The year 2011

The end of year is approaching. Looking back, this year has been extremely eventful. The 3.11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the north eastern part of Japan, leaving tens of thousands of people dead and missing. Not only that, the tsunami also dealt a fatal blow to the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, resulting in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The lives of people across the nation have deeply been affected by the shortage of power and, more seriously, by a fear of radioactive materials. The words ordinary people had probably never heard of, like the rolling blackouts, cesium and iodine, have become familiar, along with the notorious gobbledygook “not immediately dangerous.” Not surprisingly, a large number of people have begun to throw doubt on the legitimacy of nuclear power itself, spurring a frenzy of debates about whether we shouldn’t jettison such a precarious source of electricity.

These considerations might tempt you to think that 2011 has been particularly eventful for Japan. Yes, Japan has experienced a great deal enough, but if you step back and look around the world, it’s obvious that the world too has witnessed its share of great historic moments. Especially, the Arab Spring, which began with the revolution in Tunisia and spread like wildfire around the Arab world, has been a dramatic development in that it has ousted infamous dictators who had long exploited their countries. The effect of this phenomenon has gone well beyond the region, influencing countries like China, which, fearing the same type of uprising in its midst, has enforced a stricter crackdown on those critical of the government.

You must also recall the death of the world most dangerous terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9.11 terror attack. That he had ensconced himself in a Pakistani town near Islamabad infuriated the U.S. government, who had long accused Pakistan of failing to provide full support to the U.S.-led war on terror. That the U.S. army conducted the operation to capture or kill bin Laden without consulting the Pakistani government caused ire among Pakistanis, who had denounced the CIA drone operation in the country’s terrorist safe haven as an infringement of its sovereignty. The relations between two countries have since deeply deteriorated.

Nor has this year been anticlimactic, for it was announced toward the end of this month that the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong ill, passed away, a news that took people around the world by surprise. During Mr. Kim’s reign, the communist country, which some described as a remnant of the Cold War, had pursued its Songun (that is, military first) policy, resorting to many saber-rattling activities such as missile tests and nuclear development. Alternating between conciliatory and belligerent attitudes, Mr. Kim demonstrated to the world what brinkmanship was all about, as if to make a mockery of Japan, which, cowering before other countries, had failed in its diplomatic policies. The international community is now paying attention to his third son, Kim Jong un, who is the heir apparent and has been groomed by the elder Kim since 2008, when he reportedly suffered a stroke. That the younger Kim had been almost unknown before 2008, or that he is extremely young and probably inexperienced, has caused many experts to speculate over whether he can solidify his power enough to establish his status as the legitimate heir without appealing to any kind of power sharing.

Taken together, 2011 has seen such important developments, the influence of which will continue in the coming years or even decades, that the future historians might regard this year as a turning point in world history. But that’s anybody’s guess. Even if we could predict what impact they will have on the world from now on, we would have little power to change their course. As the 3.11 disaster mercilessly has shown, we are utterly helpless in the face of natural or historic currents. All we can do is live timorously, aware of our constant vulnerability but almost comically incapable of letting go of our mortal coils. Shorn of all the embellishments, that is what it means to live.

Another year will come, whether it is happy or not.

"Unknown"

I saw “Unknown,” starring Liam Neeson. Well, it was rather good. Maybe I thought so simply because I’d expected little of it. But even so it was at least not bad.

The movie opens with a scene of an American biologist, Dr. Martin Harris, coming to Berlin with his wife to attend an international conference. They caught a taxi at the airport to go to the hotel where they had planned to stay. When they arrived at the hotel, however, he realized he had left his suitcase behind in the airport, and got another taxi alone to go back there. But the taxi got involved in an accident on the way, and dived into the river. Butting his head strongly with the side window, Harris fell into a comma, and when he woke up next time, he found himself at a hospital in Berlin. Though a bit confused about his bearings at first, after watching a TV news program featuring the conference, he remembered why he was in Germany and where he and his wife had planned to stay. He got so worried about his wife, who must have been at a loss about her husband’s whereabouts, that against his doctor’s advice he went to the hotel to tell her he was alive. But what awaited him there was a very enigmatic situation: he found his wife was with another man who also called himself Dr. Martin Harris, and she told him she had never met him before. After some failed attempts to prove he was Dr. Martin Harris, he swooned again and was sent back to the hospital. Although he was still inclined to believe what he had said was true, having seen many pieces of evidence to the contrary, he was beginning to doubt his own story and believe he had gone insane, when a strange person appeared at the hospital and tried to take him forcefully out of the hospital. The guy bound him to the stretcher, and killed a nurse who tried to interrupt him. At this point, Martine concluded he had been right after all, and he must have been involved in some kind of nefarious conspiracy. Fleeing from the killer guy, he decided to fight to take back his true identity.

Some may see this as a garden-variety thriller plot, and I don’t argue against them. There are certainly some unexpected twists toward the end, but they are not so unpredictable nor so shocking. After watching it, you might be feeling “I’ve seen many movies like this,” an opinion with which I would agree. Still, I like this movie because it’s full of so many beautiful scenes (or landscapes?). And Liam Neeson played his role well. Diane Kruger’s cute. These three factors---beautiful scenes, a seasoned hero, and a cute heroine---made this otherwise run-of-the-mill suspense thriller a worth-a-watch movie.

A Matter of Taste

Many people in Japan believe that the aim of learning English is to become able to speak it like native speakers do. Accordingly, they are deeply sensitive to the way native speakers talk, and always fear that their English might be besmirched with Japanese color. That’s why all those natives-don’t-say-so kinds of books abound in the bookstores. Well, it is not a bad thing to try to emulate them, but remember that even if you are unable to speak that fluently, you don’t need to feel uneasy or diffident.

Nobody can deny that English is now the international language, and if you don’t want to be cut off from communication with the rest of the world, you should have at least a reasonable knowledge of the lingua franca. But this doesn’t cancel the fact that the current situation gives native speakers of English a big head start, for at least linguistically, they don’t have to learn any grammar or acquire any new vocabulary in order to play an active role at the world stage.
For nonnative speakers, simply using English in communication requires investing a great deal. Just think of so much time and energy you’ve spent, if not wasted, learning or studying English! If so, why should you feel inferior or embarrassed just because your English is less than perfect or even broken? Don’t you think the onus is upon native speakers to try to understand your fractured English, not the other way round?

Now English has established its status, it might be difficult to look at things that way, but take a step backwards. Almost all the linguists, including those whose mother tongue is English, admit that English has become what it is now only by chance, and that its influential status in the world today has nothing to do with its superiority as a language. If this is true, as I think it is, then any other language could have been in the place that English now holds.

So, let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose Japanese were now the de facto international tool of communication, in lieu of English. In that case, what would happen? The answer is this: wherever you went, you wouldn’t have to feel any timidity about communication if only you knew Japanese. Indeed, if people in any country couldn’t understand you, you could simply say disdainfully, “But they don’t even understand Japanese,” as if that were the mark of their inferiority in every other respect. Don’t you think this kind of thing would be ludicrous? But consciously or unconsciously, we believe that this is the kind of situation where native speakers of English are virtually placed. That’s why even when talking with them in Japan, we fear our English might not be good enough.

It's irrelevant here to say that many native speakers are not that hubristic. Please remember I’m not saying this to inveigh against native speakers of English or accuse them of being arrogant. The point is that we are acting as if they were entitled to behave that way. How else could we account for our tendency to respect and admire them when they speak slowly or try to understand our broken English? Deep down, we feel that our failure to speak English could deprive us of the right to communicate. So the less confident we feel about our English skills, the more subservient we tend to be toward native speakers.

But this is simply not good. It completely violates the principle of reciprocity. If we cooperate with native speakers to achieve something that would be of mutual benefit, isn’t it strange for us to be deeply thankful for their “effort” simply because they deign to slow down their natural speed of speaking---especially considering the amount of time and energy it would take for us to learn even broken English?

“But the circumstances being what they are, what do you want us to do?” you might ask. Well, nothing difficult, it’s very simple. I don’t say “Stop using English,” which would be worse than ludicrous; all I say is “Speak Japanese English without fear or hesitation.” If you are already able to speak native-like English, that’s fine. You don’t need to change that. However, if you speak Japanese (or broken) English now, and feel it serves your purpose sufficiently, you don’t have to feel embarrassed about it just because some other person’s English sounds more native-like. Be proud of your Japanese English and continue to use it unflinchingly. Even if native speakers seem to have difficulty understanding you at first, be bold and say “I’ m trying to use your language now, so I would like you to try as much to understand me.” Some of them might get angry or impatient at this statement. But I’ve already explained how hubristic it would be. You don’t need to communicate with such inflexible fellows, who can never be thought of as cosmopolitan in mind.

Of course, I know there are some who don’t have native-like proficiency now but want to have it in the future because it’s cool. I never despise them nor do I insist they should renounce their dream; that’s a good dream to pursue, I believe. But please remember that whether someone wants to achieve native-like proficiency for its own sake is simply a matter of taste, and if a friend of yours happens to have a different taste, please don’t mock him or her.

The logical rigor of English

In the U.S. the phrase "could care less" is used to mean "don't care at all." In the U.K., however, people say "I couldn't care less" to mean the same thing. Logically speaking, to say "I could care less" to mean "I don't care" like Americans do is a bit bizarre, because the sentence would normally be deemed as a truncated version of "I could care less than I do now," which would imply "I do care to some extent."

Just think of the sentence "I couldn't agree more." Everyone understands that it means "I completely agree," being a shortened version of "I couldn't agree more than I do," which implies the speaker agrees to the largest degree. If you follow this reasoning and apply it to "could care less," the phrase should mean "I care to some extent" and if you want to say you just don't care, you should use "couldn't care less."

Strangely, quite the reverse happens in the U.S. But this phenomenon is not limited to the "could care less" construction. For example, some point out that Americans tend to say "cannot underestimate X" to mean that the value or degree of X is very great. But the verb "underestimate" basically means to estimate the value of something to be lower than it really is. If so, the phrase "cannot underestimate X," which should mean "cannot estimate the value of X to be lower than it really is," would imply that the value of X is extremely low, and if you wanted to say the value of X is great, you would have to change "underestimate" into "overestimate." But this is not necessarily the case, at least when it comes to American English.

What makes these somewhat bizarre constructions all the more interesting is that their original (or logically tenable) versions like "couldn't care less" and "cannot overestimate" are the ones Japanese learners of English have great difficulty mastering. Indeed, typical Japanese, when they first come across, say, the phrase "cannot overestimate X," tend to think it implies the value of X is very low.

I did make the same mistake when I was a high school student and, reading in a grammar a logical explanation of why the meaning of the phrase was diametrically opposed to what I had expected it to be, was impressed with the logical rigor with which native speakers of English understood such constructions. But I must have overestimated their logical reasoning.

The fact that Americans do make the same "mistake" as typical Japanese learners do or, in other words, the fact that they can interpret sentences like "cannot underestimate" and "could care less" in the same way as Japanese learners do suggests that native speakers do not necessarily, even unconsciously or implicitly, follow logical rules when they speak.

In fact, when I asked a friend of mine (a native) about the phrase "could care less," she said that to say "could care less" to mean "just don't care" was only natural and not until I reminded her of how "couldn't agree more" is usually understood in English did she realize that it (could care less) was unreasonable at least from a logical point of view.

Of course, I have no intention whatever of criticizing Americans for being illogical. But what I could care less about saying is that you cannot be too careful of overestimating the logical rigor of English or its speakers.

What is freedom? (1)

Recently I read On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. It’s an essay on Political Liberty, or the legitimate limits of the interference of the state with individual people’s freedom. Perusing this masterpiece and juxtaposing its moral philosophy with those of rationalistic philosophers like Immanuel Kant have provided me with a good opportunity to consider such fundamental questions as what it truly means to be a free agent and whether it is possible for us to be free in a true sense. Here I’ do like to share some thoughts on these questions, mainly based on Kantian philosophy.

Freedom is such a familiar concept that we seldom pause to think what it truly means. Once we begin to consider exactly what it is, however, we will realize how elusive a concept it is and how difficult it is to be convinced of its actual existence. For example, I believe that I choose to do whatever I like and that in blogging like this, I am choosing to do so as a free subject. But is it truly so? Am I not just obeying my desire to blog? Is it really possible to say that I’ve chosen to blog and that I’ve been autonomous in that choice?

Indeed, if you begin to consider this kind of problem, you are already standing on the threshold of philosophy, and all you need to plunge into the exciting field is a little courage and leisure. Although the image you have of philosophy may be as a recondite subject, it’s actually far simpler than is commonly supposed, and the problems it deals with are not so different from the ones that every child, with their uncontaminated minds, poses to their puzzled parents. So you don’t need to be afraid of foraying into this riddle-laden field.

Kant’s definition of freedom is extremely stringent. His epistemology makes it impossible to conceive its possibility in the world of experience, where the law of causality reigns supreme, so that nothing can escape from its grip. According to Kantian view, causality is one of those things that make the world of experience possible. So, for something to exist in the sphere of experience entails that it is ruled by the law of causality, or caused by some other thing. But if everything is caused by something, it follows that nothing is unconditioned or that nothing is totally free. That is why freedom is impossible in the realm of possible experience. Nothing or nobody can be truly free in this down-to-earth world. But if so, how is the concept of freedom itself possible?

Practical reason comes in here. It can dictate a priori---or independently of and prior to experience---that so and so ought to be the case. This is the universal moral law. On Kantian view, it is only in our ability to choose to obey this law for its own sake that freedom is possible. For as a rational subject every individual has this transcendental faculty called practical reason, and obeying the rule prescribed by it does not mean obeying some other thing but following our inner rational voice.

Despite the fact that Kant’s moral philosophy is highly intriguing and has indeed inspired such modern thinkers as John Rawls and Michael Sandel, it is untenable from our point of view. It gives reason a privileged status it does not actually have. Though reason is palpably a higher faculty than sensation, still it’s not a metaphysical but an anthropological faculty, and as such requires some biological and sociological foundation. That it is totally unfettered by experience, be it ontogenetic or phylogenetic, is simply inconceivable. But if we reject Kantian moral philosophy on this ground, we have to return to the question: Is freedom really possible? Kant's epistemology is so cogent that it's impossible to completely jettison its basic idea but if we accept its tenet that causality is one of the indispensable components of this empirical world and yet reject Kant's rationalistic account of freedom, we cannot avoid concluding that free will in a true sense is completely impossible. How can we extricate ourselves from this predicament?

I’d like to consider what Mill thinks about this problem next time.

Take Heed, and Beware of Irrational Fear

The tremendous difficulty we have controlling our irrational feelings reminds us of our inherently bestial nature. Although it’s said that reason, or vernunft if you like, sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, ironically this exquisite human faculty seldom comes to rescue us when we need it most.

As I said in the previous posting, Tokyo didn’t suffer serious damage from the earthquake and tsunami. True, the nuclear plant crisis triggered by them has made it all but impossible for Tokyo Electric Power Company to supply enough electricity, as a result of which it has now put into practice the rolling residential blackouts in its covered areas, thus influencing Tokyoites’ lives too. But even before this they were fear stricken. Immediately after the earthquake hit, many of them rushed to supermarkets and convenient stores to stock up on essentials. This stupid panic buying still continues despite the admonitions on the part of the government officials and TV news commentators. If you think rationally about the current situation, it is the most affected areas in northeast Japan that are in serious shortage of essentials. Tokyoites don’t lack anything at this moment. Still, they do stock up, thus making it all the more difficult for relief goods to reach those survivors in Tohoku. Nothing could be further from rational behavior.

Behind this irrational behavior lies an egocentric desire to avert death even at the expense of others’ lives. Another possible factor is the strong tendency of Japanese people to simply ape what other people do without considering whether it is a reasonable thing. Both of them can be subsumed under the heading of “fear.” On the one hand, they fear death; on the other, they fear to lag behind others. These feelings are understandable enough, but not commendable from a rationalistic point of view. And in my opinion, overcoming them ultimately helps us to protect what we fear to lose.

Not only in this panic buying but also in people’s interpretation of what’s happening in the nuclear plants in Fukushima prefecture does this irrational fear make itself felt. The reportings of the foreign media and the Japanese media are so different in tone that they are at a loss which of the two is true. The foreign media suggest that the nuclear crisis is far worse than the Japanese administration admits, something that people don't want to belive, but if the worse scenario should turn out to be true, those who have listened for it, they think, will be more likely to survive than those who have ignored it. As a result, they are frustrated. But even if the foreign media should be correct, there is nothing we could do at this moment. What point is there in scratching our heads over what we cannot do anything about? The only rational way to respond to the current situation is to be always prepared for the worst scenario, be it a Chernobyl or anything else, so that we can remain calm should it come. This might be regarded as a form of resignation. But far from being so, this is the most practical way to weather the crisis. The worst scenario doesn’t always mean that we all perish. But it would take stupendous efforts to overcome it. So, suppose that the worst thing happened, what would be the biggest impediment to containing it? People’s irrational fear and behavior. Even now, they are in confusion. If it should turn out that the crisis is far worse than they think, it is almost inevitable for the situation to be chaotic. In such a case, those who will keep calm and behave in a rational manner will be most likely to succeed.

I know that this mental attitude is hard to maintain. After all, we are part of the animal kingdom. Rational behavior is not the rule but the exception. But if reason cannot help us at this critical moment, what is it for?

Not Hope but Will

Prime Minister Naoto Kan referred to the disaster as the worst crisis ever since WWII. He may have been correct. But Japan has always been able to overcome tremendous hardships. Japanese people's fortitude and perseverance have been admired all over the world. Economic stagnation? Political deadlock? Yes, these are problems, but nothing compared with what Japan has accomplished since the end of the war.

The Kobe earthquake in 1995 is still fresh in my memory. It devastated the beautiful city out of recognition. But people got together under the banner of "We Love Kobe" and made herculean efforts to redeem the city's beauty and dignity. Now Kobe is a far more wonderful city than before the disaster struck.

The most important thing about this is that those who lived in Kobe at that moment, including myself, never doubted it would recover from the damage it suffered. Indeed, eventual recovery was so natural to me that it didn't occur to me to have any doubt about it. And Kobe did emerge from the crisis a stronger city.

The NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof, who witnessed the resuscitation of Kobe in person as a correspondent, attributes this resilience to a form of fatalism. He observes that Japanese people tend to accept quietly what has happened. This is reflected in such Japanese phrases as “shikata ga nai,” which we often use to express the view there is no point in grumbling about what has come to pass. Indeed, one old survivor of this Tohoku earthquake is reported to have said, “It is no use complaining about what happened, we can rebuild our city.”

This aspect of Japanese culture has long been pointed out by Westerners, but almost invariably in a negative light. For example, Sir Laurens van der Post suggested, in his autobiographical short stories that are based on his own experience as a POW, that this kind of self-effacing fatalism has been responsible for Japanese people’s fanatical behaviors in the war. What makes Mr. Kristof’s observation special, therefore, is that it draws attention to the remarkable feat this Japanese character could accomplish in a crisis. And Mr. Kristof cannot be so wrong, as is evidenced by the case of Kobe and the survivor mentioned above.

So why should we be so pessimistic? I am confident, and I believe everybody is confident, that Japan will regain its strength. True, there is no denying that this disaster will be a traumatic event for the entire nation and that it will be extremely hard for those who suffered serious damage, be it physical or mental, to stand up and move forward. But still more difficult for me is to imagine that they will never stand up again.

In the face of this unprecedented crisis, let us remember an important truth, fully articulated in the superb Japanese comic "ARMS": "What prevents people from moving forward is not despair but resignation; what prompts them to move forward is not hope but will."

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Appendix:

The following comment is on Mr. de Botton’s article “Tsunamis and Stoicism”
(http://theschooloflife.typepad.com/the_school_of_life/2011/03/alain-de-botton-on-tsunamis-and-stoicism.html)

Tokyo was affected by the earthquake that hit Japan five days ago, but the damage it suffered was relatively small, especially compared with the colossal havoc wrought upon the northeastern part of Japan. Basically, I can go about my daily business as before. Therefore, I do not realize what it would truly mean to see one’s own house falling down or one's own relatives and friends being swept away by tsunamis. In other words, despite my nationality, I am as objective an onlooker as anybody else.

From that onlooker's point of view, I couldn't agree more with Senenca. When an unexpected, catastrophic event happens, people tend to complain of its unfairness and unreasonableness. Some even say that they don't deserve it because they didn't do anything wrong. But they at least know that those events have happened over and over again in the history of human beings. For example, great earthquakes have recently struck such countries as Indonesia, China and New Zealand, causing many innocent people to die. Even if we confine ourselves to Japan, the Kobe earthquake happened in 1995 and the Niigata earthquake in 2004, in both cases resulting in large casualties. So for a disaster to strike is not unreasonable at all. What is truly unreasonable is the groundless assumption we often fall into the trap of harboring that it is impossible for us to fall victim to such disasters. And Seneca's purpose, from my understanding, was to rectify that unreasonable attitude.

Still, I cannot help but think that I can say this so calmly because I have never seen my beloved ones being engulfed by death waves. It might be a piece of sentimentality to say this, but I am not sure whether, if I should experience the tragic events that happened to the northeastern part of Japan a few days ago, I could say the same thing with as much equanimity. And if I couldn't do that, isn't my current agreement with Seneca a spurious one? A tough question.

English Speaking X

It is often claimed that despite many years of learning efforts, Japanese people cannot speak English at all. But in lieu of lamenting this fact, it is more useful to think about what has created this terrible situation. In my opinion---and I feel many people agree in this---it is simply because most Japanese people have little opportunity to use English in their daily lives that they cannot speak it fluently. So if you want to do something about the current situation, what you need to do is not complain about Japanese people’s ineptitude in learning a foreign language but provide them with as much opportunity as possible to practice speaking.

This view naturally led me to the idea of holding an event in which every participant, whatever his or her nationality, would be required to use English. When I hit upon this idea, I thought it might be appropriate to call such an event “English Speaking X” in the sense that its main focus would be upon improving the participants’ speaking skills.

Yesterday this idea finally materialized, and five advanced learners of English, all of them Japanese, gathered at Mita campus (in Tokyo) to discuss some pedagogical issues in English. I am an assistant professor but the other four are graduate students and three of them have a very high TOEIC score (over 900).

Although I hadn’t prepared any specific topic or theme to discuss, the fact that every participant was in some way or other involved in English education naturally prompted us to talk about pedagogical issues. First of all, we discussed why it is so difficult for Japanese learners to speak English. Of course, everybody cited the lack of opportunity to use English in everyday life, but another reason cited was the system of English education in Japan that tends to choose accuracy over fluency.

To be able to speak English accurately would require many years of training and a great deal of grammatical and lexical knowledge, but if your English is not strictly accurate, it is still possible to communicate. There are many people in the world whose English is not grammatically impeccable but who is still capable of interacting with others. If you pay too much attention on accuracy, however, you will have great trouble improving fluency, which might make communication itself impossible. So it is very important, in teaching or learning English, to weigh accuracy against fluency.

After discussing this problem, we switched to another topic. I said to them, ”Suppose you were teaching English to Junior high school students or high school students and suppose that a student of yours came to you and asked, ‘Why is it necessary to learn English?” How would you respond to that question?’” If you were an English teacher in Japan, this type of question would be the most recalcitrant one. For example, the questioner might point out that his or her father cannot speak English but makes a lot of money, which they might say proves that learning English is not necessary at least in Japan.

One possible answer we came up with was that though it is not strictly indispensable to learn English, it will at least broaden the learner’s horizons and open up many possibilities. And being able to speak English will make it easier to access various sources, which will help garner information efficiently. Another way of handling this question we discussed was to try to convince the questioner of the importance of learning English by pointing out that things are changing rapidly and that the world is far more interconnected than it was twenty or thirty years ago, when the questioner’s parents were in their twenties. Indeed, the society is paying a lot of serious attention on English proficiency these days, which is palpably reflected in the fact that influential corporations, such as UNIQLO, now adopt English as the official language.

But as far as I am concerned, the ultimate answer to this type of question would be that he or she is not yet entitled to judge what is necessary and what is not; they are too young and too inexperienced to assess the value of what they are learning. I would tell the questioner that when I was as young as him or her, I didn't think that learning English was so important; that only when I was able to speak English to some extent did I realize how useful it was. Dogmatic as it may sound, this type of response is, I believe, not so preposterous. Learning something new allows you to look at things from a new angle. And if you look at something from a new angle, even if you are looking at the same thing as you did before, you might notice that it has an aspect which you were previously unaware of but which puts it in a far more favorable light. So learning a new thing without understanding how it will become useful in the future is sometimes unavoidable.

After considering these matters, a participant offered a new topic: to what extent should high school teachers teach pronunciation to their students, or how much emphasis should they put on correct pronunciation? Her own opinion was that since SAE is now regarded as the model in most high schools, as least as a teacher she should try to imitate American English. I disagreed with her idea and claimed that she should put as little emphasis as possible on good pronunciation because what is "correct" pronunciation is now difficult to decide, especially as English is now spoken in so many parts of the world that it is almost impossible to think of the language as something monolithic (though a number of Japanese people show a surprising incapacity to understand that American or British English is not the only correct English). Indeed, if you imagine the situations where Japanese students will be required to use English in the future, it is more than likely that they will have to communicate more often with non-native speakers of English, such as Chinese people and South Koreans, than with native speakers, and if they are incapable of understanding various types of English that are used by those non native speakers, however similar their English may be to British or American English, they might have a lot of trouble performing their jobs. So it is better to emphasize grammar and vocabulary over pronunciation, because the former two seem to be less variable than the latter.

Another participant, however, pointed out that whatever kind of English you may speak, you at least should know, as a fact, that, say, the sound of "l" and that of "r" are different, or that saying "shit" when you should say "sit" might produce a devastating result---an opinion with which I couldn't agree more. But at any rate paying too much attention to correct pronunciation can produce the same effect as paying too much attention to grammatical accuracy, of discouraging learners from trying to speak English. School teachers have a duty to assure his or her students that it is OK to speak English with Japanese accents.

And, after this, the same participant that had raised the question of "pronunciation" offered another question: a typical high school class consisting of more than 30 students, and it being only natural that some students are more proficient at English than others, how should high school teachers decide what part of their class to zero in on? If they devote their energy to improving higher level students, their class might be unbearably difficult for lower level students, whilst if they focus on salvaging less proficient students, that might bore students with higher proficiency---a situation traditionally called Catch 22. I maintained that they should home in on higher level students, but the other participants were skeptical of this. They said that ideally they should cover all the students of their classes. But was it possible? It was extremely difficult, if it was worth a try.

At this point, a glance at my watch reminded me of the fact that a participant was supposed to leave at 5 p.m. because of an appointment. It was 5:05, so I told her so and that it would be better for her to go. And along with her, all of us left the class room we had used, and moved to a cafe called Veloce near the campus, where we continued to speak English and, since all of us were palpably Japanese, captured other people's attention, but we couldn't have cared less.

Taken together, this event was a great success. I think we should continue to hold a similar event at a regular interval.

What linguistics is not:

Asked what my job is, I always just say that I am an English teacher. But I am also a linguist, a fact that I often keep secret especially in front of those who I've just met because of the difficulty of explaining what an average linguist is up to. Different linguists do different jobs, and it often happens that those who believe themselves to be linguists are not so regarded by others. Indeed, pinning down linguists' jobs is not a little tricky. But this does not imply that linguistics is a recondite discipline that is beyond ordinary people's ken. So, as there seem to be a lot of confusions or misconceptions among laypeople about what it is the duty of the linguist to do, it might not be so superfluous here to provide a general and neutral adumbration thereof, or at least of what is not her duty to do---though I must hasten to add I myself am not so knowledgeable as to this occupation as to be equal to the task. The following sketch, for the validity of which I cannot vouch at all, is intended for laypeople, so it is written in as easy a manner as possible.

First of all, if you think that a linguist is a person who can speak several languages fluently, you should drop the idea immediately. Although most linguists can speak at least more than one language, theoretically one can do linguistics without knowing about any languages other than one's own. One of the culprits for this misunderstanding is, I think, the fact that the English word "linguist" has several meanings, one of which is, unfortunately, "a person with a good command of foreign languages." But you should keep a line of demarcation between this figurative meaning of "linguist" and what a professional linguist means. The purpose of the linguist is to clarify scientifically what a specific language or human language in general is, not to become proficient in many languages, though this kind of proficiency ultimately proves to be of use to her.

Second, if you believe that the duty of the linguist is to show people in general what kind of rules they should follow if they are to speak correctly, it seems that you do not know anything about linguistics today. As early as 1909, a Danish linguist named Otto Jespersen, whose influence on this field cannot be overstated, maintained that the purpose of the grammarian is not to prescribe what grammatical rules "should be" but to describe what grammatical rules "are." Yes, there are language mavens and grammar snobs, who are persnickety about what they perceive to be correct usage and show no restraint whatsoever in excoriating those who they think commit the error of flouting their sacred rules. Sometimes, these fanatics may subsume themselves under the category of "linguist." But if they are linguists, I am a Martian. A true linguist approaches verbal phenomena as a botanist approaches herbal, or a zoologist animal, phenomena. She does not dictate which expressions are correct and which not. Every expression, as long as it is sufficiently widespread, is a legitimate object of her study, because it is a legitimate member of the linguistic world no less than a species of animal is of the animal kingdom. True, language mavens may suggest that you stop using such expressions as "I could care less" and "The reason is because he is a nerd." But from a professional linguist's point of view, it does not make sense to judge whether these expressions are "correct"; what piques her interest is why they have emerged.

Finally, if you suspect that the job of the linguist is to provide a(n) historical explanation of a word or a construction, well, you are not wide of the mark but still not to the point. Those who do this kind of work are usually called "etymologists" or "lexicographers" and now distinguished from linguists. I say now because there used to be a time when the job of the linguist was to explain language phenomena on historical principles. In those days, it was generally believed that the only way to explain why certain words or constructions existed was to appeal to the history of the language. But an iconoclastic Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure challenged this then impregnably predominant idea on the grounds that it should be possible to study any historical phase of a language independently of all the others, to draw a line between synchronic and diachronic aspects of human language, a distinction that is still influential in the field of theoretical linguistics, though some attempts have been made to revise it. So the job of linguist today is not to provide an etymological explanation.

"Then, what is the linguist doing? You say that she is studying scientifically what language is. But this is too vague. What I want to know is specifically what kind of activity she is engaged in." You might complain. Sorry. But I have no intention of equivocating. The vexed/vexing problem with the definition of linguistics is that what it means to scientifically study language differs from one person to another. Some say that the word "scientific" means "in a manner as rigorous as natural science", while others say that geistwissenshaft (human science) is completely different from natural science, with myriad less extreme interpretations of "scientific" in between. So beyond this, it's up to the individual what is within the proper realm of the linguist to do. Ah? My stance? I believe that I am standing in the middle of the spectrum, equidistant from the two extreme poles, since I am an advocate of the golden mean. But perhaps that's just because they are equi-valent (gleichgultig) for me.

Andrew Shaffer "Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love"/ Nishimura Kenta "Kueki Ressha"

Reading Andrew Shaffer's "Great Philosophers who Failed at Love" has been a very amusing but slightly disturbing experience. This book makes it clear that those philosophers who have gain the epithet of "Great" have almost invariably put forward a series of unconventional ideas about romantic, as well as other, relationships. Of course, considering how strange and extraordinary their philosophical theories seem to an uninitiated observer, it may come as no surprise to learn that their views on love are also far from mundane. The Greek philosophy titan, Aristotle, thought that women were by nature inferior to men, that they were "monstrosities" of nature, while the German philosopher and Marx's sidekick, Friedrich Engels, claimed that monogamy was nothing but ludicrous. The British Nobel Prize laureate Bertrand Russell, who married four times in his life, acknowledged that an extramarital intercourse was no sin, whereas for the German esoteric philosopher Martin Heidegger, that he and his illegitimate lover Hanna Arendt were teacher and student was merely an inconvenience.

As the title of this book suggests, the philosophers dealt with here are only the ones who did not make a success in their romantic relationships. But if so, it might be shocking how many of the philosophers that enjoy tremendous fame today have been maladroit at loving and being loved. This book may help you mollify your sense of inferiority about being unwise by suggesting that sagacious people have almost always been incapable of doing what commonest people can easily do. Indeed, you may go so far as claiming that philosophy, or love of knowledge, which compels one to think inordinately about extremely trifling things, is nothing but an impediment to ordinary happiness. Well, It might be true. But for my part, even if it is true that the more you think, the further you are removed from what is called happiness, I cannot help but believe that the act of thinking gives more than it takes away, and that it is better to be an unsatisfied Socrates than to be a satisfied fool. After all, the humongous number of people who should have enjoyed so-called ordinary happiness are the ones about whom no book, or not even a passage, could be written by posterity.


After reading Niashimura Kenta's latest book "Kueki Ressha" many readers may wonder why it was able to win the Akutagawa award. It is true that this autobiographical novel doesn't seem to have anything special that differentiates it from other mediocre works, at least as far as its plot is concerned. But in my opinion it is not the plot but the style that sets this novel apart. Although it is generally held that one can draw a sharp line between form and content, and the belief is widespread that when it comes to literary works, content is far more important than form, the boundary that stands between these two realms is far more porous than is commonly supposed. The aim of the novelist is not just to say something special in an ordinary manner but also to say something ordinay in a special manner, and sometimes which of these a particular novel is doing is not so clear.
In some novels, the line is blurred.

Mr. Nishimura's style is iconoclastic but also promising. He explores the possibility of writing interminable sentences in Japanese, whose syntactic properties tend to defy long sentences, and to some extent succeeds in doing this. His sentences are often very long, but beautiful and very easy to read. He also uses some unfamiliar, rare words, like "hana" and "doude.” Thanks to these original characteristics of his style one can get an aesthetically stimulating experience from reading his works. Literature has as much to do with form as with content, and I think "Kueki Ressha" could not have won the award had it not been for its eccentric style.

The year 2010

The following passage was written on Dec 31, 2010.

As 2010 is about to end, it might be helpful to take a step backwards and contemplate what this year has been like. This is the second year I've worked at Kyorin university, and although I've experienced many things, bad and good alike, over the past year, one thing I'm fully convinced of is that I have zero question that 2010 has been a far better year than 2009 was. What is it about this year that has made it so exquisite, you might ask? Well, there are many factors, but one obvious reason is because I was able to spend three weeks in Oxford as a supervisor of an academic tour.

Despite the fact that I major in English linguistics, and teach English at university, I am a rather introvert man. What I mean by "introvert" is that I have little overseas experience. I have been to the U.S. twice, first when I was a kid, and second when I was fifteen, but both for sightseeing and I stayed there just for a week. While I was studying linguistics at university, I didn't leave Japan at all. So, when I joined this summer's Oxford tour, I got out of this country for the first time in almost 15 years. No wonder I had been deeply worried, before going, about whether I could perform the important role of a supervisor. But once there, I was so busy enjoying everything I saw and heard that I couldn't afford to worry. The days I spent there have passed so hectically that there was no room for anxiety. Of course, I couldn't have enjoyed the tour so much without many people's generous and dedicated support. I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

This three-week stay in Oxford has opened my eyes and broadened my horizons. I experienced what it was like to be in a totally different environment than the one where you had been brought up. Besides, Oxford is a deeply cultural city, known as the place where academia first materialized. As I am a (pseudo-)scholar myself, I hardly need to say that it was an exhilarating experience just to stay there even for a short time and bask in the historic ambience the city exudes.

But it was not only this that made my stay so cool. It was also the people I went with, that is, the students under my supervision. Some people say that as for traveling, it is not where you go but with whom you go there that counts. Well, I have to admit that where you go is important, but this does not preclude me from saying that the "with whom" part is just as significant. Yes, some, (or most), of the students were troublemakers. Others were not serious enough about studying. To say the least, all of them were not easy to handle. But if so, humans are basically not easy to handle. Some people seem to be malleable just because they hide their true feelings and try to avoid as much conflict as possible. Don't misunderstand me. I am not against doing this. Being able to do so is what it means to be an adult. And you have to be an adult, at least someday.

But sometimes, if you want to strike up an unalloyed friendship, it is necessary to stop hiding your true feelings, to stop pretending to be a person you are not, to frankly express yourself. Those students I went to Oxford with were not afraid of expressing themselves, not afraid of showing themselves as they really are. They were frank and straightforward. So, even if they often caused trouble, and gave me extra spadework, it was not so difficult to imagine what they felt and desired and it was not difficult even to sympathize with them. So, though I’ve no idea what they thought about me, I think that I was able to become friends with them. Through interacting with them, I remembered what it was like to have a true face-to-face communication with others. They reminded me of the obvious but often forgotten fact that it is not good to refrain from doing what you want to do or saying what you want to say. The world out there is certainly full of machination and mendacity, but I feel my three-week stay in Oxford was free of those two necessary vices.

You may criticize me for being too lenient to, or too lopsided in favor of, the students. Maybe, you are right. But I know that they were sometimes too childish and selfish. And I know that in the world of adults, it is necessary to "set aside childish things." But after all they are young. Not that I am old. But they are ten years younger than me. So just because they are as selfish and as childish as I used to be ten years ago does not constitute, at least from my point of view, enough reason to excoriate them. I think that instead of being critical of their flaws, it would be more salutary to focus on their strong qualities and try to learn therefrom. Indeed, they taught me a lot of things that I would otherwise have been unaware of.

Sometimes when you've grown up, you tend to think that you can no longer act like children because you are responsible for your own behaviors, which means that should you make a blunder, you will have to bear the consequences. And there is some truth to this; as an adult you have to be more prudent and discreet than as a child. But this kind of prudence, if put to such an extreme as to border on diffidence, will impede you from fulfilling your true potential .I conjecture that it is lingering childishness in you, your refusal to completely jettison your indiscreetness, that allows you to go beyond your ordinary self. Interacting with those people who are full of childishness, in this sense, emboldened me to be more childish, to be freer to express myself, to be my truer self. It reminded me of the “I” that I really wanted to be, or of the distance between that “I” and the “I” that I am now beginning to settle for. So it is no exaggeration to say that they made the trip all the more inspiring and meaningful, for which I am more grateful than I can say.

Apart from this Oxford tour, I think that some of my classes that I have been in charge of have also helped my second year at Kyorin to be better than the first. During Spring Semester, I taught the course named “English Grammar,” and though it is difficult to say that the class was completely successful, I've learned a lot of lessons from teaching it. First, the class was a sobering reminder that it is excruciatingly difficult to teach grammar to those who are not used to learning, or not ready to study, grammar. How frustrating it was to try to explain a subject to those who didn’t think it necessary at all to study it! But I’ve also learned that however hard your subject may be, if you try hard to explain it in as detailed a way as possible, at least those of your students who are willing to listen can understand what you are imparting. Indeed, one of the students said to me, "Though what you say is difficult, if I try hard to understand it, it is possible to do so." This opinion has encouraged me to hold to the conviction that teaching what is difficult as if it were easy and simple is just hypocritical and to continue to teach in the way I had done before.

But of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Basically I take the view that the sine qua non for studying is its arduousness, so I usually teach in rather strict ways, but I am by nature not so square and interested in making learning experience more enjoyable. So in the class “English Listening and Discussion,” where I am expected to improve the students' listening and speaking skills, I’ve made an experimental attempt to create a light-hearted atmosphere, in which the teacher and the students can interact with each other in a friendlier manner. Instead of concentrating on the process of imparting knowledge, I’ve tried to encourage communication and active participation in the class. Whether this provisional attempt has been successful I cannot tell, but I think this attitude on my part has helped create a good atmosphere and I’ve enjoyed teaching the class, and I hope that the students have enjoyed it too.

I have been talking about my work so far. But of course, it is not only work that has constituted my 2010. Even though I am an easy-going, optimistic person, sometimes I need an outlet for accumulated stress. Some of my friends helped me greatly in this respect. They organized great parties and invited me to them. They listened for my grumblings and gave me important advice. They sometimes encouraged me to have more confidence in myself. Without them, this year couldn’t have been even half as good as it really has been. I’d like to give my deepest gratitude to their kindness.

Taken together, the year 2010 has been a wonderful one. I’ve enjoyed and I learned a lot from it. But there needs to be no ceiling on the level of wonderfulness. Just because 2010 has been good doesn’t mean that 2011 shouldn’t be better. So, while waving good-bye to 2010, who is now leaving, I am already looking forward to meeting a new friend, in excited anticipation of what will be in store for me.