Re: Search!
Now that everybody I had possibly intended to use off of the internet has been through the initial recording stage, I can slap the initial phase results up so far. While in Japan, students and teachers discussed what the commonalities were between all transfer students to Japan who intended to study Japanese as a second language. I have a grand total of five research subjects at present.. which is too small a sample to be anything remotely worth publication, and I have no PhD oversight on this, but it's interesting to me AND THEREFORE I SHALL DO IT.
First and foremost, people learning a foreign language from any form of media are not going to pick up the habits that speech teachers brand your tongues for--things like saying like, you know, Oh, wow, uhm, well. However, they're also perhaps likely to pick up ecclectic speech habits (guilty), something akin to having some things that make you speak like a New Bronx A slurrer, and others where you'd take up deep southern dipthong and make everything into a gerund. You have the textbookers who will have none of that, and will be closest to the Tokyo standard (which is spoken by news broadcasters, but not actually by general people in Tokyo, I am told?) but talk like robots. At least, these are the stereotypes and expectations. Granted, that some of them come from teachers who have seen quite a few foreign students in their day, or at least teach a second language to their own Japanese students, some of whom have been abroad and some of whom haven't, they'd know.
My subjects are all people going to Japan for their first time whom have been there less than a month upon the initial session:
Subject 1 - Black, Male, early 20s, NO Japanese training whatsoever. Anime/Game fan. (Business English Teacher prospective in Tokyo)
Subject 2 - Caucasian Female, early 20's, 4 years Japanese training. (Graduate internship, Tokyo; English capable roommates)
Subject 3 - Caucasian Female, early 20's, no formal Japanese training, 10 year + anime/manga/game/etc. fan, selt taught. (Transfer student, 6 months Hiroshima; No English Capable Roommates)
Subjet 4 - CFE20s, 2 years Japanese training, long term anime/manga fan. (Transfer student, 6 months, Osaka; no English capable roommates)
Subject 5 - CFE20's, 3 years Japanese training, anime/manga fan (Transfer student, Tokyo, 1 year; English Capable roommates)
Subject 1 has a few verbal 'quirks', which are admitted to be intentional (refers to self as Ore-sama, constantly. To everyone. All the time. Even when belittling himself. Uses English verbal place holders such as uhm/like. Uses 'anata' for you, exclusively.
Subject 2 uses Watashi and Watakushi, the only one who defaulted to desu-masu form. 'Ano' and 'eto' frequently as place holders when forming complex sentances. Always complete sentences. No characterizing speech particles.
Subject 3 has frequent grammar errors and tense switches. Does not use -te kuru/-te iku. Switches between desumasu and rude. Ends with 'ne' in somewhere around 1/5th of the total sentances spoken (I'll have to figure out how many sentances were said to get a good number on that). Uses 'atashi' and 'anta', and 'kimi' to children and pets. Emphatic yo particle seemed common but I haven't calculated her stats out yet. Tends more towards a 'dictionary' vocabulary ('zenbu' over 'subete', etc.).
Subject 4 - Watashi/anata, 'wa yo', 'da yo', Suiseki syndrome with informal copula, fluidly capable with longer sentances, clauses and verb forms; tends to adjectivial answers. (x.x If you read this and know who you are, I'm trying to make you prattle on naturally, damn it! The answers to the questions themselves are usually not important, so FALL FOR MY RESEARCH TECHNIQUE AND TALK MORE, DAMN IT)
Subject 5 - 'Watashi', unconfirmed 'you' pronoun, always complete sentences. 'Ano' speech holder mid sentance, only once before. 'Ne' ending particle used twice. Yo particle used once. I flubbed this research bit by failing to get all pronouns or a -te/kuru/iku/shimau formatting out of them. x.x I also misused -te kuru in attempting to prompt the subject towards this grammar type, which I'm pretty sure is all levels of poor research methodology but I just got off of a twelve hour shift when I go around to it, so fuck you all!
In case your wondering, because I am not in fact Japanese or even remotely academically credible in the language, I have a check list made up of traits suggested by professors and two Japanese students helping me with various local verbal ticks to look for. Poor Subject 4 will be the recipient of the most scrutinization there. I'm kinda glad you don't really follow my LJ internet adventures. I slap a check mark in a slot when I hear something and review it later; anything else I notice, I note simply for posterity.
Every one is a bit hesitant with numbers, from the guy who's never studied Japanese a day in his life to the chick who graduated as a Japanese/Business double major. This suprised me. It is entirely my unfounded prediction that they will quickly and without any pointed effort become quite profficient with numbers at least through the ten-thousands from basic daily spendings. Unanimously, it seems costs are converted from yen to dollar for their own memory, and when asked the price, they reconvert to yen. Given the yen is /sharply/ rising as of two days ago, that'll make for some interesting surprises (either good or bad, depending how conservative their monetary translation is) when they're checking up on their dollar accounts.
While I'd consider myself pretty well below most of my own study subjects, I, too, tended to think of every single currency in dollars. ^^;;; I 'naaa...' 'd constantly in one, and got caught up in my own echo. Verbal ticks include 'Sou ya...' and 'Kore/Sore wa' as well. Amongst all five recordings, I marked myself as using 'eto' exactly five times, while using 'to' itself as a nongrammatical particle... somewhere above twenty. x.x I'm not researching myself. I don't have a sheet.
I'm not sure if it's my own bias, but the three relatively big anime fans seemed to have a more natural inflection. I'm pretty sure I'm full of shit, as subject 2 had real Japanese teachers and HAS seen real Japanese media frequently enough. I may have some Japanese people listen to clips and commentate on inflections, but, I'm really more interested in having a base to see how slight word pronunciations and inflections vary. If only I had, like, twenty subjects, in five places, rather than five in three, I could actually render a tentative verdict from any of this.
This is not research. it is tantamount to saying "I know a guy/girl who..."
My actual research is on fictional speech patterns, of which there is abundant supply and no need for permission, stressing subjects, or my tainting of the sample. But, this is fun and interesting!
First and foremost, people learning a foreign language from any form of media are not going to pick up the habits that speech teachers brand your tongues for--things like saying like, you know, Oh, wow, uhm, well. However, they're also perhaps likely to pick up ecclectic speech habits (guilty), something akin to having some things that make you speak like a New Bronx A slurrer, and others where you'd take up deep southern dipthong and make everything into a gerund. You have the textbookers who will have none of that, and will be closest to the Tokyo standard (which is spoken by news broadcasters, but not actually by general people in Tokyo, I am told?) but talk like robots. At least, these are the stereotypes and expectations. Granted, that some of them come from teachers who have seen quite a few foreign students in their day, or at least teach a second language to their own Japanese students, some of whom have been abroad and some of whom haven't, they'd know.
My subjects are all people going to Japan for their first time whom have been there less than a month upon the initial session:
Subject 1 - Black, Male, early 20s, NO Japanese training whatsoever. Anime/Game fan. (Business English Teacher prospective in Tokyo)
Subject 2 - Caucasian Female, early 20's, 4 years Japanese training. (Graduate internship, Tokyo; English capable roommates)
Subject 3 - Caucasian Female, early 20's, no formal Japanese training, 10 year + anime/manga/game/etc. fan, selt taught. (Transfer student, 6 months Hiroshima; No English Capable Roommates)
Subjet 4 - CFE20s, 2 years Japanese training, long term anime/manga fan. (Transfer student, 6 months, Osaka; no English capable roommates)
Subject 5 - CFE20's, 3 years Japanese training, anime/manga fan (Transfer student, Tokyo, 1 year; English Capable roommates)
Subject 1 has a few verbal 'quirks', which are admitted to be intentional (refers to self as Ore-sama, constantly. To everyone. All the time. Even when belittling himself. Uses English verbal place holders such as uhm/like. Uses 'anata' for you, exclusively.
Subject 2 uses Watashi and Watakushi, the only one who defaulted to desu-masu form. 'Ano' and 'eto' frequently as place holders when forming complex sentances. Always complete sentences. No characterizing speech particles.
Subject 3 has frequent grammar errors and tense switches. Does not use -te kuru/-te iku. Switches between desumasu and rude. Ends with 'ne' in somewhere around 1/5th of the total sentances spoken (I'll have to figure out how many sentances were said to get a good number on that). Uses 'atashi' and 'anta', and 'kimi' to children and pets. Emphatic yo particle seemed common but I haven't calculated her stats out yet. Tends more towards a 'dictionary' vocabulary ('zenbu' over 'subete', etc.).
Subject 4 - Watashi/anata, 'wa yo', 'da yo', Suiseki syndrome with informal copula, fluidly capable with longer sentances, clauses and verb forms; tends to adjectivial answers. (x.x If you read this and know who you are, I'm trying to make you prattle on naturally, damn it! The answers to the questions themselves are usually not important, so FALL FOR MY RESEARCH TECHNIQUE AND TALK MORE, DAMN IT)
Subject 5 - 'Watashi', unconfirmed 'you' pronoun, always complete sentences. 'Ano' speech holder mid sentance, only once before. 'Ne' ending particle used twice. Yo particle used once. I flubbed this research bit by failing to get all pronouns or a -te/kuru/iku/shimau formatting out of them. x.x I also misused -te kuru in attempting to prompt the subject towards this grammar type, which I'm pretty sure is all levels of poor research methodology but I just got off of a twelve hour shift when I go around to it, so fuck you all!
In case your wondering, because I am not in fact Japanese or even remotely academically credible in the language, I have a check list made up of traits suggested by professors and two Japanese students helping me with various local verbal ticks to look for. Poor Subject 4 will be the recipient of the most scrutinization there. I'm kinda glad you don't really follow my LJ internet adventures. I slap a check mark in a slot when I hear something and review it later; anything else I notice, I note simply for posterity.
Every one is a bit hesitant with numbers, from the guy who's never studied Japanese a day in his life to the chick who graduated as a Japanese/Business double major. This suprised me. It is entirely my unfounded prediction that they will quickly and without any pointed effort become quite profficient with numbers at least through the ten-thousands from basic daily spendings. Unanimously, it seems costs are converted from yen to dollar for their own memory, and when asked the price, they reconvert to yen. Given the yen is /sharply/ rising as of two days ago, that'll make for some interesting surprises (either good or bad, depending how conservative their monetary translation is) when they're checking up on their dollar accounts.
While I'd consider myself pretty well below most of my own study subjects, I, too, tended to think of every single currency in dollars. ^^;;; I 'naaa...' 'd constantly in one, and got caught up in my own echo. Verbal ticks include 'Sou ya...' and 'Kore/Sore wa' as well. Amongst all five recordings, I marked myself as using 'eto' exactly five times, while using 'to' itself as a nongrammatical particle... somewhere above twenty. x.x I'm not researching myself. I don't have a sheet.
I'm not sure if it's my own bias, but the three relatively big anime fans seemed to have a more natural inflection. I'm pretty sure I'm full of shit, as subject 2 had real Japanese teachers and HAS seen real Japanese media frequently enough. I may have some Japanese people listen to clips and commentate on inflections, but, I'm really more interested in having a base to see how slight word pronunciations and inflections vary. If only I had, like, twenty subjects, in five places, rather than five in three, I could actually render a tentative verdict from any of this.
This is not research. it is tantamount to saying "I know a guy/girl who..."
My actual research is on fictional speech patterns, of which there is abundant supply and no need for permission, stressing subjects, or my tainting of the sample. But, this is fun and interesting!