{"id":8087,"date":"2013-09-10T12:40:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8087"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:09:51","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:09:51","slug":"breaking-down-language-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8087","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down language barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_8240\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8240\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Holly-Ogren.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-8240\" alt=\"Holly-Ogren\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Holly-Ogren-300x294.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Holly-Ogren-300x294.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Holly-Ogren.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Holly HK Didi-Ogren\u2019s work focuses on Japanese \u201cspeech levels,\u201d examining how the language used in conversation changes depending on the age, social class, and relationship of the two speakers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A professor for all levels of Japanese language, as well as for courses focusing on Japanese culture, <b>Holly HK Didi-Ogren<\/b> became fascinated with Japanese culture after a trip to the country in middle school. A linguistic anthropologist, Didi-Ogren examines the part language plays within the culture. She\u2019s especially interested in the use of dialects and language patterns and how these shape cultural expectations and norms in Japan. \u201cIn English, if a colleague sees you in the hallway and he says, \u2018How are you doing?\u2019 he probably doesn\u2019t really want to know; it\u2019s just a formalized greeting,\u201d Didi-Ogren explains. \u201cBut you wouldn\u2019t know that if you just knew the literal words of the language\u2026so there are patterns\u2014sort of expectations\u2014that can be read through language, and that\u2019s broadly what I study.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She is doing so this academic year in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, through a long-term research fellowship from the Japan Foundation. Awarded to scholars with exemplary knowledge of and interest in Japanese culture, the fellowship provides recipients with funding to support an extended stay in Japan to conduct research on a topic related to Japanese culture.<\/p>\n<p>Didi-Ogren\u2019s work focuses specifically on Japanese \u201cspeech levels,\u201d examining how the language used in conversation changes depending on the age, social class, and relationship of the two speakers. By examining verb endings and deictic markers\u2014words such as <i>he<\/i>, <i>she<\/i>, or <i>it<\/i>, whose meanings depend on context clues\u2014she is observing shifts in formal and informal speech within conversations, and investigating the reason behind these shifts. She does so by observing natural conversation between individuals of different ages and social statuses, through the use of a video camera planted in a work area for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m kind of intervening in something [the participants] are already doing, of course with their permission, because I want to get data that\u2019s as natural as possible. So, it\u2019s not obstructive and it\u2019s not something where people are talking to the camera or talking to the researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Didi-Ogren plans to use her research in Hanamaki as a \u201cstarting point\u201d for doing similar research in other areas of Japan, hoping to ultimately compare conversation patterns from different regions of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor of Japanese Holly HK Didi-Ogren studies how gender, region, and social standing affect conversation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2013","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}