we can tell our students about loan words is that they exist’. Learners are often suspicious of their loanword intuitions, and in some cases their conscious minds may restrain them from acting on these intuitions, even in the case of helpful cognates. Understanding that lexical transfer is ideally an unconscious process, and that it is susceptible to outside influence, opens an intriguing possibility. Applied linguistics has borrowed repeatedly from social psychology, obvious examples including behaviourism and error analysis. It may be possible to use a social psychology technique to induce learners to more readily use their L1 knowledge to process L2 input; the technique is non-conscious priming, the activation of pre-existing, automatised mental processes without an individual’s awareness (e.g. Bargh & Ferguson, 2000). For instance, a scrambled word puzzle full of borrowed words might prime learners’ automated processing of cognates in a subsequent task.

Japanese as a Foreign Language Although transfer can be asymmetric (Ringbom, 2006), it is likely that English speakers will be aided in learning Japanese.

130


Stephens (2007) found various indications of the effect of L1 English on L2 Japanese learning in the report of the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia (SSABSA). An analysis of examiners’ reports revealed typical cases of pragmatic, lexical and collocational transfer from English to Japanese. The reports focus on instances of negative transfers, e.g. learners’ struggling with iru (‘to be’, animate objects) and aru (‘to be’, inanimate objects). However, some instances of positive transfer were noted to have resulted from English/Japanese conjunctions and verb endings that operate similarly. Once foreigners come to Japan, they often, by osmosis rather than study, master the patterns of phonologically transforming English into Japanese. In other words, they learn to mimic with surprising accuracy Japanese pronunciation of English words. Given this offcolour talent, foreigners are in a position to insert any English word into Japanese conversation with a reasonable chance of communicative success. Japanese may be one of the most productive sources of new loanwords to English. Today there are hundreds of Japanese terms used in Englishlanguage publications, relating to areas such as art and architecture, medicine and the sciences, business and education, and philosophy and religion. Recent additions to English subculture include: cosplay (‘costume play’); dojo (a training hall for martial arts); hentai (meaning pervert or perverted), manga (Japanese-style comics) and tokusatsu (a genre of live-action entertainment e.g. ‘Ultraman’). Predictably, there are numerous examples of false cognates, where the meanings of Japanese words have come to be altered, including: futon (usually refers to a sofa bed rather than Japanese-style bedding); hibachi (in English, always a cooking device, never a heating device); and tycoon (a business giant rather than a feudal lord). It is also possible for a word to travel from one language to another and then return in a different form, a process called reborrowing. An example of this is anime in English, which is borrowed from Japanese and is a shortened version of animeshon (animation); anime refers to Japan’s unique style of animation, not animation in general. The many useful English words that have become common loanwords in Japanese are a national resource that deserves international notice. Until now, there have been too few Japanese speakers of English on the world scene. Built-in lexicons of English may be key for numerous countries to emerge as the bilingual nations they aspire to be.

Appendix 1: The Standard Set of Katakana The symbol is used to extend a vowel sound, as in (taan /turn) and a small is used for a geminate (i.e. double) consonate as in (pakku /pack). Although there seems to be redundancy with and , the symbol is used only as an object-marking particle.

131

132


Appendix 2: The List of Common Loanwords Corresponding to the BNC 3000 Words are organised into word families of the BNC 3000 (Nation, 2004). Headwords appear with a bullet to the left in capitals; family members appear to the right after indentation. Japanese equivalents are given in katakana for borrowed words.

133

134


Appendix 2

135

136


Appendix 2

137

138


Appendix 2

139

140


Appendix 2

141

142


Appendix 2

143

144


Appendix 2

145

146


Appendix 2

147

148


Appendix 2

149

150


Appendix 2

151

152


Appendix 2

153

154


Appendix 2

155

Appendix 3: Academic Borrowed Words List format: The list contains 177 English words from 153 AWL (Coxhead, 1998) word families. It is divided into 10 parts according to the frequency of the academic words. ‘Sublist-1’ includes words from among the first 60 words that corresponded to loanwords, ‘Sublist-2’ those from among the next 60, and so on, except for ‘Sublist-10’, which originally contains only 30 words. Loanwords appear below their corresponding borrowed words in katakana and the Roman alphabet. Because of the nature of academic words, the semantic similarity of cognate pairs will be rather high.

156

Appendix 3

157

158


Appendix 3

159

160


Appendix 3

161

162


Appendix 3

163

164

anaunsu anaunsumento anaunsaa bea kooru shitii kosuto

ANNOUNCEMENT

ANNOUNCER

BEAR

CALL

CITY

COST

Japanese word

ANNOUNCE

Borrowed word

1

3

1

0

3

3

3

Type score

3

3

1

0

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Always modifies

Only television

Also used as noun

Restrictions (1)

4.5

5

4

3

6

6

5

Total

Appendix 4: The Similarity of 1K Sampled Borrowed Words and Japanese Loanwords

maneejimento mooningu

MANAGEMENT

MORNING

intoro

maneeji

intorodukushon

INTRODUCTION

MANAGE

horidei

HOLIDAY

supottoraito

guriin

GREEN

SPOTLIGHT

foresuto

FOREST

raito

1

firumu

FILM

LIGHT

1

inafu

ENOUGH

3

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

1

1

1

dairekutaa

DIRECTOR

1

Type score

dairekuto

Japanese word

DIRECT

Borrowed word

Appendix 4 (Continued )

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

0

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Always modifies

Only music

Always modifies

Only broadcast

Restrictions (1)

5

4.5

4.5

4.5

4.5

4.5

3.5

4.5

4.5

6

3.5

3.5

3.5

4.5

Total

Appendix 4 165

noosu oonaa poritikaru paburikku shiin shea shearingu supiiku supiikaa supiikingu sutadi sankusu yunibaashitii win

OWNER

POLITICAL

PUBLIC

SCENE

SHARE

SHARING

SPEAK

SPEAKER

SPEAKING

STUDY

THANKS

UNIVERSITY

WIN

Japanese word

NORTH

Borrowed word


1

3

3

0

1

3

1

1

1

1

1

3

3

3

Type score

3

3

3

0

3

3

0

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Always modifies

Always modifies

Restrictions (1)

2.5

6

2

2.5

2.5

3.5

3.5

4.5

4.5

4.5

3.5

6

6

5

Total

166


winzu

WINS

Average

winaa

Japanese word

WINNER

Borrowed word


1.5

3

1

Type score

2.6

3

3

Def. score

3.0

3

3

Shortening score

Restrictions (1)

4.3

5

4.5

Total

Appendix 4 167

168

bouru

kyatto

kyattsu

kuriin

kuriinaa

kuriiningu

konsutanto

deribarii

CAT

CATS

CLEAN

CLEANER

CLEANING

CONSTANT

DELIVERY

baria

BARRIER

BOWL

aduruto

Japanese word

ADULT

Borrowed word

1

3

3

1

3

3

3

1

3

3

Type score

3

3

3

0

3

3

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Only sales

always modifies

Restrictions (1)

4.5

5

6

3.5

6

6

6

4.5

6

5

Total


enjin

enjinia

enjiniaringu

fookasu

handoru

airon

rejaa

miito

mootaa

pein

purasu

pyua

rafu

sheipu

ENGINEER

ENGINEERING

FOCUS

HANDLE

IRON

LEISURE

MEAT

MOTOR

PAIN

PLUS

PURE

ROUGH

SHAPE

Japanese word

ENGINE

Borrowed word


1

3

3

3

3

1

3

3

1

1

3

3

1

1

Type score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

2

1

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Always modifies

Restrictions (1)

4.5

6

6

6

4.5

4.5

6

6

4.5

4

6

6

4.5

4.5

Total

Appendix 5 169

suraidingu

suchiimu

teepu

topikku

topikkusu

bijon

yaado

SLIDING

STEAM

TAPE

TOPIC

TOPICS

VISION

YARD

Average

suraido

Japanese word

SLIDE

Borrowed word


2.3

1

1

3

3

3

1

3

3

Type score

2.8

3

2

3

3

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3.0

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Restrictions (1)

5.3

4.5

4.5

6

6

6

4.5

6

6

Total

170


171

mootaabaiku

kyanbasu

konpakuto

debiru

esunikku

faa

yuumoa

MOTORBIKE

CANVAS

COMPACT

DEVIL

ETHNIC

FUR

HUMOUR

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

arumi

baiku

3

Type score

aruminiumu

Japanese word

BIKE

ALUMINIUM

Borrowed word

2

3

3

3

3

2

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

2

3

Shortening score

Restrictions ( 1)

5.5

6

6

6

6

5

6

6

5

5

Total


3

petto

randomu

saamon

soopu

tiin

tiin

taiyaa

taia

PET

RANDOM

SALMON

SOAP

TEENAGER

TEEN

TYRE

Average

3

monyumento

MONUMENT

2.8

3

3

1

3

3

1

3

3

raifusutairu

LIFESTYLE

3

Type score

yuumorasu

Japanese word

HUMOUROUS

Borrowed word


3.0

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Def. score

3.0

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Shortening score

Restrictions (1)

5.7

6

6

6

6

4.5

6

6

4.5

6

6

6

Total

172


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Shibatani, M. (1990) The Languages of Japan . New York: Cambridge University Press. Simon-Maeda, A. (1995) Language awareness: Use/misuse of loan-words in the English language in Japan. The Internet TESL Journal (December). On WWW at http://iteslj.org/Articles/Maeda-Loanwords.html. Sjoholm, M. (1979) Partial dictation as a testing device: An analysis with special reference to the achievement made by Swedish-and Finnish-speaking applicants for English, 1975. In R. Palmberg (ed.) Perception and Production of English: Papers on Interlanguage (pp. 123 166). AFTIL 6. Publications of the Department of English, Abo Akademi. Skinner, B.F. (1957) Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Stanlaw, J. (1982) English in Japanese communicative strategies. In B. Kachru (ed.) The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (pp. 178 208). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Stanlaw, J. (1987) Japanese and English: Borrowing and contact. World Englishes 6 (2), 93 109. Stephens, M. (2007) Transfer from English to Japanese by Australian JFL Learners. The Language Teacher 31 (9), 11 13. Suomi, K. (1976) English voiceless and voiced stops as produced by native Finnish speakers. Jyva¨skyla¨ Contrastive Studies 2. Jyva¨skyla¨: Jyva¨skyla¨ University. Suzuki, T. (1984) Words in Context: A Japanese Perspective on Language and Culture . (A. Miura, trans.).Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International. Swan, M. (1997) The influence of the mother tongue on second language vocabulary acquisition and use. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds) Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy (pp. 156 180). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Takashi, K. (1990) A sociolinguistic analysis of English borrowings in Japanese advertising texts. World Englishes 9 (3), 327 341. Tamaoka, K. and Miyaoka, Y. (2003) The cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords in katakana. Japanese Psychological Research 45 (2), 69 79. Taylor, I. (1981) Writing systems and reading. In G.E. Mackinnon and T.G. Wallers (eds) Reading Research: Advances in Theory and Practice (Vol. 2) (pp. 1 51). New York: Academic Press. Tomoda, T. (1999) The impact of loan-words on modern Japanese. Japan Forum 11 (1), 231 253. Tomoda, T. (2005) Change in script usage in Japanese: A longitudinal study of Japanese government white papers on labor. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies . On WWW at http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/ 2005/Tomoda.html. Uchida, E. (2001a) The use of cognate inferencing strategies by Japanese learners of English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Essex. Uchida, E. (2001b) Audio and visual identification of unknown L2 cognates involving different scripts. Essex Graduate Student Papers in Language and Linguistics pp. 211 230. http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/pgr/egspll/ volume3/. Uchida E. (2003) English loanword cognates (katakana eigo) and the teaching of English in Japan. The JASEC Bulletin 12, 79 91.

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Uchimoto, H. (1994) Outline History of the Japanese Language l: Phonology, Orthography, and Changes in Grammar. Tokyo, Australia: Heinle. Van Benthuysen, R.V. (2004) Japanese EFL students’ awareness of English loanword origins. Bunko Gakuin Daigaku Gaikokugo Gakubu Bunkyo Gakuin Tanki Daigaku Kio 4, 169 174. On WWW at http://cicero.u-bunkyo.ac.jp/lib/ kiyo/fsell2004/169-174.pdf. West, M. (1953) A General Service List of English Words. London: Longmans, Green and Co. West, M.P., Swenson, E., Fawkes, K.M., Russell, F.L. and de Magellanes Wilf, J. (1934) A critical examination of Basic English. Bulletin of Department of Educational Research , University of Toronto, 2. White, T.G., Sowell, J. and Yanagihara, A. (1989) Teaching elementary school students to use word part clues. The Reading Teacher 42, 302 308. Yamada, M. (1995) Amerika-jin no Shiranai Eigo . Tokyo: Maruzen Library. Yazaki, G. (1975) Nihon no Gairaigo . Japan: Iwanami Shoten. Yip, V. (1995) Interlanguage and Learnability from Chinese to English . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Yoshida, M. (1978) The acquisition of English vocabulary by a Japanese-speaking child. In E.M. Hatch (ed.) Second Language Acquisition (pp. 91 100). New York: Newbury House. Zipf, G.K. (1935) The Psycho-biology of Language: An Introduction to Dynamic Philology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Dictionaries Ishiwata, T. (1998) Kihon Gairaigo Jiten . Tokyo: Tokyodou Shuppan. Kamiya, T. (1994) Tuttle New Dictionary of Loanwords in Japanese . Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc. Motwani, P. (1991) A Dictionary of Loanword Usage . Tokyo: Maruzen Co., Ltd. Sinclair, J. (Founding Editor in Chief; 2001) Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (3rd edn). Glasgow: Harper Collins.

Index Abberton, E. 47 academic vocabulary 78, 80-1, 84-6, 156-163 additional meanings 108-9 affixation (English) 111-121 Anderson, R.C. & Freebody, P. 3 Anthony, E. 46, 50 Arabski, J. 11, 21, 30, 45, 123 Ard, J. & Homburg, T. 50 Academic Word List (AWL) 71-2, 80, 84-5, 156 Baddeley, A. 43 Banta, F.G. 101, 103, 109, 129 Bargh, J.A. & Ferguson, M.J. 129 Bauer, L. & Nation, I.S.P. 111, 113, 121 Bensoussan, M. & Laufer, B. 48 BNC 3000 80-6, 93, 96, 110, 117, 133 Bronner, S. 3 Brown, J.B. 70, 127 Brown, J.B. & Williams, C.J. 65, 67, 69, 98, 129 Carroll, J.B. 3 Carroll, S.E. 43, 47, 55, 88, 91 Carter, R. 98 Channell, J. 85 Clark, E. 92, 98 Clark, G. 120 Coady, J. & Huckin, T. 3 Cognates – accidental 46, 47, 96 – convergent 22, 48, 57, 69, 88, 89, 93, 96, 97, 125 – definition 46-7 – divergent 48, 57, 67, 88-9, 93, 96 – false (friends) 48, 49, 57, 88-9, 93, 107, 109 – pitfalls 43, 47, 62, 109 – true 40, 57, 88, 126 – types 57, 67, 88-9, 93 Cohen, A.D. & Aphek, E. 55, 59 confidence (learner) 2, 4, 63-4, 106-7, 109, 126 Cook, V. (2002) 47 Corder, S.P. 55-6, 58 Coxhead, A. 71, 78, 80, 84, 156

Crinion, J. et al.60 Cruttenden, A. 124 Dagut, M.B. 89 Daulton, F.E. 13, 27, 32, 40, 51, 64, 65, 66, 69-70, 74, 81, 82, 84-5, 86, 90, 107, 121 De Groot, A.M.B. & Keijzer, R. 50, 52 derivations 33, 34, 80, 81, 83, 110-121 dictionaries (loanword) 11-3, 24, 32, 37, 39, 40, 81-2, 84, 97, 115 Dulay, H. & Burt, M. 57 Duskova, L. 54 Elley, W.B. 128 Ellis, N. & Beaton, A. 91, 92, 98 Ellis, R. 57, 58 Engels, L.K. 80 formal similiarity 45, 51, 54, 58-9, 65, 87, 90-2, 94-7, 101, 124 Frantzen, D. 89 Fukunishi, L. 23 Gentner, D. 98 Goulden, R. et al. 111 Granger, S. 77, 89, 98 Granger, S. & Swallow, H. 47, 49 Grosjean, F. 28 Haarmann, H. 31 Hammer, P. & Giauque, G. 44, 50, 101, 125 Hashimoto, C. 51, 66-7, 101, 104, 108, 126 Hashimoto, R. 65-6, 70 Hasselgren, A. 49, 50, 70 Hatch, E. & Brown, C. 17, 22, 47 Henning, G. 91 hiragana 13-15 Hirsh, D. & Nation, P. 113 Holmes, J. & Ramos, R.G. 48, 50, 57, 58, 98, 101, 107 Honna, N. 2, 12, 15, 19, 31, 38, 90, 92 Huckin, T. et al. 3 Ijaz, I.H. 47, 98

183

Japan’s Built-in Lexicon of English-based Loanwords Index

184


Ikegami, K. 81 inflections 113-121 interference (see negative transfer) 44, 50, 52, 54-8, 62, 89, 107, 130 Iwasaki, Y. 33 Japanized English 19, 86, 88-9 Japlish (see Japanized English) Jarvis, S. 108 Jarvis, S. & Odlin, T. 114 Johansson, S. 47 kanji 13-4, 103-4, 115 katakana 13-7, 22-3, 30, 36, 63-5, 91-2, 103-7, 131-2 katana filter 92, 105 Kay, G. 11, 15, 21, 23, 38, 72, 101 Kellerman, E. 56, 90 Kellerman, E. & Sharwood-Smith, M. 44 Kimura, M. 12, 65, 67, 69, 97, 107, 108, 126 Kitagawa, K. 104, 106 Kluge, D. 64 Kobayashi, T. 62-3 Koda, K. 50, 104 Krashen, S. 106 Lado, R. 47, 81, 88, 107, 108 Laufer, B. 50, 79, 92, 98, 104, 113 Laufer, B. & Nation, P. 74 Laufer, B. et al. 74 Laufer-Dvorkin, B. 51 Leech, G. et al. 80 Lee, H.S. 4 Lehtonen, J. et al. 54, 107 listening (comprehension) 48-9, 52-3, 66-7, 105-6 loanwords – compound 18-9, 27, 39, 77, 84-6, 96-7, 106 – hybrid 12, 16, 18-9, 25-6, 27, 29-30, 31, 40, 84, 86, 96, 103 – innovative 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 37, 40, 84, 86, 97, 103 Loveday, L.J. 3, 12, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 36, 39, 83, 115 Long, M.H. 64 Macaulay, R.K.S. 48 MacDonald, Ranald 9-10 MacGregor, L. 12 Maeda, T. 24, 40 Manczak-Wohfeld, E. 39, 101, 123 Masden, K. & Miura, M. 63 Meara, P. 47, 91 Miller, R.A. 10, 11, 31

Miura, A. 21, 37, 39 Miura, T. 63, 86 Mochizuki, M. 115 Mochizuki, M. & Aizawa, K. 115-6, 117, 120 Mogami, K. 27 Morrow, P.R. 2 motivation (and loanwords) 4, 21, 106, 123-4 Murphey, T. & Sasaki, T. 64 Nakamura, N. 38 Nagasawa, J. 88, 90 Nagy, W.E. & Anderson, R.C. 111, 112, 120 Nagy, W.E., Anderson, R.C., Schommer, A., Scott, J.A. and Stallman, A. 114 Nagy, W.E., Garcia, G.E., Durgunoglu, A.Y. and Hancin-Bhatt, B. 83, 101, 114 Nation, I.S.P. 55, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 103, 104, 110, 111, 113, 117, 121, 126, 133 Nation, P. & Waring, R. 3, 77 Ngeow, K.Y.H. 2, 4 Nisbet, J.D. 80 Nishiyama, S. 85, 90 Odlin, T. 4, 50, 54, 101, 106, 114, 124 Oller, J.W. Jr. & Ziahosseiny, S.M. 51 Oshima, K. 12, 33, 35, 39, 63 Palmberg, R. 4, 51-2, 53, 101 Paivio, A. 98 paradox of cognates 43-60 Park, W. 11, 28 Pea, R.D. 4 Postman, L. 98 prefixation 112, 118-9 Preller, A.G. 80 Pressley, M. et al. 52 production 17, 45, 48-50, 52, 55-8, 60, 62, 65-6, 70-4, 79, 124-5 pronunciation 16-8, 24, 44, 48, 57, 62-5, 74, 86, 91, 101, 103-5, 107-9, 113-4, 126-7, 130 Quackenbush, E.M. 17, 26 Read, J. 3 reading 4, 48-53, 57, 67, 79, 105, 109, 127-8 Rebuck, M. 28, 38 recognition (cognates) 4, 13, 16, 35, 46-7, 50, 55, 57, 59, 65-6, 69-74, 83, 87, 90, 92, 94, 98, 101-3, 110-21, 126, 129 retention 52, 67, 91 Richards, J.C. 78, 80 Richman, S.H. 50 Ringbom, H. 2, 3, 5, 48, 49-59, 61, 66, 77, 83, 88, 91, 98, 101, 107, 108, 123, 124, 125, 129

185

Index Ringeling, T. 79 Rollins, W.M. 30, 61, 62 Roman alphabet 12, 14-8, 23, 28-30, 72, 103-4 Sato, N. 20 Schachter, J. 54 Schmitt, N. & McCarthy, M. 3 Schmitt, N. & Meara, P. 115, 117 Schodt, F.L. 9 Schonell, F.J. et al. 78 Schreuder, R. & Weltens, B. 3 Seaton, P. 28, 32 Seeley, C. 14, 17 semantic – change 20-22 – overlap (similarity) 47-9, 54, 62, 87-90, 92-98, 125 – varieties of cognates 57, 87 Seward, J. 12 Sheperd, J. 47, 61, 62 Shibatani, M. 29, 32, 37, 38, 39 shortening 18, 92, 94-6, 164-172 Simon-Maeda, A. 62, 107 Sjoholm, M. 52, 91 Skinner, B.F. 53-4 speaking (and oral production) 48, 52, 64-6, 70, 105 spelling accuracy 50-51, 66 Stanlaw, J. 19, 37, 39 Stephens, M. 130 suffixation 20, 111-121 Suomi, K. 65

Suzuki, T. 47 Swan, M. 54, 55, 59, 98, 108 Tamaoka, K. & Miyaoka, Y. 31 tasks (see types of tasks) Taylor, I. 14, 104 technical words 27, 78, Tomoda, T. 12, 13, 26, 27, 30, 36 transfer (definition) 43-6 truncation (see shortening) types – of cognates 57, 88-90, 93 – of errors 57 Uchida, E. 3, 13, 18, 57, 58, 59, 63, 88-90, 92, 93, 98, 102, 104-5, 106, 125, 126 Uchimoto, H. 17 Van Benthuysen, R.V. 101, 102 West, M. 79, 81, 102 West, M.P. et al. 78, 79, 110 White, T.G. et al. 113, 120 word families (definition) 81, 83 writing 48, 52, 70-1, 105 Yamada, M. 63 Yazaki, G. 12 Yip, V. 47 Yoshida, M. 64-5 Zipf, G.K. 92

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