Language Transfer Between English and Japanese:
A Case Study of a Simultaneous English /Japanese Bilingual
Hirai Seiko
Kitasato University
As part of a longitudinal case study of the language development of an English/Japanese bilingual child, this paper examines the subject's language use between the age of 7;2 and 8;3, just after he moved from an English-speaking community to a Japanese one. To investigate the effects of language environment change on language transfer, the data from this period is compared with data from an earlier study when the subject was between 6;2 and 6;10 and living in an English-speaking community. The focus is on syntactic development, especially sentence subject omission and responses to negative questions, using data collected through regular audio recordings of spontaneous speech, story-telling, and elicited speech. Instances of language transfer were analyzed with data from follow-up testing. Comparisons were also made with data from monolingual subjects, both English- and Japanese-speaking.
A two-way transfer effect was observed. The subject made both interference errors and developmental errors; however, not to a crucial degree. Moreover, the subject's language confusion or delay seemed to be of short duration. During the current study period, the language transfer experienced by the subject decreased as a whole except in one area. In some cases, the subject acquired correct language systems or rules even though the quantity of English input decreased and some language attrition was recognized in his English utterances. The rapid acquisition of the subject's ability to answer negative questions correctly in both languages during the same time period suggested that he may have acquired the differences in his two languages rather than learning the rules of each language separately. These findings suggest that although the process of bilingual acquisition may involve some influence between the two languages, the duration of such negative language transfer is not necessarily long.
