1994 Volume 42 Issue 3 Pages 324-333
This study was to investigate the influences of mother tongue on a second language acquisition. In survey I, three Chinese groups who had been learning Japanese for different periods and one Japanese group were asked:(i) to choose the appropriate imperative voice markers, and (ii) to rate the naturalness of the Japanese imperative sentences. In survey II, a fourth Chinese group was asked to rate the naturalness of Chinese sentences which were translated from the Japanese sentences in Survey I. The main results were:(i) the error rate in imperative voice markers decreased as the learning years increased while ratings of naturalness remained relatively constant;(ii) in the sentence rating case, when the results of the fourth Chinese group was close to the Japanese group, all five groups were positively correlated. On the contrary, the rating value of the first three Chinese groups was not positively correlated with the fourth Chinese group and nothing related to the Japanese group, but more errors were observed. This study suggested that mother tongue had both promoting and interfering influences.
