Journal of Japanese Linguistics Volume 12. 1990 The Linguistic Notion 'Head' in Japanese Language Instruction' Hajime Hoji and Yoshihisa Kitagawa University of Southern California and University of Rochester ABSTRACT An attempt will be made to apply some notions In theoretical linguistics to language pedagogy. In particular, It will be argued that the teaching of the Japanese language to English-speaking students can be made more efficient, if we make our students aware of the universal linguistic notion " head" (of both words and phrases) and the possible variations among languages with respect to its location. First, the universality of the head-finality in words will commit us to emphasize the similarity of the two languages with respect to morphology. This will provide a simple- basis for the teaching and the learning of the interpretation and conjugation of morphologically complex words. Second, Japanese Is head-final while English is head-initial In syntax. By making an appeal to this fundamental "parametric" difference between the two languages, we can make our students perceive what appear to be totally unrelated and complex problems as manifestations of a unitary and quite systematic contrast between the two lan- guages. We will Illustrate this by examining a wide range of phe- nomena such as subordination, modification of nominal expres- sion, word order and case marking. 1. Introduction: We unconsciously know how to encode and decode our thoughts Into and from our own language. Part of this uncon- scious knowledge Is so to speak adult grammar. In the modern linguistic theory, known as the generative grammar, it has been hypothesized that our children also know the basic properties of human language already at the time of birth. This innate and pan-human knowledge is called Universal Grammar, and Univer- sal Grammar is assumed to develop into adult grammar, in an amazingly quick pace, when each child encounters a specific language and has a chance to fix the details of his or her gram- mar, as illustrated by the diagram in (1) (Chomsky (1965), (1981)): 1 53 Brought to you by | provisional account Unauthenticated Download Date | 1/2/20 3:24 PM