Author Archives: Thomas

Class reflection

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This class has been a really nice culmination of my 24 credit focus on asia. This class did change my idea of what “linguistics” was. Before this class, I wouldn’t say I knew what linguistics was. Now, nearing the end of the term, I could probably explain in broad terms what a Linguist does. Linguistics isn’t just studying language, It is totally intertwined with every aspect of that culture the language belongs to. Language makes up a broad portion of a culture, and explains many phenomenon that only exist within that culture. A specific example of this would be Oppa in Korea. The word explains a lot about the culture of K-Pop and also fan culture.

The idea that society is shaped by language is extremely interesting to me. And it brings up a debate questioning if it is language that shapes society, or society that shapes language. All of these questions tie in really nicely with history, politics, and culture. As we have been learning most recently, we see that eastern and western societies process visual data and nouns differently than each other. These small differences in how a language is structured can actually shape how we process the world.

One of the most important realizations I have had in this class is the idea of Dyads and how gender bias is literally ingrained in the fabric of our languages. The broad inclusion of gender bias exists across eastern and western languages and really sheds light on the inherent sexism in all of our minds. The english examples include Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Up and Down, Heaven and Hell. All of these word pairs include a positive-negative order. Man and Woman shows us how we may be subconsciously propping up this system of discrimination. It was crazy to me to see this in class because I had never given language a second thought as having the power to prop up discrimination.

I am very glad that this class was the last of my sequence of classes in my study of Asia for my business major. I think moving from the history of Japan, to the history of Asia as a whole, onto religion and philosophy has been an amazing progression for my understanding of the region of East Asia. Understanding language structures and cultural elements of asia is critical to understanding history and religion. They all play off of each other and support a holistic understanding of the region.

Thank you Hyunji and Kaori for doing such a great job at introducing linguistics to me and the class. I really enjoyed learning about the linguistic features of East Asia.

Linguistic Landscape of Eugene

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The first two pictures were taken at Bao Bao house. The text consists of Chinese characters. These characters are used because Bao Bao house is a Chinese restaurant. I would assume the characters demonstrate the validity of the food. They show Chinese people that their food is authentic and made the way they would expect back home. I don’t know much about Chinese characters but I can see that they look complex. I would also assume that these characters are mandarin because it is the official language of China. Mandarin is also more simple with only 4 tones versus Cantonese. I can’t tell but the characters look like the simplified version used in mainland China, and Singapore.

As far as my learning process in the class, I like reading and absorbing the information from the readings before class, and coming into class with the material fresh on my mind. I also like just listening to the lecture and taking notes sparingly. I find I can focus more when I am present in the lecture and not worrying about taking notes. I am normally a good note taker in other classes but I feel like this class it isn’t strictly necessary and the lectures aren’t necessarily set up to take notes on.

Hello Class!

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Hello everyone!

My name is Thomas Graeper and this is my senior year. I am a business major and hoping to pursue a career in business. I am passionate about ceramics and powerlifting. My hobbies are a huge part of who I am and say a lot about my character. With ceramics, I mainly focus on wheel throwing and especially enjoy making mugs and vases. As for the gym and lifting, I focus on being supportive and inclusive because I know firsthand how intimidating stepping into a gym can be.

This picture is of me and my family water skiing! We love to stay active and make sure to spend time together every year in some way shape or form. This pic was taken on lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho.

I have always been interested in East Asian society. After highschool, I worked in a ramen shop where all of my coworkers were from Japan. I had never considered myself someone who could learn a language. I hated learning spanish in school because my teacher wasn’t a native speaker herself and I had no use for the language. At my ramen shop I had a need to communicate with my coworkers and friends who I spend most of my time with. We all learned by teaching our own language to each other. I realized that learning a language was more fun and easy when I had a real passion and desire to learn.

I like the teaching methods of the course. I really didn’t know what this class was going into it but I found learning about East Asian languages is bringing my knowledge of Asian all together. I’m intrigued by logograms because they are so foreign to me. Also languages that don’t use the roman alphabet are crazy to me. Hangul makes me realize that the roman alphabet accomplishes the same things as Asian scripts. The teaching methods of the course are very nice because they don’t force anything on you. I think they match your level of interest and teach you something no matter what level of proficiency you are at speaking any of these languages. These methods match my learning style because I tend to naturally work harder in a class I am interested in. The class is challenging my western styles of thinking about language and forcing me to actually learn about East Asian languages.