Buckeye East Asian Linguistics 2 (BEAL 2)

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https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/77994

This volume of Buckeye East Asian Linguistics is a Festschrift, presented in honor of James Marshall Unger, Professor Emeritus of Japanese, on the occasion of his retirement from The Ohio State University in 2015. The volume contains articles and a testimonial delivered by Professor Charles Quinn at Professor Unger's retirement ceremony.

ISSN 2378-9387

Contents

Front Matter
pp. i-iv
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An historic historical linguist (and then some): James M. Unger
Quinn, Charles pp. 1-4
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Morpho-lexical evidence for Proto-Korean-Japanese
Francis-Ratté, Alexander pp. 5-17
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Brain activation in an intermediate-level Japanese learner – Correlation analysis of fNIRS data during written tests and conversation –
Hirata, Yu pp. 18-35
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The Sinification of Japanese: Non-linear increase in the usage of Sino-Japanese loanwords
Huang, Evelyn pp. 36-49
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Idiomatic expressions in translated manga: A preliminary study
Kim, Yangsun pp. 50-57
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Referring to Cinderella in L2 Japanese: A preliminary study
Nakayama, Mineharu; Yoshimura, Noriko; Tsuchiya, Shinsuke pp. 58-68
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The epistemic use of yào in Mandarin Chinese and its theoretical implications
Xie, Zhiguo pp. 69-93
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Native Chinese speakers’ perception of Chinese idiom usage by foreign language learners
Zhang, Xin pp. 94-111
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    Front Matter (Volume 2, 2016)
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07)
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    An historic historical linguist (and then some): James M. Unger
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Quinn, Charles
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    Morpho-lexical evidence for Proto-Korean-Japanese
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Francis-Ratté, Alexander
    The hypothesis that Japanese and Korean share a common linguistic origin remains highly controversial, with detractors such as Vovin (2010) criticizing a lack of shared functional morphemes and phonological problems in proposed cognate vocabulary. Expanding on the analysis in Ratte (2015), this paper proposes concrete correspondences in the grammar and vocabulary of Old Japanese to Middle Korean. By analyzing the form and function of verbs in Old Japanese texts (Man'yōshū), this paper proposes a functional element *(w)o- that reveals striking correspondences in Japanese and Korean noun-modifying structures, and a verb *pə- that shows that identical verb-compounding structures exist in both languages. This paper also provides revisions of four important vocabulary items in previous literature whose correspondences have proven problematic, and improves the strength of the common origin hypothesis by proposing new cognate pairs. In so doing, this paper seeks to address deficiencies in the theory of Korean-Japanese common linguistic origin in order to demonstrate that the theory of proto-Korean-Japanese is stronger than has previously been assumed.
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    Brain activation in an intermediate-level Japanese learner – Correlation analysis of fNIRS data during written tests and conversation –
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Hirata, Yu
    This study is part of a project that aims to examine the similarity and/or dissimilarity in brain activation while participants take written tests and make conversation. Brain activation data were collected from one intermediate-level Japanese learner, and trend chart analysis and correlation analysis were conducted. Some common brain activation patterns were also observed in this participant throughout the project, such as hemispheric dominance for language tasks, and greater activation for conversation tasks than written test tasks. In addition, the trend chart analysis revealed that the deoxyhemoglobin data increased more than the oxyhemoglobin data around Broca's area in some cases. The correlation analysis revealed that the translation task and the dialogue completion task had the most number of channels, exhibiting a strong correlation with (i.e. similarity to) the Japanese conversation task. In a consolidated discussion referring to the present author's previous study, the peculiarity of the deoxyhemoglobin data were also pointed out. This project is still at the stage of seeking better ways to judge similarity (or dissimilarity), but it is suggested in this study that the use of correlation analysis results in intriguing observations, which lead to formulation of a hypothesis about the developmental stages of the L2 system.
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    The Sinification of Japanese: Non-linear increase in the usage of Sino-Japanese loanwords
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Huang, Evelyn
    This paper examines the Sino-Japanese (SJ) loanwords frequencies in literary works from Early Middle Japanese, in response to data cited in Frellesvig (2010). Frellesvig claims that lexical frequency of SJ loanwords increases over time as SJ loanwords become established in use. By surveying additional literary works of different genre, topic, and writing style, it's shown that these factors also influence the loanword frequency. By examining data given in previous studies, discrepancies found in Frellesvig are also corrected and more evidence for the fluctuation in the SJ loanword frequency is also provided based on genre, topic, and writing style.
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    Idiomatic expressions in translated manga: A preliminary study
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Kim, Yangsun
    This squib reports the uses of English idiomatic expressions observed in translated manga or comics. Assuming that the conversations in manga are samples of average daily conversations, the current findings may provide implications regarding natural informal English conversations. Idiomatic expressions were collected from four different manga titles (21 volumes) and they were categorized based on the original meanings of the major words in the expressions. Generally speaking, those found in the manga samples in this study have a similar trend to that in Makino's (2008) collection of idioms, i.e., those with human body parts are more frequently used than other types. In addition, fewer expressions with two body parts were found in the manga.
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    Referring to Cinderella in L2 Japanese: A preliminary study
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Nakayama, Mineharu; Yoshimura, Noriko; Tsuchiya, Shinsuke
    This study reports how English-speaking learners of intermediate Japanese refer to the subject noun referents previously introduced within a given discourse. Tsuchiya, Yoshimura & Nakayama (2015) and Nakayama, Yoshimura & Tsuchiya (2015) report that English-speaking L2 Japanese learners only rarely used kanojo 'she' during their telling of the story of The Little Match Girl. Instead, we observed a frequent use of null pronouns as well as a positive correlation between language proficiency and a repetitive use of referential nouns. The use of null pronouns, but not kanojo, may come from an instructional effect as those learners were taught the null pronominal use earlier than kanojo. The current study analyzing the Cinderella story in L2 Japanese also finds a more frequent use of null pronouns than referential nouns and kanojo, which may indicate the importance of explicit instruction and more exposure to narratives in the target language.
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    The epistemic use of yào in Mandarin Chinese and its theoretical implications
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Xie, Zhiguo
    The epistemic use of the Mandarin Chinese modal yào comes with typologically interesting properties. In this paper, the distribution and meaning of the epistemic use of yào will be described first. This use of yào is restricted to certain explicit strict comparative constructions, but forbidden in many other degree and non-degree constructions. Second, epistemic yào cannot appear above or below negation. Third, epistemic yào has a quantificational force stronger than that of existential modals, yet weaker than that of strong necessity modals. In the theoretical component of the paper, I argue that epistemic yào is a modifier for strict comparative morphemes, a syntactic/semantic function that sets it apart from many other epistemic modals that take propositions as direct argument. The weak necessity quantificational force of epistemic yào is encoded in its semantics by making recourse to alternative modal bases. Epistemic yào's inability to form scopal relation with negation arises from two factors: (i) its status as a strict comparative morpheme modifier, and (ii) competition between lexical items with identical semantics. Through investigating the epistemic use of yào, some hitherto unnoticed interesting modal properties in natural language are brought to the forefront, and new intra- and inter-linguistic variations in the distribution and meaning of modals are revealed.
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    Native Chinese speakers' perception of Chinese idiom usage by foreign language learners
    (Ohio State University. Libraries, 2016-07) Zhang, Xin
    This article investigates how a specific group of native Chinese speakers perceive the usage of four-character Chinese idioms, chengyu, as social markers employed by foreign learners of Chinese to build their second-culture persona. Specifically, this study examines listeners' perceptions via the Matched Guise Technique, utilizing 18 matched sets of audio recordings of chengyu usage in various social situations created by two non-native speakers and one native speaker of Chinese. Listener responses were collected in semi-structured interviews followed by a survey. The method of cognitive interviewing was adopted to collect quantitative data in both procedures to capture the complex cognitive processes underlying native perceptions and rationales in regard to the sociocultural contexts. Interview data and experimental results show that chengyu usage impacts social perceptions variably, inhabiting an indexical field of related meanings. Native speakers' perceptions of the social meanings of chengyu are context dependent. While speakers' familiarity with Chinese culture, language proficiency, and likability are centrally linked to the usage of chengyu, an array of other social meanings associated with it are also presented in the data. Interview data suggests that native Chinese speakers use a stereotypical foreign speakers' image as a frame of reference when deciding which of the many social meanings to assign to a contextualized chengyu usage. The predominantly positive evaluation of non-native speakers' appropriate use of chengyu provides empirical evidence for the beneficial role of these idiomatic expressions in establishing non-native Chinese learners as effective communicators, especially in formal contexts.