Japanese Words Research Articles

Japanese pitch-accent perception of noise-vocoded sine-wave speech

A previous study has demonstrated that speech intelligibility is improved for a tone language when sine-wave speech is noise-vocoded, because noise-vocoding eliminates the quasi-periodicity of sine-wave speech. This study examined whether identification accuracy of Japanese pitch-accent words increases after sine-wave speech is noise-vocoded. The results showed that the Japanese listeners’ identification accuracy significantly increased, but their discrimination accuracy did not show a significant difference between the sine-wave speech and noise-vocoded sine-wave speech conditions. These results suggest that Japanese listeners can auditorily discriminate minimal-pair words using any acoustic cues in both conditions, but quasi-periodicity is eliminated by noise-vocoding so that the Japanese listeners’ identification accuracy increases in the noise-vocoded sine-wave speech condition. The same results were not observed when another way of noise-vocoding was used in a previous study, suggesting that the quasi-periodicity of sine-wave speech needs to be adequately eliminated by a noise-vocoder to show a significant difference in identification.

일본어와 한국어의 약어의 유형에 관한 대조연구

This study analyzes types of abbreviations in new words in Japanese and Korean. abbreviation types in the previous study (Type I [Alphabet Initial Type], Type II [Chinese Pronunciation Change Type], Type III [Shape abbreviation Type], Type IV [Combination Type], Type V [Independence Type]) were adopted for an analysis method with newly added Type VI [Phoneme Shortening Type]. Representative types of abbreviation in Japanese and Korean were [IIIIII], [prototypeIII] and [IIIprototype] and these occupy over 50% of target words. Type III is a dominant abbreviation type of new words. This indicates that there are a lot of abbreviation hybrid words formed with foreign words. Especially, in Type III, the omission of the rest was most frequent in Japanese while the form change depending on the location predominated in Korean. The second dominant type was Type IV, which indicates the ellipsis of Chinese words, in both Japanese and Korean. Types II and VI which indicate characteristics of Japanese and Korean, respectively, have an extremely low portion of Japanese and Korean new words. The scholarly contribution of this study is to give a comparison of types of new word abbreviations in Japanese and Korean.

Sociolinguistic Consideration on Use of the Japanese Word ‘Omakase’ in Korea: Focusing on Newspaper Articles

Sociolinguistic Consideration on Use of the Japanese Word ‘Omakase’ in Korea: Focusing on Newspaper Articles

日本語の主題構文「X₁は、X₂が、Yだ。」に関する一考察 - 無題化文における韓国語との比較･対照を中心に -

This study focuses on “untitled sentences” in both Japanese and Korean. This research is based on “象は鼻が長いZō wa hana ga nagai, in “the elephant has a long nose” in Mikami's (1960) influential grammar book. In it, Mikami (1960) says that there is no Japanese word for the ‘subject’. Additionally in the expression ‘象の’ Zō no, elephant's’ in ‘the elephant's trunk is long’ is the subject of ‘象は鼻が長いZō wa hana ga nagai,. When ‘鼻が Hana ga is used then ‘the nose’ becomes the subject, it becomes ‘象の鼻は長い(Zō no hana wa nagai)’. However, if ‘象は鼻が長いZō wa hana ga nagai, is used and ‘코끼리는 코가 길다 Kokkilineun koga gilda, in the Elephant has a long nose’ and have ‘topic syntax’ elements (in Japanese and Korean) and are untitled, they then become ‘象の鼻が長い(Zō no hana ga nagai)’ and ‘코끼리가 코가 길다(Kokkiliga koga gilda)’. Therefore, in this study, we examined why these differences can be seen in ‘untitled sentences’ between Japanese and Korean. As a result, ‘no’ in Japanese has a ‘provisional subject’ function in addition to the ‘ownership/affiliation’ function, whereas ‘ui’ in Korean has only a particle, that has no substantial meaning and aids another word, so the ‘double subject’ is considered to be recognized. From these points of view, it is speculated that there may be differences in the main sentence that make the topic untitled sentences between Japanese and Korean. In the future, clearer definitions of “nominative /subject /topic /double nominative object /double subject /provisional subject /‘no’ of case” etc. are required in both Japanese and Korean.

Sociolinguistic Consideration on Use of the Japanese Word ‘Omakase’ in Korea: Focusing on Newspaper Articles

Sociolinguistic Consideration on Use of the Japanese Word ‘Omakase’ in Korea: Focusing on Newspaper Articles

An analysis of written English: assessing characteristics of English writing by Japanese university students through perspectives of World Englishes and English as a lingua franca

Abstract This paper investigates distinct characteristics of written English by Japanese L1 (first language) speakers of English and compares them with common features of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Utilizing categories drawn from the literature, I have analyzed 92 writing samples by Japanese university students in order to assess whether there are any distinct characteristics shared among L1 Japanese speakers of English, particularly as to (i) lexico-grammar, (ii) lexis, (iii) semantics, and (iv) pragmatics. I have then examined whether there is any overlap between Japanese characteristics and ELF. The phenomenon of extending a sense of the original English word in Japanese and of then using the extended sense in English has supplied evidence of L1 seeping into L2 (second language) English use. In addition, the use of certain expressions has been found to be tightly connected with the Japanese language and culture (e.g., ‘study society’) in this study. This study has also shown a clear overlap between the writing of Japanese university students and common ELF properties and features, including extra use and regularization – in particular, the extra use of the particle and the pluralization of uncountable nouns – and explicitness and neutrality in word choice.

Overview of 5S Housekeeping Implementation in Covid-19 Buildings in University General Hospital of Malang

Housekeeping is necessary in the workplace, especially in healthcare facilities. Housekeeping involves several aspects such as 5S. 5S is a systematic technique used by organizations that comes from five Japanese words: Seiri (sort), Seiton (set in order), Seiso (shine), Seiketsu (standardize), and Shitsuke (sustain). A comfortable working environment will improve the efficiency, productivity, quality and safety. This study aimed to describe and evaluate the application of 5S in the Covid-19 infectious installation at a hospital in Malang, especially in the patient care rooms in the intensive care unit, the operation rooms, and the patient care ward. This study used observational and descriptive approaches with a cross-sectional design. The sample included authorized officers in each area. According to the findings, the implementation of 5S in the Covid-19 infectious installation needs to be increased, become the priority, and be supported by top-level management. However, it is recommended that a longitudinal study be conducted to investigate whether there are long-term benefits attained from 5S implementation in the Covid-19 infectious installation.
 Keywords: housekeeping, 5S, Covid-19 and infectious installation

Numerical investigation of effects of tongue articulation and velopharyngeal closure on the production of sibilant [s

A numerical simulation of sibilant /s/ production with the realistically moving vocal tract was conducted to investigate the flow and acoustic characteristics during the articulation process of velopharyngeal closure and tongue movement. The articulation process was simulated from the end of /u/ to the middle of /s/ in the Japanese word /usui/, including the tongue elevation and the velopharyngeal valve closure. The time-dependent vocal tract geometry was reconstructed from the computed tomography scan. The moving immersed boundary method with the hierarchical structure grid was adopted to approach the complex geometry of the human speech organs. The acoustic characteristics during the co-articulation process were observed and consistent with the acoustic measurement for the subject of the scan. The further simulations with the different closing speeds of the velopharyngeal closure showed that the far-field sound during the co-articulation process was amplified with the slower closing case, and the velum closure speed was inverse proportional to the sound amplitude with the slope value of − 35.3 dB s/m. This indicates possible phonation of indistinguishable aeroacoustics sound between /u/ and /s/ with slower velopharyngeal closure.

Detection of deviance in Japanese kanji compound words.

Reading fluency is based on the automatic visual recognition of words. As a manifestation of the automatic processing of words, an automatic deviance detection of visual word stimuli can be observed in the early stages of visual recognition. To clarify whether this phenomenon occurs with Japanese kanji compounds—since their lexicality is related to semantic association—we investigated the brain response by utilizing three types of deviants: differences in font type, lexically correct or incorrect Japanese kanji compound words and pseudo-kanji characters modified from correct and incorrect compounds. We employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate the spatiotemporal profiles of the related brain regions. The study included 22 adult native Japanese speakers (16 females). The abovementioned three kinds of stimuli containing 20% deviants were presented during the MEG measurement. Activity in the occipital pole region of the brain was observed upon the detection of font-type deviance within 250 ms of stimulus onset. Although no significant activity upon detecting lexically correct/incorrect kanji compounds or pseudo-kanji character deviations was observed, the activity in the posterior transverse region of the collateral sulcus (pCoS)—which is a fusiform neighboring area—was larger when detecting lexically correct kanji compounds than when detecting pseudo-kanji characters. Taken together, these results support the notion that the automatic detection of deviance in kanji compounds may be limited to a low-level feature, such as the stimulus stroke thickness.

Autonomy in Japan: What does it Look Like?

This paper analysed the nature of autonomy, in particular respect for autonomy in medical ethics/bioethics in Japan. We have undertaken a literature survey in Japanese and English and begin with the historical background and explanation of the Japanese word Jiritsu (autonomy). We go on to identify patterns of meaning that researchers use in medical ethics / bioethics discussions in Japan, namely, Beauchamp and Childress’s individual autonomy, relational autonomy, and O’Neill’s principled autonomy as the three major ways that autonomy is understood. We examine papers discussing these interpretations. We propose using the term ‘a form of autonomy’ first used by Edmund Pellegrino in 1992 and examine the nature of ‘a form of autonomy.’ We finally conclude that the crux of what Pellegrino calls ‘something close to autonomy,’ or ‘a form of autonomy' might best be understood as the minimization of physician paternalism and the maximization of respect for patient preference. Simultaneously, we introduce a family-facilitated approach to informed consent and respond to criticism by Laura Sullivan. Finally, we discuss cross-cultural approaches and global bioethics. Furthermore, we use the term ‘Bioethics across the Globe’ instead of ‘Global Bioethics’, calling for international scholars to write works to provide an in-depth understanding of each country. We conclude that deep understanding of others is pivotal for dialogue to be of value. We hope this article will deepen the reader’s understanding of Japan and will contribute to the progress of bioethics worldwide.

Interaction of lexical strata in hybrid compound words through gradient phonotactics

We analyse hybrid compound words in Japanese, where a hybrid compound is one formed from stems that belong to more than one lexical stratum. In native-foreign compounds, where one stem belongs to one of the three native strata: Yamato, Sino Japanese and mimetic, as identified by Itô and Mester (1995), and the other to the foreign stratum, we observe that violations of phonological wellformedness constraints in the foreign stem are significantly less probable than in pure foreign words. These observations are explainable through gradient phonotactic probability, where the probability of a phoneme is determined by the whole sequence of phonemes that precedes it. We shall argue that this observed phonotactic behaviour of hybrid compounds is best explained by the hypothesis that both lexical strata distinctions and phonotactics are graded rather than categorical.

Perception of noise-vocoded sine-wave speech of Japanese pitch-accent words

The present study examined whether the identification accuracy of Japanese pitch-accent words increased after the sine-wave speech underwent noise vocoding, which eliminates the quasi-periodicity of the sine-wave speech. The results demonstrated that Japanese listeners were better at discriminating sine-wave speech than noise-vocoded sine-wave speech, with no significant difference in identification between the two conditions. They identify sine-wave pitch-accent words to some extent using acoustic cues other than the pitch accent. The noise vocoder used in the present study might not have been substantially effective for Japanese listeners to show a significant difference in the identification between the two conditions.

A Practical Guide to the Kaizen Approach as a Quality Improvement Tool.

A Practical Guide to the Kaizen Approach as a Quality Improvement Tool.

Integral Studies and Integral Practices for Humanity and Nature

Humanity is facing a crisis of survival. In order to save humanity and nature, we must rebuild their foundations. This paper proposes integral studies and integral practices as a possible new paradigm for the 21st century. First, we investigated the necessity of integral studies and integral practices, which were suggested by the following three evidences: (1) limitations of the Spiritual Revolution and modern philosophy, (2) limitations of the Scientific Revolution and modern science, and (3) contemporary practical problems that threaten the future of humanity and nature. Second, we investigated the purpose and the principle of integral studies and integral practices from a viewpoint of the nature of both human beings and universe. One of the fundamental questions for humanity is how to overcome the egoism of individuals as well as the entire human race. In this avenue, we think the first step is to transcend toraware, which is a Japanese word meaning both “states of being caught” and “what catches us”. The state of being caught manifests itself when the ego emerges while we begin to distinguish between the self and others. Therefore, integrity and intrinsic nature become principles of integral studies and integral practices. Consequently, integral studies and integral practices serve for the sake of nature including humanity. Third, we discussed the methodology of integral studies and integral practices. We argue its core is integral exploration and reframing of the self and others, ourselves and the world (universe), and humanity and nature. It consequently reveals integrity and harmonizes intellect, emotion, and volition as well as goodness, truth, and beauty while revealing integrity and opening up or unfolding the intrinsic nature of the individual and the collective. Finally, we addressed limitations and future agendas of integral studies and integral practices. We suggest it is essential to raise and discuss fundamental questions on humanity and nature as well as to elucidate the truly unknown, which cannot be understood within existing frameworks. However, whether it is correct or not will come to be verified over time. No one in the history of humanity has ever attained universal truth, which is absolutely true in light of absolute criteria that are not relativized by differences in space, time, or people, or which is absolutely true even without referring to any criteria. Therefore, it is necessary for each of us to discern what is right and maintain a critical gaze.

Rural Easy Japanese as a Method of Mitigating Language Barriers Among Foreigners Seeking Medical Care in Rural Japan.

Mitigating difficulties in communication is vital in multicultural societies. Particularly, foreigners face greater communication difficulties because of language barriers, posing a challenge to both themselves and indigenous people. In Japan, the increase in the number of foreigners has driven the use of Easy Japanese, a free online program of Japanese language lessons. Easy Japanese can facilitate communication between medical professionals and foreigners. Easy Japanese is mainly characterized by short sentences, an upfront conclusion, and avoiding polite Japanese words when collaborating with translators. This communication method should prevail not only in urban areas but also in rural areas, and can help individuals in rural contexts prepare for an increase in the number of foreigners.

韓国語･日本語における感覚擬態語の 用言・体言的用法に関する考察 ｰ かたさ･やわらかさを表す擬態語を中心に ｰ

This research refers to the declinable and substantive usage of mimetic words about hardness and softness which represent a tactile sense between Korean and Japanese. As a result of the study, the typical form of the Japanese declinable usage was <mimetic word +da>. Among the usage of suffixes, such as <suru, tsuku, meku>, there were not remarkable usage except <suru> among the mimetic words of hardness and softeness. In addition, it is also found that Japanese mimetic words are unique parts that do not match any part of the word, which combines the nature of nouns and the nature of adjectives at the same time, and also can be changed to verbs by conjunction with <suru>. Therefore, the change of the part is one of the big characteristics of the mimetic words in Japanese. The number obtained from the results of the study shows that the substantive usage also occupies a very important position in both languages. In Japanese, <mimetic word +(no)+noun> is possible from the noun attribute of mimetic word, and it can be said to be the main function of the substantive usage. On the other hand, the base of mimetic words in Korean cannot take the form of <mimetic word +(ui)+noun> which supports that the Korean mimetic word does not function as noun. It is essential to combine with suffixes such as <hada>. <Suru> and <hada> play a special role in both languages so that they can not be treated like other suffixes. Especially, hada can change mimetic word to adjectives other than verbs, and play a big role in lexicalizing Korean mimetic words.

외래어 번역양상에 관한 통시적 일고찰

This paper is an attempt to discover translation tendencies and study the background or principles of word choices looking into the examples where particular words in original texts are translated into ‘loanwords’. The focus of this study was not only on Japanese-Korean translation but also on the cases in which both Korean and Japanese translations exist on the same original text. In Japanese-Korean translation, a stronger tendency was shown to elaborate the meaning of the word when a Japanese word is perceived as a ‘loanword’. When the Japanese text wrote the ‘LOANWORDS’ in katakana, a stronger tendency was to elaborate the words using Korean and Sino-Korean words over to write ‘loanwords’ as they appear in the dictionaries available in the time. In the comparison of English-Korean and English-Japanese translations, when the adoption of ‘loanwords’ and ‘LOANWORDS’ for the same word was compared, less cases were there in EnglishKorean translations. This finding can be used as a defining principle of translated texts, even when it was not based on a total investigation, for a meaningful difference is shown when a comparison is made to ‘retranslated’ texts.

Product Development using Kansei Engineering to Re-design New Food Packaging

In the era of high market competition, product development must implement excellent innovation and responsiveness toward customer needs. One of the tools that had been successfully applied to support this objective is Kansei Engineering. Kansei is a Japanese word that refers to perception, impression, and feeling. Kansei Engineering is the process to collect product information based on the psychological emotions and feelings of customers. These represent customers' general impressions and emotions towards certain products or services which are then translated into characteristic designs. In this research, the researcher uses the Kansai engineering is applied to design new packaging for West Sumatra Sanjai Chips produced by local small-medium enterprise (SME). In processing the data, the researcher carried out a sampling technique, determining the number of respondents with the number of respondents being 100 in the first stage and 15 respondents in the second stage. From the first stage, eight Kansei words were collected. Followed by the second stage which was able to classify the most significant Kansei words based on the customer opinions. It was demonstrated from the investigation that new packaging was designed. With the new design it is expected that customers will become more aware and attracted to purchase the product.

Avoiding Negative Transfer from Grammar and Culture When Teaching Chinese to Japanese Students

The purpose of this article is to explain the negative language transfer from Japanese grammar and culture. It can help teachers who are Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL teachers) to give more targeted coping strategies in teaching. In the process of learning a second language, learners usually tend to rely on their mother tongue to understand the second language, which is recognized to create a certain negative transfer of the mother tongue. In the process of teaching Chinese to the Japanese students, the Japanese students often cannot overcome broke the rule of the original mother tongue. It affects the processes of Chinese language acquisition and the way of expression. China and Japan are the only two countries in the world that use characters. There are many common Chinese words in Chinese and Japanese, so it is relatively easy for Japanese to learn Chinese, but there are also some bottlenecks. The research object of this paper is Japanese adults who are learning Chinese, from basic to intermediate and advanced levels. By comparing Chinese and Japanese grammatical structures, expressions, and cultural factors to find out the difficulties of the Japanese students to learn Chinese, then, analyze the reasons and make suggestions. This paper systematically summarizes the problems that Japanese students encounter in terms of grammar, expression habits, and culture when they are learning Chinese, but does not conduct an in-depth analysis of each point, which is hoped to pave the way for future research. Of course, the factors that affect Japanese learning Chinese are pronunciation problems and other problems, which are not covered in this article.

Philosophy of Minna and moral education: Manabi that encompasses everyone

This paper studies the theory and practice of Minna in Manabi, as the Japanese concept of learning from the perspective of moral education. The Japanese word Minna, which means “all” or “everyone,” plays an important role in Manabi. The word “Minna” is often found in textbooks used in moral education classes, and great value is placed on “thinking about everyone.” Minna, a component of Manabi, not only makes the self (the learner) nothing and selfless, but also makes it possible to enter all, everyone, and the world. This may create possibilities for inclusiveness, reciprocal harmony, hospitality, solidarity, and cooperativeness. This Manabi of “thinking about everyone” can be found in moral classes and in all aspects of learning (educational) activities in Japanese schools. Among them, in addition to being a traditional Buddhist practice dealing with Nothingness and Selflessness, Souji (cleaning time) is also very important in schools as a Japanese moral practice of “thinking about everyone.” The moral concepts developed in the West, such as democracy, community, solidarity, engagement, and citizenship, are not only realized through the establishment of the individual, self-realization, and perfection of personality, but by “thinking about everyone,” as expressed in Nothingness, Selflessness, and Minna.