Japanese Language Students Participate in a Traditional Folk Dance Workshop and a Public Performance

On March 27, 2012, as part of the 2012 National Cherry Blossom Festival, a group of GW students studying Japanese participated in a workshop on a dance tradition called Daidengaku. Daidengaku literally means “great rice field rejoicing” and originates in the folk dances traditionally performed throughout rural Japan. The workshop was led by Mr. Manzo Nomura, who, as a Kyōgen master, was honored by the Japanese government as a holder of an "Important Intangible Cultural Heritage." On the following day the students danced with dancers from Japan in a public performance at Hand Chapel on Mt. Vernon Campus. Mr. Nomura and renowned actress Keiko Matsuzaka joined the dancers.


You can view the performance here:

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Ryan continues to bloom at UH

Kudos to Japanese major, Ryan Buyco, GW '10, who presented a paper entitled, "Travels in the Philippines: A Postcolonial Reading" at the 2011 School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. The theme of the conference was “Crossing Borders: Emerging Trends in Pacific and Asian Studies." Ryan received the Edward Seidensticker Award for best paper in Japanese studies.

According to Ryan:

"My paper focuses on a travelogue written in 1967 by Ōoka Shōhei, considered to be one of the most well respected writers in Japan's postwar history. During world war II, Ōoka was a soldier in the Philippines where he became a prisoner of war. This travel account documents his return back—more than twenty years after, where he goes around the Philippine countryside paying respects to his comrades that died in battle. My paper attempts to understand this text in relation to Japan's historical memory as a former colonizer."

Congratulations again!

Framing the syntax of control in Japanese

Professor Shoko Hamano published a chapter in the book Movement Theory of Control, Norbert Hornstein and Maria Polinsky, editors (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2010) . The chapter, entitled “Framing the syntax of control in Japanese (and English)” (pp. 184-210) is coauthored with Stanley Dubinsky. The following is from the book.

Natural languages offer many examples of “displacement,” i.e. constructions in which a non-local expression is critical for some grammatical end. Two central examples include phenomena such as raising and passive on the one hand, and control on the other. Though each phenomenon is an example of displacement, they have been theoretically distinguished. This paper, exploring Control properties of Japanese adverbial clauses consisting of an accusative NP and a locative PP headed by ni, supports the opposing view that the operations that generate the two constructions are the same.

Idioms, Mixed Marking, and the Base-generation Hypothesis for Ditransitives in Japanese

Assistant Professor for Teaching Takae Tsujioka has published an article in the Journal of East Asian Linguistics (20[2], 2011, pp. 117-143) called “Idioms, Mixed Marking, and the Base-generation Hypothesis for Ditransitives in Japanese”. It is her rebuttal to critiques voiced by Hideki Kishimoto, professor at Kobe University. The article is based on Professor Tsujioka's presentation at a colloquium at University of Delaware, October 29, 2010. The following is the abstract from the Journal.

This paper replies to Kishimoto’s (2008, Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17: 141–179) challenge to Miyagawa and Tsujioka (2004, Journal of East Asian Linguistics 13: 1–38) on the use of idioms as evidence for the base-generation hypothesis for Japanese ditransitives. The paper points out problems with Kishimoto’s proposal, then presents alternative analyses of Kishimoto’s data. It argues that a closer look at a wider range of data including mixed marking cases of sa-nominalization in both idiomatic and non-idiomatic contexts lends further support for Miyagawa and Tsujioka (2004).

Erin in her own words

Former Japanese Major, Erin Newton, GW '09, spent the last year in Korea teaching English but recently applied to graduate programs to study Asian Studies (I know because I wrote the letters of recommendation). Starting this Fall, Erin is a graduate student at the University of Texas. This is a recent correspondance I received from her.

"I thought I should keep you updated on what's going on here in Texas.

"I'm now a little over a month into my first semester as a grad student. I love the program and my professors, but I don't remember anyone telling me that there would be so much reading! I'm glad that I picked UT though; the Graduate School has a good reputation, and if I get my master's in Asian Studies then I can get a Ph.D. in something like history or religion. The big worry for all the grad students these days is getting a job, and apparently a Ph.D. in Asian Studies or Japanese can make that very difficult these days. Several professors have told me that it's better to go for a general Ph.D--like history or religion--because it's a more general field. I don't know if you have any thoughts on this; it definitely wasn't something I had really considered before coming here.

Last weekend I went to my first conference. Not to present anything but to listen to the presentations of the second-year grad students and to sort of see what they were like. It was pretty small, but all the presentations were pretty impressive. I can't imagine what it will be like presenting though. I feel so far away from picking a thesis topic, and even though I know that I only have a few years in the program, compared to undergraduate, that feels so short!"

October 6, 2011

Good luck, Erin. Initial presentations are alwyas a bit daunting, but I'm sure you'll do great when your time comes. Good research leads to great presentation and great publications. Hook 'em Horns! (I can't believe I just wrote that... after the whoopin' their football team gave my alma mater, UCLA, last month.)