Automatic Scaling of Text for Training Second Language Reading Comprehension

For children learning their first language, reading is one of the most effective ways to acquire new vocabulary. Studies link students who read more with larger and more complex vocabularies. For second language learners, there is a substantial barrier to reading. Even the books written for early first language readers assume a base vocabulary of nearly 7000 word families and a nuanced understanding of grammar. This project will look at ways that technology can help second language learners overcome this high barrier to entry, and the effectiveness of learning through reading for adults acquiring a foreign language. Through the implementation of Dokusha, an automatic graded reader generator for Japanese, this project will explore how advancements in natural language processing can be used to automatically simplify text for extensive reading in Japanese as a foreign language

Recognition of Japanese handwritten characters with Machine learning techniques

The recognition of Japanese handwritten characters has always been a challenge for researchers. A large number of classes, their graphic complexity, and the existence of three different writing systems make this problem particularly difficult compared to Western writing. For decades, attempts have been made to address the problem using traditional OCR (Optical Character Recognition) techniques, with mixed results. With the recent popularization of machine learning techniques through neural networks, this research has been revitalized, bringing new approaches to the problem. These new results achieve performance levels comparable to human recognition. Furthermore, these new techniques have allowed collaboration with very different disciplines, such as the Humanities or East Asian studies, achieving advances in them that would not have been possible without this interdisciplinary work. In this thesis, these techniques are explored until reaching a sufficient level of understanding that allows us to carry out our own experiments, training neural network models with public datasets of Japanese characters. However, the scarcity of public datasets makes the task of researchers remarkably difficult. Our proposal to minimize this problem is the development of a web application that allows researchers to easily collect samples of Japanese characters through the collaboration of any user. Once the application is fully operational, the examples collected until that point will be used to create a new dataset in a specific format. Finally, we can use the new data to carry out comparative experiments with the previous neural network models

Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture

This open access volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the “Script Relativity Hypothesis” (i.e., the idea that the script in which we read affects the way we think) by offering a unique perspective on the effect of script (alphabets, morphosyllabaries, or multi-scripts) on our attention, perception, and problem-solving. Once we become literate, fundamental changes occur in our brain circuitry to accommodate the new demand for resources. The powerful effects of literacy have been demonstrated by research on literate versus illiterate individuals, as well as cross-scriptal transfer, indicating that literate brain networks function differently, depending on the script being read. This book identifies the locus of differences between the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and between the East and the West, as the neural underpinnings of literacy. To support the “Script Relativity Hypothesis”, it reviews a vast corpus of empirical studies, including anthropological accounts of human civilization, social psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, applied linguistics, second language studies, and cross-cultural communication. It also discusses the impact of reading from screens in the digital age, as well as the impact of bi-script or multi-script use, which is a growing trend around the globe. As a result, our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures are now growing closer together, not farther apart. ; Examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of written language, the human mind, and culture within the purview of script effects Investigates how the scripts we read over time shape our cognition, mind, and thought patterns Provides a new outlook on the four representative writing systems of the world Discusses the consequences of literacy for the functioning of the min

Use of English on Japanese commercial signage

This study investigates the use of English on commercial signs in Japanese Linguistic Landscapes (LL) and examines people’s perceptions toward the usage to find out whether written English in Japan has widely used and has specific features to be classified as a variety of World Englishes (WE). Previous studies on WE claim that English has spread worldwide due to globalisation and new varieties of English have emerged in various parts of the world. Research on LL argues that English is widely used in Japanese cityscape and it is the dominant foreign language Japanese people are exposed to. Although English is extensively used for commercial purposes in Japan, how it is used and what people think about the usage have not yet analysed in details. This research aims to answer three research questions: (1) ‘To what extent is English used on commercial signs in Japan?’; (2) ‘What are the linguistic features of the English on Japanese commercial signs?’; and (3) ‘What are people’s perceptions toward the use of English on commercial signs?’. To examine scales, forms, and functions of English on commercial signage in the Japanese LL, this study analyses linguistic and sociolinguistic features of written English in Japan using quantitative and qualitative methods. To discover to what extent and how English was used on commercial signs in Japan, written text data was collected by observing and recording commercial signs in six research sites. To understand people’s perceptions, online survey was conducted among people living in and outside the research region. The quantitative data was measured statistically, and the qualitative data was examined through the use of thematic and content analyses. The study found that although Japanese commercial signs used English extensively, English was not equally used at all research areas or by all business types. Fashion-related businesses and restaurants displayed more signs containing English compared to other industries. The usage was limited to words and phrases which were mainly used as proper nouns. There were no particular features that could be classified as Japanese English, except some direct translations from Japanese, code-mixing and trans-scriptism practices. This relates to the globalisation of business, and English in Japan is the outcome of glocalisation. Japanese people’s perceptions toward English usage revealed a complex state of mind which simultaneously embraced and resisted English in their language culture. The survey participants did not consider the forms of English that are used on Japanese commercial signs as established varieties of English. Instead, they regarded English usages as errors or decorations. This result indicates that the written English that is used for commercial purposes is not yet developed enough to be called ‘Japanese English’ and treated as a variety of WE. Instead, it should be identified as ‘distinctively Japanese use of English’. This study argues that the widespread use of English for commercial purposes in Japanese cityscapes is the outcome of McDonaldization and glocalisation as well as of globalisation. The study adopts a new perspective on WE and proposes the term ‘McWords’ to explain the use of English for commercial purposes as a by-product of the current global situation

Carlos Bulosan and Filipino Collective Memory: Teaching, Transgression, and Transformation

Who is Carlos Bulosan? Why is he significant? Why teach Bulosan in our classrooms? These questions function as points of departure for this lecture delivered in Summer 2021 for the UNITAS International Lecture Series cosponsored by CLASS and Kritika Kultura. By reviewing the significance of Carlos Bulosan, this talk provides an opportunity to examine the continued relevance of Bulosan and his works for the twenty-first century. A pioneering Filipino writer of the twentieth century, Bulosan developed a unique transgressive aesthetic that travels across national and literary boundaries and, in the process, reimagines the boundaries of Filipino identity and literary categorization. Emphasis is placed on approaches to teaching Bulosan within the Asian American studies classroom at Bryant University. Within Bulosan’s literary imagination, transgression is inextricably interconnected with transformation

Drawing on the Victorians

Late 19th-century Britain experienced an explosion of visual print culture and a simultaneous rise in literacy across social classes. New printing technologies facilitated quick and cheap dissemination of images—illustrated books, periodicals, cartoons, comics, and ephemera—to a mass readership. This Victorian visual turn prefigured the present-day impact of the Internet on how images are produced and shared, both driving and reflecting the visual culture of its time. From this starting point, Drawing on the Victorians explores the relationship between Victorian graphic texts and today’s steampunk, manga, and other neo-Victorian genres that emulate and reinterpret their predecessors. Neo-Victorianism is a flourishing worldwide phenomenon, but one whose relationship with the texts from which it takes its inspiration remains underexplored

Drawing on the Victorians: The Palimpsest of Victorian and Neo-Victorian Graphic Texts

Late nineteenth-century Britain experienced an unprecedented explosion of visual print culture and a simultaneous rise in literacy across social classes. New printing technologies facilitated quick and cheap dissemination of images—illustrated books, periodicals, cartoons, comics, and ephemera—to a mass readership. This Victorian visual turn prefigured the present-day impact of the Internet on how images are produced and shared, both driving and reflecting the visual culture of its time. From this starting point, Drawing on the Victorians sets out to explore the relationship between Victorian graphic texts and today’s steampunk, manga, and other neo-Victorian genres that emulate and reinterpret their predecessors. Neo-Victorianism is a flourishing worldwide phenomenon, but one whose relationship with the texts from which it takes its inspiration remains underexplored. In this collection, scholars from literary studies, cultural studies, and art history consider contemporary works—Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moto Naoko’s Lady Victorian, and Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies, among others—alongside their antecedents, from Punch’s 1897 Jubilee issue to Alice in Wonderland and more. They build on previous work on neo-Victorianism to affirm that the past not only influences but converses with the present. Contributors: Christine Ferguson, Kate Flint, Anna Maria Jones, Linda K. Hughes, Heidi Kaufman, Brian Maidment, Rebecca N. Mitchell, Jennifer Phegley, Monika Pietrzak-Franger, Peter W. Sinnema, Jessica Straleyhttps://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1011/thumbnail.jp

Outcasts of Empire

"Outcasts of Empire unveils the causes and consequences of capitalism’s failure to “batter down all Chinese walls” in modern Taiwan. Adopting micro- and macrohistorical perspectives, Paul D. Barclay argues that the interpreters, chiefs, and trading-post operators who mediated state-society relations on Taiwan’s “savage border” during successive Qing and Japanese regimes rose to prominence and faded to obscurity in concert with a series of “long nineteenth century” global transformations. Superior firepower and large economic reserves ultimately enabled Japanese statesmen to discard mediators on the border and sideline a cohort of indigenous headmen who played both sides of the fence to maintain their chiefly status. Even with reluctant “allies” marginalized, however, the colonial state lacked sufficient resources to integrate Taiwan’s indigenes into its disciplinary apparatus. The colonial state therefore created the Indigenous Territory, which exists to this day as a legacy of Japanese imperialism, local initiatives, and the global commodification of culture.