The world-famous Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki (1949-) has been said to write universally-legible, made-to-be-translated fiction that is designed to circulate through the channels of global cultural commerce unimpeded by the thorny particularities of local specificity. But this article explores a different side of Murakami—a side that attuned to the untranslatable particularity of socially contextualized language as he heard it spoken around him during his time living in the United States in the early 1990s. Drawing on the scholar of comparative literature Michael Lucey’s approach to reading “the ethnography of talk,” the analysis focuses on how Murakami reconstructs a conversation about jazz that he had with a Black American interlocutor in New Jersey in the short essay “The Road Home From Berkeley” (Bākurē kara no kaerimichi), which appears in his volume of essays about living in the United States titled The Sadness of Foreign Language (Yagate kanashiki gaikokugo, 1994). As the article compares the styles of speaking documented in “The Road Home From Berkeley” with those that appear in the English- and Japanese-language versions of Miles Davis’s autobiography Miles (which Murakami discusses in “The Road Home From Berkeley”) and J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (which Murakami translated himself), it reveals how Murakami has reflected on the specter of the untranslatable that haunts the global circulations of literature and pop culture.
Language and Literature, Japanese language and literature
Internationally, most prestigious and influential academic journals are published in English, and therefore a mastery of the language is necessary to ensure engagement with the international scientific community. There is debate in the literature as to whether the dominance of English might lead to the marginalization of contributions from academics for whom English is a second language. The present study explores through interviews the insights of 11 humanities and social sciences academics working at two Japanese universities ranked in the top 50 globally. The findings indicate that most of the participants view English as the logical vehicle for reaching a wider audience for their research. Despite an acknowledgement that publishing in English presents problems from both linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, these academics do not, on the whole, believe that current standards need to be revisited. These issues are discussed in light of the changing realities of academic environments, and the need to ensure accessible pathways for those who can and should be contributing to knowledge construction in the global academy.
In recent years, a continuous interest for Japanese culture, language, values and literature can be noticed in the West, including in Romania. With numerous Japanese writers becoming the favourite authors of numerous people, a desire to understand Japanese literature on a deeper level can be felt. The volume The Japanese Novel in the 20th Century comes as a response to the need for exploring the development of Japanese literature, as it provides the readers with all the necessary information on the literary trends and their progress in the 20th century.
Interference is a mistake generally made by second language learners because they are influenced by their first language ability. Meanwhile, phonological interference is a mistake that occurs at the sound level due to changes in phonemes influenced by knowledge of the sound system in the first language. This paper discusses the errors of second language learners in understanding the sound changes that occur in the language they are learning. This study aims to describe the forms and factors that cause phonological interference committed by “Tes Wasedaboys Tulis Nama Makanan Indonesia! Ngakak Banget!”. The method used in the research is descriptive qualitative method with the theory referring to Weinrich's interference theory (1953). The data collection method used is the listening method with free listening technique. Based on the analysis that has been done, the form of phonological interference that occurs in the YouTube video on the Nihongo Mantappu channel entitled “Tes Wasedaboys Tulis Nama Makanan Indonesia! Ngakak Banget!” is divided into 2 classifications, namely 9 data of vowel phoneme interference and 8 data of consonant phoneme interference. Each interference is divided based on the addition of phonemes as much as 3 data, based on phoneme changes as much as 7 data, and based on phoneme reduction as much as 7 data. The factors that cause phonological interference are (1) bilingualism of speech participants which amounted to 3 data, (2) differences in vowel sounds and writing methods which amounted to 11 data, (3) carrying the mother tongue which amounted to 3 data.
A tension runs through Nathan Shockey’s well-researched book of essays on the topic of the medial transition to print culture; it is this: does the value of print material lie within its semantic content or within its market value? Although at several points the book refers to this as a dialectic as though each side of the tension were in equal balance, ultimately Shockey is more concerned with the latter notion of books and print as media objects in the world rather than as conveyors of meaning. This is evidenced by the preponderance of instances in which he highlights that reading does not matter and where writing (in the sense of the noun not the gerund) does or simply is matter.
Language and Literature, Japanese language and literature
This paper examines how two manga versions of the Heian classic Tale of Genji, belonging to two different genres and targeting different readership, engage with and interpret the tale’s episodes depicting sexual encounters, which may be read as problematic in the original text.
The shojo version, Yamato Waki’s Asaki yumemishi, published between 1980 and 1993, and targeting predominantly female audiences, how two distinct approaches in its treatment of certain potentially uncomfortable episodes: some episodes which verge too close to a reading of sexual violence, are outright erased from the manga versions. Others, whose presence is invaluable to the narrative, are remarkably faithful to the original text, while at the same time contextualizing and domesticating all threats of sexual violence that might have marred the original text.
By contrast, Egawa Tatsuya’s seinen version of Genji monogatari, marketed towards a young male adult readership, takes the extreme approach of depicting all sexual encounters in the tale as consensual, pleasurable and highly explicit. The ambiguity of the original text is simply done away with by juxtaposing said text and its fairly accurate rendition into modern Japanese with quasi-pornographic, shunga-evoking scenes of sex.
Language and Literature, Japanese language and literature
The paper examines the main narrative strategies of “Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige” (1802-1809) by Jippensha Ikku (1765-1831) in terms of the “culture of play” concept. The phenomenon of the “culture of play” was connected with the search for new forms of expression, perception, and rethinking of the social order carried out by the townspeople of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) in Japan. Playful literature gesaku, including Ikku’s literary work, was the embodiment of this concept, based, mainly, on the carnivalesque overturn of the usual, official reality. The “culture of play” is represented in “Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige” by a number of narrative strategies, namely, the chronotope, the communicative system of characters, and the special structure of episodes. The inner space of Ikku’s kokkeibon is a grotesque world, where the sensual pleasures and the rude humor linked to it prevail. Construction of such world takes place with the use of a literary device called ugachi - a combination of opposite ideas and phenomena in one scene. There is also a special type of time represented, concentrated on the pure everyday being, the endless motion of the life cycle. Attention is paid to the “voices” of the numerous characters of “Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige” as well as to their interaction. The characteristics of their speech become the only personal traits of the characters’ portraits; the polyphony of different “voices” enables Ikku to create the panorama of everyday life, close to reality, and to represent many points of view not taken into consideration by the official rhetoric. The figure of a narrator occupies a unique space in this system of characters, on the one hand, taking part in the protagonists’ fictional journey, and, on the other, being just a spectator, recording the events, both from the widest perspective possible and in detail. The structure of episodes is close to that in theatre genres. The characters represent a certain stage type; the episodes contain a specific mechanism of development, often with the allusions to the famous plays and comic stories. Such humorous profanations become a powerful device for the playful rethinking of reality.
Exploring the culture and literature of countries around the world is increasingly important in the current trend of international exchange and integration. Therefore, foreign literature disciplines, including Japanese literature, occupies an increasingly essential position in the curriculum of Dong Thap University. However, the perception and teaching of Japanese Haiku poems have long been challenged due to language barriers as well as cultural differences. In order for enhancing the quality of teaching Haiku poetry to Literature Pedagogy majors at Dong Thap University, the article presents a new approach towards classical Haiku poetry through the perspective of ink painting art (aka painting art). With the aim of observing the beauty of Japanese literature and culture, the study analyzes the causes and some specific manifestations of the similarities between Japanese ink painting art and classical Haiku poetry in terms of artistic methods. The root cause lies in the influence of Zen, as a cultural characteristic of the Japanese spirit, and the specific manifestations include the technique of empty spaces in ink painting art, and the empty poetic strategy in classical Haiku poetry, the features of the conception scenery and the moment characteristic in both Oriental art genres.
This research analyzes the advertisement of Japanese beauty products through perspective of the critical discourse analysis as stated by Fairclough (1995). The discussed issues are linguistic features used in the advertisement of Japanese beauty products and the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate consumers who are women. Through three dimensions of the critical discourse analysis, it is known that the choices of vocabularies, grammar, modality, and rhetoric serve to bring psychological effect to consumers. Besides, the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate consumers for purchasing or using the offered products are puffery (exaggerating the quality of product), social proof (showing that their products are popular), liking (posting the positive reviews by celebrities for the related products), scarcity (limiting the quantity of product), emotional appeals (playing with the emotion of consumers), and scientific evidence (showing the scientific evidence). Analysis shows the result that advertisement is made based on the beauty myth in society. Besides, advertisement plays a role in creating and propagating the beauty myth in society.
In the history of Japan, the Heian era is considered the golden age, the heyday of aristocratic literature. It was then that the aristocracy became the creator of literary works, which to this day are the masterpieces of world literature. One of the unique phenomena of Japanese classical literature is recognized diary, including female diary literature of the Heian era (IX-XII centuries). Diary literature differs from other genres in terms of presentation style, artistic language, plot and composition, figurative system, presentation methods. Mitsitsuno no haha (935-996), who enriched the Japanese medieval art tradition with an original literary style, a new theme, a new poetic vision, new sensuality, is recognized as the most striking representative of womens diary literature in Japan. In the Diary of Ephemeral Life, by Mitsitsu no haha the tradition of poetic inserts is widely embodied, a special layer of poetic material (three-part, five-part) is highlighted. They serve as a necessary attribute for conveying an emotional mood, creating an image, enhancing important moments of importance. Considering the artistic features of the diary, the author of the article makes an attempt to suggest that poems are additional material in the transfer of various emotional states of the heroine. Poetic insertions enhance one or another mood, establish an emotional connection between the external and internal world of the author. Analysis of poetic inserts makes it possible to determine their functional load.
This article is a review of the collective monograph “Japan in the Retrospective of Generation Change”. The main object of study here are the changes which happened to two young generations of Japanese people whose lives were influenced by complicated reality of the past 30 years when the economy started to stagnate and rate of economic growth slowed down. Authors of this monograph are making an attempt to figure out what do such matters as family, labor, leisure time mean to modern Japanese people and also analyze their attitude towards the global society and specifically their attitude to the USA, China and Russia. Here one can also find information concerning gender issues in Japan, modern Japanese women outlook on their relationship with the men matter, marriage, career and political ambitions.
In the extant literature in Japan, the description of criminal cases involving foreigners goes back to around the fifth century; however, detailed depictions of language problems requiring legal interpreters started to appear in the Edo period (1603–1868). The cases of an Italian missionary who entered Japan illegally in 1709 and the robbery of Ainu graves by British consular officers in 1865 presented communication difficulties between the interrogator and accused in criminal procedures. This is common even today. This paper introduces the history of legal interpreting with reference to high profile cases, and reviews changes in communication issues in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speaking defendants in modern Japan. It also presents prospects regarding the shift in attitude among legal practitioners toward legal interpreting against the backdrop of recent judicial reforms including the introduction of a lay judge system and visualisation of the investigation process.
Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar, Comparative law. International uniform law