Suchergebnisse

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

Did you know that, to get a job in Australia, it is important to use the right balance of informal and formal language during the interview? Did you know that student advising in Wu Chinese (spoken around Shanghai) is not a face-threatening activity, contrary to general perceptions about the nature of advice giving? Did you know that the use of minimal eye contact and flat intonation by Japanese speakers is interpreted by native English speakers as a lack of interest and willingness to commun

Malaysian Japanese speaking graduates with Japanese language proficiency (JLP) and business Japanese competence (BJC) employed in Japanese companies (JC) in Malaysia are considered an asset by their employers. However, to what extent are their JLP and BJC sufficient to function in JC is an under researched area and deserves further scrutiny. Therefore, the focus of this research is to identify JC employers' JLP and BJC requirements of Malaysian Japanese speaking graduates in their Malaysian companies. This qualitative research via semi-structured one-to-one interviews with JC employers of selected companies in Malaysia investigated the requirements of JLP and BJC for Malaysian Japanese speaking graduates employed in JC. The findings revealed that JLP requirement is dependent on position and task whereas time management and business customs, Ho/Ren/So (Reporting / Contacting / Consulting) are considered as important BJC practices. Furthermore, speaking and listening in Japanese language is considered as crucial skills and the most challenging for Malaysian Japanese speaking graduates at JC to master. Incorporating Japanese business customs and workplace practices in Japanese language curriculum at higher education and increasing internship opportunities at JC would ensure Malaysian Japanese speaking graduates acquire the required JLP and BJC through their higher education. This research augurs well for the enhancement of Japanese language curriculum in higher education institutions in Malaysia as well as Japan-Malaysia bilateral trade to further strengthen Japanese companies' presence in Malaysia and attract new Japanese investments with high level of JLP and BJC manpower.

AbstractPast research shows that young language learners know something about the different category organizations of animals, objects and substances. The three experiments reported here compare Japanese‐speaking and English‐speaking children's novel name generalizations for two kinds of objects: clear instances of artifacts and objects with ambiguous features suggestive of animates. This comparison was motivated by the very different nature of individuation in the two languages and by the boundary shift hypothesis that proposes that entities that straddle the individuation boundary of a language are assimilated toward the individuated side. The results of the three experiments support the hypothesis. An explanation in terms of mutually reinforcing correlations among language, perceptual properties and category structure is proposed.

Introduction / Angeliki Athanasiadou and Elzbieta Tabakowska -- I. The conceptualisation of emotions across cultures: national character through time. "Sadness" and "anger" in Russian: The non-universality of the so-called "basic human emotions" / Anna Wierzbicka. The cultural dynamics of "national character": The case of the new Russians / Henrietta Mondry and John R. Taylor. Russian "national character" and Russian language: A rejoinder to H. Mondry and J. Taylor / Anna Wierzbicka. Omoiyari as a core Japanese value: Japanese-style empathy? / Catherine Travis. Sound symbolic emotion words in Japanese / Rie Hasada. Cultural variation in the conceptualisation of emotions: A historical study / Gabor Gyori -- II. Different approaches to basic emotions: anger and fear. Are there any emotion-specific metaphors? / Zoltan Kovecses. The metonymic and metaphorical conceptualisation of anger in Polish / Agnieszka Mikolajczuk.

The late twentieth century saw a rise of global discourse about heritage. Research on heritage politics, however, has shed little light on heritage practices in schools, especially regarding language, that is, how heritage language is constructed and how it is "inherited" by students of various backgrounds. Heritage language education is often viewed as a means to empower heritage language speakers or to address the diverse needs of students in language classes. In existing works, the individual's link to "heritage" is assumed as given and stable. More recent works show that the processes and effects of heritage language education are complex and nuanced due to diverse personal backgrounds and changing political economy and cultural politics. The role of schooling in the process of "inheriting" language, however, has not attracted much attention: how students are grouped or tracked into a particular class, for example. After ethnographically investigating various views and practices at a weekend Japanese language school in the northeastern United States throughout 2007 and 2008, the authors of this article argue that heritage language school is not merely a place to reproduce "heritage" by passing it on to students, but it is also a productive site where ways to imagine "heritage" and "inherit" it proliferate. The article analyzes the processes by which what would be considered as merely "speaking Japanese" and "being Japanese" outside heritage language school are differentiated into diverse ways of being Japanese. It suggests a need to investigate school as a site of heritage politics as well as a need for researchers and practitioners to view heritage language education not only as a way to teach language but also as a means to gain an understanding of heritage politics. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One. The Geography of Civilization -- 1. Seeing Like the Nation -- 2. The New Territories -- Part Two. The Geography of Cultural Pluralism -- 3. Boundary Narratives -- 4. Local Color -- 5. Speaking Japanese -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Place Names -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

Japanese Brazilian Saudades explores the self-definition of Nikkei discourse in Portuguese-language cultural production by Brazilian authors of Japanese ancestry. Ignacio López-Calvo uses books and films by twentieth-century Nikkei authors as case studies to redefine the ideas of Brazilianness and Japaneseness from both a national and a transnational perspective. The result suggests an alternative model of postcoloniality, particularly as it pertains to the post-World War II experience of Nikkei people in Brazil. López-Calvo addresses the complex creation of Japanese Brazilian identities and the history of immigration, showing how the community has used writing as a form of reconciliation and affirmation of their competing identities as Japanese, Brazilian, and Japanese Brazilian. Japanese in Brazil have employed a twofold strategic, rhetorical engineering: the affirmation of ethno-cultural difference on the one hand, and the collective assertion of citizenship and belonging to the Brazilian nation on the other. López-Calvo also grapples with the community's inclusion and exclusion in Brazilian history and literature, using the concept of "epistemicide" to refer to the government's attempt to impose a Western value system, Brazilian culture, and Portuguese language on the Nikkeijin, while at the same time trying to destroy Japanese language and culture in Brazil by prohibiting Japanese language instruction in schools, Japanese-language publications, and even speaking Japanese in public. Japanese Brazilian Saudades contributes to the literature criticizing the "cognitive injustice" that fails to acknowledge the value of the global South and non-Western ways of knowing and being in the world. With important implications for both Latin American studies and Nikkei studies, it expands discourses of race, ethnicity, nationality, and communal belonging through art and narrative

Introduction / Helen Spencer-Oatey -- Face, (im)politeness and rapport / Helen Spencer-Oatey -- Culture and communication / Vladimir Žegarac -- Apologies in Japanese and English / Noriko Tanaka, Helen Spencer-Oatey and Ellen Cray -- British and Chinese reactions to compliment responses / Helen Spencer-Oatey, Patrick Ng and Li Dong -- Interactional work in Greek and German telephone conversations / Theodossia-Sophia Pavlidou -- Pragmatic transfer / Vladimir Žegarac and Martha C. Pennington -- Communication accommodation theory / Virpi Ylänne -- Adaptation and identity / Martin Fougère -- Negotiating rapport in German-Chinese conversation / Susanne Günthner -- Negative assessments in Japanese-American workplace interactions / Laura Miller -- Impression management in 'intercultural' German job interviews / Karin Birkner and Friederike Kern -- Issues of face in a Chinese business visit to Britain / Helen Spencer-Oatey and Jianyu Xing -- Data collection in pragmatics research / Gabriele Kasper -- Recording and analysing talk across cultures / Meredith Marra -- Projects / Helen Spencer-Oatey.

Taking an ethnographic approach, this research investigates workplace interaction in English in a Japanese chemical company, a subsidiary of American multinational corporation. While previous research on business communication has focused on specific linguistic or rhetorical features, this study offers new insight through the incorporation of socio-economic, historical, and cultural elements in the analysis, and by taking a dynamic view of language, human beings and organisations. The researcher collaborated with the human resource manager of the participating corporation as a hired consultant in an intra-organisational communication development project. The data was collected through interviews, observations, and email exchanges. Initial analysis showed that the dominant Discourse in the company was based on western business values. Further analysis unveiled the changing nature of the Discourse as it is influenced by the local and American education systems, human resource ideologies, learners' learning, and transformation business philosophies.