Chinese Tone Error Analysis of Japanese Learners and the Instructions : A Case Study of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Japanese Universities <Summaries of the Doctoral Theses>

Pronunciation error is considered to be one of the major obstacles to Japanese learners of Chinese. The amount of errors and difficulty of correction on tones contribute to the low quality of students' Chinese pronunciation. In the context of Chinese teaching in Japan, there lacks of researches on tone errors, nor effective instructions to the teaching of Chinese tones. The factors affecting Japanese learners' pronunciation of tones have been argued to be related to the lacking of tone changes within single syllables in learners first language (i.e., negative transfer) in literature. However, how the negative transfer affects the tone pronunciation of Japanese learners remains unclear empirically. More specifically, it is not clear how the errors of both static tone and dynamic tone change under the circumstances of real Chinese teaching activities held in Japanese universities. These are the major problems worth of concerning in this paper. The other problem that will be discussed in this paper is about the instructions from teachers. Since the errors of tones are rooted in both learners and teachers, it needs serious reconsideration of the teaching of tones from two aspects: the neglecting of acquisition of tones in teaching and the problems in teaching instructions