The questions or issues that have intrigued me is that language and socialization is a powerful tool that is enable to shape each individuals thinking and process. For example, in class we discussed how East Asian languages and Americans perceive images differently due to the language structure. English is often taught in a way of categorizing and East Languages are in relations; thus, this difference in perception causes different answers. This was an interesting find because this roots back to the structure of languages, and how it affected the answers. Maybe there is a connection of a language being SOV and SVO that affects this perception? My reactions about this topic is that I believe languages  make individuals think differently and not linear to one another because how can everyone possibly be thinking or processing the same thoughts. It was very logical that everyone should be different thus a connection to the linguistic relativism. The approach I took on this class was the take notes on the readings because those readings reflect the in class lectures and made it very easy to understand in class. My approach on linguistics that every language provides a unique view, and this class further endorse my belief in languages regardless of what they are. This class did not challenge me to change as I was already an open person about this topic and already had a belief in linguistic relativism.

By far the most exciting topic to me has been the power of language in North Korea. When we prototypically think of propaganda, we often think of posters with powerful images and slogans. However, propaganda is perpetuated through all forms of written, spoken, and drawn expression, including language itself. While we didn’t spend very long on the topic, the idea of language as the vessel for power and oppression is incredibly interesting. The saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” isn’t true. Language can have a profound effect on people as illustrated by the media portrayal of NK’s Supreme Leader. More recently, the events in Hong Kong represent a backlash not only against the policies and actions of the Chinese government, but also against the rhetoric that has been used to suppress democracy. I do wish we could have spent more time on the topic, however the line understandably begins to blur between politics and language. 

I’ve maintained that I was an auditory learner in the first blog post and that has remained consistent. I feel I have learned a lot and there certainly wasn’t a wasted day in the class. All of the content was applicable, interesting, and taught incredibly well. Professor Idemaru is one of the most passionate professors I’ve had the pleasure of learning from.  Even though I’ve recently started participating more in class, I regret not doing so earlier. I do not think the class has particularly changed how I prepare or think. I feel my existing strategies have been successful for excelling in the class.

Overall, EALL 209 has changed my perception of Linguistics. I once thought it was a stagnant area of study, but now realize it’s an incredibly dynamic space with new discoveries being made every day. Everyone would stand to benefit from the knowledge in this class because it provides insight into language as well as people and cultures.

-Callum

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.

So far in the course, I have enjoyed the broad scope of linguistic elements we have studied. My focus is Korean, so I know far more about the grammatical structure of that language. Therefore learning about things like aspect markers in Chinese and humble vs. honoring form in Japanese has been the most interesting and new information. I highly appreciated the guest lectures and was happy that we were able to receive lessons about cultural aspects as well as linguistic function. My favorite guest lecture was about Chinese medicine, since the study of Chi and solving illness before it develops is far different than the usual Western practice.

The most interesting topic so far was girl graphs, as it gave insight to how certain minority groups in a population develop language that is only targeted to members of the same in-group. It’s also fascinating that the cutesy writing is derived by using the base characters of Japanese, and that is can be deciphered by speakers but it generally not used since it is difficult to read.

The course has challenged the way I think of linguistics by comparing and contrasting three different languages that may have similar words or grammar points. This has allowed for a deeper discussion into the development of language as a separate identity even in close proximity. I really enjoyed what I’ve learned so far and hope to use this knowledge towards more linguistic study in the future!

I found issues surrounding gender biases within East Asian languages particularly interesting throughout the course because  learning about how language has the potential to influence the beliefs and perceptions of females within East Asian societies has also taught me that language could be used as a powerful tool against certain groups of people. I had been aware of the difference in grammar between female and male Japanese speakers, and how most Japanese women typically spoke in a higher pitch than Western women prior to taking the course, but I was not fully aware of the social implications these language differences had on female Japanese speakers living in Japan. I also didn’t know about the gender biases rooted in Chinese language. I was surprised to learn from Kristof’s article that in Japan, women were pressured to raise their vocal pitch by both males and females. I was also surprised to learn about the underlying meaning about the use of the character ren (人) and female radical (女) from Moser’s article and class lectures.

While taking this course, I learned mostly through readings and quizzes, which was supplemented by information from class lectures and discussions. Currently, I wouldn’t say that I have a specific preferred learning style, but I found the course structure to be quite helpful toward my comprehension and retention of the material. This course has changed my sense of linguistics as a field because I now understand that both quantitative research data and qualitative research data are equally valued, through doing the research report assignments and reading about the different perspectives of linguistic experts, as well as thoroughly research experiments and articles

Open Topic: Nisbett and Coordinate Learners

While I’ve grown up somewhat in-between cultures, I’m definitively more American than I am Japanese. This last article, by Nisbett gave me a framework with which to describe my placement on the American-Japanese spectrum, as well as explaining some interesting phenomena I deal with as a heritage learner with intermittent Japanese exposure in my childhood. Nisbett described a difference between individuals who learned an L2 later in life as coordinate learners and those who learned roughly at the same time as their L1 as compound learners. While Nisbett’s discussion focuses more on differences between coordinate and compound learns for cognition, what I found to be the most interesting was that coordinate learners appear to process information notably differently depending on which language in which it is presented. This is definitely something I have experienced, although it’s very fluid for me. There are something that transfer across very easily and something that I process more distinctly in one language as compared to the other.

I’ve spoken with my other half-Japanese friends at length on this topic, so it was nice to see it in literature.

Final Reflection

This course has greatly helped with JPN 410 (grammar), which I taking concurrently, as there is a degree of topic overlap. EALL presents these ideas in basic structure, where JPN 410 – at least for the subject matter that overlaps –  elaborates on it in great detail. As I have never taken linguistics before and have no formal background in the subject, this overlap during my first quarter at the University of Oregon was greatly beneficial, as it helped me build some foundations.

I really appreciate how often previous concepts are brought back into class and elicited from students. My psychology professor in Community College stressed how important it was to do elicitation tasks for memory recall for studying to improve connectivity to memories, and it was nice to see that put into practice in a teaching setting.

Getting to practice the basics of linguistic data analysis and writing in a relatively low-stakes setting was also very helpful. I found the background research I did for my papers actually increased my interest in those subjects.

On study tasks, I realized that I recall readings in much more detail if I read them the day before, within a few hours of going to bed, rather than trying to pre-study and cramming them into the weekend.

So far I have really enjoyed the class! I honestly feel as if I have learned new concepts from taking a linguistics class that I wasn’t really aware of going into the class. Though what I really enjoy talking most about is the research that is done in this field, more specifically, the few recent classes we have had towards the end of term. Topics that can be argued from either side are interesting because I have never realized how differently languages can influence people to process the same situation or concepts. I also think its fascinating to compare myself and my understandings of things to what researchers have found in the past. From my brief exposure to these concepts, it seems I align more with East Asian tendencies then I do European American tendencies which raises several questions.

Mostly I wonder what or when in my life I have learned East Asian tendencies and if there was ever a point in my life where I aligned more with European American tendencies? Because I really don’t have any relatives in my family that are from East Asia, nor was he town that I have spent nearly my entire life in really all that diverse so I can’t imagine there was a major influence of their culture in my life. Though ever since taking Japanese Language courses in high school I was then exposed to it much more then I ever have been so maybe that’s when it started? Was I already born with it? Or was I influenced by my parents to learn those East Asian tendencies over European American tendencies conscientiously?  In which case am I pretty evenly split between the two?

So then I wonder how my brother or sister compares to me in terms of which tendency they processes situations more in?  Because arguably despite growing up in close quarters and living conditions,  we are all very different people and its very evident we process situations and concepts differently than each other so I wonder if we think the same way and just end up on different preference conclusions, or its because we tend to compute experiences to either an american standard or an Asian standard?

And then relate that to our family and friends furthermore onto larger populations of peoples. There is a lot that can go into concepts like these which I think makes for the most interesting conversation because each individual person can relate differently to the results. Whether that be in opposition to each other or in agreeance with each other, I think it’s a great way to learn about  a topic like these cause we can personalize it better rather then just memorizing information.

I have really been interested in the topics we have recently started to cover like the differences in parenting between East Asia and the US, and also if speakers of different languages think differently. I remember that one slide said UO researchers do not believe in the universalist view of thought process, so I was wondering what research they have done to prove there are differences in thinking. I enjoyed reading about the differences in parenting between western and East Asian parents because I had never read about the differences between the two. American parents put an emphasis on treating others the way you want to be treated, independence, and sharing. This type of parenting sounds very similar to how I was raised. On the other hand, C/J/K parents put an emphasis on being in a group and knowing your place within the group, showing respect to elders, and reading the emotions of others. The one thing both parenting styles have in common is that children are socialized through language, to use language appropriately.  

This class has not been too different from previous classes I’ve taken when it comes to studying. I pay attention and take notes during the lectures, complete the readings online and then take the quizzes. I also like the iClicker questions in class because it’s another way for me to track what I need to study. Overall I’ve really enjoyed this class even though it can be difficult at times. I never thought I would be taking a linguistics class, but I’m extremely glad I did. Thanks for a great term!

One of the biggest positives in this class was that none or close to none of the topics presented were boring to me. I enjoyed most of them, some more than others, but I think this class helped solidify some of my understandings about linguistics in East Asian languages. I already had some idea about them because I have a South East Asian background, so this class was pretty helpful. There were even a few things I learned about linguistics that I found neat, such as the connections between the three languages presented in the class (Korean, Japanese, and Chinese). I learned about their history and even the differences in structure and speaking habits, which was also cool. But the coolest thing was learning about how language affects the way one thinks, because it ties in with a lot of cultural and social stuff that I don’t often think about.

I’m not particularly a big fan of readings, and that applied for the readings in this class as well. I’m more of a hands-on learner, but despite that I actually enjoyed going to lecture because the topics were still interesting and the guest lecturers were great. Learning in this course was mostly through going to class and doing the readings, so it wasn’t too stressful. Because of this, the class wasn’t super challenging in the sense that I didn’t have to memorize a ton of material like a math or science course. I enjoyed that aspect of the class quite a bit.

Lastly, I’d say that the class didn’t really change my understanding of linguistics too much. Nothing drastic, at least. It was a fun class, and I liked most (if not all) of the topics in the class, and some even were surprising. It was cool to see the history behind each language, and then connect the languages and see how they interacted (or didn’t). Alongside the history part, we also covered modern and contemporary topics such as the use of “Oppa”. Covering such a large timeline kind of completed the whole picture, which doesn’t happen often in most classes, as they tend to focus on only one tense of time, like the past. Overall, I enjoyed the class, and it helped me to understand and clear up some notions/ideas I had about East Asian Languages, and I also learned a few things along the way.

Thanks!