Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis of Modal Auxiliary Verb Usage by Japanese Learners of English in Argumentative Essays

This research argues that in writing Japanese non-native English speakers use English modal auxiliary verbs in a way that significantly differs from how native English-speaking students/teachers use them from two different perspectives: frequency of use and verb phrase structures (VPS) where modal verbs can occur. To this hypothesis, the use of nine central modals ( can , could , may , might , shall , should , will , would , and must ) by Japanese learners was compared with that by native English-speaking students and native English-speaking teachers respectively. This comparison was carried out using the International Corpus Network of Asian Leaners of English, which is one of the largest freely-available corpora of Asian learners’ English. Frequency analysis revealed Japanese college students’ overuse of can , should , and must as well as underuse of will and would as compared to native English speakers. VPS analysis revealed that Japanese students and native English-speakers shared different preferences for VPSs. Japanese students infrequently used the modals in the progressive and perfect aspect relative to native English-speakers. Overall findings suggest that teaching materials or language teachers should explain other modality items so that learners can have a wide range of lexical items to reflect their feelings more accurately, and should not teach them in exactly the same way because depending on the modals, preferences for VPSs were different.