Acquisition of Polysemous Verb toru by Japanese Language Learners in China

Abstract

This study investigated the acquisition of the polysemous Japanese verb toru (“take”) by 54 Chinese learners of Japanese. We examined the acquisition of various meanings of toru through a task requiring the students to judge the appropriateness of the collocations involving toru. The results showed that the acquisition of the various meanings of toru can be divided into three levels. The results clarified the differences in learners’ acquisition of polysemous words between JSL and JFL study environments.