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Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages
Edited by Annika Hübl and Markus Steinbach
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 247] 2018
► pp. 41–66

Language structure and principles of information organization

An analysis of retellings in Japanese, German, and L2 Japanese

| Heidelberg University

The empirical study investigates how native speakers of Japanese, native speakers of German and advanced German learners of Japanese organise information for establishing coherence when retelling a film story. There are differences found between the two L1 groups: (a) The speakers of German employ various lexical items (e.g., dann ‘then’) for organization of a text-intrinsic shift in the temporal domain, whereas the verbal aspect in Japanese suffices for this purpose. (b) The speakers of Japanese often take the protagonist’s point of view for description of the situation which the protagonist perceives at his now in the narrative world, whereas the speakers of German adhere to their own perspective. (c) This is connected with the different ways for establishing causal coherence. Moreover, the analysis of the L2 retellings suggests that the principles of information organization in the target language are not evident to the adult learners mind and eye. These results are discussed in respect of the relationship between the typological features of the L1/L2 ([+/− verbal aspect, +/− subjectivity-prominent]) and the principles of information organization. In particular, the study focuses on the role of the grammaticised notions STATE, EVENT, and POINT OF VIEW in L1/L2 production.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Grammaticised notions in Japanese
    • 2.1Markers of the point of view
    • 2.2Aspect system
  • 3.Information organization in Japanese narratives in contrast to German narratives
    • 3.1The global temporal structure
    • 3.2The role of the global topic entity in information organization
    • 3.3Discussion
  • 4.Information organization by German adult learners of Japanese
    • 4.1Data collection
    • 4.2Method
    • 4.3Results
    • 4.4Discussion
  • 5.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.247.03tom
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