Relationship of linguistic processing and psychological processing in conversations between native speakers of Japanese and nonnative speakers

The purposes of the present paper were to analyze features of linguistic an d psychological processing in conversations between native speakers of Japa nese and nonnative speakers, and to examine the relationship between these two types of processing. 48 native speakers and 24 nonnative speakers were divided into 12 pairs of native speakers only, and 24 mixed pairs. Each pai r was asked to talk about 2 topics for 5-8 minutes. Afterwards, native spea kers were asked to rate the topics and their partner, and to ansi-ver 21 it ems concerning their intentions during the conversation. Each contribution to the conversation by one of the pair was classified into pre-defined cate gories, and the frequency of each category calculated. MANOVA analysis reve aled that, in order to understand accurately, native speakers talking with nonnative speakers asked more questions and negotiated more frequently than they did when they were talking with another native speaker. In contrast, native speakers talking with a native speaker offered more information, opi nion, and evaluations. Native speakers talking with a nonnative speaker fel t the importance of taking the initiative. Native speakers who had talked w ith another native speaker reported that the conversation was more pleasura ble. Path analysis indicated that the partner's questions and evaluation af fected the psychological processing of the conversation, and the partner's proficiency in Japanese and familiarity with the partner influenced the con tent of the conversation, as reflected in the categories analyzed.