2017 Volume 166 Pages 77-92
The purpose of this study is to investigate the acquisition of referent markers wa and ga in L2 Japanese discourse by advanced learners. A mutually complementary approach composed of an oral production task and an acceptability judgment task was used to investigate how learners' use and knowledge of wa and ga depends on whether the noun referent is previously introduced in discourse.
The result of the oral production task showed that advanced learners chose wa and ga by using various strategies. Some learners could use these markers on a level similar to that of native speakers of Japanese. However, the result of the acceptability judgment task showed that they have not reached the developmental level of using referential markers appropriately according to the knowledge of whether the noun referent is previously introduced.
Thus, from the perspective of Japanese language education, especially the mastery of wa and ga, Japanese teachers should provide learning activities that attach importance to context in discourse of a sufficient length and help learners attain the ability to make this choice automatically.
