Explicit teaching of Japanese mimetic words using voicing, gemintion, and reduplication rules

Mimetics are commonly used by Japanese native speakers to express the manner of actions and sensations. However, they are often not taught explicitly in many Japanese language classrooms. The current study tested a novel teaching methodology to help English-speaking learners of Japanese learn Japanese mimetics. Second language learners were explicitly taught three phonological/morphological rules during learning. The three rules are: (i) voicing, (ii) gemination, and (iii) reduplication. In Japanese mimetics, these phonological/morphological factors systematically affect the meaning of mimetics. The current study examined whether explicitly teaching these three rules helps English-speaking learners of Japanese, who vary in Japanese proficiency, acquire mimetics as well as help them generalize these rules to newly encountered mimetics. The procedure used a Pretest-Learning-Posttest design. First, all participants took a Pretest. Approximately one week later, all participants learned mimetics during a Learning Session. In the Learning Session, all participants were taught 32 mimetic words with a verbal description and a static picture along with a sentence that contained the mimetic word. There were two different participant groups in the Learning Session: an Experimental Group and a Control Group. The Experimental group explicitly learned the three phonological/morphological rules while the Control group did not. Finally, all learners participated in a Posttest and a Delayed posttest (approximately 4 weeks later) to assess their retention of the mimetic vocabulary. We found that the novel teaching methodology (teaching mimetics with a picture and a context along with a verbal description) is effective in acquiring and remembering mimetics. Participants showed a great improvement after the Learning Session for both the trained mimetics and newly introduced mimetics, suggesting that participants successfully learned the mimetics and the sound regularities both with and without the explicit introduction of the three phonological/morphological rules. Additionally, we also found that learners who were explicitly taught the three phonological/morphological rules showed a greater improvement than those who were not. Therefore, the explicit introduction of the sound regularities is more effective in the current methodology. We also found that the proposed methodology is effective regardless of learners’ proficiency in Japanese. While advanced learners overall acquired more mimetics than beginning learners, beginning learners showed a greater improvement than advanced learners. These results suggest that teaching mimetics does not need to be limited to advanced learners (as it often is in Japanese language classrooms) but it should be encouraged for learners at all levels