NINJAL Tutorial "Steps in and Tips for Conducting Research on Japan Studies and Japanese Language"

Date(s)

February 22, 2024 (10:30-13:30) (Indian Standard Time)

Venue

Department of Foreign Languages, Savitribai Phule Pune University (Fergusson College Road, PUNE 411004 (INDIA) )

Hosted by

"Co-creation of Research Infrastructure Through the Integration of Diverse Lexical Resources" Project
-"Development of a Japanese Function Expression Wordbank for Japanese Language Learners" Subproject
Department of Foreign Languages, Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU)

Registration method

Pre-registration by 21 February 2024 required through the Google form
https://forms.gle/1UNjBjgBnq7J74DY6 We will be handle your personal information under the personal information protection policy.

"Steps in and Tips for Conducting Research on Japan Studies and Japanese Language"

Special talks by Prof. Dr. Prashant PARDESHI
National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, JAPAN
With the deepening of Indo-Japanese relations in the recent past there is surge in interest in India on conducting research on Japan as well as Japanese language. With a view to offer introduction to research methodology involved in conducting scientific research I will present two of my recent works -- one on Japanese studies and other on Japanese language -- and attempt to explain concrete steps involved in and tips for conducting research on Japanese language and Japanese studies.

Talk 1: When, why and how Japanese language studies (JLS) started in Western India: Tracing the history through documentary evidence (インド西部で日本語学習 (JLS) がいつ、なぜ、どのように始まったのか : 証拠資料を通じて歴史をたどる)
There are many studies attempting to document the history of Japanese language studies in India (Motwani 1995, Saito 1997, 1998, George 2009, Keeni 2010, Kongari 2010, Shirai 2014, among others) that shed light on the history of Japanese language studies in various part of India. However, Bombay presidency/province on the west cost of India has largely escaped the attention of the previous studies. The present study aims to fill this gap and attempts to unravel the genesis and evolution of Japanese language studies in the Bombay presidency/through documentary resources, namely, Japanese language phrasebooks created by Indian authors for learning Japanese language in local languages such as Gujarati (published in 1905) and Marathi (published in 1906), which are outcome of commercial interactions between Japanese and Indian entrepreneurs from Bombay. These publications suggest that Japanese language learning by Indian entrepreneurs in Bombay presidency/province slightly predate the beginning of Japanese language studies with the arrival of Sano Jinnosuke as a Japanese language and Judo instructor at Shantiniketan in Bengal presidency / province in 1906.

Talk 2: How to tell the difference between “tsumetai” and “samui”?: The types and systems of temperature vocabulary (「冷たい」と「寒い」はどう違うのか ―温度語彙の類型と体系―)
In Japanese there are two adjectives to express the experience of coldness viz. ‘tumetai (冷たい)’ and ‘samui (寒い)’ as well as hotness ‘atsui (熱い)’ and ‘atsui (暑い)’. How do they differ? In recent years new discoveries are made in discovering the types and systems of temperature vocabulary across languages of the world. Drawing on these recent findings, in this talk I will compare temperature vocabulary in Japanese and Marathi and shed light on similarities and differences between them. I will argue that the findings of the comparative study are of help not only for better understanding of the temperature vocabulary in Japanese and Marathi but also of the interaction between language and society.