Yasuhiro Fujiwara | Meijo University (original) (raw)

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Conference Presentations by Yasuhiro Fujiwara

Corpus Linguistics 2013, 2013

This research project aims to detect, if any, distinctive discourse/pragmatic features in the Eng... more This research project aims to detect, if any, distinctive discourse/pragmatic features in the English written by Japanese professional ‘users’ of English, that are journalists who contribute to English newspapers issued in Japan. The main research question of this study is, “What, if any, are differences in the use of English between Japanese professionals and native speakers of English, even though the Japanese writers have already acquired this language at the level of mastery, and use it in an international context?”

Papers by Yasuhiro Fujiwara

Intercultural Communication Studies, 2007

The primary focus of this paper is on British pragmatic acceptability of Japanese refusals in Eng... more The primary focus of this paper is on British pragmatic acceptability of Japanese refusals in English in light of what I call intercultural pragmatics. The fundamental questions underlying this study are: "How acceptable is a given nonnative-like pragmatic strategy for native speakers of English?" "Is a given cross-cultural difference in pragmatics between L1 and L2 really problematic?" This research, taking a Japanese-English contrast in refusal as a focus, sheds light on acceptability issues in the following respects: (a) acceptability of British English speakers, (b) nationality differences between British and Americans, and (c) mode differences between web-based written and oral pragmatics acceptability questionnaires. What I have found is that Japanese refusal strategies are not always "unacceptable" and "problematic" resulting in a miscommunication between Japanese and British/Americans. Additionally, it is observed that there are complex "dynamic" interactions between NS and NNS conversational participants and between NNS prosodic and other-formal features such as semantic contexts and syntactic length. Based on the results and discussion, I would suggest that intercultural pragmatics should be important to fill the gaps of cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics.

Intercultural Communication Studies, 2004

The primary focus of this paper is on Japanese pragmatics resistivity and American pragmatics acc... more The primary focus of this paper is on Japanese pragmatics resistivity and American pragmatics acceptability in the case of refusals in light of what I call intercultural pragmatics. The fundamental question underlying this study is: Is a given cross-cultural difference in pragmatics between native speakers and nonnative speakers of English really problematic? While focusing on this question, this research also sheds light on the convergence and divergence concerning the "Other" norm for both Japanese and Americans due to the transition of time and place. The results of this study found: (1) Not only because Japanese resistivity to American English norm is, by and large, very low, but also because, on the whole, American acceptability is surprisingly high enough to achieve an acceptable level, we can say with much certainty that the potentially problematic differences in refusal strategies are just potential, not a real scenario for both cultural groups. (2) Social pragmatic systems are changing due to the transition of time and place, and seem to show an idiosyncratic character. Considering the results in this study, it is important to revisit the previous research findings in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics.

Books by Yasuhiro Fujiwara

English in East and South Asia Policy, Features and Language in Use, 2021

This chapter considers phonological and morpho-syntactic features, then moves on to discourse and... more This chapter considers phonological and morpho-syntactic features, then moves on to discourse and pragmatic features, and finally, to a short section on lexical creativity. It covers a range of features in a relatively comprehensive manner, given the limits of an edited collection. Generally, Japanese English (JE) is perceived to be intelligible to many non-native speakers of English. Unless the phonological structure is completely reorganised, ESL/EFL speakers of other languages can accept JE’s foreign accent. However, the repeated use of the same nouns in JE can be a writing strategy shared among English as a lingua franca journalists around the world, to make an article more explicit and intelligible to a variety of readers. The Japanese are a very creative people, and enjoy abbreviating expressions, which may be too long, into something more easily expressed. Also, with considerable American contact during the post-Second World War military occupation, there has been a large amount of English borrowing into Japanese.

Corpus Linguistics 2013, 2013

This research project aims to detect, if any, distinctive discourse/pragmatic features in the Eng... more This research project aims to detect, if any, distinctive discourse/pragmatic features in the English written by Japanese professional ‘users’ of English, that are journalists who contribute to English newspapers issued in Japan. The main research question of this study is, “What, if any, are differences in the use of English between Japanese professionals and native speakers of English, even though the Japanese writers have already acquired this language at the level of mastery, and use it in an international context?”

Intercultural Communication Studies, 2007

The primary focus of this paper is on British pragmatic acceptability of Japanese refusals in Eng... more The primary focus of this paper is on British pragmatic acceptability of Japanese refusals in English in light of what I call intercultural pragmatics. The fundamental questions underlying this study are: "How acceptable is a given nonnative-like pragmatic strategy for native speakers of English?" "Is a given cross-cultural difference in pragmatics between L1 and L2 really problematic?" This research, taking a Japanese-English contrast in refusal as a focus, sheds light on acceptability issues in the following respects: (a) acceptability of British English speakers, (b) nationality differences between British and Americans, and (c) mode differences between web-based written and oral pragmatics acceptability questionnaires. What I have found is that Japanese refusal strategies are not always "unacceptable" and "problematic" resulting in a miscommunication between Japanese and British/Americans. Additionally, it is observed that there are complex "dynamic" interactions between NS and NNS conversational participants and between NNS prosodic and other-formal features such as semantic contexts and syntactic length. Based on the results and discussion, I would suggest that intercultural pragmatics should be important to fill the gaps of cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics.

Intercultural Communication Studies, 2004

The primary focus of this paper is on Japanese pragmatics resistivity and American pragmatics acc... more The primary focus of this paper is on Japanese pragmatics resistivity and American pragmatics acceptability in the case of refusals in light of what I call intercultural pragmatics. The fundamental question underlying this study is: Is a given cross-cultural difference in pragmatics between native speakers and nonnative speakers of English really problematic? While focusing on this question, this research also sheds light on the convergence and divergence concerning the "Other" norm for both Japanese and Americans due to the transition of time and place. The results of this study found: (1) Not only because Japanese resistivity to American English norm is, by and large, very low, but also because, on the whole, American acceptability is surprisingly high enough to achieve an acceptable level, we can say with much certainty that the potentially problematic differences in refusal strategies are just potential, not a real scenario for both cultural groups. (2) Social pragmatic systems are changing due to the transition of time and place, and seem to show an idiosyncratic character. Considering the results in this study, it is important to revisit the previous research findings in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics.

English in East and South Asia Policy, Features and Language in Use, 2021

This chapter considers phonological and morpho-syntactic features, then moves on to discourse and... more This chapter considers phonological and morpho-syntactic features, then moves on to discourse and pragmatic features, and finally, to a short section on lexical creativity. It covers a range of features in a relatively comprehensive manner, given the limits of an edited collection. Generally, Japanese English (JE) is perceived to be intelligible to many non-native speakers of English. Unless the phonological structure is completely reorganised, ESL/EFL speakers of other languages can accept JE’s foreign accent. However, the repeated use of the same nouns in JE can be a writing strategy shared among English as a lingua franca journalists around the world, to make an article more explicit and intelligible to a variety of readers. The Japanese are a very creative people, and enjoy abbreviating expressions, which may be too long, into something more easily expressed. Also, with considerable American contact during the post-Second World War military occupation, there has been a large amount of English borrowing into Japanese.