non-Japanese Speakers Research Articles

Exploring early discontinuation of mental health outpatient treatment: language, demographics and clinical characteristics among migrant populations in Japan

BackgroundThe fast-growing migrant population in Japan and globally poses challenges in mental healthcare, yet research addressing migrants’ mental health treatment engagement remains limited.ObjectiveThis study examined language proficiency, demographic and clinical...

The Influence of Closeness on Japanese-English Translation

In the evolving dynamics of cross-cultural communication, understanding the biases that play a role in language translation is crucial. This research, using the Critical Incident Technique, delved into the nuances of how bilingual Japanese individuals provide translations to non-Japanese speakers, based on the relationship between the translator and the recipient. The findings reveal a notable distinction: bilingual Japanese individuals tend to offer a more positive and intricately detailed translation for non-Japanese-speaking friends as compared to non-Japanese-speaking strangers. This behavior suggests a predominant inclination among Japanese to "protect the face" of those they share closer bonds with, by casting the original message in a more positive light or providing more comprehensive translations. This observed phenomenon not only underlines a cultural aspect of Japanese communication, which prioritizes harmony and face-saving, but also indicates a willingness among Japanese speakers to invest greater effort in the translation process for their friends. The study underscores the inherent biases that can shape Japanese to English translations based on relational closeness, thereby emphasizing the importance of understanding socio-cultural contexts in cross-linguistic interactions.

Location- and Physical-Activity-Based Application for Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition for Non-Japanese Speakers

There are various mobile applications to support foreign-language learning. While providing interactive designs and playful games to keep learners interested, these applications do not focus on motivating learners to continue learning after a long time. Our goal for this study was to develop an application that guides learners to achieve small goals by creating small lessons that are related to their real-life situations, with a main focus on vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, we present MiniHongo, a smartphone application that recognizes learners’ current locations and activities to compose lessons that comprise words that are strongly related to the learners’ real-time situations and can be studied in a short time period, thereby improving user motivation. MiniHongo uses a cloud service for its database and public application programming interfaces for location tracking. A between-subject experiment was conducted to evaluate MiniHongo, which involved comparing it to two other versions of itself. One composed lessons without location recognition, and the other composed lessons without location and activity recognition. The experimental results indicate that users have a strong interest in learning Japanese with MiniHongo, and some difference was found in how well users could memorize what they learned via the application. It is also suggested that the application requires improvements.

Prince(ss) Charming of the Japanese Popular Theatre

Prince(ss) Charming of the Japanese Popular Theatre

A Study on the Comparison of Impressions of Tourist Information Signs Focusing on the Differences between National Languages in Japanese Regional Cities

From the perspective of universal design, signs should be easy to understand for all users. In Japan, tourist information signs have become increasingly multilingual in recent years as the number of tourists from other countries has increased. However, it is not clear whether the current signs are comprehensible to both Japanese and non-Japanese speakers. In this study, field and questionnaire surveys on signs were conducted in Matsue City, a regional city in Japan, and the evaluations of Japanese and non-Japanese speakers were compared. In the field survey, a caption evaluation method was used to evaluate the visual environment, and in the questionnaire survey, the SD method was used to evaluate the signs obtained in the field survey. The results indicated that non-Japanese speakers were more likely to focus on signs, and signs with diagrams and maps were evaluated more positively. In addition, the evaluation structure of signs was found to consist of four elements: “Harmonicity”, “Clarity”, “Visibility”, and “Comprehensibility”. “Harmonicity” was indicated to be as important as “Clarity” and “Visibility”. These results suggest that the replacement of text with diagrams on signs contributes to the improvement of impressions and is particularly effective for non-Japanese speakers.

Clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of extragenital endometriosis in Japan, 2018.

The aim of this publication is to disseminate the clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of intestinal, bladder/ureteral, thoracic and umbilical endometriosis, already published in Japanese, to non‐Japanese speakers. For developing the original Japanese guidelines, the clinical practice guideline committee was formed by the research team for extragenital endometriosis, which is part of the research program of intractable disease of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The clinical practice guideline committee formulated eight clinical questions for the treatment of extragenital endometriosis, which were intestinal, bladder/ureteral, thoracic and umbilical endometriosis. The committee performed a systematic review of the literature to provide responses to clinical questions and developed clinical guidelines for extragenital endometriosis, according to the process proposed by the Medical Information Network Distribution Service. The recommendation level was determined using modified Delphi methods. The clinical practice guidelines were officially approved by the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Japan Society of Endometriosis. This English version was translated from the Japanese version.

Current issues in access to care services for the elderly in Japan focusing on special permanent residents and foreign-born Japanese: A report by the Monitoring Report Committee of the Japanese Society of Public Health

Japan is currently one of the countries with a long life expectancy, in which a great number of older people need care for their daily living. Japan has become increasingly internationalized due to an increase in foreigners and international marriages. As the number of elderly foreigners and foreign-born Japanese increase, older adults who do not use Japanese as their first language will need more opportunities to receive care. We examined characteristics such as country of origin, language spoken, lifestyle, living environment, and cultural background of elderly people who were either foreign permanent residents living in Japan or foreign-born Japanese (hereinafter referred to as elderly with an international background, in short, EIB) receiving care support. Ichushi-web, a medical literature database, was used [last search date: June 2, 2018]. These searches extracted 205 papers. After the first and second extraction procedures, only two papers matched this theme. These two reports were for Korean residents in Japan, so-called special permanent residents, and repatriates from China and their spouses, many of whom were aged 75 years old and above. The number of permanent residents in Japan who speak a foreign language as their first language is increasing. Inhibition of communication between EIB and healthcare welfare service providers is expected to be an obstacle while accessing care support services. For this reason, we must provide them with information related to Japanese healthcare services. Medical interpretation efforts are scattered and the response to EIB in the event of disasters has been discussed. From the perspective of multicultural coexistence, it is necessary to provide long-term care insurance services and medical services to EIB. Such efforts may include development and sharing of tools and the placement of staff who can communicate with non-Japanese speakers. Staff must also understand various illness- and health awareness-related issues. In the future, considering the increasing number of EIB who may require care services, we must consider cultural backgrounds and language diversification for EIB. These issues require clarification and development of acceptable solutions.

A Usability Testing of a Medical Translation Application for non-Japanese Speakers

A Usability Testing of a Medical Translation Application for non-Japanese Speakers

Network structure and community evolution on Twitter: human behavior change in response to the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

To investigate the dynamics of social networks and the formation and evolution of online communities in response to extreme events, we collected three datasets from Twitter shortly before and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We find that while almost all users increased their online activity after the earthquake, Japanese speakers, who are assumed to be more directly affected by the event, expanded the network of people they interact with to a much higher degree than English speakers or the global average. By investigating the evolution of communities, we find that the behavior of joining or quitting a community is far from random: users tend to stay in their current status and are less likely to join new communities from solitary or shift to other communities from their current community. While non-Japanese speakers did not change their conversation topics significantly after the earthquake, nearly all Japanese users changed their conversations to earthquake-related content. This study builds a systematic framework for investigating human behaviors under extreme events with online social network data and our findings on the dynamics of networks and communities may provide useful insight for understanding how patterns of social interaction are influenced by extreme events.

More Japanese than the Japanese: Translations of interviews with foreigners

A striking feature in interviews of non-Japanese speakers is that the translations of the interviewees' answers use more gender markers than would currently be heard in the replies of native speakers. Sentence-final particles such as ze and zo (indicating strong assertion, and used by men), and wa and yo (indicating mild assertion and establishing an emotional connection, and used by women) are employed much more often, almost to the point of exaggeration. This paper will explore the reasons why, and the extent to which, gender in the Japanese language is magnified in the interpreted utterances of those who don't speak the language.

Social Capital Data on Japan for Non‐Japanese Speakers

Social Capital Data on Japan for Non‐Japanese Speakers

Viewer perception of visual nonverbal cues in subtitled TV Anime1

The article discusses the results of a questionnaire into viewer perception of subtitled culturally marked visual nonverbal cues in TV anime using the series (Doki-doki School Hours). Two groups of students were used for the study, one Japanese learner group, and one non-Japanese speaker group. A smaller study was also carried out using an eye-tracking monitor to gain insights into non-Japanese speakers' visual attention to visual nonverbal cues. The anime genre is one of the few forms of animation that is as often, if not more often, subtitled as dubbed. Online surveys have shown a preference among anime fans for subtitling over dubbing (Igarashi, 2007). The abundance of on-screen information adds to this genre's suitability for study into viewer perception of nonverbal cues and the effectiveness of the translation strategies used to tackle them.

Research into the problems faced by and support given to non-Japanese speakers in need of perinatal care: From an analysis of the deliveries in one hospital over a 12-year period

Research into the problems faced by and support given to non-Japanese speakers in need of perinatal care: From an analysis of the deliveries in one hospital over a 12-year period

Sources of Japanese patent information

Over the past few years Japanese patent information has become more widely available. With the development of new Internet databases and the launch of PATOLIS-e, an English-language search service, it has become easier for non-Japanese speakers to access patent information from Japan. This article provides an up-to-date assessment of the various sources now available in this key area. Both Japanese and English language sources are covered. Some sources of information on other Japanese industrial property rights are also referred to.

Japanese science and technology policy resources on the World Wide Web

A number of government and other organisations in Japan have begun to disseminate information via the Internet. The Internet (and in particular, the World Wide Web which makes it easy to use) promises to provide non-Japanese speakers with information that has not previously been easily or cheaply available. This review describes how this information can be accessed and identifies the major sources of information on Japanese science and technology policy currently available.