Misuse of Postpositional Particles observed in Speech data from Japanese Language Learners : Focusing on Misuse by Korean and Chinese Learners

This paper purports to investigate the misuse of postpostional particles by Korean and Chinese learners in the KY corpus from the elementary to advanced level using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results show that although Korean and Chinese learners have some differences in the characteristics of postpositional particle misue, their overall misuse tendencies are similar. A particularly notable feature is Korean and Chinese learners’ misues increase from the intermediate level. This is likely due to the fact that Korean and Chinese learners mastered the basic usage of postpositional particles in the late elementary stage and the frequency of postpositional particle usage increased as they entered the intermediate stage. Based on the above analysis, it can also be inferred that the similarity of the misuse tendencies of the two groups of learners is due to the fact that they have a lot in common in terms of the distribution type and the learning strategies of postpositional particles. In conclusion, this paper suggests that Korean and Chinese learners should develop the awareness of correcting the errors pointed out in the early stage of learning postpositional particles, strengthen their ability to analyze the semantic and grammatical relations between the various components in a sentence at the intermediate level, and develop the habit of regularly reviewing the typical usage of postpositional particles at the advanced level.