Exploiting Japanese Loanword Cognates

Exploiting Japanese Loanword Cognates

Chapter 7

Barriers to Accessing Cognates

Although cognates are not booby traps set to spring upon unsuspecting Japanese, there are substantial obstacles to their use. The key challenge for Japanese learners of English is cognate recognition; cognates will fail to facilitate acquisition if they are overlooked. Among other barriers to accessing Japanese cognates are: learners’ ability to trust cognates;

pronunciation; additional meanings; and extending word knowledge within word families (to be dealt with in Chapter 8).

Recognising Cognates

Learners’ recognition of formal similarity not semantic differences is crucial for language transfer to occur. The difficulty of a foreign language will be largely determined, not by the linguistic differences between L1 and L2, per se, but by how naturally the learner establishes equivalences between the languages at the initial stage of learning (Ringbom, 1987). Researchers struggle to grasp how learners perceive similarity, as it is subjective and involves individual learner variation.

Moreover, although cognate pairing occurs naturally in L2 word processing, learners’ aptitudes will vary. Learners’ failure to recognise interlingual similarities has been noted in various language situations (e.g. Banta, 1981; Hammer & Giauque, 1989; Holmes & Ramos, 1993;

Manczak-Wohlfeld, 2006; Nagy et al., 1993; Odlin, 1989; Palmberg, 1987).

For instance, Banta (1981: 129) reports on English-speaking learners’

inability to recognise even obvious cognates in German.

A number of words . . . will probably be understood at first sight or sound, although one is sometimes astonished at the inability of some students to recognise even . . . obvious cognates and common borrowings. Or is it inability? Is it perhaps mistrust?

Difficulty in recognising cognates has been observed with Japanese as well (e.g. Hashimoto, 1993; Van Benthuysen, 2004). Indeed the Japanese may not be aware of many aspects of a given loanword, including:

the original language of the loanword; the original borrowed word; and the borrowed word’s spelling, pronunciation or meaning (Kay, 1995).

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Moreover, lexical transfer depends on Japanese individuals’ L2 knowl- edge of loanwords; unfortunately, many are not well known.

Cognates play a pivotal role at the beginning levels, and this is when cognate identification skills improve most. Uchida (2001b) found that Japanese learners’ cognate identification skills improved dramatically in their first year of middle school. At this time, learners typically begin their formal English study and absorb many basic aspects of English (i.e.

the alphabetic system and basic everyday vocabulary); as cognate identification skills are founded on basic knowledge of English, cognate identification improves tremendously. Afterwards, the Japanese learn more advanced vocabulary and grammar, however these do not contribute to their cognate identification skills as much.

A re-examination of the data of Van Benthuysen (2004) confirms that Japanese university students’ ability to recognise cognates in English text correlates with their overall English proficiency. Students were presented 20 borrowed words (e.g. bath and mechanic) and 10 non-borrowed words (e.g. fold and invent) from the 10012000 word level of West’s GSL (1953). Students’ ability to provide the Japanese equivalents to borrowed words varied greatly, with lower-level students (with an average TOEIC Bridge score of 106) scoring an average of 57%, and the higher-level students (with an average TOEIC Bridge score of 145) scoring an average of 76.5%. The correlation between English proficiency as measured by TOIEC scores and performance can be seen in Table 7.1.

The close correlation between English proficiency and cognate recognition is revealed when the highest TOEIC scores and loanword test scores (shaded) are set as ‘1.00’ and lower scores are expressed as a percentage of this.

Table 7.1 Correct spelling by word variety and word frequency Average TOEIC

Bridge score (no.

students)

Average score on loanword test

Adjusted TOEIC scores

Adjusted loan- word test scores

106 (17) 11.4/20 0.73 0.75

125 (14) 13.6/20 0.86 0.89

145 (18) 15.3/20 1.00 1.00

Adapted from: Van Benthuysen (2004)

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The L1 lexicon is a ‘potential vocabulary’ of related L2 words, and while this potential knowledge of English is largely passive at first, cognate recognition helps bridge the gap to active knowledge.

Ears and eyes trained to recognise their cognates and common loans will help brains to build new passive vocabulary more rapidly in the target language. All vocabulary is at first passive; by practice it becomes active. (Banta, 1981: 136)

The focus of initial teaching needs to be on increasing the size of the learners’ recognition vocabulary, as the active/passive distinction re- garding knowledge is probably related to which properties have been mastered and which have not (Nation, 1993).

Yet differences in the orthographic and phonological systems of English and Japanese have a strong effect upon cognate recognition.

The various barriers include: the differing scripts of Japanese and English; the vagaries of English spelling; and the irregularities of transliteration and pronunciation.

Differing scripts

When languages use differing scripts, recognising cognates becomes a more complex task. There are three major orthographic systems in the world logographic, syllabic and alphabetic. In logography, one graphemic unit usually represents the meaning and the sound of an entire word or morpheme. Insyllabary, each graphemic unit represents a syllable. In alphabetic scripts, as the unit of representation approximates the phoneme, a small number of symbols are needed. While Japanese kanji (Chinese characters) are logographic, loanwords are written in the syllabic katakana script in contrast to the Roman alphabet of English words. For instance, car, a three-letter word, is written with the two katakana (i.e. mora) (kaa), and the two-syllable word hotel has three characters in Japanese (hoteru). The innovative hybrid for ‘big bargain’ is (dai-baagen) and consists of one kanji and four katakana.

The transliteration and rendering of English into katakana doubles the challenge for learners, at least initially. English borrowed words and Japanese loanwords will not look the same, nor will they sound the same to an untrained ear.

The effect of English cognates in Japanese may differ from that for languages that share the Roman alphabet. Transfer is easier when languages share a script. Furthermore, transfer is easier if both scripts

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move in the same direction (Nation, 1987); while English is written horizontally from left to right, Japanese can be written this way or vertically from above to below, and on occasions horizontally right to left.

Japanese and English orthography have so little in common that some believe that no orthographic facilitation is to be expected for Japanese because they are rarely exposed to the Romanisation of words (e.g.

Kitagawa, 1998).

However, the use of the Roman alphabet in Japan is considerable.

Although it is the least familiar, the Roman alphabet is encountered in English classes and in English-based words or short phrases in the mass media (e.g. product names and decorative text), constituting about 1% of Japanese writing (Taylor, 1981). Moreover, the syllabic katakana of loanwords and the alphabetic script of English both are sound-based phonography, unlike logographic Chinesekanji. Due to this, Japanese are not handicapped in learning English in the same way that learners in China might be, where essentially only Chinese characters are used, even for transcribing foreign words. Indeed, Uchida (2001b) found that Japanese junior high school subjects were able to identify the interlingual correspondences of about half of the unknown borrowed words presented.

Moreover, the fact that gairaigo are always distinguished in the L1 by the use of katakana raises learners’ awareness of loanwords’ foreign origins.

The vagaries of English spelling

The three major writing systems differ in the regularity of symbol-to- sound correspondence (Koda, 1997); the Roman alphabet and English orthography ‘fall far short of being ideal’ (Taylor, 1981: 3334). Only 26 letters are available to represent 40 or so phonemes, one letter can represent multiple sounds and one sound can be expressed in many different ways. The degree of soundscript correspondence in a word is particularly important when word knowledge requires correct pronun- ciation and correct spelling (Laufer, 1997). Because of spelling irregula- rities, English words sometimes provide poor orthographic clues to pronunciation, and identifying correspondences with katakana-encoded loanwords may be impeded (e.g. Koda, 1997).

Indeed, for the Japanese, it seems visual identification is a more difficult task than aural identification. In Hashimoto (1993: 179), only 13 of 49 Japanese ESL subjects could identify tough as a word that had been borrowed into Japanese (tafu), and 9 of these were the higher-level 104 Part 4: Exploiting Japanese Loanword Cognates

students. Uchida (2001a) confirmed that it is relatively harder for junior high students to spot cognates in reading than in listening. Yet learners’

initial advantage with spoken cognates compared to written cognates erodes over time as their visual identification strategies begin to catch up with their audio ones (Uchida, 2001a: 165). This is likely caused by teachers’ tendency in Japan to focus on reading and writing rather than listening and speaking.

Processing spoken English and the katakana filter

Although cognate recognition in listening is easier than in reading, at least initially, it is challenging as well. When words are written or spoken in isolation, they have a certain stability, but when they occur in connected speech, they exhibit a great deal of variation. Sounds may be slurred and cardinal vowels reduced, and the segmentation of speech into words poses problems for the untrained L2 listener, who is frequently uncertain where words begin and end. Not only are cognate pairs with a low degree of sound similarity harder to identify, the correlation is much stronger than that for the number of phonemes/

syllables (Uchida, 2001a). To deal with the challenge of processing spoken English, Japanese turn to their native language.

While transfer may wreak havoc on pronunciation, it works well for the learner’s perception of phonology, because L1 phonology creates a filter of sorts, through which all L2 input is processed, facilitating recognition.

The Japanese have their unique way of perceiving English. For instance, the expression ‘not at all’ sounded to the Meiji Era Japanese like ‘notte touru’, meaning ‘to ride and pass through’. Such odd phrases are occasionally used in Japanese as mnemonic devices; ‘Hotta imo ijiruna’, which means, ‘Don’t touch the potato that was dug from the ground’, is used to phonetically approximate ‘What time is it now?’ It is as if the Japanese can experience English through a katakana filter.

During my research sabbatical in the USA, my children began referring to Mexican salsa as ‘monkey sauce’. My Japanese wife and I wondered how this had started. The explanation was that salsa sounded to them like ‘saru sa’ saru being Japanese for monkey and ‘saru sa’ meaning, ‘It’s a monkey, you know’.

Humans’ ability to filter incoming language through the native phonological system can aid cognate recognition. For instance, when they read or hear cheese, novice Japanese learners of English are likely to perceive it as ‘chiizu’, thus allowing their native knowledge to be applied

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in the English context. Phonetic mimicry is one kind of evidence that individuals can recognise sounds rather different from those in the native language (Odlin, 1989). It parenthetically follows that L2 spoken by a teacher sharing the learners’ L1 should optimise what Krashen (1985) referred to as ‘comprehensible input’.

As beginners are better at perceiving spoken cognates than written cognates, for the sake of motivation, the initial presentation of cognates is perhaps best through listening. As auditory stimuli are held in short- term memory and are fleeting, learners could be taught to hold unrecognised sound patterns in memory while awaiting elaboration and confirmation of their guesses (Uchida, 2003). Certain after-class activities involving spoken English appear to improve learners’ ability to perceive lexical correspondences; in a survey of Japanese ESL and EFL students, Kitagawa (1998) observed the importance of time spent listening to music and watching movies.

Irregularities in gairaigo

Irregularities in the assimilation of English into Japanese may create difficulty in recognising cognates. While the rules of the transformation of Japanese to English, i.e. which phoneme(s) replace an English phoneme, are simple and fairly regular, there is considerable variation.

Some loanwords have arrived from the oral medium (e.g. jiruba from spoken jitterbug) and others from text (e.g. sutajio from written studio), the prior resembling authentic English more.

Another variable is the innovate combinations of katakana recently adopted to more closely resemble authentic English. For instance, while dollar is usually represented as doru, in some compounds the more faithful variation ofdara is employed, as inyuuro-dara (Eurodollar). Some innovations are not well accepted in every case, leaving condoned and uncondoned versions of the same loanword (e.g. aachisuto and aatisuto for artist) in the lexicon.

Yet other variations are simply stylistic variations, for which there seems to be a great tolerance (e.g.kontena andkontenaa for container; and nuusu andnuuzu for news). As a result, multiple transliterations are not uncommon for a single borrowed word.

Trusting Cognates

Cognate recognition ability is related to individual learner differences, including trust in cognate intuitions. Learners’ lacking confidence in their L1-based intuitions has been noted in Brazilian EFL students:

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Cognate identification seemed to be personal, with some subjects inclined to be more liberal than others in admitting a word as a cognate. (Holmes & Ramos, 1993)

Japanese learners, as well, have been observed to lack confidence in cognates (e.g. Kimura, 1989).

Factors that can contribute to a lack of confidence in cognates include the fear of making errors and the perception that English is more distant than it actually is. False friends often produce ludicrous or otherwise memorable errors, which can easily assume an importance in learners’

and teachers’ minds that is out of proportion. The dangers of false friends should not be exaggerated, as good cognates usually outnumber deceptive ones (Ringbom, 2007).

Simon-Maeda (1995) proposes that teachers emphasise the different meaning of false cognates by using dialogues. Lado (1972) claims that the correct target word should be presented before its corresponding false cognate to minimise L1 interference. And teachers can help students distinguish cognates that have been radically altered from those that have not, and distinguish actual borrowings from original Japanese coinages.

Pronouncing English

One of the clearest signs of L1 influencing L2 is a learner’s foreign accent. Especially in the early stages of learning, the more different the phonological systems, the more pronunciation errors will occur (Lehto- nen et al., 1977), and the substitution of L1 phonemes with L2 ones may result in ‘. . . If not disaster, at least a strong foreign accent’ (Ringbom, 1987: 54). It compounds the problem in Japan that students often make pronunciation notes for English words with katakana, and teachers sometimes explain pronunciation by writing katakana transcriptions on the chalkboard (Daulton, 1996). L1 phonology patterns are deeply entrenched in the learner’s mind and thus are more resistant to modification and development than grammatical or lexical patterns (Ringbom, 2007).

Even with more advanced learners, the typical poor pronunciation of Japanese leaves the unfair impression that Japanese are inept in all aspects of English.

The various means to teach pronunciation, and to teach English pronunciation to Japanese, are beyond the scope of this book. In general, it is likely that teachers provision of accurate pronunciation models is very important. Advanced students could use the International Phonetic

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Alphabet (IPA) to transcribe one another’s pronunciations to compare with native transcriptions. The explicit goal for learners should be intelligible English rather than perfect pronunciation.

For Japanese learners of English, Hashimoto (1993) recommends giving ample aural practice in distinguishing confusing sounds, and asserts this will improve learners’ spelling as well. Phonemes such as / o/ and /a/, and /l/ and /r/, are often confused in pronunciation and spelling, and vowels may be more difficult for the Japanese than consonants.

Additional Meanings

Even when learners can identify a cognate, this does not necessarily lead them to the correct L2 meaning. Especially beginners tend to disregard peripheral meanings and semantic ranges (see, for example, Jarvis, 1997; Ringbom, 2007; Swan, 1997).

As their proficiency develops, learners realise that many words do not have a consistent one-to-one relation to words in another language. They will encounter polysemy and homonymy and understand that the same word may have different meanings in different contexts of occurrence. (Ringbom, 2007: 72)

Learners must make adjustments to the oversimplified equivalence relationships they presume.

While some researchers have worried that loanwords can limit the range of English meanings learners acquire (e.g. Lado, 1972), Kimura (1989: 49, 80) determined that Japanese loanwords do not limit and might even help expand the correct range of meanings of borrowed words for ESL learners leading to a native-like intuition but not necessarily for EFL learners.

. . . Loanwords tend to be the easiest and the most familiar meanings

to the ESL learners; they are quickly solidified once the learners are in an environment where they can see their native English use. EFL learners do not have appropriate socio-cultural environments to enhance English native-like intuition; therefore, they can not yet see to take advantage of their loanword knowledge as much as ESL learners do. (Kimura, 1989: 79)

Fortunately, core meanings are more frequent and easier to learn than peripheral meanings, and they tend to be the most borrowed into Japanese.

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After predicting the meaning of an English word, learners should see if this meaning works in the presented context. If not, referring to a dictionary or intelligent guessing is to be encouraged (see Banta, 1981).

Simple reading exercises that feature helpful loanwords and false friends might benefit learners, who could work individually or in pairs to focus on the unknown loanwords.

Conclusion

While there are ‘pitfalls’ associated with loanword cognates in Japanese, they are not those usually discussed. In most cases, the peril is not that cognates will lead learners astray, but that they will be overlooked, or not heeded, and thus fail to facilitate learning. The only pitfall in the conventional sense is pronunciation, where L1 phonological habits may linger and interfere with communication; thus pronunciation warrants special attention. Although Japanese loanwords tend to have fewer meanings than their English counterparts, learners can be nudged to add additional meanings to the ones they know. A growing awareness among teachers of the advantage offered by loanwords will likely result in growing confidence among students to exploit lexical transfer.

There is one additional hurdle towards fully utilising the built-in lexicon of English cognates in Japanese, which, because of its importance and complexity, will be focused on in Chapter 8.

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Chapter 8

Extending Word Knowledge Within Word Families

As mentioned in Chapter 5, a general criticism of lists of high-frequency words is that while they imply a reasonable number of words to be learned, only headword counts are given, without reference to the many inflected forms and derivations. It is assumed that knowledge of any word family member grants knowledge of all other family members (a kind of intralingual transfer). Critics reject this very assumption; West et al. (1934: 10) summarise the criticism of what some see as an

‘understatement of learning task’:

While the number of (head)words is limited, the number of items developed from them is not. The learner is therefore at first led to believe that he is faced with a small and calculatable task, but actually finds later that he is faced with a very large, indeed incalculable, one. (This is bad for motivation and liable to produce discouragement, as well as distrust of the teacher).

This issue is crucial for Japanese learners of English. As Japanese has rabu, learning English love is easy, but what of loved, loving, lovable, unlovable, and so on? If learners can generalise knowledge within English word families, then their built-in lexicons will provide great vocabulary coverage. However, if learners are largely unable to do this, the impact of English-based cognates in Japanese will be limited to direct correspondences rather than entire word families. In the case of common loanwords corresponding to the BNC 3000 (Nation, 2004), the theoretical difference is between a built-in lexicon of over 10,000 words (45.2% of word families) versus 1808 words.

How well Japanese EFL learners can generalise and extend knowledge within word families will be scrutinised. First, the definition of a word family will be refined, and the distribution of inflected and derived words in English, as well as how these complex words are constructed, will be discussed. Then, after reviewing research that quantifies the intrinsic difficulty of various affixes, an experiment examining whether

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