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Japanese politeness discourse varies in complexity according to social distance, relative power between speakers, and social situations. However, the attitude surveys I conducted over the past eight years indicate that Swedish learners of Japanese often do not see the necessity of learning polite discourse and often view such forms negatively. Intentionally or unintentionally, Swedish students often fail to use appropriate politeness strategies as Sweden is one of the most egalitarian societies in the world, with the elimination of the second person plural form ni to indicate a higher level of politeness reflecting this change. However, it is important to point out to foreign language learners that cultural and social norms are not cross-culturally interchangeable and that speakers must often adapt to the language they are learning and the culture they find themselves in.

Cross-cultural data on polite discourse shows that the politeness strategies differ considerably across cultures. While politeness, respect, and formality are closely associated in Japanese (e.g., Ide 1989, 2006; Matsumoto 1988, 1989, 1993) Swedish speakers perceive respect and politeness as separate matters (Björk 2014; Brumark 2006; Utrzén 2011; Norrbom 2006). Studies have also found that while Japanese speakers are inclined to use verbal politeness strategies, Swedish speakers tend to express respect through non-verbal actions or behaviors (Norrbom 2006; Pizziconi 2008; Utrzén 2011).

Language and identity are closely related, and language use is based on culture and society. Understanding both one’s own politeness strategies as well as foreign norms can help learners realize how culture, language, and their own identity are intertwined. Learners of Japanese should therefore consider polite discourse as part of the rules of the language rather than as something that can be modified based on one’s opinion.

Based on an analysis of cross-cultural differences in politeness strategies between Japanese and Swedish seen from both cultural and linguistic viewpoints, this study investigates politeness strategies used by Swedish and Japanese speakers by conducting attitude surveys and by analyzing the types of pragmatic errors made by Swedish learners of Japanese along with possible reasons for such errors.

Teaching communicative competence is extremely important in language instruction. Speakers can avoid embarrassing situations and conflicts caused by misunderstandings if they are aware of differences in inter-cultural pragmatics. Studies have shown that pragmatics can be taught effectively by using appropriate methods and tools (Cohen & Ishihara 2005, Bardovi-Harlig & Mahan-Taylor 2003). By demonstrating the use of the Japanese honorific system more systematically and contrasting it with Swedish politeness strategies, I aim to motivate students to learn honorific expressions, thus enabling them to communicate more successfully in Japanese.

In this presentation, I will first offer various definitions and views of politeness in Japan and Sweden suggested by previous studies and discuss the reasons why these came to be viewed as they are today. Second, Swedish speakers’ attitudes toward the use of Japanese polite forms will be examined using data from the surveys and error analyses I conducted. Finally, various methods for overcoming cross-cultural miscommunication caused by differences in politeness strategies will be discussed.

Japanese politeness discourse varies in complexity according to social distance, relative power between speakers, and social situations. Yet Swedish learners of Japanese often do not see the necessity of learning polite discourse and often view such forms negatively. Intentionally or otherwise, Swedish learners often fail to use appropriate politeness strategies in large part because Sweden is one of the most egalitarian societies in the world. However, it is important to point out to foreign language learners that cultural and social norms are not cross-culturally interchangeable and that speakers must often adapt to the language they are learning and to the culture they find themselves in.

In this presentation, I will first offer various definitions and views of politeness in Japan, Sweden, and the US as well as other English-speaking countries as suggested by previous studies, and I will discuss the reasons why these came to be viewed as they are today. Second, Swedish learners’ attitudes toward the use of Japanese polite forms will be examined using data from surveys and error analyses. Finally, various methods for overcoming cross-cultural miscommunication caused by differences in politeness strategies will be proposed, which may be applied to learners of other languages.

In Finland, thousands of miles away from Buenos Aires, people crowd the dance floors of restaurants and dance halls nightly to dance to tango music, while the tango has also caught the heart of the people on the other side of the world in Japan. The popularity of the tango in both Finland and Japan, however, is not very well known to the outside world.

Though some scholars have stated that the tango reflects the personality, mentality and identity of the Finnish and Japanese people, this may only be partially true. Moreover, it is difficult to generalize what the Finnish or Japanese personality is. I argue that the tango's success in these two countries also has significant connections to historical and social factors. As being a dancer myself, I also believe that the 'liminality' (originally a term borrowed from Arnold van Gennep's formulation of rites de passage) of tango dancing plays an important role in these two nations that went through difficult struggles to recover from the damage caused by the war. “The liminal phase is considered sacred, anomalous, abnormal and dangerous, while the  pre- and post-liminal phases are normal and a profane state of being (Selänniemi 1996) and “the regular occurrence of sacred-profane alternations mark important periods of social life or even provide the measure of the passage of time itself”(Leach 1961).

In this paper, I will discuss motives and paths of how a culture travels, settles and shapes into a new form, using the tango as an example.

近年のCALLに関する研究において、オンラインツールを外国語学習に利用することにより、「真正な」異文化環境が築けることが実証されている。過去の研究は母語話者と非母語話者間の交流を対象にしたものが主であったが、本研究では非母語話者同士の日本語を媒体としたテレコラボレーションを通して、学生のアイデンティティーがどのように構築されていくのかに焦点をあてる。

異なったL1背景を持つ２つの日本語学習者グループの非同期記述式（ブログ）と同期口述式（オンラインディスカッション）コミュニケーション活動から得たデータをHoughton (2012)の異文化間対話モデル ( IDモデル) を枠組みとし、分析を行った。IDモデルは 以下の5段階から構成される：1) 自己分析; 2) 他者の分析; 3) 自己と他者の価値の類似性（または差異）の批判的分析; 4) 自己と他者の価値について特定の基準を参照した批判的評価; 5) アイデンティティーの構築。

分析結果は、学生の選択する単語ひとつひとつが自身のイメージ又は他者に見られたい自分のイメージを形成すると同時に、自身のアイデンティティーへの理解を深めることに繋がっていることを示唆している。またIDモデルにおいても、1)に先立って「自己についての認識なし」という新たな段階の存在が見受けられた。更に1)の自己認識は、1-a) 単独アイデンティティーの認識、1-b) 複数のアイデンティティーの認識、の二つのサブステージを踏んで展開していくことも分かった。データによると、4)においても複数の学生がそれぞれ違った自己と他者に関する批判的評価をしていた。それは既存のアイデンティティー構築モデルが対応していない、自文化の基準と日本の文化基準の混在によるものと考えられる。つまり、異なるL1背景を持つ非母語話者同士の交流の多文化的性質はアイデンティティーの構築をより促進すると言えるだろう。また、本発表では、テレコラボレーションのマルチモーダル分析の可能性についても言及する。

Recent studies of Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) demonstrate that authentic intercultural contexts can be achieved by the use of online tools so as to enhance students’ foreign language learning and identity development. While previous research on telecollaboration and identity has mainly focused on NS-NNS interactions, this study investigates various stages of identity construction through NNS-NNS telecollaborative interactions using Japanese as lingua franca. 

The study (which was conducted together with a researcher in the U.S.) examines two sets of NNSs with different L1 backgrounds, namely NNSs of Japanese from universities in the US and Sweden. The project combines telecollaborative activities consisting of both asynchronous written (blogs) and synchronous verbal (online discussions) communication.

The Intercultural Dialogue (ID) model (Houghton, 2012) was used to evaluate the outcome. The model consists of five stages: 1) Analysis of Self; 2) Analysis of Other; 3) Critical analysis of value similarities (or differences) between Self and Other; 4) Critical evaluation of the values of Self and Other relative to a standard; and 5) Identity development.

Our findings indicate that through their written and oral discussions in Japanese, the students’ choice of words constructed images of the person they are or wished to be perceived as while building an understanding of their own identities. This shows that language use does not necessarily reflect who one is but is used to contribute to the construction of one’s identities. It was also observed that there exists a stage prior to the first stage in the ID-model, namely a “no-awareness” stage. Furthermore, our findings indicate that Stage 1 “Awareness of Self” occurs as two sub-stages: 1-a) Awareness of single identity; and 1-b) Awareness of having multiple identities. Our data also suggest that at one point, several students were offering different critical evaluations of Self and Other as a result of their own and the Japanese cultural standard not fitting the standard identity development model, suggesting that the multicultural nature of NNS-NNS interactions involving different L1 backgrounds can accelerate identity development.

The potential and challenges of multimodal analysis of intercultural telecollaboration are also discussed.

There have been quite a few studies (Helm 2009, Chun 2011, Schenker 2012, Kitade 2012, etc.) regarding the development of intercultural competence through online exchanges. Most of these exchanges, however, are between native speakers and learners of that language. The benefit of such exchanges can be maximized if both parties are learning each other’s language and they both have the opportunity to utilize the languages they are learning during the exchange, but often times, this is not the case.  Byram (1997) suggests that intercultural competence can be assessed using the following components: knowledge, skills, attitudes, and critical awareness.  If ‘intercultural competence’ means not just learning about the target culture, but also about becoming aware of one’s own culture (Liaw 2006), connecting students from different countries who are studying the same target language and culture would be an ideal setting in order for the students to evaluate both their own and target cultures critically. Having learners of a target language from different countries in a virtual classroom also helps create an environment which mimics the language classroom in the target country enabling them to experience studying abroad without leaving their home countries.

It is often said to be difficult or almost impossible for students in distance courses to develop intercultural competence because of the lack of opportunity to study abroad or the lack of an international atmosphere in the classroom (Tyberg 2009). Thus, the goal of this study is to provide opportunities for all students, regardless of their circumstances, to develop intercultural competence.  In this study, a group of intermediate/advanced level Japanese students from a university in Sweden (all distance students) and a group from a university in the U.S. were brought together in a virtual classroom using an online video conferencing system.  Through their interactions and post-seminar reflections, I examined how students develop intercultural competence.

The results from this study show that through interactions with university students from other countries who study Japanese at the same level, the students can gain not only Japanese skills, but expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of another culture as well as of the topics discussed during the meetings thus satisfying each of the criteria in Byram's model. Not everyone has the opportunity to study abroad, but today's technology allows every student to be a part of the internationalization process, develop his/her cultural-literacy and reflect on his/her identity.

Teaching communicative competence is extremely important in language instruction. One can avoid embarrassing situations and conflicts caused by misunderstandings if she/he understands the differences in intercultural pragmatics. Politeness discourse varies in complexity according to social distance, relative power between the speakers, and situations. The data I have collected during the past 6 years indicates that Swedish learners of Japanese often do not see the necessity of learning the polite/honorific discourse and often view these negatively as Swedish society is one of the most egalitarian in the world. As a consequence, Swedish students often fail to utilize appropriate politeness strategies when speaking in Japanese. However, it is important to point out to foreign language learners that cultural and social norms are not interchangeable and that one must adapt to the language one is using and the culture one is in. Thus Swedish Learners of Japanese should consider politeness discourse as a part of the rules of the language rather than something that can be modified based on one’s opinion.

The current study investigates the differences in politeness strategies between Swedish and Japanese discourse. Student surveys and analysis of students’ errors have revealed clear differences in the use of politeness strategies in Swedish and in Japanese context. While the politeness, respect, and formality are closely intertwined in Japanese; the Swedes perceive respect and politeness as separate matters. It is also found that while the Japanese are inclined to using verbal politeness strategies, the Swedes express their respect more through non-verbal actions or behaviors. Various Japanese and Swedish utterances have also been examined to determine the Discourse Politeness Default suggested by Usami (2006) in order to systematize the politeness strategies in ways similar to grammatical rules.

In the recent years, both the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education or Högskoleverket (HSV) and individual universities in Sweden have been promoting “internationalization at home.” In an attempt to make it possible for all the students to be part of internationalization regardless of their financial, family and other situations that prevent them from studying abroad, I have brought a virtual international classroom to the students studying Japanese. The initial pilot study was conducted to examine the interactions during online joint-seminars with overseas students. In order to eventually create an ideal virtual classroom environment in an international setting, I focused on finding answers to the following three questions: (1) How do the students from different countries interact during on-line video conferencing seminars? (2) What can teachers do to make the students feel comfortable in such seminars and maximize learning? (3) Do functions such as ‘Chat’ that are available in the video-conferencing system Adobe® Connect™ help improve communication between students from both countries? In the study conducted during the spring 2012 term, I examined the students’ interactions during the joint-seminars using a video conferencing system. I analyzed not only the conversation during the online-seminars but also the chat during the seminars and blog entries as well as comments outside the class to see how they compliment the verbal communication. The positive feedback from the participating students indicates that, through interactions with university students from other countries who study Japanese at the same level, the students can gain not only Japanese skills, but also expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of another culture as well as the topics discussed during the meetings. The success of the initial pilot study implies a great potential in internet-based university education contributing to ‘internationalization at home’.

In the recent years, both the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education or Hogskoleverket (HSV) and individual universities in Sweden have been promoting "internationalization at home." In an attempt to make it possible for all the students to be part of internationalization regardless of their financial, family and other situations that prevent them from studying abroad, I have brought a virtual international classroom to the students studying Japanese. The initial pilot study was conducted to examine the interactions during online joint-seminars with overseas students. In order to eventually create an ideal virtual classroom environment in an international setting, I focused on finding answers to the following three questions: (1) How do the students from different countries interact during online video conferencing seminars? (2) What can teachers do to make the students feel comfortable in such seminars and maximize learning? (3) Do functions such as 'Chat' that are available in the video-conferencing system Adobe (R) Connect (TM) help improve communication between students from both countries? In the study conducted during the spring 2012 term, I examined the students' interactions during the joint-seminars using a video conferencing system. I analyzed not only the conversation during the online-seminars but also the chat during the seminars and blog entries as well as comments outside the class to see how they compliment the verbal communication. The positive feedback from the participating students indicates that, through interactions with university students from other countries who study Japanese at the same level, the students can gain not only Japanese skills, but also expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of another culture as well as the topics discussed during the meetings. The success of the initial pilot study implies a great potential in internet-based university education contributing to 'internationalization at home'.

Teaching communicative competence is considered extremely important in today’s language instruction. One can avoid embarrassing situations and conflicts caused by misunderstandings if one understands the differences in intercultural pragmatics. This study investigates the differences in politeness strategies between Swedish and Japanese discourse and how Japanese politeness strategies can be taught effectively to the Swedish learners of Japanese. Politeness discourse varies in complexity according to social distance, relative power between the speakers, and situations. It has been indicated in the course evaluations and comments from the students that Swedish learners of Japanese often do not see the necessity of learning the polite/honorific discourse and they often view these negatively as Swedish society is one of the most egalitarian in the world. As a consequence, Swedish students often fail to utilize appropriate politeness strategies when speaking in Japanese. However, it is important to point out to foreign language learners that cultural and social norms are not interchangeable and that one must adapt to the language one is using and the culture one is in. Thus Swedish Learners of Japanese should consider politeness discourse as a part of the rules of the language rather than something that can be modified based on one’s opinion. Student surveys and analysis of students’ errors I have complied during the past six years have revealed clear differences in the use of politeness strategies in Swedish and in Japanese context. While politeness, respect, and formality are closely intertwined in Japanese; the Swedes perceive respect and politeness as separate matters. It is also found that while the Japanese are inclined to use verbal politeness strategies, the Swedes express respect more through non-verbal actions or behaviors. This paper suggests ways in which learners of Japanese may overcome these differences.

While synchronous online telecollaboration has been gaining popularity in foreign language education over the past few decades, both Multimodal Communicative Competence and Intercultural Communicative Competence have become increasingly important as a result of many educational institutions, business establishments, and governmental organizations being forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to switch their means of communication to online video conferencing systems.

Although access to digital communication technology and tools allow more people to be part of intercultural communicative exchanges, it is suspected that a considerable amount of miscommunication is caused by mis- or non-understanding of the variety of modes used in synchronous digital communication due to differences in interlocutors’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, which can affect verbal and prosodic elements such as speed, pitch, and intonation as well as non-verbal dimensions such as facial expressions, gaze, and gestures together with spatial aspects and the positioning of participants in the video frame.

Existing methods of multimodal analysis of digital communication often deal with monolingual situations. Even in cases of analysis of intercultural communication, at least one of the participating parties use their native language. 

The current study intends to fill the research gap seen in methodological issues concerning the analysis of multimodal, and (specifically) synchronous, digital intercultural communication when a non-native language is used by all participants as a lingua franca. To this end, methodological implications of multimodal analysis of synchronous digital intercultural interactions between Swedish and U.S. participants using Japanese as a lingua franca were explored, highlighting challenges that surfaced during the analysis of the data gathered for a separate study of identity development through online telecollaboration and focusing especially on the problems that may arise when a third language is used as means of communication between non-native speakers. 

In Finland, a great distance away from Buenos Aires, people crowd dance floors nightly to dance to tango music, while the tango has also captured the hearts of the people on the other side of the world in Japan. The popularity of the tango in both Finland and Japan, however, is not so familiar to the outside world.

In this paper, I will discuss the motives and the paths by which a culture travels, settles and shapes itself into a new form, using the tango as an example. First, the tango’s relationship to society and history in each of these countries are explored using archives and literature. Then such aspects as inner emotion, solitude, illusion, and liminality are analyzed through data collected from surveys, interviews, and forum discussions in the SNS.

Some scholars suggest that the tango reflects the personality, mentality, and identity of the Finnish and Japanese peoples. Though this may be partially true, it is difficult to generalize about the Finnish or Japanese personality. It is argued, rather, that the tango's prosperity in these two countries has significant connections to some shared historical and social factors. I also propose that the 'liminality' of tango dancing plays an important role in both nations that went through difficult struggles to recover from the damage caused by war. “The liminal phase is considered sacred, anomalous, abnormal and dangerous, while the pre- and post-liminal phases are normal and a profane state of being” (Selänniemi 1996). Tango dancing can be considered an escape or a vacation from the hardship of everyday life as well as a fuel which enables the people to keep moving forward.

The tango’s transformation in Finland and Japan, and its homecoming back to Argentina are also examined. The results reveal some of the unusual paths a culture can travel.

Teaching communicative competence is extremely important in language instruction. While politeness discourse varies in complexity according to social distance, relative power between the speakers, and situations, Swedish learners of Japanese often do not see the necessity of learning the polite/honorific discourse and often view these negatively as Swedish society is one of the most egalitarian in the world. However, it is important to point out to foreign language learners that cultural/social norms are not modifiable based on one’s opinion and that one must adapt to the language one is using and the culture one is in. The current study investigates the differences in politeness strategies between Swedish and Japanese discourse. Student surveys and analysis of students’ errors have revealed clear differences in the use of politeness strategies. While politeness, respect, and formality are closely intertwined in Japanese; the Swedes perceive respect and politeness as separate matters. It is also found that while the Japanese are inclined to use verbal politeness strategies, the Swedes express their respect more through non-verbal actions/behaviors. Various Japanese and Swedish utterances have also been examined to determine the DP default (Usami 2006) in order to systematize the politeness strategies in ways similar to grammatical rules.

There have been a number of studies dealing with the concepts of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in primary, secondary and university education, especially in the European context, as plurilingual and intercultural education have long been promoted by the Council of Europe. However, little discussion of these two concepts has taken place in the context of adult education targeting employees in multinational workplaces. 

Due to the increasing number of companies purchased by or merged with a Japanese company in Sweden, the commissioned education course on “Communicating and Doing Business with the Japanese” I teach at our university has gained in popularity over the past several years. These multinational companies encourage managerial personnel to take such a course in the hope that they will learn the “Japanese way” of communication and conducting business. Despite their extensive experience living and working in other countries, with many of them capable of communicating in several languages at various proficiency levels, these learners often join the course with the expectation of molding themselves into something they are not. However, the course is designed to aid these learners in rethinking their identities as plurilingual- and pluricultural selves along with their roles in the multinational, multilingual company rather than learning to behave like Japanese business executives. This is implemented by first identifying their own plurilingualism and pluriculturalism of which they are initially unaware, followed by a critical analysis of the portrayal of how things are done the “Japanese way,” which is accomplished by exposing the learners to a variety of perspectives. A discussion of “culture” is also necessary as many of them consciously or unconsciously associate “culture” with “national culture.”

In this practical report, I will introduce the initiatives used in this commissioned education course to induce pluricultural thinking before results of the thematic analysis of follow-up interview data from former course participants are presented to show how they further developed plurilingual and pluricultural competence in their workplace over several years after the course ended. These testimonies make it evident that plurilingual and pluricultural awareness should be encouraged in adult education. 

As demonstrated in recent studies of Computer-assisted language learning (CALL), authentic intercultural contexts can be created by using online exchanges to enhance students’ foreign language learning and identity. While research on telecollaboration and identity has mainly focused on NS-NNS interactions, this study examines NNS-NNS telecollaborative interactions.

The study examines two sets of NNSs with different L1 backgrounds, namely NNSs of Japanese from universities in the US and Sweden. The project combines telecollaborative activities consisting of both asynchronous written (blogs) and synchronous verbal (online discussions).

The Intercultural Dialogue (ID) model (Houghton, 2012) was used to evaluate the outcome. The model consists of five stages: 1) Analysis of Self; 2) Analysis of Other; 3) Critical analysis of value similarities (or differences) between Self and Other; 4) Critical evaluation of the values of Self and Other relative to a standard; and 5) Identity development.

Results indicate that through their written and oral discussions, the students’ choice of words constructed images of the person they are or wished to be perceived as while building an understanding of their own identities. This shows that language use does not necessarily reflect who one is but is used to contribute to the construction of one’s identities. We also observed that there exists a stage prior to the first stage in the ID-model, namely a “no-awareness” stage. Furthermore, our findings indicate that Stage 1 “Awareness of Self” occurs as two sub-stages: 1-a) Awareness of single identity; and 1-b) Awareness of having multiple identities. Our data also suggest that at one point, several students were offering different critical evaluations of Self and Other as a result of their own and the Japanese cultural standard not fitting the standard identity development model, suggesting that the multicultural nature of NNS-NNS interactions involving different L1 backgrounds can accelerate identity development.

湯気の中へ、非日常の世界へ：

通過儀礼としてのフィンランドのサウナと日本の風呂

遠く離れた北欧フィンランドと極東日本。気候もそこに暮らす人々も一見全く異なるこのふたつの国に共通する熱い湯気の文化がある。フィンランド人が長い歴史の中で大切にしてきた「サウナ」、そして多くの日本人にとって欠かせない「風呂」。どちらも身体を清潔にする場所というだけではなく、宗教的・文化的意味合いや、癒し、儀礼とも深く関係していると考えられている。1998年にはフィンランドのユヴァスキュラで風呂とサウナに関するエキシビションも催されている。

本発表では、フィンランドと日本での過去20年間のフィールドワークの結果をもとに、サウナと風呂が、それぞれどのようにそこに暮らす人々の人生や日々の生活の節目に行われる通過儀礼（van Gennep 1909）として機能しているのかを明らかにし、サウナと風呂文化に共通して見られるリミナリティー (Turner 1974)を「マクロモデルとマイクロモデル」(Niendorf 2000)を用いて文化人類学的観点から検証する。

Can Culture be Taught? 

Issues and Initiatives in Teaching a Course on Japanese Culture

While many universities offer Japanese Culture courses as part of their language programs, some of the materials and contents may promote stereotypes and essentialism. Although the definition of “culture” varies depending on field and context, students and teachers in foreign language classrooms commonly perceive culture unconsciously as national culture. Moreover, emphasizing cultural differences, a common practice in such courses, can also result in the formation of stereotypes. 

Many students taking courses on Japanese culture are initially fascinated by the surface culture and especially pop culture, including anime, manga, video games, and music as well as food, literature, and language. It is not uncommon for such students to have already formed specific stereotypes or images of Japan from the media they consume. 

This presentation will first introduce various ways of understanding culture. Using the course related to Japanese culture I teach at a European university as an example, various challenges and initiatives involved in discussing Japanese culture with students will be shared. Based on previous studies of teaching culture as part of foreign language instruction, my own practice as well as course evaluations by students, I will propose an optimal design for a culture course that does not promote essentialism from the following perspectives: (1) selection of teaching materials presenting various perspectives and encouraging critical thinking; (2) appropriate ordering of topics from deep- to surface-level culture; and (3) learners’ identities. Instead of defining what culture is, teachers can provide opportunities for questioning and discussing how culture is used and what people do with it while deepening students’ understanding not only of Japanese culture but also of the diverse culture that surrounds each student's daily life.

This study investigates how use of the Swedish verb “bli” corresponds to the Japanese verb “naru” using translated materials as a corpus.  

Japanese is said to be a situation-oriented language, while English is person-oriented.

          e.g., Mariko wa kekkon surukotoni NARImashita.

                   (It became so that Mariko will be married.)

                   ‘Mariko will get married’ in English.

The Swedish verb ”bli” usually means ’to become’ or ’to be (as an auxiliary verb),’ yet is used more widely than these English meanings.

          e.g., Det blir 100 kronor, tack.

                   (100 kr ni NARI-masu.)

                   ’It makes/will be 100kr.’

Examples like this lead to the observation that ”bli” is used in a context more similar to the Japanese verb ”naru.” than English verb “become.” Comparison of some translated materials also shows that “bli” is often translated into Japanese as “naru” while it is more likely to be replaced by a transitive or intransitive verb in English.

However, erros such as

           *okoru ni NARU (verb ‘to be upset’+naru)

              [okoru: a verb]

           *annshin ni NARU (noun ‘feeling at ease’ +naru)   

              [annshin suru: a verb derived from a noun]

which are made by Swedish learners of Japanese indicate that the translation of “bli” into Japanese is not so straight forward.

In this study, we examined the following questions:

1. How is ”bli” translated into Japanese/English?
2. If ”bli” is translated into ”naru” in Japanese, in what grammatical context(s) does it occur?
3. How are these variations related to the errors students make in translating ”bli” into  Japanese?

In order to examine the above research questions, we conducted two separate studies:

Study I: Examining how Swedish bli is translated into Japanese in literature translation

Using children´s novels “Sommerboken” by Tove Jansson and “Pippi Långstrump” by Astrid Lindgren as the data source, all the sentences that contain bli were extracted along with their translations into English and Japanese. The extracted sentences were, then, categorized according to the various types of usage of the verb bli, and the translation into Japanese for each of those categories was analyzed.

Study II: The translation of various uses of bli into Japanese by Swedish students

Study I above showed usages of the verb bli in various context. In Study II, we tried to see if some of these usages cause more problems than the others for the Swedish students. The students in the Japanese-English translation course at Högskolan Dalarna (Sweden) were given 7 Swedish sentences containing various usages of bli, and were asked to translate them into Japanese. Then the accuracy of the translation and the translation techniques used were analyzed.

The results from Study I showed that there were numerous usages of the verb bli, such as describing conditions, describing the changes of conditions, indicating certain emotional status, and so on, which naturally led to the variety in Japanese translation. Furthermore,  apart from the most literal translation, which is to use the verb naru, various types of compound verbs (main verb – help verb combinations) were used in order to express different nuances.

In some of the usages identified above, translation shifts were obligatory when translated into Japanese; i.e. the literal translation was impossible, and the translator has to make minor changes from the ST (source text) to the TT (target text), such as changes of grammatical categories or of voice (e.g. passive to active).

The results from the Study II show that the sentences which require more complicated translation shifts tend to cause more errors when students translate them into Japanese.

Clarifying how the use of “bli” correlates with the use of “naru” will not only help Swedish students understand the use of the somewhat difficult concept of “naru,” but also help translators deal with this issue. Finding a more systematic way to translate “bli” into Japanese using more tokens from various genres would be necessary in order to achieve this.

Contemporary workplaces are often characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions (e.g., Angouri, 2014). In such settings, participants draw on their rich cultural assumptions and values to co-construct meaning (e.g., Takamiya & Aida Niendorf, 2019), as language use and communication patterns have been found to be inextricably linked to different group belongings. While diversity enriches workplace interaction linguistically and culturally, it also presents “communicative challenges to many employers and co-workers” (Holmes, 2018, p. 335). These communicative challenges include increased likelihood of miscommunication, social exclusion (Lønsmann, 2014), and limited interpersonal communication (Tange & Lauring, 2009). While considerable research has been devoted to understanding intercultural workplaces communication, little research exists on the linguistically and culturally diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insights into how diversity may enrich workplace interaction and the communicative challenges employees may experience, this pilot study explores employees’ attitudes to and beliefs about intercultural communication in the Swedish workplace. The pilot study is part of a larger project on digital professional communication in multilingual workplaces in Sweden. Five employees in managerial positions in Swedish higher education and corporations were interviewed. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that: (a) language competence in English is seen as indexing general competence; (b) categorisations of cultures are prevalent: Participants often view culture as synonymous with nation and point at differences between groups as a challenge to achieve effective communication; (c) identity and face are foregrounded: Some participants feel like a different person when using a different language, while others see a specific language as a way to adopt a different persona or professional role; and (d) culture and language are used to explain group dynamics (e.g., feeling as an outsider or as part of the group), and as tools to actively integrate or exclude others. The material has raised our awareness about not seeing the workplace as a monolith, but workplaces may be marked by internal variation when it comes to intercultural communication. 

References   Angouri, J. (2014). Multilingualism in the workplace: Language practices in multicultural contexts. Multilingua 33, 1-9.     

Holmes, J. (2018). Intercultural communication in the workplace. In B. Vine (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 335-347). Routledge.    

Lønsmann, D. (2014). Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: Language ideologies and processes of exclusion. Multilingua 33, 89–116.    

Takamiya, Y. & Aida Niendorf, M. (2019). Identity (re)construction and improvement in intercultural competence through synchronous and asynchronous telecollaboration: Connecting Japanese language learners in the United States and Sweden. In Zimmerman, E. & McMeekin, A. (Eds.), Technology-supported learning in and out of the Japanese language classroom: Theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical developments (pp. 111-145). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.    

Tange, H., & Lauring, J. (2009). Language management and social interaction within the multilingual workplace. Journal of Communication Management 13(3), 218–232.     

Developing intercultural competence has been an important focal point of university education especially in the area of foreign language instruction. In order to incorporate intercultural competence in our Japanese language instruction, we have brought together students studying Japanese from the U.S., Korea and China to join our students studying Japanese in Sweden for online exchanges. In order to create an ideal virtual classroom environment in an international setting, we have examined how students from different countries interact during the online exchanges in Japanese. In this presentation, we will discuss the process, strength, difficulties and potential of such exchanges.

言語教育におけるソーシャルネットワーキングアプローチ(以下 SNA)では、「他者の発見、自己の発見、つながりの実現」を理念に、従来の「わかる」「できる」能力に加え、新たに「つながる」能力を 重要視する(當作 2013)。SNAに基づいてことばと文化を学ぶことで、学習者の人間的成長が促され、社会力も獲得される。 　本発表では、上記の教育理念を念頭に、異なる文化圏で学ぶ日本語学習者をオンラインでつないだ取り組みについて紹介する。実践には米国とスウェーデンの大学で中上級レベルの日本語を学ぶ学習者10名が参加した。1学期間、アイデンティティをテーマに授業を行い、非同期型ツールであるブログ、同期型ツールであるビデオ会議システムを利用して双方を継続的につないだ。 　アンケート、インタビュー、観察データを分析した結果、学習者はこのようなオンラインでの交流により、言語面だけでなく、自己・他者のアイデンティティや文化について肯定的な視点を持つようになるという変化が見られた。これは自己・他者の新たな発見といえる。また、参加者は、日本に興味があるという共通点があるため、様々なトピックについて積極的に探求し、互いに教え学びあう関係を築くことが容易にできた。さらに「つながり」が形成されていくに従い、日本だけでなく米国やスウェーデンについてもより知りたいと考えるようになり、好奇心の幅が広がった。これはつながりの理想的な実現であるといえよう。 　通常、海外の日本語学習者は、日本の英語学習者と交流するケースが多いが、この場合、母語話者に教えてもらうという一方向的な形のコミュニケーションをとりやすい。一方、異なる場所で学ぶ日本語学習者同士の交流の場合、対等な形でのコミュニケーションがとれ、場所によって日本の捉え方も違うことに気づくことで、多元的な視点で日本を捉え直すきっかけにもなる。これは学習者の言語・文化面、精神面での成長にとって大きな意義がある。発表では、学習者、教師だけでなく、教室内外の多くの人たちをつなぐことを可能にするオンラインツールについて紹介し、その効果的な使い方や交流を成功させるための具体的な提案も行う。

There have been quite a few studies regarding the development of intercultural competence through online exchanges (Helm 2009, Chun 2011, Schenker 2012, Kitade 2012, etc.). Most of these exchanges, however, are between native speakers and learners of that language. The benefit of such exchanges may be maximized if both parties are learning the same foreign language and have the opportunity to utilize the language they are learning during the interaction. As defined by Byram (1997) and Liaw (2006), 'intercultural competence' is not just learning about the target culture, but also about becoming aware of one's own culture, and connecting students from different countries who are studying the same target language and culture would be an ideal setting in order for the students to evaluate both their own and target cultures critically.

It is often said to be difficult or almost impossible for students in distance courses to develop intercultural competence because of the lack of opportunity to study abroad or the lack of an international atmosphere in the classroom (Tyberg 2009). Thus another goal of this study is to investigate the possibility of providing opportunities for all students, regardless of their circumstances, to develop intercultural competence.

During the spring semester 2012, a group of fourth level (intermediate to advanced level) Japanese students from Gettysburg College in the United States and from Högskolan Dalarna (Dalarna University) in Sweden took part in a study of how Japanese learners from different countries benefit from communicating with each other in Japanese. Throughout the term, the students exchanged ideas and views regarding the topics surrounding the issues of “identity” via blogs and joint-seminars using an online video conferencing system. The topic “identity” was selected since both parties can discuss the issue from different perspectives such as 'foreigners in Japan', 'foreigners in the U.S./Sweden', 'Japanese people living in the U.S./Sweden', as well as from the students' 'own identities.'

The student survey showed that the students from both Sweden and the United States found the project to be fun, interesting and a new and positive experience. One student epitomized the comments from the majority of the participants. – “We were actively discussing identity with students raised in another culture in a class setting, which lends an air of understanding and interest to the discussion.”

The results from this study suggest that through interactions with university students from other countries who study Japanese at the same level, the students can gain not only Japanese skills, but expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of another culture as well as the topics discussed during the meetings. Not everyone has an opportunity to study abroad, but today's technology allows every student to be a part of the internationalization process, develop his/her cultural-literacy and reflect on his/her identity.

In this session, the process, benefits, and limitations of our online exchanges will be discussed and some suggestions on how one should conduct and what are required for in ordered to have a successful international online exchanges will also be presented based on our experiences.

The target audience of this session are teachers and educators as well as administrators who recognize the importance of acquisition of intercultural competence, not limited to but especially, in language education, and those who are considering the possibilities of allowing students to participate in the internationalization process without traveling abroad.

References:

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Byram, M., Gribkova, B., & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teachers. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europ.

Chun, D. M. (2011). Developing Intercultural communicative competence through online exchanges. CALICO Journal, 28 (2), 392-419.

Helm, F. (2009). Language and culture in an online context: what can learner diaries tell us about intercultural competence. Language and Intercultural Communication, 9 (2), 91-104.

Högskoleverket. (2008). En högskola i världen: internationalisering för kvalitet. Högskoleverkets rapportserie 2008:15R.

Kitade, K. (2012). An exchange structure analysis of the development of online intercultural activity. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 25 (1), 65-86.

Liaw, M-L. (2006). E-learning and the development of intercultural competence. Language Learning &Technology, 10(3), 49-64.

Schenker, T. (2012). Intercultural competence and cultural learning through telecollaboration. CALICO Journal, 29(3), 449-470.

Tyberg, E. (2009). Internationalisering: perspektivbyte, förhållningssätt och fredsprojekt. In Martin Stigmar, (Ed.). Högskolepedagogik: att vara professionell som lärare i högskolan, Chapter 12. Stockholm: Liber.

This study explored the effects of the writing experiences of supervisors on undergraduate English language thesis supervision, specifically focusing on the Japanese and Swedish tertiary contexts where English medium instruction (EMI) is delivered to students whose first language is not English. Employing a Collaborative Autoethnographic (CAE) approach, three teacher-researchers working at universities in Japan and Sweden jointly co-constructed their narratives about their own literacy practices in the historical development of their writing and current thesis supervision. Findings demonstrated limited influences of the teachers’ personal experiences on their practices, with social and educational norms in each country emerging as more significant factors. Particularly, the teacher-centeredness and exam-orientation were observed by the Japan-based supervisors to affect Japanese students, whereas the more horizontal relationship between students and teachers in Swedish education was reported as impacting university students’ autonomy in thesis writing. We concluded that in both tertiary EMI contexts, local embedded educational norms largely influenced teachers' supervisory practices.

Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions. In such settings, translanguaging is considered a common practice in which multilinguals “create an apparently seamless flow between languages and language varieties and to transcend the boundaries between named languages and/or language varieties as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems” (Hua et al., 2022, p. 315). Little research, however, exists on such practices in multilingual workplaces (Du & Zhou, 2022), and even less on the linguistically diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insight into the seamlessness, transcendence, and boundaries such language users create and perceive, we explore the communication practices of employees in different Swedish workplaces. As an initial departure point, five employees in managerial positions were interviewed in the pilot study. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that categorisations of languages are prevalent, with participants applying a scale of linguistic sophistication or complexity and ranking formality conventions on a strong-to-weak scale. When categorising people and groups, participants foreground identity and face, and group dynamics is a recurring theme, with distinctions made between groups and orientations. This presentation focuses on participants’ descriptions of L1 and L2 identities and their perceived effects on workplace communication. Findings suggest that translanguaging has yet to be commonplace in the workplaces we investigated and shed light on lay perspectives on (trans)languaging in the workplace.

References

Du, J., & Zhou, X. (2022). Translanguaging practices in Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ communications in the workplace. Applied Linguistics Review, 13(3), 389-402.

Hua, Z., Jones, R.H. & Jaworska, S. (2022). Acts of distinction at times of crisis: An epistemological challenge to intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 312-323.

In this talk, we present a research project that we plan to launch in late 2023. The aim of the project is to investigate professional communication in video meetings, which is justified given their growing importance in the modern and post-pandemic workplace. The setting is workplaces in Sweden where English is used as a lingua franca, due to the increasing societal impact of multilingual workplaces. In the specific context of study, communication is embedded in several layers of complexity: It takes place in an institutional setting; it is digital and takes place in video mode; it is done across cultures and marked by diversity; and it is done partly in English as a lingua franca. The project focuses on internal communication within the workplace and does not consider external communication, for example involving customers. The overarching research question is: What factors contribute to (un)successful digital intercultural interactions in multilingual workplaces, specifically in video meetings? To map the characteristics of video meetings, we compare them to in-person meetings. We thus ask: (a) What (perceived and actual) differences and similarities are there between digital and in-person workplace meetings? To map the video meeting as a genre, we ask: (b) What are the key structural, linguistic, and interactional patterns of the video meeting? Given the central role of English as a lingua franca in these workplaces, we ask: (c) To what extent and how does English language proficiency—including participants’ beliefs about and attitudes to English language proficiency—affect workplace communication in digital intercultural interactions? Finally, we adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing ‘culture’ as a dynamic concept (e.g., Hua et al., 2022), which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. We ask: (d) To what extent and how is culture seen as relevant in multilingual workplaces? Participants will be interviewed about communication practices in the workplace both individually and in focus groups. We will also record and analyze samples of (i) video and (ii) in-person meetings, to enable triangulation of different types of data. We conclude by discussing how the project's findings can be used as a basis for best practices and for developing workplace communication training materials.

This study examines variation and change in the Finnish possessive morphology during the past few decades focusing on colloquial Helsinki Finnish. The variation in the morphological marking of possession is considered to be one of the most drastic changes in spoken Finnish (cf. Nuolijarvi 1986b). The prescriptive construction of possession in Finnish consists of the genitive form of a personal pronoun + suffix; however, in real usage, three possessive constructions are observed: (1) minun kirjani (pronoun + suffix) 'my book,' (2) kirjani (suffix-only), (3) minun kirja (pronoun-only). The main purpose of this study is to determine whether double-marking is disappearing and is being replaced by the 'pronoun-only' variant, as suggested by Paunonen (1995). The data for this study were collected from an oral Discourse Completion Test questionnaire, interviews, and the media. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results indicate that double-marking has, indeed, been decreasing over the last few decades. However, contrary to Paunonen's 1995 prediction that the 'pronoun-only' form would be the dominant variant in the near future, my findings indicate that the 'suffix-only' form is quite dominant even among young workers (aged 20--39) who favored the 'pronoun-only' variant almost exclusively 10--20 years ago. Paunonen (1995) also discovered that the language spoken by the same age group remained stable over periods of time. Yet my present study shows that one particular age group, namely the youth of 1990, drastically changed their choice of variants 10 years later while the language of the other age groups remained stable. This phenomenon signifies the possibility that the change toward the use of the 'pronoun-only' form may be no longer progressing and has become a case of 'age grading'; alternatively, a new change toward the 'suffix-only'variant is beginning to take place.

This study examines variation and change in the Finnish possessive morphology during the past few decades focusing on colloquial Helsinki Finnish. The variation in the morphological marking of possession is considered to be one of the most drastic changes in spoken Finnish (cf. Nuolijarvi 1986b). The prescriptive construction of possession in Finnish consists of the genitive form of a personal pronoun + suffix; however, in real usage, three possessive constructions are observed: (1) minun kirjani (pronoun + suffix) 'my book,' (2) kirjani (suffix-only), (3) minun kirja (pronoun-only). The main purpose of this study is to determine whether double-marking is disappearing and is being replaced by the 'pronoun-only' variant, as suggested by Paunonen (1995). The data for this study were collected from an oral Discourse Completion Test questionnaire, interviews, and the media. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results indicate that double-marking has, indeed, been decreasing over the last few decades. However, contrary to Paunonen's 1995 prediction that the 'pronoun-only' form would be the dominant variant in the near future, my findings indicate that the 'suffix-only' form is quite dominant even among young workers (aged 20--39) who favored the 'pronoun-only' variant almost exclusively 10--20 years ago. Paunonen (1995) also discovered that the language spoken by the same age group remained stable over periods of time. Yet my present study shows that one particular age group, namely the youth of 1990, drastically changed their choice of variants 10 years later while the language of the other age groups remained stable. This phenomenon signifies the possibility that the change toward the use of the 'pronoun-only' form may be no longer progressing and has become a case of 'age grading'; alternatively, a new change toward the 'suffix-only'variant is beginning to take place.