2016, Vol., No.50

The Japanese Language Association of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.0

pISSN : 1229-7275
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jlak

The purpose of the present study lies in examining the characteristics of sentences in e-mails in Japanese written by Korean learners of Japanese and discovering aspects that require special care in Japanese language education. Data was collected by assigning eight types of e-mail tasks (contact, inquiry, appreciation, refusal, request, apology, etc. ) to ten Korean learners of Japanese of higher language ability, ten Korean learners of Japanese of lower language ability, and ten native Japanese speakers from the same age bracket. From this data, opening and closing expressions in the e-mails were analyzed. According to the results, while native Japanese speakers selected expressions for building good relationships even if they stemmed from sociocultural obligations rather than true feelings and thoughts (“Arigato” and “Osewa-ninaru” in the opening part; “Yoroshikuonegaishimasu” in the closing part, accompanied by a request), Korean learners of Japanese placed weight on greetings, starting any task with “Konnichiwa,” and selected realistic expressions rather than those originating from sociocultural obligations (“Ohenji omachishiteimasu” and “Purezento-o-okurimasu” in the closing part). The results show that teachers should use extra care with students regarding the subtle sociolinguistic differences between Japanese and Korean languages and cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of Japanese language education in career education. I conducted a survey of South Korean university students majoring in Japanese language about employment awareness and searching for jobs at Japanese companies. The results of a quantitative analysis clarified that while most respondents want to make use of the Japanese language in their careers and hope to find employment in Japan, their drive to find employment was not being followed up with decisive action. Furthermore, the results of a qualitative analysis suggest that students’ worries are in feeling alone in their job search and the distinctive and closed nature of the Japanese job-hunting system. It also revealed that issues for universities and companies exist in reforming Japan’s traditional job-search system and company culture, creating opportunities to interact with companies, expanding information resources, and building networks. Based on these results, the paper considered approaches to Japanese language education. As for topics going forward, the study mentions the formulation of an organized career support system by means of a multi-tiered cooperation on the micro to macro levels, and contends that Japanese language education should play a guiding role in implementing that cooperation..

In this study, I researched the correlation between two accent types of the Kagoshima dialect and time length in the old generation and the young generation from an acoustic phonetics point of view. I analyzed the correlation between the number of syllables and the length of words focusing on duration. The summary of the results is as follows. It is verified that, in the old generation, the time length is controlled according to the two accent types of the Kagoshima at the level of accentual phrase. In other words, it is found that the duration of the rising auslaut accent type (B Type) is longer than the falling auslaut accent type (A Type). Further, it is found that there is a correlation between the number of syllables and the length of words at the phrase level in the old generation. For example, the total time length of words increases at a constant rate according to the increase of the number of syllables. On the other hand, unlike the old generation, in the young generation the time length after three syllables does not increase at a constant rate when compared with the previous syllable. On this point of view, it is suggested that while the Kagoshima dialect does use the ‘syllable’ as the time-length unit, it also depends on ‘mora’.