Prototypes and Metaphorical Extensions: The Japanese Numeral Classifiers hiki and hatsu

This study concerns the meaning of Japanese numeral classifiers (NCs) and, particularly, the elements which guide us to understand the metaphorical meanings they can convey. In the typological literature, as well as in studies of Japanese, the focus is almost entirely on NCs that refer to entities. NCs are generally characterised as being matched with a noun primarily based on semantic criteria such as the animacy, the physical characteristics, or the function of the referent concerned. However, in some languages, including Japanese, nouns allow a number of alternative NCs, so that it is considered that NCs are not automatically matched with a noun but rather with the referent that the noun refers to in the particular context in which it occurs. This study examines data from the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, and focuses on two NCs as case studies: hiki, an entity NC, typically used to classify small, animate beings, and hatsu, an NC that is used to classify both entities and events that are typically explosive in nature. The study employs the framework of Prototype Theory, along with the theory of conceptual metaphor, and the theory of metonymy. The analysis of the data identified a number of semantic components for each of the target NCs; by drawing on these components, the speaker can subjectively add those meanings to modify the meaning of the referring noun or verb. Furthermore, the study revealed that the choice of NCs can be influenced by two factors. First, the choice of NC sometimes relates to the linguistic context in which the referring noun or verb occurs. For example, if a noun is used metaphorically, the NC is chosen to reinforce that metaphor, rather than to match with the actual referent. Second, the meaning of an NC itself can be used as a vehicle of metaphor to contribute meaning to that of the referring noun or verb concerned. Through the analysis, is has been identified that the range of referents of a single NC beyond cases in which objectively observable characteristics are evident occurs in two dimensions: (1) in terms of the typicality of referents and (2) across categories of referents (entities and events). Based on the findings, the study claims that, in both cases, non-literal factors account for extension in the range of referents of an NC in Japanese. Specifically, the non-literal devices of metaphor and metonymy appear to play a role in connecting an NC and its referent in the context in which extension of the use of that NC occurs

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

In What Order Should Learners Learn Japanese Vocabulary? A Corpus-based Approach

This thesis attempts to answer the following two main research questions:1) In what order should learners of Japanese as a second language learn words and characters in order to be able to read Japanese? 2) How will the order vary according to the purpose of learning? To answer these questions, a Vocabulary Database for Reading Japanese (VDRJ) and a Character Database of Japanese (CDJ) were first developed from the Balanced Contemporary Corpus of Written Japanese (BCCWJ) 2009 monitor version (NINJAL, 2009) which contains book texts and internet-forum site texts with 33 million running words in total. Word and character rankings for international students, non-academic learners and general written Japanese were included in these databases. These rankings were proven to be valid for their respective purposes as they provided higher text coverage for the target texts than other texts. After analysing the use of vocabulary and characters in Japanese, three groups of domain-specific words, namely common academic words, limited-academic-domain words and literary words were extracted. In order to test the expected efficiency for learning these groups of words, an index entitled Text Covering Efficiency (TCE) in different types of texts was proposed. The TCE represents the expected return per unit of text length from learning a group of words. As such, the TCE score in the target text domain should determine the order in which words in this domain are most efficiently learned. Indeed, the extracted common academic words and limited-academic-domain words showed significantly higher text coverage and TCE scores in academic texts than in other texts. Literary words also provided high text coverage and high TCE scores in literary texts, despite a lower efficiency level than that of academic vocabulary in academic texts. Learning domain-specific words is expected to be much more efficient than learning other words at the intermediate level. At the advanced level or above, learning domain-specific words will be further more efficient in some domains such as the natural sciences. In sum, the TCE has been shown to provide useful information for deciding on the learning order of various groups of words. Other findings based on the analyses using the databases and word lists include the features of some indices for dispersion and adjusted frequency, lexical features of different media and genres, indexicality of the distributions of word origins and parts of speech, and the discrepancy between learning orders of words and Kanji. A Lexical Learning Possibility Index for a Reading Text (LEPIX) was also proposed for the simplification of a text as a vocabulary learning resource

Culinary Linguistics

Language and food are universal to humankind. Language accomplishes more than a pure exchange of information, and food caters for more than mere subsistence. Both represent crucial sites for socialization, identity construction, and the everyday fabrication and perception of the world as a meaningful, orderly place. This volume contains an introduction to the study of food and an extensive overview of the literature focusing on its role in interplay with language. It is the only publication fathoming the field of food and food-related studies from a linguistic perspective. The research articles assembled here encompass a number of linguistic fields, ranging from historical and ethnographic approaches to literary studies, the teaching of English as a foreign language, psycholinguistics, and the study of computer-mediated communication, making this volume compulsory reading for anyone interested in genres of food discourse and the linguistic connection between food and culture

Empirical studies in translation and discourse (Volume 14)

The present volume seeks to contribute some studies to the subfield of Empirical Translation Studies and thus aid in extending its reach within the field of translation studies and thus in making our discipline more rigorous and fostering a reproducible research culture. The Translation in Transition conference series, across its editions in Copenhagen (2013), Germersheim (2015) and Ghent (2017), has been a major meeting point for scholars working with these aims in mind, and the conference in Barcelona (2019) has continued this tradition of expanding the sub-field of empirical translation studies to other paradigms within translation studies. This book is a collection of selected papers presented at that fourth Translation in Transition conference, held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona on 19–20 September 2019

Empirical studies in translation and discourse

The present volume seeks to contribute some studies to the subfield of Empirical Translation Studies and thus aid in extending its reach within the field of translation studies and thus in making our discipline more rigorous and fostering a reproducible research culture. The Translation in Transition conference series, across its editions in Copenhagen (2013), Germersheim (2015) and Ghent (2017), has been a major meeting point for scholars working with these aims in mind, and the conference in Barcelona (2019) has continued this tradition of expanding the sub-field of empirical translation studies to other paradigms within translation studies. This book is a collection of selected papers presented at that fourth Translation in Transition conference, held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona on 19–20 September 2019