Acquisition process of L2 Japanese intonation by Swedish learners - Interlanguage or prosodic transfer?

要旨

This study examines the acquisition process of L2 Japanese intonation by Swedish learners at intermediate and advanced levels. Regarding the realization of L2 intonation as ‘interlanguage’, it focuses on the acquisition process of various parameters and their phonetic realizations that are relevant in determining Japanese intonation. The parameters can be phonological, syntactic, and discourse related. Which parameter is acquired first and which comes last? The results show the unique interlanguage structure at different stages of acquisition and little evidence was found for a direct prosodic transfer from L1. The persistent difficulties even at the advanced level were the exact phonetic realization of the two types of lexical pitch accents as well as that of information structure in Japanese.

主題