The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the processes of L1 and L2 acquisition by investigating the acquisition of Japanese demonstratives by Japanese children and L2 learners. The data was gathered from a fill-in-the-blank-worksheet, completed by 473 subjects. The task required the subjects to write appropriate Japanese demonstratives in a dialogue, choosing one series from the three: KO, SO and A. The task involved 26 dialogues, involving 5 usages of Japanese demonstratives: i.e. 1) Deictic usage, 2) Simple-co-reference usage, 3) A-series anaphoric usage, 4) SO-series anaphoric usage, and 5) Conceptual & strategic usage.
The subjects comprised of two groups: native Japanese speakers and learners of Japanese. Native Japanese speakers were divided into 4 sub-groups: 1st, 3rd, 6th graders of elementary school and adults. The L2 learners were divided into 2 sub-groups: intermediate and advanced level learners.
The findings indicate that:
(1) The Japanese children almost have acquired the Deictic usage until the 3rd grade and the Conceptual & strategic usage until the 6th grade, however, they haven't completed acquiring the Simple-coreference usage, the A-series anaphoric usage and the SO-series anaphoric usage yet even on the 6th grade in elementary school.
(2) The L2 learners of both levels almost acquired the Deictic usage, however, they haven't acquired non-deictic usages yet.
(3) The intermediate level learners have much difficulties to acquire the Conceptual & strategic usage, however, the advanced level learners they have made a great progress to acquire it.
(4) The L2 learners have made a least progress to acquire the Anaphoric usages of A-series and SO-series. The learners have still difficulties to choose A-series or SO-series even in the advanced level.
(5) The acquisition level of the advanced learners is almost the same as that of the 3rd grade of Japanese children as for non-deictic usages, while that of the intermediate learners the same as the 1st graders as for the Simple-coreference usage and the Anaphoric usage of SO-series.