MOTHER TONGUE MAINTENANCE AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING: A CASE OF JAPANESE CHILDREN

要旨

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted with Japanese children temporarily residing in the U.S. The study examined, within a population whose group‐specific background was fairly definable, the degree of mother tongue maintenance/ development in relation to the learning of the second language among the subjects as well as the factors which affected the individuals' success or failure in their endeavors in the learning of two languages. Forty‐eight subjects, who were sixth graders in a Japanese weekend school, took a nonverbal IQ test and a Japanese language test. Some of them also took a reading test in English. Both the children and parents responded to individual questionnaires. Correlation, factor, multiple regression, and discriminant analyses were the methods of analyses used. The results revealed that there were no relationships between (1) the years of schooling in Japan and the level in the Japanese language skills, (2) the level of intelligence and the abilities in the two languages, and (3) the comparable abilities in Japanese and English. The years of schooling in the U.S. significantly related to the skill level in English. This factor did not have any discriminating power, however, to separate the children who were high in both languages, high in one and low in the other, and low in both languages. Parents proved a factor in the children's language status, particularly in the degree of their mother tongue maintenance. In terms of relative importance, however, the children's interests, attitudes, and the extent of use of the language contributed more significantly to the level in each language.

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