Research on use of referring expressions in narrative discourses of Japanese native and non-native speakers

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In this study, I analyzed Japanese native and non-native speakers' use of referring expressions in Japanese narratives and the relationship between referential choice and episodic structure of discourse. The data were elicited by having informants tell the story of an animated film to a friend in Japanese.I define referring expressions as expressions that refer to people or things in the discourse and include so-called "ko-, so-, a-" demonstratives as a subcategory of referring expressions. I consider both NPs and ellipses to be forms of referring expressions. According to research by Clancy(1980) and Givon(1983), the general principles of referential choice are 1) an NP should be used at the first introduction of a referent, 2) ellipsis should be used for referents in the center of the hearer's consciousness, 3) NP should be used for referents with greater referential distance or when interference occurs.Native speakers of Japanese in my data often violated these principles by using NPs in cases where ellipsis would not cause any ambiguity, and using ellipses even in cases when the referent was potentially ambiguous. I demonstrated that native speakers used these NPs and ellipses to mark sections of discourse. In contrast, some non-native speakers failed to mark discourse structure by using NPs whenever the referent of the agent of the verb changed, or constantly using ellipsis when referring to the main character.