I’ve learned a lot from this course. Before taking this class, I did not imagine that we rely so heavily on linguistics. But it does not mean it is unnecessary. Thankfully, I learned the language structure of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in this class. It is helpful to study the following topics we argued indeed, like politeness, social situation, and masculine and feminine. Although it is hard for me to understand humble and honoring forms in Japanese at first, I get the meaning after I searched online or ask my friends.
One of the most intriguing topics for me is the “new masculine gender identities in East Asia.” I’ve watched several Korean TV series, and I noticed that the actors are “beautiful.” After taking this class, I learned that this new type of Korean male is called handsome flower men. They always wear eye makeup and have longer hair than city jade men.
I realize the importance of language, and this class changes my perspective on linguistics a lot. Language can not only affect society, and society can also alter the language uses. In addition, language also relates to one’s way of thinking. Language is an essential part of the culture. The reason for this is because the language has cultural characteristics. I have seen a sentence before: “the language of a society is an aspect of its culture; language and culture are parts and wholes.”
My learning approach for this class is to read the materials carefully before class and review each of the lecture slides seriously. That’s works a lot for me.
