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Three posts from this page will be included in my final assignments as informal assignments.
* I revised this post on a new blog post, so please visit the post if you want!
For this three months, I have used my second language, English. I have been studied it for long, but when it comes to using it in the real life, it is much more difficult to understand other people and to tell what I want to say. To develop my English skill, I have tried to think in English while I am using it. For example, when I write in English, I use English to think about the topic, and when I read in English, I try to understand without translating it into Japanese. While struggling with it, I have noticed one thing. Language change how you think or feel. For example, I am more confident when I use English than when I use Japanese. That might be because English is more direct when you telling something. The way of telling something in Japanese is more euphemistic. I have noticed the difference, but I thought the difference between language is because of the difference of the characteristics or cultures of the people who use it. However, since I feel a little differently when I use different language, now I think because of the difference of the language, people’s characteristics or cultures differ. When I wrote the drafts of Hiraeth Assignment, I struggle with writing the concepts that any English words cannot explain. I thought I could explain it by making it into some sentences, but no one could understand. I thought it was because of my English skill, so I asked my friend who has American mother and Japanese father, and can speak both English and Japanese well, but he couldn’t explain it well. He told me that there was no way to explain it except letting them experience the concepts. Since I have spent all my childhood in Japan with Japanese language, the basis of my perspective is always based on Japanese culture. However, the friend of mine, who have experienced the both culture, American and Japanese, uses the perception that is based on the culture of the language he is using at the moment. Therefore, it might be able to be said that language have impact on your understanding of things, especially during the early days.
2 Comments
Sabatino
11/17/2016 11:37:06 am
What an interesting blog post! I agree that language impacts culture as well as our individual identities and abilities to make meaning. I appreciate how you discussed how language limited your abilities to compose a narrative in English and how you are in the process of negotiating the ways you can use both of your languages to communicate your ideas to others.
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Katsuki
11/17/2016 12:54:46 pm
I think it is a process of both. I used to think it was a one-way process, culture forms language, but I realized language forms culture as well. Words and phrases emerge based on the users' way of thinking or culture, but at the same time, the words limit their views or perceptions.
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Katsuki Iio
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1997. Archives
December 2016
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