JAPANESE LANGUAGE 1 (II)

This course falls within the characterising teachings of the second year of the "Japan" curriculum of the Master's degree program in Languages of Asia and Africa for Business and International Cooperation.
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)

Metalinguistic analysis of the Japanese language (Sector-specific languages of social, political, economic and legal fields) through written and oral corpora

Students will be guided in the use of primary sources in Japanese language to develop original research on lexical, morphological, syntactic, textual, and pragmatic phenomena, including diachronic perspectives. The methodology is that of corpus linguistics: students will use large written and oral corpora, such as the BCCWJ (The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese), but also other corpora that can be consulted through the Chunagon search engine, to autonomously extract concordances on the lexical and morphosyntactic structures under investigation, thereby deriving both quantitative and qualitative information on linguistic variation. Students' capacity for observation, metalinguistic reflection and construction of rules of usage will be stimulated. Students will become familiar with new tools for observing and processing linguistic data and develop a greater sensitivity to the relationship between systemic and contextual variation. Translation of concordances will complete the analysis of the morphosyntactic structures under consideration.

Foreign Language Assistants exercises (180 hours)

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

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.

CORPORA TO BE CONSULTED THROUGH CHUNAGON (registration required: https://chunagon.ninjal.ac.jp/ ):

- The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ): https://pj.ninjal.ac.jp/corpus_center/bccwj/en/
- Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ): https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/csj/en/index.html
- Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation (CEJC): https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/conversation/cejc.html
- Showa Speech Corpus (SSC): https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/conversation/showaCorpus/
- Nagoya University Conversation Corpus (NUCC): https://mmsrv.ninjal.ac.jp/nucc/
- Corpus of Workplace Conversation (CWPC): https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/conversation/shokuba.html
- Corpus of Historical Japanese (CHJ): https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/
- Showa-Heisei Corpus of written Japanese (SHC): https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/shc/
- Corpus of Japanese Dialects (COJADS): https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/cojads/index.html
- International Corpus of Japanese as a Second Language (I-JAS): https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/jll/lsaj/ihome2.html

SUGGESTED READINGS (only for reference):

- Nakamata Naoki, 'Chūnagon' o katsuyō shita kōpasu nihongo kenkyū nyūmon. Hitsuji shobō 2021
- 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.

POWER POINT ORAL PRESENTATION (MAX 10 MINUTES)

The student will present an original research work on the quantitative and/or qualitative analysis of one or more lexical or morphosyntactic structures (lexical bundles, syntagmatic phenomena, idiomatic expressions, collocations) through written and/or oral corpora (ideally sectorial languages of social, political, economic and legal fields), accompanied by the translation of the extracted concordances.

The grade (30/30) for the PTT presentation is awarded as follows:

- 10/10 research question (originality, degree of complexity, relevance to analysis through corpora);
- 10/10 methodology (appropriateness of corpora used, research setting through Chunagon);
- 10/10 presentation performance (property of [meta]language, clarity of exposition, etc.).

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 marks in thirtieths achieved in the three parts that make up the exam (presentation; written test; oral test). The 12 cfu associated with the teaching will be obtained after passing the written and oral test in the same session. Successful completion of the presentation will be valid for one academic year: if the exam is not completed by the January 2025 session, it will be necessary to retake the entire exam.

written and oral

The objective of the exam is to assess the achievement of the B2+ level of the CEFR, corresponding to the N2 level of the JLPT. The evaluation will focus on advanced skills such as the comprehension and production of complex texts, mastery of intermediate-advanced grammar and vocabulary, and oral comprehension in articulated contexts. The grading scale is as follows:

18-19: Sufficient
The student has a basic understanding of complex grammatical structures and a limited vocabulary for dealing with complex topics. Communication is simple and uncertain. Oral comprehension is limited to familiar contexts, and reading complex texts is difficult. In the oral presentation, the analysis of primary sources using corpora is superficial, and the presentation is unclear.

20-23: Fair
The student has an adequate understanding of grammar and vocabulary, but with some inaccuracies. They can express themselves clearly on familiar topics but struggle with specialized subjects. In the oral presentation, they demonstrate a fair knowledge of research methodologies, but there are some inaccuracies in the analysis of primary sources analyzed through corpora and in the presentation.

24-26: Good
The student has a good command of grammar and sufficient vocabulary to deal with complex topics. Oral comprehension is good, and reading difficult texts is fluent. In the oral presentation, they appropriately use corpora for analyzing primary sources, but the analysis could be more in-depth. The presentation is clear but with slight inaccuracies.

27-28: Very good
The student has a solid mastery of grammar and a rich vocabulary, handling complex topics fluently. Oral comprehension and reading of complex texts are excellent. In the oral presentation, the application of research methodologies is precise, and the analysis of primary sources using corpora is in-depth, though with minor inaccuracies.

29-30: Excellent
The student has an excellent command of grammar and vocabulary, dealing with complex topics with great competence. Oral comprehension and reading of specialized texts are fluent. In the oral presentation, they use corpora to analyze primary sources impeccably, with clear, precise, and well-structured analysis.

30 with Honors: Outstanding
The grade of 30 with honors is awarded to those who demonstrate excellent mastery of Japanese at the B2+ level. The student uses grammar and vocabulary fluently and precisely. Oral comprehension and reading of specialized texts are flawless. In the oral presentation, advanced research methodologies are applied, with precise analysis of primary sources and a fluent, natural presentation.

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.

Registration (free of charge) in Chunagon is required: https://chunagon.ninjal.ac.jp/

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

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "International cooperation" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development