Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese As a Second Language (Studies on Language Acquisition)

Hardcover, 371 pages, NOT ex-library. Book looks unread, clean and bright throughout; unmarked text, firm binding, no inscriptions, no stamps. Minor handling wear only. Issued without a dust jacket. -- For scholars and instructors tackling persistent hurdles in learning and analyzing L2 Japanese, this collection supplies usage-based and conceptual accounts that clarify learner patterns and point directly to testable classroom-ready implications. -- Anchored in a usage-based view and conceptual constructs including foregrounding and subjectivity, the book demonstrates how cognitive and functional analyses illuminate facets of acquiring Japanese often missed by rule-based treatments. Part I develops usage-based perspectives, linking frequency and category formation with learner behavior across topics such as politeness expressions in context, lexical aspect for motion verbs kuru and iku with -teiru, collocational patterns for particles ni and de, and relative clause production as shaped by animacy. Methods include L2 corpora, spontaneous speech, judgment tasks, and comparisons with native data. Part II applies conceptual frameworks: a multimedia frame-semantic resource for mimetics, an eye-tracking study on agent implication with intransitives, a force-dynamic reclassification of -te-simau, and motion event descriptions by L1 English learners, including deictic treatment and typological considerations beyond simple V/S-language contrasts and Thinking for Speaking. A further chapter reframes subjective versus objective construal as subject-object merger versus contrast, connecting stance preferences with choices such as -noda. Part III surveys domestic scholarship (1999-2013) and textbooks informed by these theories. -- Distinctive in centering non-Indo-European data and connecting frequency-driven learning with conceptualization, this book offers symmetry across pragmatics, grammar, and event construal, using corpora and experiments to keep claims testable. Its treatment of particles, aspect, mimetics, deixis, and relative clauses addresses enduring bottlenecks in advanced proficiency and assessment. By bridging theory with usable frameworks for task design, error diagnosis, and curricular innovation, researchers, teacher educators, and graduate seminars can deploy it as both evidence base and strategic roadmap. -- Contents: 1. Application of cognitive-functional linguistics to the study of Japanese as a second & foreign language: Introduction; Part I: Usage-based approaches: 2. Acquisition of linguistic categories in second language acquisition: Functionalist approach 3. Friendly & respectful politeness: Functional analysis of L2 utterances 4. What learners know about lexical aspect in L2: Motion verbs kuru 'come' & iku 'go' and the acquisition of imperfective -teiru 5. Usage-based account of learner acquisition of particles ni & de 6. Usage-based approach to relativization: Investigation of advanced-learners' written production of relative clauses in Japanese; Part II: Conceptual approaches: 7. Multimedia encyclopedia of Japanese mimetics: Frame-semantic approach to L2 sound-symbolic words 8. Cognitive approach to the comprehension of intransitive constructions in L1 & L2 Japanese 9. L2 corpus study of the grammatical marker -te-simau: Application of force dynamics 10. L2 acquisition of Japanese Motion event descriptions by L1 English speakers 11. Influence of L1 English on the descriptions of motion events in L2 Japanese with focus on deictic expressions 12. Subject-object contrast (shukakutairitsu) & merger (shukaku-gouitsu) in thinking for speaking: A typology of the speaker's preferred stances of construal across languages and its implications for language teaching; Part III: Current state & future directions of cognitive-functional-linguistics-informed L2 studies: 13. Survey of work published in Japan at the dawn of the new millennium 14. Towards better integration of linguistics research, SLA & pedagogy; Subject index.…