The effects of prior language knowledge in Japanese acquisition as a foreign language: the case of the Japanese noun modifier 'no'

The misuse of the Japanese noun modifier no has been observed over decades. Recent research investigating learners of Japanese as a foreign language with Chinese as their first language (L1) presented evidence of negative language transfer. This study aims to replicate the findings of a quantitative study conducted in Japan that investigated the misuse of no through assessing Chinese, Korean and English L1 learners of Japanese who reside in Sydney, Australia. These learners were tested in both instantaneous production and production with no time restriction. Given that the Chinese language contains a corresponding noun modifier 的 (de), the results showed a significant negative language transfer in the Chinese L1 group. This and other results will be discussed.