This course has actually won the title of being my favorite class this term!  I think the most interesting topic we discussed was the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.  My favorite part of linguistics involves psychology and I find it extremely engaging to think about the way humans are influenced by language.  I’ve especially appreciated the pace and discussions that took place in this course.  The constant feedback that was given by everyone was very helpful when questioning how others felt about what we learned.  I believe this class has changed the way I look at linguistics.  I know that I’ve always believed that language is a crucial factor in the way humans think, but now, I have actually learned about studies that can support this hypothesis!  I’m very excited to continue to learn about East Asian culture because of this course and am pleased to report that EALL has been influential in the way I now think about linguistics.

After a systematic study, I am very interested in the gender differences in each of the three languages. It’s amazing to me how men and women can be called differently in different cultures. As far as I am concerned, there are not too many differences between men and women in Chinese. At most, there are differences between him and her in Chinese characters, which has updated my knowledge. The second is the different ways that American parents and Asian parents treat their children’s education. Since I spent my junior and senior high school life under high pressure, I really feel the pain.

Kaori has a great way of teaching, which is not dull, but vivid and easy to understand. The class discussion also increased my understanding of the class content, and it was easier to understand knowledge points with more examples than by rote. Because of the language problem, I still have some difficulty in reading, but I can even cope with it. I usually read the reading carefully before class, and write down the key points with the quiz before class, listen to the teacher in class and make notes, and review with the study guide after class and before the exam. In my opinion, this way of learning is handy for me.

This is my first class in linguistics. It has changed my traditional understanding of language, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which are not the same language system. In the past, I think they are all languages from Asia. This course is very similar to the CHN series of courses I have taken before, although they teach different content, the way to prepare is identical. I made the reading and quiz before class, and then explained them in more detail in class.

Some questions that are very intriguing to me are those relating to languages as a whole. Such as examples of gender in language, politeness, language acquisition and theories on language relativity and universal grammar. I found our recent lectures and reading most interesting, mostly because it related to a project I did on tonogenesis and a research study about tonal language speakers brains versus non tonal, in an MRI scanner. I was very surprised and interested in other people’s research, such as analysis photos, or grouping things together in certain ways, based off of native language. I found the readings especially nice, because not all were lengthy academic articles. Having a mix between new articles, research, book excerpts and more, was very cool. I feel that it helped me retain information better, and encouraged me to complete each reading. Although I have done some of my own research on these topics, many of our readings and examples were new to me, which made this class unique to the other EALL, Chinese and linguistic courses I’ve taken. This class has made my linguistic understanding, of especially Korean and Japanese, much stronger. I’ve taken Chinese linguistic courses before but never linguistics related to EALL. I also felt that mentioning big questions, such as, does language change how people think, helped me think about language in a very broad sense.

The most interesting topic for me so far is the concept of new masculine gender identities in East Asia. The fact that men in East Asian countries are starting to go against the current and the traditional social norm is intriguing. My approach to learning in this course was to do the reading/quiz the day before the lecture to have some sort of understanding about the topic, then go to class and listen to the professor go in-depth about it to further my knowledge. This class definitely changed my view of linguistic as a field. Before the class I didn’t know much about this field and sometimes even thought there is not much to study about. But this class has shown me that language, just like any other subject, is very complex and fascinating. Languages are infused deep in our culture and society without we even know about it. That is amazing to me. For example, as an Asian, my parents were always very strict and protective of me. I always thought it’s just how my parents are but through this class, I found out that these behavior is to  be expected of parents in East Asian countries. The class also changed the way I think as I look at the world as a big picture now.

What I am interested in is some interesting phenomena about Asian culture, which have different expressions in each country. I want to choose a course to get a precise and in-depth understanding.  Many of the readings offered in this course relate to the cultures that need to be understood. The reading provided by the course is equivalent to an additional extracurricular reading, which contains the reading content and related knowledge related to the classroom content, and is the expansion and extension of the classroom content.

For this course, I usually read the required articles and test them by sorting them out. The second is to learn the course by reviewing and watching the PPT repeatedly. This class in a lot of knowledge level changed my perception of “linguistics” in this area, such as Japanese men and women in the form of expression and tone words have very big different, in my previous cognitive, there is a lot of language in Japanese law, but for the division of gender has such a significant difference between the two is my new knowledge on the cognitive domain.

To some extent, this course did not change my way of thinking, but just added some different ways of thinking. Let me learn how to change the position to think and understand that different ways of thinking will lead to different events.

In this EALL class, I had some reactions during my reading time, class discussions, and lectures. In my reading time, I would always be intrigued by how gender expression is used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages. For me, especially when I have experienced living in Korea, I was always reminded that I should not be using a manly expression and show a more “womanly” expression. Plus, not only that, I was told many times in Korea that aegyo is a common way for people to notice that you are a friendly and innocent woman. When I first entered into this class, the word “linguistics” was quite new to me. The class went into depth about how linguistics is used in these Asian languages, which made me rethink the ideas of how all these languages are not the same (as to what people usually say). My sense of linguistics as a field has definitely changed. I would notice the sentence structures would be different from English to the Asian languages, as well as to my knowledge as a Korean person that was born in America.

This class has definitely helped me with my interest in Japanese and Korean. If I took my Japanese 101 class as well as take my Korean 103 class next term, I would have been struggling to understand the language and why the sentence structure exists, as well as not knowing the difference between Japanese and Korean.

In learning this course, I have definitely tried to pay attention to the lecture class, as well as participate in the discussion class. I would ask my friends question and I would review the slides before going to class, as well as taking notes. I would also participate in the class by doing the Iclicker as well too. In all, the class has covered a large picture of the Asian languages, which is really helpful. I enjoyed the class as well as it helped me understand that the East Asian languages, and connect with my ethnic cultures along the way.

Thank you Kaori Idemaru and Hyunji Kim for teaching us this fall term!

One of the biggest things that interested me this term was one of the most recent things we talked about, that being the differences in how we think based on the language we speak. This class has probably been my favorite of this term do to the topics we’ve brought up, the involvement of the entire class instead of just sitting there staring at a slideshow blankly taking notes, and although the readings weren’t always that exciting to read, the classes always brought up the topics we learned about in interesting ways with new perspectives and ways of thinking. In this course I mostly learned through the classes themselves instead of the readings that we had, I found the lectures much more interesting than the articles we’d read. The field of linguistics was never really on my radar until this class, it opened my eyes up to how interesting languages can really be, from the alphabets in Japanese, to the way the characters mimic the shape of your mouth in Korean, to the subtle differences in tones in Chinese.

I think what interested me the most was the politeness topic. I did my research report on politeness in varying levels of Chinese speakers and it was very surprising to see the results. I have been learning Chinese for three years and even I did not know about certain aspects of Chinese politeness such as the difference between ancient China, communist China, and current times. One other thing that was interesting to me was the idea of changing masculinity. While I do not agree with the idea that men are becoming more “feminine” in Asia, it was very interesting to see how things that are traditionally marketed to women are being marketed to men in China and the idea of herbivore men in Japan.

As a Linguistics major, this class was very interesting to me because I got to focus on East Asian Linguistics, whereas I would usually focus on Indo-European languages. I thought that it was the most interesting topic that we talked about because it involved syntax and how words have changed in meaning. I think that this class has made me want to dig deeper into the idea of East Asian Linguistics

I initially came into the class with minimal expectations and the small hope I could reconnect with my Chinese culture. Growing up as an Asian American and dealing with identity issues definitely drove some distance between me and my desire to learn more about my heritage. However, now I realize that this class has done so much more than fulfill that small hope. The wealth of knowledge I carry now even surprises my Chinese parents who never thought to question the origin or intricacies of their native language.

I was definitely more receptive to the discussions about the Chinese language, especially concerning the history and evolution of its honorifics. Still, I was really intrigued by how Japanese and Korean used language commercially such as their incorporation of English words by using katakana and hangul. I was very engaged by the debate between whether or not this commercialization meant that the native language was being corrupted or not.

Even though I am not studying linguistics at UO, I definitely have a new found admiration and appreciation for this field. Knowing that what we have covered so far only scratches the surface of this field proves to me that it has so much more depth. If possible, I’d like to continue studying East Asian languages either with instruction or on my own.

Thank you for making this class so enjoyable!

Claudia

This class has been really interesting. Some of the material has been difficult, because of English not being my first language, and then attempting to linguistically absorb another language with that as well; but socially and historically, the information has been helpful, relevant, and informational. I enjoyed hearing all of the students talk. It is always interesting to hear someone talk about their culture, since they have the first hand experience.  The subject that has interested me the most has been has been about the social inequality combined with the language, or how language infers social inequality. In my first language, there is no higher and lower, everyone is the same. The language is blunt, which can come off as rude comparatively to English, but everyone is equal. There is no social difference between men and women; young or old. So it’s really bizarre to me to see that built into a language, and difficult to understand. My approach to learning this material has been talking the material out to the point where I can write it, and teach it to others. It has made me more interested in pursuing linguistics as a field. As well as combining with Sign as well, since there isn’t a lot of linguistic data in that area.