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9.2 Activities for Beyond Unit Thinking: Post-Standardization in Language Teaching
Neriko Musha Doerr; Jisuk Park; and Kimiko Suzuki
Pedagogies Beyond Unit Thinking: Examples from the Japanese Classroom
In this section, we introduce two examples of language learning activities designed by two experienced Japanese language instructors: Kimiko Suzuki and Jisuk Park. They teach at institutions of higher education in the US and Canada, respectively. Before we turn to the examples, we introduce the specific histories of standardization and hierarchization in Japan in order to provide context. This will help you understand the background behind the activities.
Historically, it was common for people of different classes or regions in Japan to not be able to communicate with each other (Gluck, 1985; Lee, 2004). This changed in the mid-1880s when statesmen and intellectuals claimed that Japan needed a standard form of spoken and written language as part of its nation-building effort. They chose the variety spoken by the educated people of Tokyo as the standard and promoted it via school textbooks throughout Japan.
Unfortunately, this effort to standardize the language led to the suppression of other dialects and languages. For example, students were forbidden from speaking Ainu or Ryukyu languages in schools and were punished if they did (Gottlieb, 2005; Lee, 2004; Suzuki, 2003; Yasuda, 2003). This historical context is important to understand when examining language education in Japan today.
The Japanese writing system—a combination of kanji (derived from Chinese characters) and two phonetic scripts, hiragana and katakana—also underwent standardization (Seeley, 1991). Kanji is used for most nouns and for the stems of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Although books, magazines, and newspapers use around 3,000 characters (Gottlieb, 2005), schools teach 2,136 kanji characters recommended by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in 2010. Hiragana (46 syllable signs) is used to represent conjugational endings or grammatical particles. Katakana (46 syllable signs) is said to be used for foreign loanwords, foreign names (other than those of Chinese origin), onomatopoeia, and emphasis (Coulmas, 2002; Seeley, 1991). However, the choice of script is flexible, and explanations of katakana’s purpose and usage performatively create norms (Doerr, 2011; Doerr & Kumagai, 2014).
Currently, Standard Japanese is used and understood throughout the country, especially in writing and in formal settings such as government offices. Regional variations do remain and continue to change as they interact with the standard (Gottlieb, 2005; Mashiko, 2003).
Despite the existing problematization of languagestandardization, there are few published critiques of teaching it as the default in Japanese language classes.Some advanced classes discuss the power relations involved instandardization, but these discussions are rare in beginner-level courses. In this section, we will introduce activities developed by Suzuki and Park to challenge this “one-size-fits-all” approach to language education, even in beginner classes (Suzuki).
Example 1: Kanji Activity by Kimiko Suzuki
Often, language class curricula, especially at elementary levels, focus primarily on teaching linguistic and cultural features from the textbook. Textbooks, however, reflect values of societal elites, which are largely influenced by the political, economic, and historical contexts in which they were created (Bori, 2018). The selected knowledge and information in the textbook will, as a result, typically be consumed, assumed, and practiced as the standard of the target culture (Kubota, 2003; Kumagai, 2014). Textbook-oriented curricula may inadvertently reinforce specific language ideologies while overlooking diverse, fluid, and dynamic aspects of the language (Kumagai, 2014). Kanji instruction is one example of this. The unit, in these cases, might be a particular linguistic feature and the correct (i.e., standard) ways of using that form.This activity is designed to question the notion of correctness in language education, which often prioritizes certain linguistic expressions over others. In a language learning setting, students are expected to acquire the correct forms of kanji and the stroke orders described in the textbook. The borderline between correct and incorrect tends to be considered fixed and static. Although kanji that do not conform to the standard forms are often accepted in daily life, the accepted range for kanji in Japanese language classes is narrower. Focusing on kanji, the instructor asks students what they consider to be correct in the context of Japanese language class and what that means.
This activity, which uses one hour of class time, was designed for a second-year Japanese course at a small liberal arts college located in the Northeastern US. The course covered Lessons 13-18 in a textbook called Genki II (Banno et al., 2020). The following paragraphs describe the sequence of the class activity, along with the corresponding PowerPoint slides.
First, the instructor shows a list of the same word—食べます(ta・be・ma・su), which means “to eat”—written in seven different fonts (Figure 1). The first font is called “textbook” font, which is considered standard. All the fonts are commonly used, and each has a slightly different design. Although they are all accepted in daily use, instructors often consider some of them incorrect when students use them in their assignments.
In this exercise, students discuss these fonts using the following prompts: (1) which font they like and why; (2) which font they often see in textbooks; and (3) which font would lose points if used on a test. By examining these fonts, students engage in understanding the difference between what is standard in class and what is socially accepted, as well as what it means to have such a difference and the effects of having such a difference.
Figure 1
Then, the instructor displays seven students’ copies of the same word in handwriting (Figure 2) and asks which one would lose points if written on a test. This close examination prompts students to consider the boundary between correct and incorrect forms. For example, the kanji in #5 is a common handwriting form, in which a part of the kanji is all connected, unlike the standard form. In one class where this project was carried out, several students whose first language uses kanji (e.g., Chinese)—i.e., those having a kanji background—wrote this alternative form. This form is as recognizable as the standard one and is socially accepted. The teacher then poses questions to the students: Is the alternative form correct in the language classroom? Should the teacher consider this form as correct when written by a student with a kanji background but wrong when written by a student without a kanji background? Is it acceptable to write this in assignment papers but not on a test?
Figure 2
The instructor shows a form of kanji, 毎日(ma・i・ni・chi), which means “everyday” (Figure 3). Sometimes, students with a kanji background write “每日” as shown below because that is how they write it in their first language. In Japan, it is written differently, as 毎日, although in the past, 每日 was also used. Figure 4 describes the historical background regarding the shift from the older form of the kanji character (每) to the newer form (毎). Thus, the correctness of 毎日 is arbitrary. After explaining this background information, the instructor asks students if it is appropriate to mark每日 as incorrect when used on a test.
Figure 3
Figure 4
The teacher then shows more examples of the difference between older and newer forms of kanji characters (Figure 5). Students are then given a pop quiz (Figure 6). The larger characters are older forms, and the smaller ones in blue boxes are newer forms, which are hidden at first. The instructor asks students to guess them.
The objective of exploring the difference between these forms is to blur the boundary of two languages—Japanese and Chinese—and challenge the unit thinking of language as bounded units. It does so while urging students to see the arbitrariness of correctness. Capitalizing on the connection between these two languages through shared letters, kanji, the instructor shows how a version of kanji accepted in Chinese may not be accepted in Japanese.
Figure 5
,
Figure 6
Expanding on the arbitrariness of the correctness of kanji shapes, the instructor asks questions regarding the stroke order of the kanji (Figure 7): Why is there such a thing as set stroke orders? Is stroke order necessary? Are there stroke orders in the students’ first language?
Figure 7
The activity ends with a discussion on correctness (Figure 8): who decides, if there are discrepancies between the correctness in Japanese language classes and in the outside world, and what they think about the correctness of kanji.
Figure 8
After the class, students are assigned to write a reflection of the activity in English. In one semester, one student wrote that “I think that kanji in Japanese class is a correct foundation for how kanji looks in the outside world, but given the time period we live in now, handwritten kanji is not as important as it used to be. Most forms of written communication today are typed, so a computer typically writes out the kanji for me.” Another student wrote, “I think that the way you write kanji is your personal choice since the purpose of a written language is to communicate in a non-verbal manner. As long as the message is going through it is doing its job. My language also has a stroke order so I personally think that the stroke order is important since it was created for a reason. It helps shape the character and is usually the most efficient way of writing it.”
Reflection activity
Looking at the Kanji activity presented here, what do you notice as some of the key choices made by the instructor to help learners explore the boundaries between correct and incorrect for kanji characters?
What might a more standardizing approach to teaching Kanji look like? How would it compare and contrast with this example?
Thinking about the languages you teach, what are some units that typically get taught in standardizing ways that undercut the complexity of their use?
Example 2: Yakuwarigo (Role-language) by Jisuk Park
Just as language features can be treated as a normative unit, so too can styles of language associated with particular identities. This activity urges students to critically examine the effects of yakuwarigo (role-language), which refers to styles of language including vocabulary, syntax, phrases, and tone, that convey certain images and traits about their speaker. These styles are often categorized based on age, gender, occupation, class, historical time period, and appearance.
For example, in media such as anime, manga, dramas, and movies, an elderly male teacher might use formal speech styles associated with male, while an ojōsama (a high-class young woman) would likely use expressions seen as refined and feminine.
While yakuwarigo can enhance the understanding of characters, it can also promote prejudice and discriminatory attitudes (Kinui, et al., 2003). These prejudices and discriminatory attitudes can be further reinforced, especially when taught as if there is a correct way for people to speak. Additionally, although yakuwarigo attracts learners’ interest due to the popularity of anime and manga, where yakuwarigo is used, there is often a lack of critical engagement with the subject.
At one level, yakuwarigo may appear to highlight the diversity of language, as people use Japanese differently based on age, gender, class, and so on. However, at another level, the category itself suggests the homogeneous linguistic practice within that category, reinforcing unit thinking of language. Just as acknowledging a dialect can still perpetuate unit thinking if the dialect is considered as a bounded countable unit, viewing yakuwarigo as something shared by everyone in that category also perpetuates unit thinking. Focusing on the stereotyping effects of yakuwarigo, this activity aims to raise awareness about the fluidity and diversity of language, while engaging students in wider social debates on categorizing people, allowing them to draw on these debates in thinking about language diversity and power relations.
The instructor first introduces what yakuwarigo means (Figure 9). The prompts for discussion include: (1) who decides these connections between the category and yakuwarigo, (2) what happens if the category (e.g., old man, housewife) and the assigned yakuwarigo do not match; and (3) how yakuwarigo relates to the standardization of language.
Figure 9
The instructor then asks the students to match the phrases to the people illustrated and explain their reasoning (Figure 10).
Figure 10
The instructor then shuffles the answers that are typically considered to be correct and reassigns them to demonstrate what could be typically considered correct and incorrect answers (Figure 11). The instructor then asks students to discuss the following questions:
Why do people believe that certain groups of people talk in specific ways?
Whose/what kind of views on yakuwarigo are most widely accepted?
If someone’s speech does not match expectations, how would people respond to this mismatch, both socially (e.g., debates) and individually (e.g., reactions)?
How would the speaker feel about such responses?
This activity is built on the one suggested by Kinsui (2003) (see also Kinsui et al., 2014), who points out that one’s grasp of yakuwarigo is evident if one laughs at the wrong answers. Park goes further, however, by engaging students in analyzing how they have learned and internalized yakuwarigo, and how people deviate from these stereotypes linguistically or otherwise.
Figure 11
Reflection activity
What types of learning and language awareness do you see afforded by the shuffling of normatively correct answers in this second example? Consider how challenging expected pairings might lead to deeper discussions about stereotypes, prejudices, and the ways in which real-life language use often deviates from these stereotypes. How might these discussions enhance language learning and awareness?
How does the engagement with unit thinking and its relationship to not only standards, but stereotypes here compare and contrast with what you have seen in other teaching materials? What kinds of learning can you foresee that supporting? Reflect on how this activity’s approach to challenging the notion of correctness in language use differs from other language teaching materials you have encountered. How might this approach impact students’ understanding of language?
Think of your own teaching context; what might be some ways in which you could foster learners’ understanding of the importance of validating diverse language practices? What linguistic aspects might you focus on? How might this push back against unit thinking? Explore how connecting language use with broader social discussions, such as those surrounding diverse expressions of masculinity and femininity, could create a more inclusive and accepting classroom environment for diverse language practices. How might this connection enrich students’ understanding of language and its role in society?
definition
A practice of pushing diverse linguistic practices to conform to the practices designated as the standard, which was chosen based on the speakers’ high social status. It is always in process and never complete; it reproduces power hierarchy in society by imposing the dominant group’s speech as the standard and hierarchizing linguistic variations based on their distance from the standard.
A way of perceiving the world as made up of bounded, discrete, countable units that are internally homogeneous; coined by Neriko Musha Doerr.
Vocabulary, syntax, phrases, tone, etc., that are expected to be used by people in specific categories, defined by age, gender, occupation, class, historical time period, appearance, characteristics.
