A Consideration of Honorific Language as Viewed by Korean Learners of Japanese

등원지영미 ( Chiemi Fujiwara ) 아시아.유럽미래학회 2011 유라시아연구 Vol.8 No.4

With approximately 960,000 South Koreans studying Japanese as of 2009, they comprise 26.4% of the total number of all learners of Japanese as a second language, more than any other nationality (The Japan Foundation, 2009). For Korean learners of Japanese, the similarities in the structure of Japanese-vocabulary and grammar, etc.-with their native Korean are factors that further their language acquisition. However, it is not uncommon for Korean learners of Japanese to find the characteristics of Japanese communication involving speech levels, particularly honorific language, to be difficult. Although the Korean language has also developed a system of honorific language, it has many disparities with the structure and usage of Japanese honorific language. In addition, differences in normative consciousnesses regarding honorific language are considered to possibly be a frequent trigger for miscommunication. This paper considers the influence that their view of honorific language has upon Korean learners of Japanese with regard to their selection of speech levels when communicating with Japanese people. While much research in which qualitative studies were conducted on consciousness pertaining to Japanese honorific language has already been done, there has been little research with aqual it ative examination focusing on Japanese language learners` consciousness of honorific language. Through quantit ative research alone, it is difficult to gain acomprehensive understanding of aspects of “consciousness,” which change due to the influence of various contributing factors. Therefore, this paper will utilize the Analysisof Personal Attitude Construct(below, PAC analysis), which inrecent years has come to be used as a psychological approach to analyzing Japanese language education, to examine Korean learners` of Japanese consciousness pertaining to the view and usage of honorific language. A survey was conducted from August 2009 to January 2011 in Japan and South Korea. The survey respondents were four intermediate to advanced Korean speakers of Japanese, each of whom had studied in Japan. The survey followed the PAC analysis format with “What is your image of honorific language and its usage?” as the stimulus term. The results of the analysis will be given below. Sixty-six free association items were found in dendrograms of respondents` answers. Overall, they showed a positive view of honorific language with 42 items for a “positive image,” 10 for a “negative image,” and 14 for “neither.” The first common characteristic among respondents was the appearance of the two items: “manners,” and “feeling of distance.” From the appearance of these two items in all of the respondents` answers, it can be understood that, for verbal communication, honorific language is an important means of showing politeness and that respondents are aware that it has a function of maintaining and adjusting the degree of intimacy and psychological distance between speakers. In terms of the “feeling of distance,” there was also mention of the advantageousness of honorific language for keeping a comfortable level of distance, thus, respondents did not necessarily evaluate “feeling of distance” to be a negative thing. The second common characteristic of the free association items was a strongly positive image of users of honorific language. In presentations or in business, there was a shared impression among respondents of honorific language users being professional, disciplined workers who get the job done, belong to a higher class, and have refinement. The view of honorific language that emerged among respondents is clearly connected to an impression of its users as being intelligent and sophisticated. Furthermore, it was confirmed that respondents view honorific language use as a sense and skill for language and that correct usage of honorific language in communication situations connotes sociolinguistic competence-the ability to use language. In this way, honorific language users are viewed from the perspective of their ability. The tendency to tie honorific language usage to ability of speakers, sophistication, and intelligence could stem from the consciousness of Korean respondents, which is of “sophisticated, intelligent honorific language users” as having received a solid at-home education on honorific language in South Korea, and their positive image of that education in the home. The third characteristic was that respondents identified honorific language as a characteristic shared by Japan and South Korea, evincing their broad perspective that views honorific language in an overall sense as an East Asian characteristic. This differs greatly from Taiwanese speakers of Japanese, who tend to view honorific language as a characteristic limited to Japanese culture as shown by the research by Fujiwara using PAC analysis to clarify their view of honorific language (under review). The disparity between these two sets of research results indicates the possibility that the similarities between Korean and Japanese honorific language influence the way Koreans view the honorific language of Japanese. As for the fourth characteristic, just as in previous research (Fujiwara, 2011, under review), responses showed an image of honorific language as “difficult” and “complicated.” However, rather than the difficulty of honorific language itself, this refers to the difficulty of knowing when to correctly use respectful and/or humble honorific words. As Japanese humble honorific expressions display greater variation than those of Korean (Hekyon Ka, 2001), this can possibly be considered the most difficult part of Japanese honorific language for Korean learners. As seen above in the characteristics of the way in which Korean learners of Japanese view honorific language, there was a tendency to have a positive image of honorific language itself, as seen in responses to the free association items for observing the image of honorific language in native-language situations. As for Taiwanese learners of Japanese, many negative-image responses appeared, such as those indicating that honorific language “should be simplified” and “should be done away with” (under review). Whereas in data on Korean learners, items were observed stating that honorific language is “something that shouldn`t be lost” and is “a must-have skill,” reflecting a tendency to view honorific language usage as a vital part of cultural heritage necessary for running social lifestyles. Along with influencing this positive consciousness, it is possible that similarities between the structure of honorific language in their native language of Korean and their second language of Japanese also leads to a consciousness of honorific language, which is informed by a general image that lumps the honorific language of the two languages together. In addition, it can also be surmised that honorific language education within Korean families as well as daily lifestyles, which are deeply-rooted in Korean social/cultural characteristics, and the positive consciousness toward such things, also exerts an influence on the consciousness regarding honorific language. In the future, the results and observations of this paper should be pursued in greater depth through studies conducted with respondents from different groups (for example, Koreans who have not stayed in Japan) including larger groups of respondents and incorporation of qualitative analysis.

Olaparib plus bevacizumab as maintenance therapy in patients with newly diagnosed, advanced ovarian cancer: Japan subset from the PAOLA-1/ENGOT-ov25 trial

Keiichi Fujiwara,Hiroyuki Fujiwara,Hiroyuki Yoshida,Toyomi Satoh,Kan Yonemori,Shoji Nagao,Takashi Matsumoto,Hiroaki Kobayashi,Hughes Bourgeois,Philipp Harter,Anna Maria Mosconi,Isabel Palacio Vazquez 대한부인종양학회 2021 Journal of Gynecologic Oncology Vol.32 No.5

Objective: The addition of maintenance olaparib to bevacizumab demonstrated a significant progression-free survival (PFS) benefit in patients with newly diagnosed, advanced ovarian cancer in the PAOLA-1/ENGOT-ov25 trial (NCT02477644). We evaluated maintenance olaparib plus bevacizumab in the Japan subset of PAOLA-1. Methods: PAOLA-1 was a randomized, double-blind, phase III trial. Patients received maintenance olaparib tablets 300 mg twice daily or placebo twice daily for up to 24 months, plus bevacizumab 15 mg/kg every 3 weeks for up to 15 months in total. This prespecified subgroup analysis evaluated investigator-assessed PFS (primary endpoint). Results: Of 24 randomized Japanese patients, 15 were assigned to olaparib and 9 to placebo. After a median follow-up for PFS of 27.7 months for olaparib plus bevacizumab and 24.0 months for placebo plus bevacizumab, median PFS was 27.4 versus 19.4 months, respectively (hazard ratio [HR]=0.34; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.11–1.00). In patients with tumors positive for homologous recombination deficiency, the HR for PFS was 0.57 (95% CI=0.16–2.09). Adverse events in the Japan subset were generally consistent with those of the PAOLA-1 overall population and with the established safety and tolerability profiles of olaparib and bevacizumab. Conclusion: Results in the Japan subset of PAOLA-1 support the overall conclusion of the PAOLA-1 trial demonstrating that the addition of maintenance olaparib to bevacizumab provides a PFS benefit in patients with newly diagnosed, advanced ovarian cancer. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02477644

Phenotype Manipulation by Gene Transfer in Animals - Review -

Fujiwara, Y.,Park, H.-M.,Muramatsu, T. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2000 Animal Bioscience Vol.13 No.2

Recent progress in molecular biology has made it possible to transfer genes of interest into cells and target tissues of living animals. This enables one to manipulate phenotype of cells and whole animals in selected and intended ways. The consequence of such gene transfer attempts have been the production of various types of "transgenic" animals that cannot be classified by classical nomenclature of exclusively either "transgenic" or "nontransgenic". Emphasis was placed on characterizing two transgenic categories, i.e., "transfectgenic and somatotransgenic" and "genuine transgenic" animals basically from a view point of their use for therapeutic purposes. Current state of art and possible solutions for problems encountered at present are discussed.

R&D Sustainability of Biotech Start-ups in Financial Risk

Fujiwara, Takao Asian Society for Innovation and Policy 2018 Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy Vol.7 No.3

This paper's objective is to draw a decision guideline to continue research and development (R&D) investments in biotech start-ups facing the "Valley of Death" syndrome - a long negative profit period during a financial crisis. The data include financial indices as Net income, Revenues, Total stockholders' equity, Cash & equivalents, and R&D expenses of 18 major biotech companies (nine in negative profit and nine positive, in FY2008) and 15 major pharmaceutical corporations as benchmarks both in FY2008 and in FY2016 derived from the US SEC Database, EDGAR. A first methodology dealing with real options analysis assumes Total stockholders' equity as a growth option. And a second methodology, Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis, is applied to test the probability relationship between the Total stockholders' equity and the R&D expenses in these three groups. This study confirms that Total stockholders' equity can play the role of a call option to support continuing R&D investments even in negative profits.

Effect of Fermented Soybean "Natto" Supplement on Egg Production and Qualities

Fujiwara, K.,Miyaguchi, Y.,Toyoda, A.,Nakamura, Y.,Yamazaki, M.,Nakashima, K.,Abe, H. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2008 Animal Bioscience Vol.21 No.11

Natto is a Japanese traditional soybean product fermented by Bacillus natto. The effects of dried fermented soybean (natto) supplement on egg production and egg qualities of layer chickens was studied with regard to the effective use of various waste foods in Japan. Dried natto, prepared by heating at $60^{\circ}C$, was added to a basic diet at a level of up to 3%. Forty 166-wk-old layer chickens (Rhode Island Red) were randomly divided into 4 groups and five layer chickens were used in each group with two replicates. Layer chickens in group 1 were fed a basic diet as the control. The remaining 3 groups were fed the basic diet supplemented with dried natto at levels of 1, 2, and 3% (w/w), respectively. The result did not show improvements in egg production or feed conversion ratio of layer chickens even when 3% dried natto was added to the control diet. The egg qualities including egg weight, eggshell strength and thickness, yolk color, yolk weight, albumen height, and Haugh unit were also not improved. However, the feeding of dried natto changed the cholesterol content in the egg yolk. The supplementation of dried natto showed the tendency to decrease the yolk cholesterol after 12-wk of feeding compared to the control diet though it did not change plasma cholesterol levels in the blood. On the other hand, yolk cholesterol decreased significantly after 12-wk of feeding 3% dried natto (p<0.05).

A Multi-Application Controller for SAGE-enabled Tiled Display Wall in Wide-area Distributed Computing Environments

Fujiwara, Yuki,Date, Susumu,Ichikawa, Kohei,Takemura, Haruo Korea Information Processing Society 2011 Journal of information processing systems Vol.7 No.4

Due to the recent advancement of networking and high-performance computing technologies, scientists can easily access large-scale data captured by scientific measurement devices through a network, and use huge computational power harnessed on the Internet for their analyses of scientific data. However, visualization technology, which plays a role of great importance for scientists to intuitively understand the analysis results of such scientific data, is not fully utilized so that it can seamlessly benefit from recent high-performance and networking technologies. One of such visualization technologies is SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment), which allows people to build an arbitrarily sized tiled display wall and is expected to be applied to scientific research. In this paper, we present a multi-application controller for SAGE, which we have developed, in the hope that it will help scientists efficiently perform scientific research requiring high-performance computing and visualization. The evaluation in this paper indicates that the efficiency of completing a comparison task among multiple data is increased by our system.

Regional Resilience of Industrial Ecosystem in Financial Crisis: Comparison between Toyota-Kariya Automotive Subcontractor Cities and Hamamatsu Start-Up City

Fujiwara, Takao Asian Society for Innovation and Policy 2018 Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy Vol.7 No.1

Japan's manufacturing is mostly dependent on the automotive industry in Toyota-Kariya cities. However, the nearby city of Hamamatsu is the home of a start-up ecosystem known as Japan's Silicon Valley. How is it possible to evaluate the innovative potential of each regional industry? What kind of guidelines exist for continuing R&D investment when companies' net incomes are negative in the face of the 'Valley-of-Death' or financial crisis? Is it possible to measure the regional resilience ability in the context of the financial crisis? Entrepreneurial innovation is defined as a real-option portfolio consisting of investment decision to commercialize R&D findings. The subcontractor system implies a vertical and tight industrial group. However, a start-up ecosystem means a platform for horizontal and flexible partnership. In this research, the data include the financial indices of each of 18 public companies in both regions between FY2009 and FY2017. The objective of this paper is to clarify the call option or resilience function of equity for R&D investment in the context of the financial crisis in both regions by using Bayesian MCMC analysis.

A scheme on multi-tier heterogeneous networks for citywide damage monitoring in an earthquake

Fujiwara, Takahiro,Watanabe, Takashi,Shinozuka, Masanobu Techno-Press 2013 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.11 No.5

Quick, accurate damage monitoring is strongly required for damage assessment in the aftermath of a large natural disaster. Wireless sensor networks are promising technologies to acquire damage information in a citywide area. The wireless sensor networks, however, would be faced with difficulty to collect data in real-time and to expand the scalability of the networks. This paper discusses a scheme of network architecture to cove a whole city in multi-tier heterogeneous networks, which consist of wireless sensor networks, access networks and a backbone network. We first review previous studies for citywide damage monitoring, and then discuss the feature of multi-tier heterogeneous networks to cover a citywide area.

The Effect of Vespa simillima Extracts on Long-Term Memory and MK-801-Induced Learning Disability in Mice

Fujiwara, Yumiko,Kobayashi, Haruo,Kawai, Shigenao,Suzuki, Koichi Korean Society of Sericultural Science 2007 International Journal of Industrial Entomology Vol.15 No.1

Extracts of adult worker bodies of Vespa simillima in 2 % NaCl or acidified methanol were administered orally to mice for 70 days. Following this period, memory at one-day and one-month periods, and the effects on scopolamine-induced amnesia were examined using a step-through passive avoidance task. Changes in MK-801-induced disability after 8 days of training, and in memory one month after the trial were also assessed. Mice treated with the 2% NaCl extract showed significant improvement in memory in the behavioral tests one month after the trial, whereas mice receiving the extract in acidified methanol, did not differ from the controls in any trial. The results inidicate that Vespa simillima contains substances acting favorably on the cerebral functions of mammals.

Hybrid Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of HRS Processed SUS316L and Titanium Materials

Fujiwara Hiroshi,Ohta Koichi,Noro Atsushi,Ameyama Kei 한국분말야금학회 2006 한국분말야금학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2006 No.1

SUS316L stainless steel, commercial pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy powders applied by Mechanical Milling (MM) process are sintered by Hot Roll Sintering (HRS) process. Microstructure and mechanical properties of those HRS materials is investigated. The microstructures of materials produced by HRS process consist of fine grains and work-hardened structure, that is, the hybrid microstructure. Tensile test of the HRS material demonstrated the good mechanical properties. These results show that the HRS process is very effective to the improvement of mechanical properties in the SUS316L stainless steel, commercial pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy.