Reference: Activity 1
Who did what?
Please read the information about reference before working through these activities.
In the Narrative Task, the narrator has to distinguish among three different female characters, and so has to use linguistic expressions that help the listener keep them separate.
- How did Sebastian and Maximus refer to the child in the story, in a sequence where typically they had to first introduce the child, then refer to the two women conversing in the aisle, and then refer again to the child as she transferred a bottle into an old woman’s purse? Watch the video segment below and if needed, read the transcripts. Write in the table below the linguistic expressions used by each speaker to refer to the child, the women, and then the child again. To establish a baseline for comparison, we asked two native speakers of Japanese to do these same tasks; in the table below, we have written the linguistic expressions those native speakers used to refer to the females in the story. Notice that while the two native speakers did not use the same expressions, the different expressions they used seem to work well to maintain clear reference.
- What are some linguistic expressions that the learners use to maintain clear reference to the female characters in their narratives? How effective are they in helping you keep track of who the narrator is referring to?
Sebastian Narrative:
Maximus Narrative:
- Transcripts
Sebastian Narrative transcripts
Maximus Narrative transcripts
|
1st mention of child |
2nd mention of women |
2nd mention of child |
|---|---|---|---|
Native Speaker 1 |
小さな女の子 |
その人は；この年配の女性も |
小さな女の子 |
Native Speaker 2 |
娘さん |
– |
娘さん |
Sebastian |
|
|
|
Maximus |
|
|
|
When you have finished typing your answer, click to compare your response with the Learner Language staff response.
|
1st mention of child |
2nd mention of women |
2nd mention of child |
|---|---|---|---|
Native Speaker 1 |
小さな女の子 |
その人は；この年配の女性も |
小さな女の子 |
Native Speaker 2 |
娘さん |
– |
娘さん |
Sebastian |
子供 |
おばあさんと友達 |
おばあさんの友達の子供 |
Maximus |
子供 |
おばあさんと隣りの人 |
ケリー |
-
In order to indicate to the listener whether what is being referred to is old information (e.g., where English might use the definite article ‘the’) or new information (e.g., where English uses the indefinite articles ‘a’ or ‘an’), Japanese commonly uses nouns with demonstratives, as shown in native speaker 1’s speech. However, note that native speaker 2 used exactly the same word for both new information (the first mention of the child) and old information (the second mention of the child). Whether the information delivered by the noun phrase is new or old is context-dependent in Japanese.
- Both Sebastian and Maximus use the same nouns to refer to the characters in the picture, in both first and second mention. Interestingly, Sebastian elaborates the second mention of the child. Maximus gave names to the characters so he can exactly refer to each one of them with ease.
