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2018 Dissertation Shelton revised2.pdf (5.83 MB)

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Japanese native perceptions of the facial expressions of American learners of L2 Japanese in specified contexts

Shelton, Abigail Leigh
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3272-6362
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543450226217818

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, East Asian Languages and Literatures.
Grammatical errors in a foreign language point to us as bad speakers of the language, but pragmatic failures point to us as bad people (Thomas 1983). This is also true when using facial expressions in a second/foreign language (“L2”) or culture (“C2”). Facial expression research has revealed that while there are some cross-cultural universals in how we interpret certain facial expressions, whether we display, suppress, or even mask our facial expressions is governed by culture-specific conventions. Violations of these “display rules” (Ekman and Friesen 1969)—just like violations of pragmatic language strategies—can have unintended results. When American learners enter the L2 Japanese classroom, they are already armed with facial expression strategies associated and integrated with their L1. These strategies unconsciously translate into their performances in L2 Japanese, although the effects of such transfer have yet to be studied. To learn about the perceptions that Japanese natives have of the facial expressions of L2 speakers of Japanese, data were collected through an online survey from 30 Japanese women in Japan and the US. First, a Likert scale was used to measure the respondents’ assessments of the naturalness and appropriateness of the L2 Japanese performances of four performers: one 1st-year and one 2nd-year American learner of Japanese; one advanced American speaker of Japanese; and one native speaker of Japanese. Next, a “select-all that apply” question was used to identify (i) which facial expressions the raters observed in each performance, and (ii) which of those observed were violations for the context. Finally, raters gave written feedback about the performances and how they could have been made more culturally appropriate. An ordinal regression revealed no statistically significant difference between the naturalness and appropriateness ratings, indicating that both are likely measuring aspects of the same behavioral construct. A Kruskal-Wallis H test revealed a statistically significant difference between the naturalness and appropriateness ratings of the beginner learners of Japanese and the advanced speaker (p=0.009), as well as between the advanced and native speakers (p=0.003). This finding suggests that either non-native speakers naturally acquire L2-appropriate facial expressions over time with exposure to the target culture, or that a higher language proficiency yields more appropriate facial expressions as learners become more comfortable speaking in Japanese. Either way, explicitly teaching and having learners perform these facial expressions could speed up the process of acquiring these facial expression skills. Another ordinal regression showed that raters’ years of work experience in Japan had a weak positive effect on naturalness ratings. While it is unclear exactly what this means, it could indicate that the longer a Japanese native has lived in Japan, the more positively she is likely to view the facial expressions of American learners of Japanese. Finally, written feedback was analyzed using the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Several display conventions and the contextualization cues (Gumperz 1982) that triggered them were identified for each context. Future research could utilize these display conventions and see if learners can be taught to follow them in their L2 Japanese performances.
Mari Noda (Advisor)
Charles J. Quinn, Jr. (Committee Member)
Etsuyo Yuasa (Committee Member)
195 p.
Asian Studies; Foreign Language; Language; Linguistics; Pedagogy
facial expressions; Japanese; pragmatics; applied linguistics; Japanese pedagogy; Japanese linguistics; foreign language pedagogy; pragmatic transfer; negative pragmatic transfer; sociopragmatic transfer

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Citations

  • Shelton, A. L. (2018). Japanese native perceptions of the facial expressions of American learners of L2 Japanese in specified contexts [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543450226217818

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shelton, Abigail. Japanese native perceptions of the facial expressions of American learners of L2 Japanese in specified contexts. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543450226217818.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shelton, Abigail. "Japanese native perceptions of the facial expressions of American learners of L2 Japanese in specified contexts." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543450226217818

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1543450226217818
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