Review #23 | Japanese Phonology Dissertation | Learn Japanese For Free

 https://www.trussel.com/jap/edsmith.htm

This review is for R Smith's 1980 dissertation. I would recommend it for advanced learners. Talks about how sounds in linguistics, the empirical study of languages, is used in English language studies of Japanese sounds. May be useful for helping you understand Japanese enunciation if you are struggling.

A server-studio in the days of Early Internet (2005, CC4.0) Mo Riza

What

Phonological review of Japanese pronunciation patterns. 

Now whilst this dissertation heavily relies on works akin to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (haha degree) which is the idea that language influences how we think and therefore put labels/frameworks onto things, something widely disproven, it is a useful tool in introducing you to the world of Japanese phonology. Phonology is the study of sounds in human languages for our purposes.

It also touches on what is called the context-sensitive or syntagmatic processes that Japanese uses due to its heavy usage of context specific grammar, that is a grammatical system which does not use 'to be' or even a lot of the time specific pronouns such as 'their' or 'myself' which English does.

For the linguistics audience

There is a trend it appears to have hypothesised how 

Overall, I think even the mention of Whorf is a no-no for me, as many of the ideas have been so heavily disputed as far as I know. There seems to be an over reliance on the desire to arbitrarily categorize grammatical functions and boundaries that a non Japanese native speaker seems to have drawn. In the 1980s at that as well. There is also an over reliance on standard English/language models generally so for me, a bit wishy washy data wise, especially as this seems to give the paper a prescriptivist rather than a descriptivist leaning.

Chapter 1 for example is just a roundup of 'Natural Phonology', Chapter 2 tracks, Chapter 3 follows the Whorf trend and Chapter 4 and 5 use terms such as 'sloppy speech' and the idea that 'These are the modern loan words, most of which eve come from European languages within the last century.' This puts us into the 1880-1980 range of language, when European languages as far as loanwords go, have been in Japan for 400 years minimum, an easily researchable factoid. If not for the fact that this is a clearly Eurocentric assertion given the fact Japan is not Cyprus for gods sake, so that assertion must also be taken with a gallon of saltwater. Ergo, whilst an interesting and nice research topic, definitely not getting any aura points with the kidz these days.

Where

Online. https://www.trussel.com/jap/edsmith.htm

Who

Dunno, pretty much Tae Kim at this point.

When

Available if you have internet.

Why

Becuase it as interesting forays into the linguistical considerations of learning, ie studying a languages sound systems which may help with your enunciation depending on which language you are coming from into Japanese.

Socials

Email :        learnjapanese43@gmail.com

Wikimedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LearnJapanese43

Discord :     @learnjapaneseforfree

Tiktok :       @learnjapaneseforfree

Youtube:     @learnjapaneseforfree /LJ43?

This review is part of the Learn Japanese for free project. I have, do not and never will derive any profit from this project. Please send any requests, questions or further information about free tools for learning Japanese to learnjapanese43@gmail.com which is checked totally sporadically becuase the originator is perezoso.