中国地区

教育システム情報学会 2020年度学生研究発表会

Visualization of Syntactic Structure Changes in Learningof English-Japanese Translation
Muhammad Asyraaf BIN MD TAKIYUDIN*1, Mayu FUJITA*1, Yusuke HAYASHI*1, Tsukasa HIRASHIMA*1*1Graduate School of Engineering Hiroshima University
Email: b170334@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Abstract：The differences in way to signal grammatical meaning (syntactic rules) in English and Japanese can cause
difficulty in foreign language learning. English sentence is governed by word order, while Japanese sentence isgoverned by function words(particles). This study attempts to visualize these differences by designing a contrastive
linguistic-based step by step translation from English to Japanese Exercise System to support foreign language
learning. The results from preliminary experiment conducted on 15 3rd grade high school students suggested that
this exercise system was useful.
Keywords：Foreign Language Learning, Contrastive Linguistic, English to Japanese Translation, Syntax, Syntactic
Structure Changes

1.

Introduction

sentence
theroledetermined
byfunction
words(particles) such as “は” ,”を” . In this research, an
exercise that are based upon a scientific description oflanguage to be learned, carefully compared with aparallel description of the native language of the learnerdesigned to support foreign language learning.

Second language acquisition (SLA) and first language
acquisition is different, and first language may be one of
the greatest factors in SLA. Differences in syntactic rules
between Japanese and English can cause difficulty in
SLA. Most of language learning do not compare nativelanguage and language to be learnt. Therefore, this study
attempts to design contrastive linguistic-based exercise
system to support SLA by visualizing differences insyntactic rules by using English to Japanese translation
model.

2.

3.

English to Japanese Conversion Model

English to Japanese conversion model is a step by step
conversion model from English to Japanese. Learnerbuilds English sentence, rearrange the English words,
and replace English words with Japanese words to makea Japanese sentence.
3.1 Comparison with Step by Step Japanese to English

Second Language Acquisition and Contrastive
Linguistics

First language acquisition is the process where achild learns his/her first language. Second language
acquisition is the process of learning another language
after the native language has been acquired. Influencefrom the first language is called transfer. Similarities
between two languages will cause no difficulties or it iscalled as positive transfer while distinction between two
languages cause interference or it is called as negativetransfer.
Contrastive linguistics is a practice oriented
linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences
and similarities between a pair of languages bycomparing them. Modern contrastive linguistics
proposed to show in what ways how two respective
languages are different to solve practical problems suchas to assists interference errors in second language
acquisition. Comparison between two languages can bedone by comparing their pronunciation, grammaticalstructure, vocabulary, writing and cultural behavior. In
grammatical structure, there are variety of devices can beused to signal grammatical meaning such as word order,
inflection, correlation of forms, function words,intonation, stress and pauses.
There are a few major differences between Japaneseand English, but most leaners do not notice the syntactic
rules differences between these two languages that may
cause difficulty. The role of each word in Englishsentence determined by word order while in JapaneseConversion Model
In previous research, Step by Step Japanese toEnglish Conversion Model was implemented[7]. The
main difference between this model and the model
implemented in this research is the process where learner
capture the meaning of original text to generate text inthe target language as shown in Figure 1.

(a) Step by Step Japanese to English Conversion Model(previous research)

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中国地区

教育システム情報学会 2020年度学生研究発表会

5.

(b)Step by Step English to Japanese Conversion Model(this research)
Figure 1: Model comparison

4.

Preliminary Experiment

A preliminary experiment was conducted on 15 3rdgrade of high school students to confirm whether thissystem is useful. Questionnaire, pre-test and post-test
was used as data acquisition method in this experiment.
Before using the system, students were explained about
Japanese to English conversion model, then they weredivided into two groups, group A and group B to take a
pre-test. After that, they started using the system within
10 minutes. After finished using the system they wererequested to take a post test.
Result from questionnaire suggests that 93% of thestudents evaluated “it is easy to understand how to use
this exercise system” as a positive evaluation, 80% of thestudents evaluated “It was easy to translate English
sentences into Japanese sentences by using this system”,“No system malfunctions occurred while using thissystem” as a positive evaluation which means thissystem is useful without any trouble. 80% of the students
agreed that they could notice the differences of syntactic
rules between English and Japanese while using thissystem. Results from pre-test and post suggest that there
is only slight of improvement on students’ score afterusing this system.

Design and Development of Exercise System

A step by step English to Japanese translation exercise
system where learner build Japanese sentence fromEnglish words was developed in this research which isimplement step by step English to Japanese conversion
model. English sentences used in this system is limited toaction verb pattern sentences. There are some constraints
in this system which is there are no modifiers in English
sentences and each element must consists only one word.
In this exercise system, there are 3 steps to English
sentence to Japanese sentence. For the first step, learnerbuild an English sentence by rearranging words given. Inthe second step, learner rearrange words according toprovided guide as shown in Figure 2. This is the part
where learner could notice how the sentence structurechanges due to syntactic rule differences between
English and Japanese. The provided guide is based on
how function words work in Japanese sentence. In thelast step, learner replace English words with Japanesewords by clicking a button.

6.

Conclusion and Future Work

Contrastive linguistic approach-based English toJapanese translation exercise system was designed toimprove second language learning by visualizing
syntactic structure changes using step by step translation
model from English to Japanese. Results frompreliminary experiment show this system is useful. For
future work, some system improvements will be done,
and an experiment will be conducted to confirm learning
effect using the system.
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role of the mother tongue in FL classrooms: death of adogma". In: Language learning journal 28.1 (2003), pp.
29-39.
(2) Volker Gast. “Contrastive linguistics: Theories andmethods". In: Dictionaries of Linguistics andCommunication Science: Linguistic theory andmethodology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (2012).
(3) Robert Lado. Linguistics across cultures: Applied
linguistics for language teachers. Univ of Michigan Pr,
1957.
(4) Richard Webb. Japanese Sentence Structure: The Ultimate
Beginner’s Guide. Nov. 2020. url: https : / / 8020japanese .
com / japanese -sentence-structure/.
(5) ] Wikipedia. Contrastive linguistics | Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Contrastive¥%20linguistics&oldid=825933651.
[Online;accessed20-October-2020].2020.
(6) WANG Zhanming. “Review of the Influence of L1 in L2Acquisition". In: Studies in Literature and Language 9.2(2014), pp. 57-60.
(7) Mayu Fujita. “Design and development of English
translation learning support system as stepwise structuralconversion for 5 sentence patterns”.2020

Figure 2: Rearrange English words according toprovided guide176