{"id":4961,"date":"2019-03-26T16:49:14","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T07:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/?p=4961"},"modified":"2019-03-26T16:49:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T07:49:14","slug":"our-japanese-that-we-did-not-know-an-american-born-poet-discusses-the-future-of-the-language-of-the-japanese-archipelago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/news-en\/2019\/03\/26\/4961\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Japanese that We Did Not Know: An American-Born Poet Discusses the Future of the Language of the Japanese Archipelago"},"content":{"rendered":"
Our Japanese that We Did Not Know: An American-Born Poet Discusses the Future of the Language of the Japanese Archipelago<\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The lecture event began with introductory comments by Professor Akio Kawajiri (Senior Dean, Faculty of Arts, Letters and Sciences).<\/p>\n

Soon after arriving in Japan, Mr. Binard went through a phase during which he read many picture books while studying Japanese. The lecture began with an analysis of Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s children\u2019s tale, \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes\u201d (translated into Japanese as Hadaka no \u014csama<\/em> [The Naked King]), which was one of the picture books Mr. Binard found. The translation of the figure of the titular \u201cemperor\u201d differs depending on the country or region in which the work is published, sometimes being a word equivalent to \u201cking\u201d and sometimes being one equivalent to \u201cemperor.\u201d Precisely because the word chosen could easily become a political topic, publishers must choose their words carefully to keep their standing.<\/p>\n

Mr. Binard noted how one\u2019s own place within a language becomes apparent when one looks at the process of how a certain tale or word is told or said differently. Politics and literature\u2014and society and literature\u2014are connected. One might try to play it safe by trying to keep literature unrelated to politics or society, but the very act of doing so means one is already taking politics into consideration. Mr. Binard said that learning Japanese and coming to understand the world through the lens of the language was critical to his learning of where he stood. It is was, indeed, through the Japanese language that Mr. Binard came to better understand his own country\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mr. Binard also had a keen observation about the atomic bomb and Hiroshima: The term \u201cHiroshima,\u201d when written in the Latin alphabet\u2014that is, when used as a word in English\u2014expresses the concept of the atomic bomb more so than it merely acts as a place name. In supplementary reading materials found in American schools, one can find the sentence \u201cWhy did Hiroshima happen?\u201d Obviously, here \u201cHiroshima\u201d is being used metonymically to refer to the atomic bomb. But that is not the only thing that is going on in that sentence: The way \u201cHiroshima\u201d is referred to is disguised, intending to present what \u201chappened\u201d in Hiroshima not as a historical incident but, rather, as a natural phenomenon. This phrasing sugarcoats and avoids issues of responsibility and lays bare where the person who used these words\u2014who phrased the sentence in that way\u2014stands.<\/p>\n

Similarly, when one listens to hibakusha<\/em>\u2014survivors of the atomic bombing\u2014explain what they experienced in Hiroshima, they refer to the bomb using the Japanese word pika<\/em>. Any speaker of Japanese would know that the word expresses something shining with light, but this is a peculiar use of the term, based on the special circumstances of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This term pika<\/em>, or pikadon<\/em> (the \u201cdon\u201d expressing the noise of the blast), is translated in Japanese-English dictionaries as \u201catomic bomb,\u201d and an example sentence will be presented along the lines of Watashi no musume wa pikadon de yarareta<\/em>, rendered as \u201cMy daughter was killed at Hiroshima (Nagasaki).\u201d Mr. Binard noted that, thus, although these dictionaries describe how pika<\/em> and pikadon<\/em> refer to the atomic bomb, they fail to relate the sensory connotations. Pika<\/em> and pikadon<\/em> connote a \u201ccloseness\u201d of being on the scene and thus include a standpoint. Indeed, pika<\/em> is a word uttered (created) by those who were close to ground zero of the atomic blast, while pikadon<\/em> is apparently a word used by those who were located somewhat farther away and who heard the shock wave. \u201cAtomic bomb\u201d is a word belonging to the side that dropped the bomb, and, naturally, the nuance is fundamentally different.<\/p>\n

Throughout the event, Mr. Binard\u2019s gentle but witty speaking style maintained a calm atmosphere within the venue; occasionally, comments and questions were posed to the audience, who then actively participated in the discourse. At the end, Professor Hidenori Jinno (Deputy Dean, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Director, Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences) gave some closing remarks, and the event concluded as a rousing success<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Event Overview:<\/p>\n

Date and time: October 12, 2018 (Fri.), 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm<\/p>\n

Location: Okuma Small Auditorium, Waseda University<\/p>\n

Speaker: Arthur Binard (Poet)<\/p>\n

Opening remarks: Akio Kawajiri (Professor, Waseda University)<\/p>\n

Closing remarks: Hidenori Jinno (Professor, Waseda University)<\/p>\n

Organizer: Hirokazu Toeda (Professor, Waseda University)<\/p>\n

Moderator: Hiroki Matsumoto (Guest Associate Professor, Waseda University Research Council)<\/p>\n

Sponsored by: Waseda University Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Top Global University Project<\/p>\n

Co-sponsored by: Cultural Planning Section, Cultural Affairs Division, Waseda University<\/p>\n

Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/p>\n

The Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Japanese that We Did Not Know: An American-Born Poet Discusses the Future of the Language of the Japanese […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[97,111],"class_list":["post-4961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-en-gj","tag-report-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}