A SCOBA-Mediated Approach to Teaching Japanese Leave-Taking Expressions: Concept-Based Language Instruction in the JFL Classroom

Abstract

This thesis investigates how learners of Japanese understand and use five leave-taking expressions across different types and levels of language exposure. Japanese leave-taking operates through a system shaped by situation, relationship, and register — a system learners are rarely taught to navigate conceptually. Despite a growing body of research in pragmatics, little is known about learners' conceptual understanding of this system or how instruction might address those gaps.Sixty-nine participants across six groups completed a survey: Japanese L1 speakers, current exchange students, former exchange students, college graduates living in Japan, naturalistic learners, and classroom-only learners. Participants responded to nine situational contexts and conceptual elicitation items targeting five focal expressions: さようなら (sayonara, “goodbye”), おつかれさま（でした） (otsukaresama (deshita), "Thank you for your hard work”), 失礼します／お先に失礼します (shituree shimasu, “Excuse me”/(osaki ni shituree shimasu, “Pardon me for leaving”), ありがとうございました (arigatoo gozaimasita, “Thank you”), and よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu, “Please treat me well”). The findings reveal that immersion experience produces measurable gains in repertoire breadth and register sensitivity. The findings also reveal that significant conceptual gaps persist across all learner groups regardless of exposure level. Learners acquire the dictionary-level meaning of each expression without the contextual and relational sense that governs its use, most visibly in the overgeneralization of さようなら (sayonara, “goodbye”) and the underuse of よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu, “Please treat me well”). Therefore, this study contributes to Japanese language pedagogy by developing five empirically grounded SCOBAs within a Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI) framework, as tools for making the conceptual logic of Japanese leave-taking explicit and teachable.