2023 Volume 184 Pages 97-111
The ability to construct narratives is essential for good relationships. This paper investigates the differences between the narratives of native Chinese learners of Japanese and native Japanese speakers, focusing on the evaluation strategies that make the narratives understandable and engaging.
The results suggest the following three possibilities: 1) learnersʼ difficulties in using -te shimau in situations where unexpected events occur may be due to the influence of Japanese language textbooks and teaching; 2) learnersʼ tendency to express their evaluation of the speaker in different ways, using evaluative expressions to add information and evaluative clauses to express opinions, is partly influenced by their native language and culture; 3) the tendency to express mental states such as tanoshii ʻfunʼ throughout their narrative is not influenced by their native language and culture. However, it is a learnerʼ s device to create ups and downs in the second language narrative.
In previous discourse studies, learner-specific language use has sometimes been treated as an error. However, by using an objective measure of evaluation strategy in this paper, it was possible to consider the influence of the narrative style of their native language and culture.
