Viewpoint Expressions Used in Narrative Structure A Case Study of Japanese Native Speakers and Thai Learners’ Story Writing

Abstract

The purpose of this study is 1) to investigate the use of viewpoint expressions as well as viewpoint maintenance and subject coherence in the structure of story writing and in the relation between sentences; and 2) to compare the use of expressions between Japanese native speakers (JJJ) and Thai learners (TTH). Regarding the analysis, the data from JJJ and TTH in a story writing task were collected from the International Corpus of Japanese as a Second Language. The result of the observation of the JJJ’s data reveals that in 承, JJJ tend to shift the subject of the sentence from the main character to a new one without using any viewpoint expressions, and otherwise use the benefactive expression “～てくれる.” On the other hand, in 転, the JJJ narrate the story from the main character’s viewpoint and maintain the main character as the subject of every sentence. As for TTH, the group tends to use the same types of viewpoint expressions in both structures as JJJ do, however with smaller numbers. Based on the observed use mentioned, it is expected that Japanese instructors might be able to design teaching methods for narrative writing education so that Thai learners could use viewpoint expressions more correctly and as a result, communicate more efficiently.