LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:5 May 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Understanding English Loanword Phonology in
Japanese Language for Pedagogical Use

Mahender K. Gakkula, M.A. and Ajay R. Tengse, Ph.D.

Abstract

This paper examines some key linguistic adaptations in syllabification and their pedagogical application with regard to English Loanwords in Japanese and the advantages they offer to Japanese EFL students. Status of English language with regard to language education has changed overtime and has attained a significant importance in the formal educational system today. Users of English language have increased manyfold in the past decade due to increasing work opportunities in the context of globalization. Japanese people are required to have a business level English proficiency and sometimes an expected level of TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) test score, to be able to secure a job position with foreign based companies operating in Japan or aboard. This paper argues that awareness of linguistic processes in syllabification of loanwords or katakana English helps language learners and instructional designers in better familiarizing the learner group with the phonological adaptations, and their pedagogical application could help them learn their target language better.

Keywords: Japanese, phonology, syllabification, loanwords, katakana English, pedagogical application, TOEIC.

Introduction

Japanese language has a long history of borrowing words from other languages, especially English. Due to the economic, political and cultural influence of US and UK on Japan, many loan words have been absorbed and adapted from English into Japanese (Backhaus, 2011). These loanwords are commonly used with phonological modifications making it easier for a native Japanese speaker to naturally utter them without much difficulty, by adapting the English words into the phonotactics of Japanese. This paper proposes that understanding the similarities in nativization of loanwords could have pedagogical implications that could contribute to areas like material development and methods of learning of Japanese as a second language. Also, an understanding of syllabification of loanwords could aid better learning of English by initially familiarizing the learners with the target language phonology.

Historical events and a fast paced globalization have exposed Japanese society to foreign cultures at various points of time. Yet, preserving its own culture, Japanese has the phenomena of borrowing of loanwords as an essential process for its society to merge with the global society allowing them to find new ways to express themselves without replacing their original language. In Japanese language, borrowed words are written in a Japanese orthographic form called katakana.

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Mahender K. Gakkula, M.A.
Ph.D. Scholar (Corresponding Author)
Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University (SRTMU), Nanded
mahenderkumarg@gmail.com

Ajay R. Tengse, Ph.D.
P.G. Department, Yeswanth College, Nanded
SRTM University, Nanded
ajayrtengse@gmail.com
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