, dJo

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSIONAMONG JAPANESE STUDENTS
IN NATIVE AND SECOND LANGUAGEJAMES C. McCROSKEY
West Virginia Uni'versity
WILLIAM B. GUDYKUNSTArizona State University
TSUKASA NISHIDA
Nihon University
Previous research has indicated that in some cultures communication apprehension concerning speaking in a second language is much higher thanspeaking in the native language. It has been suggested that such high levels ofcommunication
apprehension
may impede learning of a second language
and/ or being willing to communicate in that language. The present study
examined levels of communication
apprehension ame:lg Japanese students
in speaking Japanese and English. The results indicate extremely high communication apprehension
in native Japanese students in both languages.
Implications for second language instruction are drawn.

fields (such as clinical psychology, socialpsychology, conseling psychology, pharmacy, business, education, nursing, English, linguistics. medicine, and foreign
languages). Research has been conducted inmany areas outside the U.S. mainland.
including
Hawaii, Japan, Micronesia,Korea, Australia, Sweden, Germany, England, China. Puerto Rico. South Africa,
Israel. India, the Phillipines and Finland.
CA is currently defined as "an individual's level of fear or anxiety associated witheither real or anticipated communication
with another person or persons" (McCroskey, 1977; 1984). Of particular importanceto this research, such communication may
occur in a person's native language or in asecond language.
Recently,some attention
has been
directed toward CA in second language
communication(Fayer, McCroskey & Richmond, 1984) and in second language
instruction (Lucas. 1984; McCroskey, Fayer& Richmond, 1985). This attention has been
prompted by the speculation that since CA
has clearly been established as a primaryCommunication Apprehension (CA) andrelated constructs such as reticence, unwillingness to communicate. shyness. and predisposition to communicate. have received
extensive research and theoretical attention
over the past two decades by scholars incommunication and psychology. A recent
bibliography of publications and papers inthis area (Payne and Richmond, 1984) lists
almost 1000 entries. Many other studies.
particularly those reported since 1983. arenot included.
The number of scholarly efforts directedtoward CA and related constructs suggests
this is one of the areas in communication
which has been of prime concern in recentyears. While most of the research has been
conducted by scholars trained in the communication field and has focused on CA in
the general U.S. culture. much CA research
and writing has appeared in other academic
Jume.. C. .'r1rC,."x!.-r'/,is Proiessor and Chair of Speech Communcation at West VirR"inia Universitv in ~or!<-lntown. W..stVirginia
26506. WiUiam Gunykunst'is
an Associate Professor of Communication
at Arizona State Universit\'.
T.<lIkax/l.Vi""i"/l is an ..\s,;()ciatl' Profcs~or of Communicatio~
and En~\ish at :-iih::m University.
.

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McCroskey/GudykunstfNishidareason for communication avoidance andcommunication disruption in a first language, it may be even more important inpreventing people from communicating in asecond language and disrupting their communication when they do. In addition, it issuspected that CA may serve to inhibit thelearning of a second language because theapprehensive individual may be unwillingto engage in the practice in the language
necessary to its mastery. As Lucas (1984)
puts it"...if international students are apprehensive about speaking their own language,
their fear of communicating in English
must be magnified tenfold. In addition,even those international students who are
not apprehensive about speaking in theirown language can become apprehensive
about speaking in English. As a matter offact, although foreign students often claimthat oneoftheir main goalsis toget to know
and establish friendships with Americans,in actuality, they secure emotional stability
and find support by associating with theirown countrymen." (p. 594)
Research conducted in Puerto Ricostrongly supports the speculation advancedby Lucas (Fayer, et aI., 1984; McCroskey, etaI., 1985). In this research it was found thatwhile only approximately 11 percent of thePuerto Rican students surveyed reported
experiencing high CA when speaking Spanish (their first language), approximately 43
percent reported high CA when speaking inEnglish, their second language. This difference appears in spite of the fact that English
is a universal requirement at every gradelevel in the schools of Puerto Rico.
The present study. The research conducted in Puerto Rico, as noted above, indicated dramatic differences in CA levels
between speaking in a native language andspeaking in a second language. The generalizability of this finding to other eultures,
however, may be very limited due to theobserved level of CA in the first language in
the Puerto Rican culture. Of all the culturesfrom which data have been drawn to date,these results indicate the lowest CA in a
first language. Whether such differences
can be observed in cultures in which more

CA generally is experienced in a first language is questionable. It is highly probablethat CA in a first language establishes abaseline for CA in any other language. Thatis, few people are likely to be less apprehensive in their second language than they arein their first language.
In order to examine this question weobtained data from subjects native to a culture in which previous research has indicated higher CA levels are the norm--J apan.
Research has indicated that Japanese college students report the highest levels of CAof any group in the Pacific Basin (Klopf,1984) and substantially higher than levels
on the U.S. mainland. It should be notedthat the students in the research cited by
Klopf were drawn primarily from Japanese
universities where the study of English isencouraged, so the levels reported by thosesubjects might actually be even lower than
the typical Japanese college student, muchless the average Japanese non-student. For
our purposes, then, Japanese college students provide an ideal subject population.
They represent the opposite end ofthe continuum from the students studied in PuertoRico. If results for this group should be similar to the results obtained in Puerto Rico,
we could generalize to other cultures withmuch more confidence than we can with thePuerto Rican results alone. Divergentresults, on the other hand, would indicate
the need for much more cautious
generalization.
Our specific research question was "DoJapanese college students report highercommunication apprehension about speaking in English than they do about speakingin Japanese?"
Method. The subjects in this study were
209 Japanese students attending Nihon
University. The students all had extensive
instruction in English as a second language.
The data were collected as a part of abroader investigation. The measure wasincluded with a number of other instruments so as not to call specific attention to it.
The measure of communication apprehension was the PRCA-ShortForm
12

COMMUNICA TION RESEARCH

sample from West Virginia University (N(McCroskey, 1978). It was presented in Japanese to avoid any possible contamination asa function of differing English reading
skills. The PRCA has been successfully
employed in translated form previously(Klopf. 1984) and has been found to havegood reliability and validity (McCroskey,1978). Approximately half of the. subjects
were asked to complete the insturment withregard to how they feel when speaking in
Japenese (n = 105) and the other half withregard to how they feel when speaking in
English (n = 104). Instructions were presented in writing so that subjects were
unaware that others might be responding to
the instrument differently. In all otherrespects, the research instrument wasidentical for the two groups.

versities (N= 10,233), and a sample ofOriental students drawn from the larger
Pharmacy group (N = 467).
TABLE 1

Percentage of Subjects Reporting High,
Moderate, and Low CA in Japan andComparison Samples
CA LEVELHigh Moderate Low

Sa.npleJapanJapaneseEnglishPuerto Rico
Spanish (sample 1)
Spanish (sample 2)
English (sample 1)
English (sample 2)
Pharmacy
Total Gr.oup
Oriental Subjects
WVU

The obtained results indicated a meanscore of 37.7 for the students when speaking
in Japanese and a mean score of 38.5 whenspeaking in English. Although the English
mean is slightly higher than the Japanesemean, the difference is far from statisticalsignificance (t = .97, p > .30).The a priori
power of this test with the available samplesize was above .99 for both moderate andlarge effect size. The standard deviation for"both conditions was approximately 6.3
which is virtually identical to that obtainedin a sample of approximately 10,000subjets
from the U.S. mainland. The mean for theU.S. mainland subjects speaking English
data were obtained)=12,418),a mainland U.S. sample ofstudents
enrolled in schools of Pharmacy in 52 uni-RESULTS(no second language

REPORTSjV 01. 2, No.1, 1985

72.6
74.5

27.4
25.5

0.0
0.0

10.5
11.8
42.9
43.2

57.1
60.3
44.646.2

32.4
27.9
12.5
10.6

19.6
30.4
16.0

60.5
68.0
68.0

19.9
16.0
16.0

DISCUSSION.

was approximately 27.6.Thus the Japanesestudents in this sample reported extremely
higher CA than their American counterparts. The 10 point difference represents afull scale unit of difference (10 items, 5point Likert-type scale).
The magnitude of the differences
observed in the present data compared toother groups studied is illustrated in Table
1. This table reports the percentage of subjects classified as low, moderate, and highcommunication apprehensives, based on
U.S. mainland norms, for the present sample. a Puerto Rican sample (N = 661). and13The obtained results indicate that Japanese students have dramatically higher levels of CA than any other group studied.
including Oriental students in the mainland
U.S. The fact that there is no significant
difference for these students speaking inJapanese and in English may be interpreted in two ways.
We could interpret these results as indicating the students'
second language
instruction has been as effective as might beconsidered possible in terms of apprehension about speaking a second language. If
our assumption is correct that CA in a firstlanguage sets a baseline for CA in a secondlanguage, we could hardly expect a moreposi tive result than the no significan t difference we observed. English as a Second Language (ESL) programs are based on theMcGroskeyjGudykunst;Nishida
it may be devistating for the individual who
wishes to study or do business in English
abroad. The solution to this potential problem for the ESL teacher seems to be in helping the Japanese student reduce their CA.
not only in English, but also in Japanese. It
would appear that CA in English cannot be
reduced substantially more than it is being
reduced now, since it rests on the Japanese
CA baseline. Simply making the Japanese
student more comfortable in the ESL class.
as recommended by Lucas (1984), while notharmful, simply will not accomplish theobjective.
A note of caution, however, is essential.
Programs to reduce CA in Japanese students must take care not to conflict with thecultural norms" of the nation. These norms
do not value talkativeness. They do value
reticence. Students must learn that to be"less apprehensive does not mean to greatly
increase verbal output. It simply meansthat the individual will be less fearful andinhibited to communicate when it is appropiate to communicate. Such an approach will
help the student to adapt to the different
communicative demands of Japanese andEnglish speaking cultures.
Finally, it is clear that the results of theearlier research in Puerto Rico cannot be
generalized universally across cultures.
Speaking in a second language does notnecessarily significantly increase an individual's level of CA. Rather it would appear
that CA in one's native language may be theprimary determinate of the minimal level ofCA that person will experience in a secondlanguage. Efforts to reduce CA in a second
language and hence improve an individual'slevel of effectiveness in that language musttake the individual's level of CA in her or his
first language into account. If the level of
CA in the first language is high, it must be
reduced before the indivudual can be expecetd to become effective in the secondlanguage.

grammar-translation
method of teachingand testing. They, therefore, tend to be ineffective in accomplishing their major goalprod uc i ng indivud uals
who cancommunicate effectively in English.
It may be that this is not due to the methodof teaching in the Japanese ESL programs
but rather it may be due to the culture ofJapan itself, as suggested by Lucas (1984).
The desire to maintain a positive cultural
identity also may playa role. Hildebrandt
and Giles (1980) point out that "the prevailing attitudes toward speaking English in
Japan would tend to discourage confidence
and encourage the feeling of 'shyness' professed by Japanese in foreign languageinteractions. This lack of confidence would
further enhance the need for differentiationfrom the outgroup (native English speakers) to increase a positive cultural identity"(p. 78); for example, by being reticent.
The fact remains that approximately
three fourths of the students in this sample
are classified as high communication
apprehensives in both Japanese and English. The scores for Japanese speaking English may have been slightly lower if thePRCA had been administered in English.
Subjects tend to assume that questionnaires
in Japanese will be read by a Japanese andquestionnaires in English will be read by anative English speaker. Research suggeststhat subjects coverge to some degree toward
their perceptions of the researcher's expectations when harmonious relations exist
and diverge from the researcher when relations are hostile (Bord & Cheung, 1984).
With respect to communication apprehension, this suggests Japanese would reportless apprehension about speaking English
when the instrument is in English thanwhen it is in Japanese. Previous researchusing the PRCA in English tends to support
this interpretation (ie., data summarized byKlopf, 1984). In either case, the level ofapprehension reported is higher than any
other group studied to date.
While such a high level of CA may indeed
not be a handicap for people living in Japan
with its positive cultural value for reticence,

REFERENCES
Bord, M.H. & Cheung, M. (1984). Experimenter language choice and ethnic
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COMMUNICATION RESEARCH REPORTS/Vol. 2, No.1, 1985
affirmation by Chinese triIinguals in
Hong Kong. Internatianal Journal ofIntercultural &lations, 8,347-356.
Fayer, J .M., McCroskey,J.C. &Richmond,V.P. (1984). Communication apprehension in Puerto Rico and the UnitedStates. Communication, 13, 49-66.
Hildebrandt, N. & Giles, H. (1980). The
English language in Japan: A' social
psychological perspective. JALT Journal, 2, 63-87.
Klopf, D.W. (1984). Cross-eultural apprehension research: A summary ofPacificBasin studies. In J.A. Daly and J.C.
McCroskey (Eds.) Avoiding communicatwn.:Sh.yne88,reticence,and communicaticn. a~
Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage, 157-172.
Lucas, J. (1984). Communication apprehension in the ESL classroom: Getting
our students to talk. Foreign Language
Annals, 17, 593-598.'
McCroskey, J.C. (1977). Oral communication apprehension: A summary ofrecent
theory and research. Human Communicaticn.Research, 4. 78-96.
McCroskey, J.C. (1978). Validity of thePRCA as an index of oral communication apprehension. Communication
MQTU)(Jraphs, 45, 192-203.

McCroskey, J.C. (1984). The communication apprehension perspective. In J.A.
Daly and J.C. McCroskey (Eds.). Avoiding communicaticn.: Sh1J'Tt€3s,reticenceand communicaticn. apprehensicn..Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 13-38.
McCroskey,J.C., Fayer, J.M. & Richmond,V.P. (1985). Don't speak to me in English: Communication apprehension inPuerto Rico. Communicaticn.Quarterly,
33, 185-192.
Payne, S.K. & Richmond, V.P. (1984). A
Bibliography of Related Research andTheory. In J.A. Daly and J.C. McCroskey (Eds.). Avoiding communicatwn..:
Shyness, reticence and communicaticn.
apprehensimr..Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

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