JAPANESE LANGUAGE 1 MOD. 2

This course falls within the characterising teachings of the second year of the "Japan" curriculum of the Master's degree program in Language and Civilisation of Asia and Mediterranean Africa.
Its formative objectives fall within the area of language skills learning.

The objectives of the course are:

- to provide knowledge of intermediate high level and advanced level of Japanese grammar;
- to provide intermediate high level skills for reading, writing and oral production in Japanese;
- to provide knowledge and skills for the metalinguistic analysis of the Japanese language and for the translation from Japanese into Italian;
- to provide knowledge on the use of tools for the observation and the description of authentic linguistic materials.

The level that students should reach at the end of the course should be around an B2+ level of the CEFR (around level N2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test).
This class is part of the Japanese language program; it builds on the skills acquired in the "Japanese language 1.1" classes and prepares the students to continue with "Japanese language 2" in their second year.

1. Knowledge and understanding

- to complete the knowledge of the grammatical structures of upper intermediate and advanced level of Japanese language;
- to complete the knowledge of upper intermediate level writing system (kana and kanji) and vocabulary;
- to know and understand the functioning of the grammatical structures of upper intermediate and advanced level of Japanese;
- to know and understand variations in the register and communication pragmatics of upper intermediate level of Japanese;
- to know and understand key concepts and the essential terminology required to describe in a scientific way the phenomena studied during the class;
- develop fast reading skills (especially with regards to academic papers and articles in Japanese).

2. Applying knowledge and understanding:

- to know how to identify grammatical categories and their properties;
- to demonstrate a general understanding of upper intermediate and advanced level grammar structures;
- to be able to describe constructions and grammatical phenomena studied during classes by correctly using the terminology and the basic tools of morphosyntactic analysis;
- to know how to interact in the communicative situations described by the B2+ level of the CEFR;
- to know how to understand and produce oral and written texts in agreement with the B2+ level of the CEFR;
- to be able to translate upper intermediate written texts from Japanese into Italian, following the instructions provided during the course.

3. Making judgements:

- to understand principal ideas of complex texts on both concrete and abstract themes and to speak about concepts related to their field of research;
- to be able to produce a clear and detailed text on a various spectrum of subjects and explain a point of view producing examples to support or refute them in Japanese;
- to be able to autonomously produce translation choices on the basis of the indications provided during class, dispensing with current myths and prejudices about the Japanese language (e. g. presumed untranslatability, opacity, etc.);
- to be able to use written corpora for the quantitive and qualitative analysis of morphosyntactic structures.

4. Communication:

- written and oral comprehension and production skills and oral interaction required by the B2+ level of the CEFR;
- to be able, during classes, to interact with one's peers, with the teacher and with the CELs in a critical and respectful way;
- deliver presentation in Japanese about a topic chosen by the student.

5. Lifelong learning skills:

- to be able to consult the texts and reference materials suggested in the course bibliography.
- to be able to develop the skills acquired in the course to undertake higher studies.

Having achieved (even without having passed its test) the learning results of the "Japanese language 1.1" class. Knowledge of the basic categories of sentence analysis.

The course includes a 30-hour course given by the lecturer and 180 hours of language exercises given by the Foreign Language Assistants (CEL).

Lecturer's course (30 hours: Giuseppe Pappalardo)

Japanese grammar of upper intermediate and advanced level (JLPT N2 and N1) and corpus linguistics: use of written corpora, retrieving concordances, analysis of collocations, translation.

The study of grammar will take place according to a data-driven approach: students will use large textual corpora, such as the BCCWJ (The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese), to independently retrieve concordances on the morphosyntactic structures studied and thus obtaining both quantitative and qualitative on the potential collocations. The students' ability to observe and to construct the rules of use will be stimulated. Students will become familiar with new tools for observing and processing linguistic data and will develop a greater understanding to the relationship between systemic and contextual variations. The translation of the concordances will complete the analysis of the morphosyntactic structures taken into consideration.

Foreign Language Assistants exercises (180 hours: Nakayama Etsuko & Suzuki Masako)

MOD. 2A Grammar and writing exercises on the manual (60 hours: Nakayama Etsuko);
MOD. 2B Written and oral comprehension (30 hours: Suzuki Masako);
MOD. 2C Oral production (express one's opinion on the content of written texts) (30 hours: Suzuki Masako);
MOD. 2D Written production (reading and summary of written texts) (30 hours: Nakayama Etsuko);
MOD. 2E Free conversation (30 hours: Suzuki Masako)

Attendance, although not compulsory, is strongly recommended.

COMPULSORY READINGS:

1)Textbook: Bunka Chukyu Nihongo, vol. 2, Tokyo, Bonjinsha, 2012 (Unit 5-8)
2) ALL THE MATERIAL (excerpts, slides of the course ecc.) uploaded on the Moodle by teachers during the course.
3) The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ): https://pj.ninjal.ac.jp/corpus_center/bccwj/en/

SUGGESTED READINGS (only for reference):

- Sunakawa Yuriko et al., Kyōshi to gakushūsha no tame no nihongo bunkei jiten. Kuroshio shuppan 1998
- Makino Tsutsui, A dictionary of Intermediate Japanese grammar. The Japan Times 1995
- Makino Tsutsui, A dictionary of Advanced Japanese grammar. The Japan Times 2008
- Aston, Guy (a cura di), Learning with corpora, Bologna, CLUEB 2001
- Burnard Lou, McEnery Tony, Rethinking Language Pedagogy from a Corpus Perspective, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2000
- McEnery Tony, Wilson Andrew, Corpus Linguistics. An Introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press1996
- Sinclair John (a cura di) How to use Corpora in Language Teaching, Amsterdam, John Benjamins.

Suggested electronic dictionary:

- model CASIO “XD-Z7400" (https://casio.jp/exword/products/XD-Z7400/ ) or older model from the series 7400 (ITA-JAP, JAP-ITA dictionary included; classical Japanese dictionary not included.)

or

- model Casio “XD-SX4800" (https://casio.jp/exword/products/XD-SX4800/ ) or older from the series 4800 (classical Japanese dictionary included; ITA-JAP, JAP-ITA dictionary not included. An XS-SH17MC content card is required).

The exam is divided into three sections: a paper, a written test and an oral test.

PAPER

The student will present an original research work on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of one or more morphosyntactic structures (lexical bundles, syntagmatic phenomena, idiomatic expressions, collocations) through written corpora, with the translation of the retrieved concordances.

WRITTEN TEST

1. Written test of kanji (taken from honbun readings: 5-1, 5-2, 6-1, 6-2, 7-1, 7-2, 8-1, 8-2) and grammar (based on honbun, bunkei-hyōgen, fukushi, setsuzokushi, giongo-gitaigo (p.159), settōgo-setsubigo (p.213) of the units 5– 8) without dictionary - 30 min; Reference: ‘BUNKA CHŪKYŪ NIHONGO II – MATOME’, ‘Esercizi 1mod 2’, ‘Esercizi fukushi’, and other material on Moodle.

2. Written composition (summarising a new text in Japanese with the aid of a dictionary) - 50 min;

ORAL TEST

1. Reading and comprehension from the textbook Bunka Chūkyū Nihongo II (L.5~L.8). Reading and comprehension in Japanese of honbun texts: 5-2, 6-1, 7-1, 7-2 (opinions on text 7-2), 8-1, 8-2; presentation on a historical character chosen by the student. Please refer to the 発表原稿 e 内容メモ → See file ‘1 mod.2 Attività’ on Moodle (Nakayama Etsuko).

2. Conversation, reading, and comprehension of texts studied in class. (Suzuki Masako).

The final grade will be determined by the average of the 30/30 grades obtained in each of the three sections. The positive result obtained in the paper will be valid for one academic year: if the exam is not completed by the session of January 2023, it will be necessary to take the exam in full.

Seminar activities on theoretical grammar through the use of written corpora.
Conversation and oral production and comprehension exercises in Japanese.
Learning tools and other materials (course slides, grammar insights etc.) on the moodle platform.

Italian

A system of tutors will be provided. It is warmly suggested to apply for it in case of difficulties in following the program.

written and oral