SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

Researcher : Hennig BB

List of Research Outputs

 

Hennig B.B., Die Motivation von Hongkong-chinesischen Universitaetsstudenten beim Erlernen von Deutsch als Drittsprache., Asiatische Germanistentagung Seoul 2006.

 

Hennig B.B., Exploring motivation of Hong Kong Chinese tertiary students learning German as a third language, Postgraduate Research Conference 2007, Faculty of Education, Hong Kong. 2007.

 

Hennig B.B., Exploring the motivation of Hong Kong Chinese tertiary students learning German as a third language. Zur Motivation Hongkong-Chinesischer Universitaetsstudenten beim Erlernen von Deutsch als Drittsprache, Hong Kong, 2006.

 

Researcher : Ho VWS

List of Research Outputs

 

Ho V.W.S., A Study Of The Tone-melody Correspondence In Thai Popular Songs, In: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, The University of Cambridge, Language and Music as Cognitive Systems, CRASSH, University of Cambridge, UK. 11-13 May, 2007. .

 

Ho V.W.S., Music and Lyrics : A comparative study of the tone-melody correspondence in Thai and Cantonese pop songs, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen. 2007.

 

Ho V.W.S., Music and Lyrics in Thai pop songs - Is tone-melody mismatch really more tolerated nowadays than before? , Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen, Germany. 2007.

 

Ho V.W.S., The Tone-Melody Correspondence in Cantonese and Thai pop songs, The Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London, The University of London. 2007.

 

Ho V.W.S., The Tone-melody Interface In Popular Songs Written In Tone Languages, In: European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, 9th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Bologna, Italy. 22-26 August, 2006. .

 

Researcher : Lai EYW

Project Title:

Pronunciation - teaching pedagogy for native Cantonese teachers of second languages

Investigator(s):

Lai EYW

Department:

Japanese Studies

Source(s) of Funding:

Other Funding Scheme

Start Date:

01/2002

 

Abstract:

To promote general pronunciaton culture of Cantonese speakers; to help native Cantonese teachers of second languages develop effective pronunciation - teaching strategies.

 

List of Research Outputs

 

Lai E.Y.W., 2 public seminars on 'Cantonese Pronunciation and Cantonese Accent Transfer to Foreign Languages' with 2000 audience in total., Co-organised by HK Economic Times Business College and CityU SCOPE. 2006.

 

Lai E.Y.W., 4 training sessions on pronunciation to 1200 government officials in 2006 and 2007 . 2007.

 

Lai E.Y.W., A whole-day IPA training camp organized by HKET and CityScope. . 2007.

 

Lai E.Y.W., Cantonese for Japanese Speakers, I, II, Hong Kong, Aoki Press, 2007, 520.

 

Lai E.Y.W., Esther's IPA English Pronunciation Workbook, Elementary, Hong Kong, ET Business College, Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings, 2007, 86.

 

Lai E.Y.W., Esther's IPA English Pronunciation Workbook, Intermediate, Hong Kong, ET Business College, Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings, 2007, 96.

 

Lai E.Y.W., Esther's IPA Pronunciation Workbook, Advanced, Hong Kong, ET Business College, Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings, 2007, 93.

 

Lai E.Y.W., Principal Consultant to 'Be a Native Speaker Campaign' jointly promoted and organised by ETBC of Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings and City University SCOPE, supported by East Asia Bank. , HKET and CityU SCOPE . 2006.

 

Researcher : Murakami F

Project Title:

A Study of Weak People in Japanese Literature: From Genji to Kawabata

Investigator(s):

Murakami F

Department:

Japanese Studies

Source(s) of Funding:

Small Project Funding

Start Date:

09/2005

 

Abstract:

With the CRCG research grant awarded in 1998-2000, I conducted a research on the topic of postmodernism, feminism and postcolonialism appeared in Japanese literature. The result was and will be published in the following publications. 1. A book: Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture: A Reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kōjin (London and New York: Routledge, June or July 2005; forthcoming), about 208 pages. 2. A journal article: “Murakami Haruki’s Postmodern World,” Japan Forum, 14 (1), (London: Routledge, April 2002), pp. 127-141. 3. A conference paper: “Yoshimoto Takaaki and the Globalisation (吉本隆明与全球化),” in Proceedings of the International Conference on the East Asian Society and Culture in the Changing Period『変動期的東亜社会与文化』, (Tianjin, China: Tianjin People's Press, August 2002), pp. 140-150 (in Chinese). The present resaerch follows on from the above previous research. In the above study I analysed the literary works of four contemporary Japanese writers – Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kōjin – from the perspectives of postmodernism, feminism, queer studies and postcolonial studies. I attempted to critique the modernism from the viewpoint of postmodernism. The opposition between the modern and postmodern ideologies in the previous research will appear in this present research in the form of “respect for the strong” (modernist ideology) and “sympathy with the weak” (postmodernist ideology). When like this case two opposing ideologies coexist, they often conflict, negotiate and compromise. And in my view, the good and impressive literary work in general, which is expected to represent contemporary society in some distinct ways, seems to uniquely reflect the process on which these two contradictory ideas conflict, negotiate and compromise and well balance these two ideas. Thus, the present research attempts to see the way how these two contradictory ideologies conflict, negotiate and compromise in some of major Japanese literary work, focusing on the weak, insulted and sacrificed characters. More in specific, I will see the way how the weak and low social status characters are despised and discriminated, on the one hand, and how they are sympathised with, helped, saved and placated, on the other. I will also see how the strong are respected and awed, on the one hand, and how they are hated and become a target of weak people's vengeance, on the other. How do these two contradictory ideas – “respect for the strong” and “sympathy with the weak” – conflict, negotiate and compromise, and how are they dealt with in the monogatari discourse? These are the questions raised and examined in this research. Before analysing the weak and poor people depicted in literary work, it is helpful to refer to the theoretical work of its contemporary period. Thus, I will first briefly outline the strong-weak issue in the Buddhist, Confucian, Modernist and Christian thoughts in Japan. Following the analysis of the theoretical work, in contrast to my previous book which dealt with four contemporary Japanese writers, the present research examines the Japanese literary work more widely from the eleventh to twentieth century – "The Tale of Genji" in the eleventh century Heian period, "The Tale of the Heike" which was compiled and revised through the thirteenth to fourteenth century Kamakura period, Kyokutei Bakin's "The Biographies of Eight Dogs" written in the nineteenth century Tokugawa period and finally Kawabata Yasunari’s three novels, "The Izu Dancer" (1926), "Snow Country" (1935-1947) and "The Thousand Cranes" (1949-1951) in the twentieth century.

 

List of Research Outputs

 

Murakami F., Ugly Ladies in The Tale of Genji, The 7th Symposium on Japanese Studies and Japanese Language Education. 2006.

 

Researcher : Nakano Y

Project Title:

Japanese products, Chinese intermediaries: from TV sets to TV programs

Investigator(s):

Nakano Y

Department:

Japanese Studies

Source(s) of Funding:

Seed Funding for New Staff

Start Date:

07/2004

 

Abstract:

To examine flow of Japanese television sets and television programs to Hong Kong and Mainland China.

 

List of Research Outputs

 

Nakano Y., Comic Book Diplomacy?: Japan, China and Pop Culture Politics, Annual Conference of Association of Asian Studies, Boston, USA. 2007.

 

Nakano Y., De-Orientalizing Rice? The Role of Chinese Intermediaries in Globalising Japanese Rice Cookers”, In: Joy Hendry and Dixon H.W. Wong, Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy. London, Routledge/Curzon, 2006, p.82-88.

 

Nakano Y., Globalizing Rice Cookers: From Japan to Asia via Hong Kong, High-tech Machine Section, Hong Kong Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Hong Kong, 2006.

 

Nakano Y., Japan as It Is: Pop Culture and Dualism of "Real and False Images”, “等身大”的日本像——大众文化和“实像与虚像”的二元论, In: Zhongguo shehui kexue yanjiuhui , China and Japan under the East Asian Formation of 21st Century. 21世纪东亚格局下的中国和日本, Beijing, Social Sciences Academic Press （社会科学文献出版社）, 2007, 169-185.

 

Nakano Y., Japanese Pop Culture in China , 中国における日本のポップカルチャー, In: The Association for Japan Sea Rim Studies, A Handbook on Northeast Asia: Politics, Economics, Society, History, Culture, Environment in the Northeast Asia Region. 北東アジア事典, Tokyo, Kokusai Shoin, 2006, p. 278-80.

 

Nakano Y., Made in Asia, Japan Plus: Asia-Pacific Perspectives. Tokyo, Jiji Gaho Sha, 2007, Vol 4, No.12: p. 20-21.

 

Researcher : Swirski P

Project Title:

Mining the mindfield: literary narratives as thought experiments

Investigator(s):

Swirski P

Department:

Comparative Literature

Source(s) of Funding:

Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG)

Start Date:

08/2004

Completion Date:

07/2006

 

Abstract:

To provide a detailed account of the mode of cognition typical to literary narratives and the type of research common in philosophy and the sciences.

 

Project Title:

American Justice: Politics, Myth, and Fiction

Investigator(s):

Swirski P

Department:

School of Modern Languages and Cultures

Source(s) of Funding:

Small Project Funding

Start Date:

09/2006

 

Abstract:

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Gilded Age, Iron Heel, Boston, It Can’t Happen Here. On Johnny Carson the list would be an invitation to start looking for a common denominator, which in this case would not be hard to find. Chronologically, stylistically, ontologically and aesthetically dissimilar as they are, all five books are acknowledged as classics of American political literature. Whether nonfiction or fiction, factual or speculative, all have enriched our understanding of the United States and of the sociopolitical forces that, grinding the national centrifuge, repeatedly threaten to rend its asunder. Much remains to be learned from the old-time giants. But dwelling on the classics, not everybody finds the time and the inclination to take stock of the contemporary scene. This is, to some extent, understandable. For one, the contemporary scene defies the critical cookie-cutter of Marxist vintage. Hard to assimilate into the inherited interpretive categories, many of the new writers and filmmakers work outside the aesthetics of highbrow-lowbrow. Mixing fiction and history, entertainment and commitment, political engagement with slick consumer packaging, they are more than a little different from the kind of creators we’ve grown used to heaping plaudits on. Hence the idea behind this research project to take a closer look at the assorted books and films, fictions and nonfictions, comedies and dramas that have not as yet acquired the imprimatur of the canon. The idea is to examine what the contemporary engagé scene has to say about the sociopolitical forces that, grinding the national centrifuge, threaten to rend its asunder. The idea is to investigate its bestselling combinations of political commitment and popular entertainment with a view both to their box-office and soap-box appeal. The idea is to analyze their artistry, rhetoric, and—not least—historical (not to say statistical) veracity in order to set the record straight on all counts. To maintain that Bulworth, Parliament of Whores, Death of a Politician, The Man, and Stupid White Men are contemporary classics may be to overstate the case. To maintain that they have hardly received their rightful share of critical attention—or indeed acclaim—may be to understate it. Either way, the score can be settled only by examining them in detail. Be they art dressed up as entertainment or entertainment dressed up as art, all five works demand scrutiny across a spectrum of disciplines. Saying that history, politics, and social issues are of value in literary criticism is, of course, like saying that eyes are of value in seeing. “In our age,” W.H. Auden stated flatly in “The Poet and the City,” “the mere making of a work of art is a political act" (383). History, politics and social matters are not just germane to this collection of books and films—they are their raison d’être. This is another way of saying that narrative and stylistic considerations are in their case as germane as questions of historical and sociopolitical nature. The demands these five works make upon their readers and viewers are, in short, thoroughly interdisciplinary, and my research project meets them head-on. Neither exclusively literary-critical nor strictly exclusively sociohistorical, the project combines methodologies and thematic concerns from all fields of study that orbit American literature and American studies at the centre. Between The Man from the turbulent, war-torn 1960s, and Stupid White Men from the turbulent, war-torn 2000s, stretch four decades of contemporary literature, history and politics. What does the miscellany of media, modes, and genres that includes Bulworth, Parliament of Whores, and Death of a Politician have in common? Most of all, whether as dramatic fiction or satirical history, new-left yin or neo-con yang, all five works are insuppressibly political. Touching on subjects that are politically, well, touchy (to say the least), they are of more than just literary or archival interest, insofar as all are back in our millennium—with a vengeance. And the manner in which all five conduct their business is, more often than not, irreverent, impudent and iconoclastic. Even a thumbnail sketch drives home the point art should sometimes come with shock-absorbers. Bulworth turns a white Senator into a gangbanger and a rapping devil-may-care Socialist. Parliament of Whores takes the entire government to the cleaners before hanging them out to dry. Death of a Politician vivisects the corpse of a Nixon-like careerist before turning his soul over to the devil. The Man deposits a Black man in the White House. Stupid White Men goes bare-knuckle after the current Chief Executor. And even though historical, dialectic, and political discourse is not exactly the dream of commercial bestsellers, all court the discerning thinker and the mass consumer with their nobrow appeal. Following in their footprints, Ars Americana, Ars Politica looks in turn at the nature of the media, the myth of the presidency, the Middle East reprise of a black underground, the cost of political sellout, and the USA today. Inevitably, the book in your hands ends up being more than just a critical introduction to recent political novels, essays, and cinema. Striving to do justice to controversial material, it ends up being a political book as well. Inevitably, it may come under fire from both sides of the political bleachers, in itself an indication that the author did his job well. Standing tall against the postmodernist drift that denies authorship and intentionality, and thus the very conditions of political engagement in art, Ars Americana, Ars Politica aims to be not only a provocative but thought-provoking primer on the American political scene

 

List of Research Outputs

 

Swirski P., "American Literature: Nobrow and Beyond.", Keynote lecture. Intercollegiate International Conference on English Teaching, 2006. Yuanpei University of Science and Technology. Hsinchu, Taiwan. May. 2006.

 

Swirski P., "American Politics in Literature and Film.", Invited lecture. Faculty of Comparative Culture, Sophia University. Tokyo, Japan. January. 2006.

 

Swirski P., "Ars Americana, Ars Politica.", Invited Lecture. Department of English, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. October . 2006.

 

Swirski P., "Briefcases for Hire: American Hardboiled to Legal Fiction." With Faye Wong. , Journal of American Culture. 2006, 29:3: 307-320.

 

Swirski P., The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem, editor. Montreal, London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006.

 

Swirski P., “American Literature: Nobrow and Beyond.” In Select Papers from the Intercollegiate International Conference on English Language Teaching. Taipei: Crane Publishing. 14-30, 2006.

 

Swirski P., “Betrization is the Worst Solution… With the Exception of All Others.” The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 47-71., 2006.

 

Swirski P., “James Dickey.” In Magill Survey of American Literature; Revised Edition. Ed. Tracy Irons-Georges. Pasadena: Salem Press. 602-611., 2006.

 

Swirski P., “The Man Behind the Giant.” The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 3-12, 2006.

 

Swirski P., “The Novels of Ed McBain and the Politics of the American Polis.” In Chanady, Amaryll, George Handley, and Patrick Imbert, eds. America’s Worlds and the World’s America. Ottawa: Legas/University of Ottawa, 513-522, 2006.

 

Swirski P., “Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906); Oil (1927).” In Magill Survey of American Literature; Revised Edition. Ed. Tracy Irons-Georges. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2335-2341, 2006.

 

Researcher : Wong HW

List of Research Outputs

 

Wong H.W., "Taki Love his fans", "No, Taki Loves Me!": An Anthropological Study of the Female Fans of Takizawa Hideaki in Hong Kong, 18th Japan Anthropology Workshop. 2007.

 

Wong H.W., In: Joy Hendry and Wong Heung Wah, Dismantling The East-West Dichotomy: Essays in Honour of Jan Van Bremen. 2006.

 

Wong H.W., Eastern and Western Anthropologists Unite in Culture: A Personal Note, In: Joy Hendry and Wong Heung Wah, Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy: Eassys in Honour of Jan Van Bremen. London, Routledge, 2006, 110-116.

 

Wong H.W., Ethnic Boundary, Ethnic Identity Politics and the Failure of Localization of Management in Overseas Japanese Companies, Making Connections: Relational Analysis, Boundary Concepts and the Future of Organization Studies. 2007.

 

Wong H.W., Hi hoshuteki kigyoo bunka to guroobaru ka: Yaohan no jirei kara [Unconservative corporate culture and globalization: The telling case of Yaohan], In: H. Nakamaki and K. Hioki, Kaisha Bunka no Guroobaru Ka: Keiei Jinruigaku teki Koosatsu [Globalization of Company Culture]. Osaka, Japan, Toohoo Shuppan, 2007, 45-78.

 

Wong H.W., Japanese Popular Culture in Hong Kong, National Central University, Taiwan. 2007.

 

Wong H.W., What Enlightenment can Japan Anthropology Offer to Anthropology?, In: Joy Hendry and Wong Heung Wah, Dismantling The East-West Dichotomy: Essays in Honour of Jan Van Bremen. London, Routledge, 2006, 211-217.

 

Researcher : Yorozu M

Project Title:

A study on motivation and learning strategies

Investigator(s):

Yorozu M

Department:

Japanese Studies

Source(s) of Funding:

Other Funding Scheme

Start Date:

04/2001

 

Abstract:

To investigate how language learners' motivation (to learn) and their learning strategies influence each other; to explore implications in language learning acquisition process.

 

List of Research Outputs

 

Yorozu M., Assessment of Oral Proficiency of Learners of Japanese, Hong Kong Society of Japanere Language Education. 2006.



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