The 2001 ATJ Seminar took place in Chicago on Thursday, March 22. Several hundred members and others attended nine sessions throughout the day, hearing presentations on linguistics, literature, language pedagogy, and second language acquisition. Below are reprinted abstracts of many of the individual presentations, ordered alphabetically by the names of the presenters.

"Japanese Language Teaching and the Internet: Authentic Information without Information Overload"
Christopher Bolton (University of California, Riverside)

The Internet offers a wealth of interesting, real-world material for Japanese language teaching. Unfortunately, the problem of information overload that attaches to all authentic, unprepared readings is magnified on the Japanese World Wide Web, where students are presented with a bewildering amount of text in difficult formats and in a shifting context that is often overwhelming. This presentation described an Internet-based unit which has been used for the last three years in the third-year Japanese class at UC Riverside, with the goal of helping students to overcome this feeling of information overload and to extract the information they need from on-line texts. Students can then transfer these skills off-line, to the task of understanding unprepared print materials.

In this unit, students master the techniques and the technology needed to use the Internet through a series of tasks that gradually increase in difficulty. A web-centered reading component based on the metaphor of a treasure hunt asks them to find specific pieces of information scattered across a range of Japanese web sites. In the process, students practice using web-based reading tools, develop skimming and scanning techniques, and learn to look for cues (visual, textual, or even aural for multimedia content) that allow them to thread their way through progressively more complex sites. In a separate email-based component, students trade email messages with a Japanese pen-pal to practice complementary skills, including text entry, writing, close reading, and communicative skills. Further information about the unit and the presentation is available at http://faculty.ucr.edu/~bolton/atj.

"Japanese Language across the Curriculum: A Pilot Study"
Masako O. Douglas (University of California, Los Angeles), Masako Tamanaha (University of California, Los Angeles), Shoichi Iwasaki (University of California, Los Angeles)

Foreign language curriculum in higher education traditionally has been separated from other academic subject matter. Because of this unfortunate situation, students completely lack opportunities to utilize the language beyond the required language courses. This prevents maintenance of linguistics skills and cultural and strategic knowledge acquired through several years of language training and hinders in developing language competence further. In Lambert's words (1991), "We expend almost all of our national resources for foreign language learning on first-time, low-level language learning among high school and college students, then watch those minimal skills decay and disappear through lack of use or reinforcement."¹

"Foreign Language Across the Curriculum" is an innovative model to remedy this problem. During spring quarter 1999, an upper-division elective course at UCLA, "Introduction to Japanese Linguistics," used this teaching model. A group of volunteer students enrolled in this class spent extra class hours reading additional authentic texts in Japanese that covered the same contents as the main course materials in English. This approach provides students with opportunities to apply their linguistic, strategic and cultural knowledge in the real academic context and thus helps them further develop Japanese language competency, especially in the area of reading comprehension.

This report presents a rationale for utilizing this approach, strategies for designing and implementing the curriculum, computer-aided instruction, a summative evaluation of the course, the feasibility of implementing this type of curriculum in the environment of a four-year university such as UCLA, and the potential for utilizing this approach in other disciplines and languages.

¹ Lambert, R.D. 1991. A national plan for a use-oriented foreign language system (NFLC Position Paper on Foreign Language Policy No.2). Washington, DC: National Foreign Language Center.

"Individualized Learning: A Course for Japanese Heritage Learners at a College Level"
Masako O. Douglas (University of California, Los Angeles)

My presentation introduces an individualized curriculum for teaching Japanese heritage learners at the University of California, Los Angeles, utilizing computer technology as a main focus of the course. Goals: 1) learners individually strengthen their underdeveloped language competence, which includes but is not limited to kanji knowledge and formal-level language competence in both speaking and writing; 2) learners acquire procedural knowledge (i.e., how to learn) and factual knowledge (i.e., what to learn) and utilize these to continue learning Japanese by themselves after completion of formal instruction.

The presentation consists of five parts: 1) Overview of the curriculum, 2) How to use the Internet as an instructional resource, 3) Using a computer software program for individualized learning of vocabulary and kanji, 4) Assessment of learners' progress, 5) Measurement of the effectiveness of the curriculum.

In order to measure effectiveness, pre- and post-assessments of kanji ability were administered. All learners increased their knowledge of kanji over ten weeks. The increase in the post-test scores was statistically significant. The quarter-end survey indicates that the learners succeeded in finding their own way of learning kanji and planned to continue to use this method after the course was completed. The follow-up study shows that four out of five learners are learning Japanese in their own way.

"Subjects and Topics with No Particles"
Mutsuko Endo Hudson (Michigan State University), Junko Kondo (Columbia University)

Much attention has been paid recently to particleless subjects and topics (e.g., Maruyama 1996, Onoe 1996). Unlike those with wa and ga, they are neutral in topicality, contrastiveness, and exhaustiveness. Sentences like Ore suki yanen are "a direct expression of the speaker's internal feeling," and no particle can be supplied to the subject (Shibatani 1990). The present study analyzes -ø, wa/ga- and tte-marked phrases in Schiffrin's (1987) framework, adopting Kamio's (1990) theory of "territory of information": ø marks information close to the speaker, wa/ga information less close, and tte even less close. Also, speakers present emotions and evaluations directly with ø, less directly with wa/ga, and even less directly with tte, or in an analytical manner. Here, principles of "iconicity" (Haiman 1985) seem to be at work; the closer the link of the phrase to its predicate and the stronger the expressive force of emotions and evaluations, the shorter the marker. Suzuki's (1995) observation that major discourse boundaries are marked by topic-wa and minor ones by topic-ø may also be related to this. As for the ø-marked phrases for which it is possible to supply particles, an interactive principle, "social packaging of one's speech" (Maynard 1989), may sometimes be responsible for the absence of particles: not to sound pushy (e.g., Watashi ø (vs. ga) yarimasu) or rude (Kore-ø (vs. wa) joozu desu). It is thus important to consider what is implicit in a sentence, as well as what is explicitly expressed, in order to fully understand a linguistic phenomenon such as this one.

"Japanese Language Learners' Perception of Error Correction"
Noriko Fujioka-Ito (University of Cincinnati)

There have been few studies seeking appropriate error correction methods as related to learners' characteristics. However, learners' perception of error correction during oral activities in the classroom is influenced by both social and individual factors. In this study, therefore, self-report data consisting of learners' demographic information, attitudes toward error correction, learning styles measured by the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scales (1975/1989/ 1994), and epistemological beliefs found by Schommer's questionnaire (1989/1998) were statistically analyzed. Ninety-nine percent of 215 students enrolled in all levels of Japanese language courses at eight universities self-reported positive attitudes toward error correction. Two conclusions were generated based on the results of this study. First, the relationship between learners' factors about learning and learners' perception of error correction can be explained by using questionnaires that are constructed from social and individual perspectives. Second, the degree of dependence of learning style characteristics on class structure influences learners' attitudes toward error correction, whereas that of epistemological beliefs does not affect them. The results of this study provide teachers with initial guidance as to which error correction method could be used for each learning style and belief.

"The Role of Morphology in Classifying Japanese Adjectives"
Miho Fujiwara (Willamette University)

This paper examines the role of morphology and its acquisition in classifying two classes of Japanese adjectives. Japanese has two types of adjectives, each having its own inflectional paradigm. For a given adjective, Japanese speakers need to know which class it belongs to in order to use the appropriate inflectional suffix. The experiment was designed to identify how children determine the class of a given adjective. Fifty-seven children (4;3-6;3) and thirty-two adults participated in the elicitation task experiment. The participants were asked to instruct a puppet in providing the past tense form of a given adjective (both real and made-up adjectives), which they heard in their nonpast form. The results indicate that children did not utilize morphological information as effectively as adults did in order to predict the class of a given made-up adjective and that they consequently resorted to using default suffixes. Interestingly, some children's default suffix was different from that of the adults. The data also indicate that two-thirds of the children did not associate a real adjective root with its class membership strongly enough to inflect it correctly when a root was presented with a suffix with the conflicting membership information.

"'Prospective Indexicals' in Japanese Conversation: On the Use of Distal Demonstratives as a Resource for Collaborative Action During Word Searches"
Makoto Hayashi (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Using the methodology of Conversation Analysis, this study examines word-search strategies used by native Japanese speakers in everyday conversations. It focuses particularly on one linguistic practice often employed by Japanese speakers during word searches, i.e., the use of distal demonstratives, such as "are," "asoko," etc. The study demonstrates that such distal demonstratives serve as "prospective indexicals" (Goodwin 1996) and provide a resource for both the speaker and hearers to collaboratively solve word searches. Explicating strategies for successful word searches used by native speakers is significant for second language acquisition and pedagogy, because the acquisition of native-like "compensatory strategies" to overcome difficulties in language production in conversation is vital for second language learners in the development of their communicative skills. From a pedagogical point of view, it is important to incorporate the teaching of such strategies in classroom instruction to enhance learners' communicative competence.

"East and West, Modern and Traditional: Okamoto Kanoko and Her Pursuit of Japanese Modernism in Prose Fiction"
Junko Ikezu Williams (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

East and West, Modern and Traditional these terms are frequently discussed in the context of Japanese literary modernism. Despite an initial impression of incompatibility, both the Japanese literary elements and the Western ideas of modernism aggressively merge and become an inevitable bone in Japanese modernism. Or, more precisely, Japanese literary modernism was inspired by the Western model and was established in the process of discovering, or rediscovering, traditional Japanese literary elements. The pursuit of modernist literature urges writers to be aware that traditional Japanese literary elements are deeply related to the cultural wellspring of Japanese thoughts, language, and narrative styles that they want to explore. Okamoto Kanoko (1889-1939) is a Japanese modernist novelist who is particularly significant in this context. Although she is not generally considered to be a modernist writer, her prose fiction presents significant characteristics of Japanese literary modernism through a mixture of Japanese elements and Western ideas. For example, in her novels she uses the tanka-inspired writing style in order to distinguish literature from other art forms, such as painting and film. Also, her tanka style of writing is used to demonstrate that reality is constructed by an individual psyche. In addition, the Buddhist world view turns into a modernist issue of the liberation from civilization. As a result, her works constantly have layers of double image, double reference, and double meaning of tradition and modernity, East and West, Buddhism and the passion/reason contrast, and narcissistic subjectivity and psychoanalytical objectivity. They become examples of Japanese literary modernism.

"Evaluating Performance: The Oral Interview Test at Washington University"
Masayuki Itomitsu (Washington University in St. Louis)

The Oral Interview Test at Washington University is one of many assessment tools used in our language program. Quizzes, homework assignments, written examinations, and daily grading are also used to assess students' performance. The Oral Interview Test plays a crucial role throughout the program, for it provides an opportunity for learners to demonstrate how well they can communicate in Japanese, using the knowledge and skills they have gained in the classroom. It also offers an opportunity for the instructors to evaluate the learner's progress throughout the curriculum and ultimately to evaluate the effectiveness and success of the program itself (Walker and McGinnis, p. 7; p. 12). My presentation use the example of an Oral Interview Test conducted in the Washington University Japanese language program to comment on its format, design, and procedure and to compare it to the ACTFL's Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). The Oral Interview Test as an important assessment tool in a language program. The testing format should closely match the program's goals in order to ensure validity of the assessment. The Oral Interview Test is a concrete example of how a valid assessment can be achieved. A sample of a student's performance on an Oral Interview Test was included.

"A Diachronic Account of Synchronic Behavior of Japanese Coordinative Particles"
Kaori Kabata (University of Alberta)

One of the characteristics of Japanese lies in the variety of heiretsu joshi, or coordinative particles. In particular, the three particles, TO, YA, and NI, the focus of the present study, appear to be syntactically very similar in that they all conjoin two or more noun phrases. Yet they exhibit semantic differences when closely examined. Text data indicate that TO is used for an exhaustive and symmetrical listing, while YA is used for a nonexhaustive listing of equivalent set members, thus often accompanied by nado. NI is generally used to conjoin more than two noun phrases asymmetrically, and with the final noun phrases often followed by made. These synchronic semantic differences are attributable to the grammaticalization paths that they have individually undergone through their semantic developments. Circumstantial and cross-linguistics data, as well as historical data, when available, were obtained and analyzed. The data indicate that the coordinative functions of the three particles reflect the semantic characteristics of more basic functions from which they have developed. The non-exhastiveness of YA-coordination can be interpreted as a reflection of its interjectional function and the asymmetry of NI-coordination as reflecting its spatial directional function. TO's coordinative function is interpreted as a semantic extension from its comitative function. I claim that the result from this study provides supporting evidence for a "panchronic" approach to lexical semantics that rejects the traditional dichotomy between synchrony and diachrony.

"Implementation and Evaluation of a Japanese Language Tutorial System for Reading Using Information Technology"
Yoshiko Kawamura (Tokyo International University) kawamura@tiu.ac.jp

This study presents an Internet-based reading tutorial system and also shows how to make good use of this system in a Japanese language class. The Japanese Language Reading Tutorial System, Reading Tutor, makes use of Internet sources as study materials for JFL/JSL (Japanese as a foreign/second language) learners. The components include: 1. The Dictionary Tool (Kawamura and Kitamura 1998), a dictionary-linked system, which automatically shows the reading of each kanji or kanji-combination and the meaning of each word in a text. 2. The Level Checker (Kawamura 1998), a computer software program developed to estimate the level of difficulty of Japanese reading materials according to the Japanese Proficiency Exam levels. 3. The Reading Materials Bank contains over 350 texts that are already processed with the Diciontary Tool. It is geared towards intermediate learners, for whom good learning materials on the Internet are less available.

The various components of this system have been integrated to allow JFL/JSL learners to use Internet sources for study purposes in a more systematic way. The system also has a learning process management function. It records every word accessed to the dictionary (i.e., clicked by the learner) and shows the record to the learner after s/he finishes reading. This function is effective in the acquisition of vocabulary. It is the purpose of this integrated system to allow the learner more choices in the selection of materials and more autonomy in setting his/her own learning goals. This system is available to the public over the Internet at http://language.tiu.ac.jp. The class report using this system is also available at http://language.tiu.ac.jp/viennadiary/index.html.

"A FACETS Analysis of Rater Factors in Measuring Japanese L2 Writing Performance"
Kimi Kondo-Brown (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

The reliability of ratings is one of the major issues in performance-based testing. Multifaceted Rasch measurement, which can be performed by a computer program such as FACETS, is one of the most promising developments in investigating rater factors in PBT. In assessing the performance of Japanese L2 compositions, there is no established rating scale that demonstrates high reliability and validity. Therefore, a translated or modified version of Jacobs et al.'s (1981) writing profile has been used in research to measure Japanese L1/L2 composition quality at the university level. Using FACETS, the present study investigates rater factors (i.e., self-consistency, severity or toughness of scoring, and rater-candidate and rater-scoring category interactions) in assessing Japanese L2 compositions with a modified version of Jacobs et al.'s writing profile, which is called "Japanese composition scoring sheet (JCSS)." 234 university students and three trained teacher raters from similar professional backgrounds participated in the study. It was found that, although raters could produce highly correlated scores and be self-consistent, significant differences in severity existed. It was also found that all raters had their own bias patterns towards certain students and scoring categories, suggesting that a rater's severity patterns can be very complicated. Thus, JCSS can be a reliable tool in assessing Japanese L2 writing in norm-referenced settings, but multiple ratings are still necessary to determine the best estimate of each student's performance.

"Teaching Authentic Japanese: the Case of Particle o"
Kiri Lee (Lehigh University)

Japanese language instruction has put more emphasis on oral/aural skills and teaching authentic Japanese in recent years. For that reason, I feel that it is time to seriously reevaluate how we introduce the use of the particle o in conversational Japanese. I have been examining naturally occurring utterances in terms of non-marking and marking of NPs with the particle o, and I have observed that the particle o is often dropped in informal or semi-formal conversation. When an NP is marked with o, it is often the case that the utterance does not have the same interpretation as an utterance without the particle o. My presentation used data taken from naturally occuring conversation to show how Japanese speakers use NPs with or without the particle o and identified two functional properties of the particle o besides marking an NP as a direct object: 1) to put a focus on the object NP in an exhaustive manner, and 2) to emphasize the descriptive explanatory nature of the utterance. Based on these findings, I am claiming that in conversational Japanese the object NP can appear without the particle o, unless the speaker intends to assign an exhaustive listing or a descriptive interpretation to it. Thus, non-marking of an object NP is an optional discourse operation. However, this optionality gradates depending on speech level, so that non-marking of an object NP is almost obligatory in informal speech and is often not an option in formal speech.

"Developing a Web-based Language Proficiency Test for College-level Learners of Japanese. Purpose and Research Agenda"
Sachiko Matsunaga (California State University, Los Angeles); Yukio Kataoka (Kapiolani Community College)

In this presentation, we described the purpose of, and the research agenda on, the web-based language proficiency test that we developed at the National Foreign Language Resource Center Summer Institute held at the University of Hawaii in June 2000. The test presented here is specifically designed for making placement decisions for those who have completed two years (approximately 220 hours) of college-level Japanese language instruction in the United States and who intend to transfer to another American institution to pursue further studies in the Japanese language. The proficiency-based approach of this test (based on the ACTFL Guidelines) is expected to facilitate articulation among Japanese language programs in the United States. In order to fulfill this expectation, the validity of the test needs to be assured in terms of its content, construct, assessment-criterion relationship, consequences, and usability. We spelled out specific research plans under each category in response to this necessity.

"The Other Side of Eroticism: 'Lover of Love,' by Hagiwara Sakutaro"
Ken-ichi Miura (University of Wisconsin-Madison/Harvard University)

Hagiwara Sakutaro's first collection of poems, Howling at the Moon, achieved great acclaim. The language, image, and content in the collection broke the boundary of traditionally established esthetics. However, upon its publication in 1917, the poem "Koi o koi suru hito" (Lover of Love) was censored because of its controversial content, namely, male-to-female cross-dressing. (The poem was included in the second printing of the collection in 1922.) In her book Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing & Cultural Anxiety, Marjorie Garber states that one of the most important aspects of cross-dressing is challenging the easy notions of binarity: "male" and "female." Male-to-female cross-dressers, like kabuki actors, demonstrate their mimetic power to create transcendent womanhood, yet they do not settle in the "female" side by being always aware of their "maleness." Hagiwara's narrator in "Lover of Love" certainly shares these characteristics. The poem possesses a complex structure in which the sequence of the narrator's dressing as a woman becomes ambiguous. Assisted by this structure, the eroticism of cross-dressing is achieved. To borrow Garber's expression, it is "difference that is erotic; difference within sameness, a difference discerned, described, achieved rather than given." Thus, "Lover of Love," which probes this neglected aspect in the history of Japanese poetry, is one of the most important poems in the epoch-making collection, and with its inclusion in the collection in 1922, Howling at the Moon was completed.

"Implementation and Evaluation of a Testing System for Listening and Speaking Skills of Japanese Using Information Technology"
Jouji Miwa (Iwate University)

LESSON/J (Japanese Language Education System for Speech on an On-demand Network) is designed to enhance listening and pronunciation skills and uses information technology such as Java and relational databases. It is a CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) system delivered over the Internet for distance learning, called E-Learning. The system is web-based, and learners can use it at their convenience. It is programmed with Java and is operating-system-independent. In face-to-face classes, learners may feel shy or intimidated practicing pronunciation or listening, but they may feel more comfortable and confident doing so in E-Learning. The Japanese listening materials are syllables, words, sentences, consonant pairs, special morae and word accents. In the sentence module, it is possible to select one of 16 different speaking rates, and dictation errors such as substitutions, additions, and insertions are automatically detected through dynamic programming. In the pronunciation module, speech signals uttered by learners are automatically analyzed and evaluated. For special morae, the score is calculated as ability of pronunciation skill. For word accents, a type of accent is decided, such as 0, 1, 2 and so on. This information is useful for learners in achieving improvement. Learners' scores and materials for listening and pronunciation are managed by a relational database. This will allow the system to keep track of the learner's weak points. The system is also easy to use by teachers for class implementation. http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/sp/lesson/j/.

"Does the JSL Environment Have an Advantage Over the JFL Environment? A Case of Acquisition of Backchannels"
Sachie Miyazaki (Michigan State University)

Backchannels, or aizuchi, occur more frequently in conversation in Japanese than in English (Clancy et al. 1996). Previous research has focused on backchannels used by native speakers (NS) of Japanese (Mizutani 1984; Maynard 1989) or non-native speakers (NNS) in the JSL environment (e.g., Horiguchi 1997). Relatively few studies have examined the use of backchannels (BCs) by NNSs in the JFL environment. Based on natural conversation data between NSs and NNSs of both types, the present study investigates how NSs and JSL and JFL learners use BCs. The results show that there is no significant difference in the use of BCs among the three groups in terms of their types, frequency, and context (e.g., after pauses and sentence-final particles). For example, the five most frequently used BCs by the three groups are un, repetition, soo, hai, and aa. BCs used by NSs and NNSs (both JSL and JFL) do not differ in frequency, which is obtained by the number of BCs per bunsetsu (minimal phrasal unit). The difference is the variation in actual forms within each type; e.g., 12 forms of the soo-type by JSL learners vs. only 2 forms by JFL learners. Although NNSs in the JFL environment display native-like behavior in terms of overall frequency and contexts of BCs, the lack of authentic input and interaction results in less variation and consequently less authentic performance.

"Impact of Second Language Acquisition Research on Japanese Pedagogy"
Mariko Moroishi (Purdue University)

Second language acquisition (SLA, henceforth) research has been motivated by the purpose to further develop language pedagogy (Ellis, 1997). Much of the SLA research has been carried out by researchers who are deeply interested in teaching practice, because many of them were language teachers at one time (Pica 1994). Despite advances in classroom SLA research, however, language teaching has not yet fully benefited from research-derived suggestions for second language instruction (Odlin, 1994). Pedagogy may not make significant advances beyond those already seen until more language educators become convinced of the importance of SLA research and until they find ways to employ it to the development of language pedagogy more effectively. For this reason, it is important that researchers continue to investigate effects of instruction on SLA and to make practical recommendations for teaching based on their findings, in a manner that is easy for classroom instructors to apply. Current SLA research on the effectiveness of second language instruction for enhanced language learning is reviewed and its impact on Japanese pedagogy discussed.

"Losing Heritage Language While Learning Japanese: Portuguese-speaking Children in Japanese Schools"
Kazuko Nakajima & Rosana Nunes (University of Toronto)

Recent studies on bilingualism and biculturalism indicate that a child's L1 or heritage language plays a vital role in the education of immigrant or minority-language children, because the strong L1 promotion lays a foundation for their continued cognitive development as well as for their character and identity formation (Cummins 1997; Hammers & Blanc 1994; Wong Fillmore 1991). As part of a large-scale study conducted by the National Language Research Institute in Tokyo, Japan, on language development of minority-language children in Japanese schools, the presenters analyzed oral samples (of approximately 12 minutes each) both in Japanese (L2) and in Brazilian Portuguese (L1). These oral samples were part of the data collected at the Institute during 1997-99 from 242 Portuguese- and 100 Chinese-speaking elementary/middle school students. Two newly-developed assessment tools were used: TOAM (test of acquisition and maintenance for vocabulary, listening comprehension and reading comprehension) and OBC (oral proficiency assessment for bilingual children). This paper presented the interim report of the analysis of the OBC results in six parts: 1) the theoretical background of the study; 2) the description of TOAM and OBC test instruments; 3) the identification of six different stages in L2 acquisition and L1 maintenance; 4) the internal and crosslinguistic construct of L1 and L2 oral proficiencies; 5) OBC scores in relation to students' age of arrival (AOA) and length of residence (LOR); and 6) the identification of three different age groups which require strong heritage language programs.

"Teacher Support and Four Skills Development with the Internet"
Yasuhiro Omoto (University of California, Berkeley)

This presentation focused on information about developing the Japanese learners' four skills and on various resources for Japanese language teachers. The presentation began with the Internet, since it does not require any difficult computing skills for teachers and learners. Ways one can develop online materials by using freeware and shareware were discussed. Through classroom activities and online materials, Japanese learners can develop the four skills effectively and also develop an interest in Japanese culture. Information on Japanese computing and teaching ideas can be found at NihongoWeb: www.nihongoweb.com. NihongoWeb also offers more than 600 free downloadable photos and about 100 visual aids and reading materials for Japanese language educators. As long as these materials are used in educational settings, educators may use them without concern for copyright issues. Developing online materials can be time-consuming, and language educators may not have enough time to learn about computers or making online materials, so it is important for Japanese teachers to get support for their computing needs. Since many teachers may not be able to get assistance from their own institutions, an online community where educators can share information via the Internet is desirable. Ways to build an online community were discussed.

"The Marriage of True Minds: Reflections on Teaching Japanese Language and Literature"
Thomas Rimer (University of Pittsburgh)

When I began my academic career as an undergraduate teacher of Japanese language and literature thirty years ago, the two disciplines reinforced each other. In the intervening years, they seem to have grown apart. Why is this the case? In the first place, the cultural and academic environment in which we find ourselves has changed considerably since 1970. At that time, Japanese culture, language, and literature, heretofore marginalized, was now being discovered with enthusiasm by a broader public. Translations of works by the greatest of the modern Japanese writers Tanizaki, Kawabata, Mishima were bringing international interest and respect, and a corresponding interest in learning the language was beginning to develop. Teachers of that generation had, and still have, a kind of missionary spirit; we believed in the worth of what Japanese culture had to offer to world. At that time, Japanese studies were still a rare commodity in most colleges and universities. Relatively few students could afford to travel to Asia, and reading was the skill they most wanted to acquire. So it is not surprising that language and literature went naturally together. Thirty years later, the situation is a very different one. The Japanese language, whatever the ups and downs of the Japanese economic situation, seems ever more popular. Many students now travel to Japan, and their interest in speaking has quite naturally taken pride of place. Many students, too, develop interests in areas less closely related to Japanese literature and culture, ranging from business to foreign policy and politics. And, perhaps most significantly of all, the Japanese language is now being taught in secondary schools even on occasion in primary schools. It is no wonder that the teaching of both language and literature has become professionalized in different fashions, thereby growing apart. Nevertheless, I do believe that both have something to contribute to the other. Literature has always been a privileged means of cultural expression in Japan, and a knowledge of these traditions can truly help American students penetrate important cultural assumptions about the life course, the role of individual personality, and the nature of interpersonal relationships, all of which are reflected as well in the deep structures of the Japanese language itself. It is for the next generation to find a means to achieve a new and productive relationship between the two. Perhaps it can come through introducing language students, once past their level of early training, to encounters with the language as embedded in play texts, film scripts, television programs, and the like. In the end, whatever the context, a new and fruitful marriage between language both its practical usages and as a means of cultural and artistic expression can be a significant one.

"Japanese as a Heritage Language (JHL) Classes in Brazil and Hawaii: Their Differences and Similarities"
Michiko Sasaki (The National Language Research Institute)

As a part of the panel on heritage languages, I discussed JHL classes at the elementary level. First, the general decline of community-based schools was pointed out, in contrast to the worldwide increase of young JFL learners. Secondly, an outline of eight first- and third-grade Japanese classes in Brazil and Hawaii was presented. An in-depth analysis of classroom discourse of first grade classes was reported. A large number of students in those classes were Japanese descendants of the third to sixth generation, while all five teachers were first-generation Japanese. Although all the teachers were familiar with the local language and culture, the class activities seemed to show Japanese school culture. All the classes were predominantly teacher-oriented, but there were some variations in the teachers' classroom management. In the data, those who had had more opportunities for teacher training in the local educational system showed more varied skills in class management. Community-based JHL classes must overcome various difficulties. From the pedagogical viewpoint, the paper pointed out that more teacher training in class management can be a solution.

"Expressing Opinions in Japanese: Case Studies of Native and Non-Native Speakers"
Yasuko Sasaki (Ochanomizu University)

This study examines methods used by both native speakers and non-native speakers of Japanese, particularly those whose mother tongue is Chinese, to express opinions. Papers written by both the former and the latter are analyzed from the perspective of sentence structure. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence, if any, of language and culture on such expressions. Based on data from papers written by native speakers of Japanese (52) and non-native speakers whose first language is Chinese (43), this study shows how many Japanese have come to state their opinion in the introduction of a paper while Japanese language learners use a variety of patterns. These findings suggest a change in the writing style of the Japanese. The influence of "Western-style" writing techniques presently taught in secondary schools is apparent, indicating that learned patterns might be stronger than cultural ones. In accord with Bourdieu's theory of language acquisition, the time to re-evaluate the stereotypical image of the ambiguous Japanese people and language has clearly come. This paper will be the first step in that direction and the beginning of a comparative analysis of current expressions of opinions in Japanese by native and non-native speakers.

"Realization of the National Standards with the Internet"
Keiko Schneider (Saboten Web Design) kschnei@sabotenweb.com

Out of five C's, we are used to dealing with the Communication and Cultures standards, and the Comparisons of language and culture happens naturally in class. However, the Connections and Communities standards are more difficult. Technology is one of a "weave" of curricular elements. In its introduction, the Japanese Standards stresses the importance of technology and advises us "to keep abreast of changes in technology." The Internet is an important part of technology today.

"The Development of the Japanese Language Exhilaration Scale"
Kenji Takahashi (University of Texas, Austin)

In the field of second language (L2) acquisition, there has been much research on language anxiety, but little research has been conducted on positive emotional states associated with learning an L2. My research has focused on such positive emotional states, to which I would like to refer as language exhilaration. Language exhilaration was investigated among university students of Japanese for the development of an instrument called the Japanese Language Exhilaration Scale (JEX Scale). First, 15 students of Japanese were individually interviewed about language exhilaration. Exhilaration seemed to be divided into two types. Type I exhilaration was explained by such pure emotion words as "pride" and "happiness," while Type II exhilaration was characterized by words implying positive arousal that included "excitement" and "stimulation." Based on the conducted interviews, items were developed for the JEX Scale and examined by eight students who participated in two focus group interviews. The developed JEX Scale was administered to 115 university students of Japanese in order to explore the prevalence of language exhilaration and its relationships to motivation to continue Japanese study and final achievement. Language exhilaration was prevalent among the investigated student population. The mean JEX Scale score was 107.3 out of its total score of 140. There was a high correlation (r=.75, p>.01) between the level of exhilaration and motivation to continue Japanese study. Finally, the experience of exhilaration was related to achievement in the form of course grade; the regression coefficient between the two variables was .21.

"Japanese Passives in Casual Conversations and Japanese Textbooks"
Tomoko Takeda (University of Oregon)

Most previous studies of Japanese passives in linguistics and pedagogy place strong emphasis on the syntactic aspect of passives; very few are based on natural discourse data. This study aims to investigate passive use in actual conversations and its discourse functions and to compare passivized verb types in conversations and in Japanese textbooks. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, passive instances in 47 recorded casual conversations and six Japanese textbooks are examined. The analysis reveals (1) general infrequency of passives in the conversational data, (2) equal distribution of direct and indirect passives, (3) high frequency of the verb iu in passives, and (4) difference of passivized verb types in the discourse data and the Japanese textbooks. The qualitative analysis suggests that in a "topic maintenance environment" and at a "new topic introduction" the passive facilitates the topic maintenance and topic shift, respectively. The study proposes the need for more research on passives based on natural and various types of discourse data to seek out more details of social/discourse functions of the passives in actual use. The research will provide meaningful information for the development of Japanese instruction and textbook treatment of the passive that reflects actual language use.

"Topic-developing Strategies and Politeness in Japanese Women's Lunchtime Conversations"
Michiko Todokoro Buchanan (University of Minnesota)

I propose a new methodology for examination of politeness in conversations based on contrastive analysis and considering the researcher's role as an observer to be central. Cultural and individual differences in linguistic politeness are explained using Gumperz' (1982) notion of contextualization. I define linguistic politeness as a positive impression which a hearer receives during interactions resulting from sharing the same contextualization conventions.

First, I viewed videotaped conversations consisting of Discussion, Lunchtime, and Group Task among 6 groups of 4 people. I selected the group which gave me the most polite impression, Group 1, and the group which gave the least polite impression, Group 2. I then created names to describe the devices and observed common devices which both Group 1 and Group 2 used. I determined the devices used by Group 1 could be considered to be strategies to give a polite impression, and finally I identified Group 1's integrated strategy, "relating to others," which unified the strategies used by Group 1 throughout all 3 conversations.

I also found that Group 1's integrated strategy reflected in their topic development by employing Stepwise Topic Move Strategy relating each new topic to a previous topic and Topic Generalization Strategy relating a topic to a larger related category (e.g., human beings). In contrast, Group 2 used Abrupt Change-of-Topic Moves that is, many of the new topics were unrelated to the previous topics and Topic Personalization that is, each participant talked about matters related to her own personal life.

"American Learners' Judgments of Imposition of Requests in Japanese"
Miho Tokuda (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)

This paper deals with American JSL/JFL learners' judgments on the imposition of requests in Japanese. Three groups of participants were compared in terms of their judgments on such impositions. The judgments were inferred from situational factors on requests. The participants were divided into three groups: advanced-level, intermediate-level, and native speakers of Japanese. The influence of participant group and request type on the judgments was examined. The participants listened to audio-taped messages making requests in Japanese and rated them on a seven-point scale in terms of the following four indicators of the imposition of requests: 1) the possibility of the hearer's compliance with the requests; 2) the hearer's authority to comply with the requests; 3) the speaker's right to make the requests; and 4) the hearer's obligation to comply with the requests. It was found that there were no significant differences between the three participant groups in terms of the judgments of the possibility and the authority of the hearer to comply, but that depending on the request type and the participant group, there were significant differences in terms of the judgments of the speaker's right to make the requests and the hearer's obligation to comply with them.

"Teaching an Innovative Strategy for Reading Comprehension: first (intonation/prosodic phrase) comes, first interpreted/comprehended"
Poong-Ja Toyoko Kang (University of Guam)

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the following two points, arguing that reading comprehension skill will not be dramatically improved unless our students interpret/comprehend input intonation phrases in such a way that the first comes, the first interpreted. 1) For comprehending one phrase after another, this paper shows simple text-editing teachers can do to teach students at an advanced level not only intonation phrasing, but also interpretation/comprehension in the manner of "first (phrase) comes, first interpreted." The edited texts can be used effectively in a networked computer language lab. 2) A sample of computer-aided self-learning material was demonstrated using MS Power Point. The material is designed to assist students at the advanced level in reading a short story in Japanese, learning and using the strategy. The main arguments for the strategy are: 1) it is unconsciously employed by native speakers; it is assumed to be short-term memory efficient; 2) because of its short-term memory efficiency, it is easy to learn; 3) because an intonation phrase is a meaning set, or "a sense unit" in Selkirt (1984),¹ intonation phrasing is easy for students to learn consciously. This strategy, called "sight translation" or "atama-gonashi yaku," has been used by simultaneous interpreters of Japanese.

¹ Selkirk (1984). Phonology and Syntax: the Relation between Sound and Structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.

"Interpretation, Presentation, and Dramatization Skills in Secondary School Heritage Language Classes"
Kazuo Tsuda (United Nations International School)

A secondary school curriculum to teach Japanese new heritage learners at United Nations International School, New York, was presented, utilizing National Standards through project works/learning scenarios (drama, project work, and UN-studies). It was discussed that those who learned the Japanese language in childhood before establishing their own language would be new heritage learners. Several class dynamic activities in the new heritage learners class were introduced. The presentation consisted of the following six parts: 1) Overview of the curriculum in the Japanese class at the United Nations International School: a) how to utilize three communication modes (interpretive, interpersonal, and preventive) through debate, role play presentation, psycho-drama, oral presentation, and dramatic presentation; b) how to utilize an interdisciplinary approach. 2) Class activities as an educational system: a) how to undertake educational paradox; b) how to introduce multiple points of view into class activities. 3) Identity and socialization: identity crisis of the new heritage learner; b) the hidden program in the heritage educational system. 4) An interdisciplinary approach through drama, literature, and social and cultural studies: a) project works (drama production, project work and UN studies), including technology. 5) How to define the new heritage learner in the International Baccalaureate: assessment of learners' progress self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and peer personal comment (oral and written), rubric and measurement of the effectiveness of the curriculum. 6) Discuss the new concepts of heritage learners and a new educational way of thinking.

"Paragraph Discourse in Spoken and Written Japanese: Pedagogical Implications for Post-Intermediate Levels"
Suwako Watanabe (Portland State University)

What makes a spoken narrative a cohesive discourse of paragraph length, as distinguished from a discourse consisting of strings of sentences or discrete sentences? In order to answer this question, five Japanese native speakers were asked to relate their experience of travel abroad in an interview format and then to write one of the episodes as if they were writing a newsletter article. The transcribed spoken narratives were compared to the corresponding written narratives. The study found highly frequent use in the spoken narratives of the -te gerund form at the end of predicates. Most of the sentence endings in the written narratives were simple verb or copula ending without a particle such as "ikimasita" and "yokatta desu," while such endings were infrequent in the spoken narratives. As for the sentence initial connective devices, use of "de" and "sore de" was found to be highly frequent in the spoken narratives. When the native speakers inserted contextual information, they uttered a short sound such as "ma" and "a" at the beginning and ended their insertion with a sentence final particle. Finally, the study found that the native speakers tactfully handled quotations by changing the end of the verb "iu to indicate who was saying what without identifying the subject. The findings indicate that the native speakers used a variety of linguistic devices to make the spoken narratives cohesive, and those linguistic devices are quite different from those used in the written narratives. Thus, when teaching how to tell a story in spoken Japanese, written stories may not be the best model.

"Function of Connective Suffix te in Japanese Conversation"
Harumi Yamaji (University of Arizona)

Japanese offers a number of devices to connect clauses, and this study examines one such device, the connective suffix te, in informal Japanese conversations in the hope of building on recent studies of other connective devices in spoken data. Previous studies of clauses with te (te-clauses hereafter), which are mainly based on written or constructed data, indicate that te-clauses can have several semantic relations with the following clause, such as temporal sequence, additive, cause, means, manner, and contrastive. This study observes positional characteristics of te-clauses and attempts to classify the te-clauses in the data into the above semantic categories. The results suggest that te-clauses, generally assumed to occur utterance-internally, also appear utterance-finally. They also reveal that the frequency of each semantic relation varies and that temporal sequence, additive, and cause are the three most frequently used relations. Additionally, there are instances that do not seem to fit any of the relations previously identified. For instance, several utterance-internal te-clauses were used to introduce a new topic. Many utterance-final te-clauses were found to either elaborate on or justify what was discussed in the preceding discourse context. It can be concluded that interactionally-oriented categories may be necessary for the study of te-clauses in Japanese conversation.

"Japanese Individualized Instruction: Goals and Issues"
Etsuyo Yuasa (Ohio State University)

In 1998, The Ohio State University started the Japanese Individualized Instruction Program following the success of a similar program in Chinese at OSU. As Strashein (1972) suggests, Individualized Instruction can be viewed as an effective tool for learner-centered instruction, and the importance of individualization of instruction in foreign language teaching cannot be overemphasized (Lange 1972). However, implementation and smooth operation of Individualized Instruction programs require careful consideration of numerous instructional and administrative factors. First the architecture of the Japanese Individualized Instruction Program at OSU was presented. It was then argued that Japanese Individualized Instruction allows achievement of the following objectives: 1) to provide students with new opportunities to study Japanese; 2) to provide opportunities to study Japanese at one's own pace; 3) to accommodate students' varying needs; 4) to communicate in natural and authentic modes; 5) to focus on each student. Issues of implementation and operation of the program were investigated: 1) difficulty of distributing important information to students; 2) management of self-study; 3) teaching load and preparation; 4) record keeping; 5) resource allocation.