earticle

영어

This paper analyses the mechanism of style shift acquisition by Korean learners of Japanese from the viewpoint of the Variation Theory. It focuses on the shift between the polite form and the plain form used by four subjects in both formal and casual conversations and shows that style shift is an essential part of the speakers’ sociolinguistic competence. It was observed that the learners build their own original style shift system. One remarkable characteristic of this original system is the simplification of the polite form, due to an attempt to avoid the “masu” form, which has a higher degree of morphological complexity compared to the “ndesu” form, widely used by the learners.　 Finally, the results lead to the conclusion that the learners rebuild the target language in a rational way through the simplification process, using the rules of word formation existing in their own native language and the versatility of the plain form.