, dJo

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSIONAMONG JAPANESE STUDENTS

IN NATIVE AND SECOND LANGUAGE

JAMES C. McCROSKEYWest Virginia Uni'versityWILLIAM B. GUDYKUNSTArizona State University

TSUKASA NISHIDANihon University

Previous research has indicated that in some cultures communication appre-hension concerning speaking in a second language is much higher thanspeaking in the native language. It has been suggested that such high levels ofcommunication apprehension may impede learning of a second languageand/ or being willing to communicate in that language. The present studyexamined levels of communication apprehension ame:lg Japanese studentsin speaking Japanese and English. The results indicate extremely high com-munication apprehension in native Japanese students in both languages.Implications for second language instruction are drawn.

Communication Apprehension (CA) andrelated constructs such as reticence, unwil-lingness to communicate. shyness. and pre-disposition to communicate. have receivedextensive research and theoretical attentionover the past two decades by scholars incommunication and psychology. A recentbibliography of publications and papers inthis area (Payne and Richmond, 1984) listsalmost 1000 entries. Many other studies.particularly those reported since 1983. arenot included.

The number of scholarly efforts directedtoward CA and related constructs suggeststhis is one of the areas in communicationwhich has been of prime concern in recentyears. While most of the research has beenconducted by scholars trained in the com-munication field and has focused on CA inthe general U.S. culture. much CA researchand writing has appeared in other academicJume.. C. .'r1rC,."x!.-r'/,is Proiessor and Chair of Speech Com-muncation at West VirR"inia Universitv in ~or!<-lntown. W..stVirginia 26506. WiUiam Gunykunst'is an Associate Profes-sor of Communication at Arizona State Universit\'. T.<lIkax/l.Vi""i"/l is an ..\s,;()ciatl' Profcs~or of Communicatio~ and En~-\ish at :-iih::m University. .

fields (such as clinical psychology, socialpsychology, conseling psychology, phar-macy, business, education, nursing, Eng-lish, linguistics. medicine, and foreignlanguages). Research has been conducted inmany areas outside the U.S. mainland.including Hawaii, Japan, Micronesia,Korea, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Eng-land, China. Puerto Rico. South Africa,Israel. India, the Phillipines and Finland.

CA is currently defined as "an individu-al's level of fear or anxiety associated witheither real or anticipated communicationwith another person or persons" (McCros-key, 1977; 1984). Of particular importanceto this research, such communication mayoccur in a person's native language or in asecond language.

Recently, some attention has beendirected toward CA in second languagecommunication(Fayer, McCroskey & Rich-mond, 1984) and in second languageinstruction (Lucas. 1984; McCroskey, Fayer& Richmond, 1985). This attention has beenprompted by the speculation that since CAhas clearly been established as a primary

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McCroskey/GudykunstfNishida

reason for communication avoidance andcommunication disruption in a first lan-guage, it may be even more important inpreventing people from communicating in asecond language and disrupting their com-munication when they do. In addition, it issuspected that CA may serve to inhibit thelearning of a second language because theapprehensive individual may be unwillingto engage in the practice in the languagenecessary to its mastery. As Lucas (1984)puts it

"...if international students are apprehen-sive about speaking their own language,their fear of communicating in Englishmust be magnified tenfold. In addition,even those international students who arenot apprehensive about speaking in theirown language can become apprehensiveabout speaking in English. As a matter offact, although foreign students often claimthat oneoftheir main goalsis toget to knowand establish friendships with Americans,in actuality, they secure emotionalstabilityand find support by associating with theirown countrymen." (p. 594)Research conducted in Puerto Rico

strongly supports the speculation advancedby Lucas (Fayer, et aI., 1984; McCroskey, etaI., 1985). In this research it was found thatwhile only approximately 11 percent of thePuerto Rican students surveyed reportedexperiencing high CA when speaking Span-ish (their first language), approximately 43percent reported high CA when speaking inEnglish, their second language. This differ-ence appears in spite of the fact that Englishis a universal requirement at every gradelevel in the schools of Puerto Rico.

The present study. The research con-ducted in Puerto Rico, as noted above, indi-cated dramatic differences in CA levelsbetween speaking in a native language andspeaking in a second language. The general-izability of this finding to other eultures,however, may be very limited due to theobserved level of CA in the first language inthe Puerto Rican culture. Of all the culturesfrom which data have been drawn to date,these results indicate the lowest CA in afirst language. Whether such differencescan be observed in cultures in which more

CA generally is experienced in a first lan-guage is questionable. It is highly probablethat CA in a first language establishes abaseline for CA in any other language. Thatis, few people are likely to be less apprehen-sive in their second language than they arein their first language.

In order to examine this question weobtained data from subjects native to a cul-ture in which previous research has indi-cated higher CA levels are the norm--J apan.Research has indicated that Japanese col-lege students report the highest levels of CAof any group in the Pacific Basin (Klopf,1984) and substantially higher than levelson the U.S. mainland. It should be notedthat the students in the research cited byKlopf were drawn primarily from Japaneseuniversities where the study of English isencouraged, so the levels reported by thosesubjects might actually be even lower thanthe typical Japanese college student, muchless the average Japanese non-student. Forour purposes, then, Japanese college stu-dents provide an ideal subject population.They represent the opposite end ofthe conti-nuum from the students studied in PuertoRico. If results for this group should be sim-ilar to the results obtained in Puerto Rico,we could generalize to other cultures withmuch more confidence than we can with thePuerto Rican results alone. Divergentresults, on the other hand, would indicatethe need for much more cautiousgeneralization.

Our specific research question was "DoJapanese college students report highercommunication apprehension about speak-ing in English than they do about speakingin Japanese?"

Method. The subjects in this study were209 Japanese students attending NihonUniversity. The students all had extensiveinstruction in English as a second language.The data were collected as a part of abroader investigation. The measure wasincluded with a number of other instru-ments so as not to call specific attention to it.

The measure of communication appre-hension was the PRCA-Short Form

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COMMUNICA TION RESEARCH REPORTSjV 01.2, No.1, 1985

(McCroskey, 1978). It was presented in Jap-anese to avoid any possible contamination asa function of differing English readingskills. The PRCA has been successfullyemployed in translated form previously(Klopf. 1984) and has been found to havegood reliability and validity (McCroskey,1978). Approximately half of the. subjectswere asked to complete the insturment withregard to how they feel when speaking inJapenese (n = 105) and the other half withregard to how they feel when speaking inEnglish (n = 104). Instructions were pre-sented in writing so that subjects wereunaware that others might be responding tothe instrument differently. In all otherrespects, the research instrument wasidentical for the two groups.

RESULTS

The obtained results indicated a meanscore of 37.7 for the students when speakingin Japanese and a mean score of 38.5 whenspeaking in English. Although the Englishmean is slightly higher than the Japanesemean, the difference is far from statisticalsignificance (t =.97, p > .30).The a prioripower of this test with the available samplesize was above .99 for both moderate andlarge effect size. The standard deviation for"both conditions was approximately 6.3which is virtually identical to that obtainedin a sample of approximately 10,000subjetsfrom the U.S. mainland. The mean for theU.S. mainland subjects speaking English(no second language data were obtained) .

was approximately 27.6.Thus the Japanesestudents in this sample reported extremelyhigher CA than their American counter-parts. The 10 point difference represents afull scale unit of difference (10 items, 5-point Likert-type scale).

The magnitude of the differencesobserved in the present data compared toother groups studied is illustrated in Table1. This table reports the percentage of sub-jects classified as low, moderate, and highcommunication apprehensives, based onU.S. mainland norms, for the present sam-ple. a Puerto Rican sample (N = 661). and

sample from West Virginia University (N =12,418),a mainland U.S. sample ofstudentsenrolled in schools of Pharmacy in 52 uni-versities (N = 10,233), and a sample ofOriental students drawn from the largerPharmacy group (N = 467).

TABLE 1

Percentage of Subjects Reporting High,Moderate, and Low CA in Japan and

Comparison Samples

Sa.npleCA LEVEL

High Moderate Low

DISCUSSION

The obtained results indicate that Japa-nese students have dramatically higher lev-els of CA than any other group studied.including Oriental students in the mainlandU.S. The fact that there is no significantdifference for these students speaking inJapanese and in English may be inter-preted in two ways.

We could interpret these results as indi-cating the students' second languageinstruction has been as effective as might beconsidered possible in terms of apprehen-sion about speaking a second language. Ifour assumption is correct that CA in a firstlanguage sets a baseline for CA in a secondlanguage, we could hardly expect a moreposi tive result than the no significan t differ-ence we observed. English as a Second Lan-guage (ESL) programs are based on the

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JapanJapanese 72.6 27.4 0.0English 74.5 25.5 0.0

Puerto RicoSpanish (sample 1) 10.5 57.1 32.4Spanish (sample 2) 11.8 60.3 27.9English (sample 1) 42.9 44.6 12.5English (sample 2) 43.2 46.2 10.6

PharmacyTotal Gr.oup 19.6 60.5 19.9Oriental Subjects 30.4 68.0 16.0

WVU 16.0 68.0 16.0

McGroskeyjGudykunst;Nishida

grammar-translation method of teachingand testing. They, therefore, tend to be inef-fective in accomplishing their major goal-prod uc i ng indivud uals who cancommunicate effectively in English.

It may be that this is not due to the methodof teaching in the Japanese ESL programsbut rather it may be due to the culture ofJapan itself, as suggested by Lucas (1984).The desire to maintain a positive culturalidentity also may playa role. Hildebrandtand Giles (1980) point out that "the prevail-ing attitudes toward speaking English inJapan would tend to discourage confidenceand encourage the feeling of 'shyness' pro-fessed by Japanese in foreign languageinteractions. This lack of confidence wouldfurther enhance the need for differentiationfrom the outgroup (native English speak-ers) to increase a positive cultural identity"(p. 78); for example, by being reticent.

The fact remains that approximatelythree fourths of the students in this sampleare classified as high communicationapprehensives in both Japanese and Eng-lish. The scores for Japanese speaking Eng-lish may have been slightly lower if thePRCA had been administered in English.Subjects tend to assume that questionnairesin Japanese will be read by a Japanese andquestionnaires in English will be read by anative English speaker. Research suggeststhat subjects coverge to some degree towardtheir perceptions of the researcher's expec-tations when harmonious relations existand diverge from the researcher when rela-tions are hostile (Bord & Cheung, 1984).With respect to communication apprehen-sion, this suggests Japanese would reportless apprehension about speaking Englishwhen the instrument is in English thanwhen it is in Japanese. Previous researchusing the PRCA in English tends to supportthis interpretation (ie., data summarized byKlopf, 1984). In either case, the level ofapprehension reported is higher than anyother group studied to date.

While such a high level of CA may indeednot be a handicap for people living in Japanwith its positive cultural value for reticence,

it may be devistating for the individual whowishes to study or do business in Englishabroad. The solution to this potential prob-lem for the ESL teacher seems to be in help-ing the Japanese student reduce their CA.not only in English, but also in Japanese. Itwould appear that CA in English cannot bereduced substantially more than it is beingreduced now, since it rests on the JapaneseCA baseline. Simply making the Japanesestudent more comfortable in the ESL class.as recommended by Lucas (1984), while notharmful, simply will not accomplish theobjective.

A note of caution, however, is essential.Programs to reduce CA in Japanese stu-dents must take care not to conflict with thecultural norms" of the nation. These normsdo not value talkativeness. They do valuereticence. Students must learn that to be

"less apprehensive does not mean to greatlyincrease verbal output. It simply meansthat the individual will be less fearful andinhibited to communicate when it is approp-iate to communicate. Such an approach willhelp the student to adapt to the differentcommunicative demands of Japanese andEnglish speaking cultures.

Finally, it is clear that the results of theearlier research in Puerto Rico cannot begeneralized universally across cultures.Speaking in a second language does notnecessarily significantly increase an indi-vidual's level of CA. Rather it would appearthat CA in one's native language may be theprimary determinate of the minimal level ofCA that person will experience in a secondlanguage. Efforts to reduce CA in a secondlanguage and hence improve an individual'slevel of effectiveness in that language musttake the individual's level of CA in her or hisfirst language into account. If the level ofCA in the first language is high, it must bereduced before the indivudual can be expe-cetd to become effective in the secondlanguage.

REFERENCES

Bord, M.H. & Cheung, M. (1984). Experi-menter language choice and ethnic

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COMMUNICATION RESEARCH REPORTS/Vol. 2, No.1, 1985

affirmation by Chinese triIinguals inHong Kong. Internatianal Journal ofIntercultural &lations, 8,347-356.

Fayer, J .M., McCroskey,J.C. &Richmond,V.P. (1984). Communication apprehen-sion in Puerto Rico and the UnitedStates. Communication, 13, 49-66.

Hildebrandt, N. & Giles, H. (1980). TheEnglish language in Japan: A' socialpsychological perspective. JALT Jour-nal, 2, 63-87.

Klopf, D.W. (1984). Cross-eultural appre-hension research: A summary ofPacificBasin studies. In J.A. Daly and J.C.McCroskey (Eds.) Avoiding communi-catwn.:Sh.yne88,reticence,and commun-icaticn. a~ Beverly Hills,CA: Sage, 157-172.

Lucas, J. (1984). Communication appre-hension in the ESL classroom: Gettingour students to talk. Foreign LanguageAnnals, 17, 593-598.'

McCroskey, J.C. (1977). Oral communica-tion apprehension: A summary ofrecenttheory and research. Human Communi-caticn.Research, 4. 78-96.

McCroskey, J.C. (1978). Validity of thePRCA as an index of oral communica-tion apprehension. CommunicationMQTU)(Jraphs, 45, 192-203.

McCroskey, J.C. (1984). The communica-tion apprehension perspective. In J.A.Daly and J.C. McCroskey (Eds.). Avoid-ing communicaticn.: Sh1J'Tt€3s,reticenceand communicaticn. apprehensicn..Bev-erly Hills, CA: Sage, 13-38.

McCroskey,J.C., Fayer, J.M. &Richmond,V.P. (1985). Don't speak to me in Eng-lish: Communication apprehension inPuerto Rico. Communicaticn.Quarterly,33, 185-192.

Payne, S.K. & Richmond, V.P. (1984). ABibliography of Related Research andTheory. In J.A. Daly and J.C. McCros-key (Eds.). Avoiding communicatwn..:Shyness, reticence and communicaticn.apprehensimr..Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

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