Standard 1.a.
Language as a System
These two pieces of work focus on analyzing language as a system. The phonology paper discusses a common dilemma encountered by Japanese speakers of English which involves the perception and production of the English liquid consonants: retroflex /r/ and the lateral liquid /l/. The paper initially explores the phonetic and phonological differences between these two consonants in English and how they contrast with the Japanese /r/.
Outside of investigating the phonemes in their respective languages, the paper further explores teaching techniques to assist Japanese EFL/ESL learners in improving their identification and production of these sounds, such as intensive perception training. Since research has demonstrated that pragmatic errors tend to be judged by native speakers more harshly than grammatical, the politeness paper analyzes the pragmatic differences between English and Japanese relating to politeness strategies. The analysis delves into various politeness theories, as well as identifies potential problem areas for Japanese learners of English and the implications for teachers of this population of students.
Standard 1.b.
Language Acquisition and Development
These two pieces of work focus on comprehending and analyzing the various processes and steps involved in second language acquisition. The article critique analyzes a study performed by De Jong and Perfetti (2011) and delves into their investigation of the effects of the 4/3/2 task on speaking fluency. A further explanation for this analysis can be found by navigating to the corresponding page. The data analysis project follows the language acquisition of a single participant (i.e., participant 399) from the CCOT corpus. This analysis explores the participant’s usage of auxiliary verbs and considers whether the participant has proceduralized their knowledge of this grammatical structure in English over the recorded period of time (i.e., approximately one academic year).