Organizer and Chair: Mutsuko Endo Hudson, Michigan State University
Discussant: Naomi Hanaoka McGloin, University of Wisconsin
Pragmatics is the study of the form, meaning and the use of a language in context. While the structural differences between Japanese and English have long been discussed in the linguistics literature, systematic analyses of the pragmatic differences lag behind considerably. The effects of this discrepancy can also be seen in the field of teaching Japanese to nonnative speakers. Only recently, with increasing awareness and adoption of a communicative approach, have Japanese language teachers started to pay more attention to pragmatic appropriateness in addition to structural accuracy. The proposed panel of four papers addresses various issues regarding the importance of incorporating pragmatics into teaching of the Japanese language as a second or foreign language.
Maki Hubbard, Smith College
This paper discusses an effective application of pragmatics theories and discourse management to the teaching of politeness in Japanese language. While politeness has always been given attention in the classroom, the attention has traditionally been limited to the areas of "formal" politeness, such as keigo. The explanation of situations that require keigo usually focused on the relationships between the conversation participants and referents, such as ranks, age differences, and in group/out group membership. However, students' understanding of such rather visible factors of politeness does not always guarantee their mastery of appropriate or natural conversation. For example, it is not uncommon to hear even a good student say sentences like the following.
I argue that it is important to systematically introduce at the early stage of language study certain basic mechanisms of conversation, such as the universal politeness principles and the concept of the relevance of the information to the speaker/hearer. This is just one example that illustrates the need to construct a systematic approach to the teaching of conversation rather than just its components.
Mieko Kimura Philips, Michigan State University
This paper analyzes the use of discourse markers by both native and non-native speakers of Japanese, the data of which were collected in an interview setting. The non native subjects consisted of speakers at three different proficiency levels-intermediate, advanced and superior on the ACTFL scale. She proposes that Japanese discourse markers be classified into two major types; (1) logical connector type markers (e.g., sore de 'and'), which contribute to the coherence of conversation and (2) filler type markers (e.g., nanka 'well'), which can further be classified into two sub categories as suggested by Maynard (1983): language production based fillers and socially motivated fillers. Both types of discourse markers were very frequently used by the native subjects. The higher level nonnative subjects also used both more frequently than those at lower levels, and the use of the filler type discourse markers by the intermediate level subjects was limited not only in number but in variety and they seem to be used mostly as memorized chunks. Philips emphasizes the importance of discourse markers in natural conversation and proposes that they be consciously taught from the early stages in the classroom.
Virginia Marcus, Washington University
In the field of foreign language pedagogy, a great deal of emphasis has recently been placed on authenticity (i.e., real and natural language) and the need to use authentic materials in the classroom. By and large, this has resulted in the introduction of realia to enliven classroom activities and to teach reading, writing and listening skills. Textbooks that incorporate authentic materials are being published at an unprecedented rate. In spite of the wealth of newly produced authentic materials, there has been little discussion of authenticity in terms of speaking, when the major goal of teachers of Japanese should be to produce students who can speak authentic Japanese (as opposed to "Japanese for foreigners") in authentic settings. Cultural and pedagogical factors have led to the neglect of authenticity in the area of spoken Japanese. This paper examines the reasons for that neglect and offers practical pedagogical solutions to a problem that has existed in the field of Japanese pedagogy for some time.
Mutsuko Endo Hudson, Michigan State University
This paper examines the extent to which pragmatic considerations are incorporated in some of the major elementary textbooks of Japanese, such as in An Introduction to Modern Japanese, Japanese: The Spoken Language, Situational Functional Japanese, and Yookoso. As is well known, Japanese offers a great variety in expressing the same thing, and the particular form to be used is dictated by pragmatic factors such as: (1) means of communication (written or spoken); (2) setting (formal or informal); (3) degree of familiarity between the speaker and hearer (psychologically close or distant); (4) relative status among the speaker, hearer and third party (higher, lower or equal); (5) in group or out group membership of the speaker, hearer and third party; (6) gender of the speaker; (7) directly or indirectly accessible information (e.g., hoshii "I/we want" (directly) vs. hoshigaru "he/she wants"(indirectly)); and (8) the speaker's viewpoints (e.g., agem "give" vs. morau "receive", active vs. passive sentences). Her paper investigates whether the textbooks make specific references to these and other factors in their grammatical, sociolinguistic, and/or cultural notes, and how the dialogues, reading comprehension passages (if any) and exercises reflect them. Rather than a critique of the textbooks, the paper is a guide to what sort of pragmatic information needs to be incorporated in teaching elementary Japanese, and offers suggestions for how the teacher may supplement a lack thereof.
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