abstracts

▼　Masazumi Araki (荒木正純)


A New Japanese Translation System

　　 The Meiji Era of Japan is the revolutionary period when the people who lived in the Japanese Islands produced a new form of nation, modernized Japan, through a civil war. This civil war was not only political, but also economical, industrial and cultural. And this revolution gave birth to new systems of all kinds, which can be regarded as quite different in both quality and quantity from ones of the Yedo Period. A lot of Japanese were willing to discard the traditional systems and replaced them by new ones. The traditional systems had been provided mainly by Chinese written works; even the Japanese writing system derived from the Chinese one. But new systems were brought to Japan by Westerners. First, Jesuit missionaries did the work, and then Dutch merchants. After the Meiji Revolution, mainly Englishmen did it. So the new systems were based upon alphabetical writing systems. Although the Japanese people accepted modern Western systems, they retained their language and its traditional writing system based on the Chinese. As the result of it, the Japanese people had to cultivate a new linguistic translation system, which functioned mainly as a kind of reception mechanism, when Japanese accepted Western thoughts and things. In my paper, I will show how the mechanism was constructed by making clear how English words of ‘brother/sister,’ ‘God’s sake,’ and ‘sausage’ were translated.


▼　Hajime Saito (斎藤一)

Let Us Open Our Paragraphs

　　When I was young and naive, I often read tai yaku (hon [=book]), parallel texts, to study English, because I strongly believed that they are edited by famous professors and were therefore authoritative, and also believed that they gave me the correct answers, in other words, the correct translations of the original English texts that deserve memorization. Now I know that my naive belief is not always true and I am happy that I know this: translation in any form is full of mutations, transformations, betrayals that are dynamic and critical. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee (1982) is one of the texts that has made me realize this. In this presentation, I would like to point out that Cha's apparently traditional and symmetrical parallel texts written in French and in English are slightly but intentionally differentiated enough to make the careful readers feel uncomfortable and therefore exciting. I also would like to point out that the same old traditional tai yaku hon that has been produced for a long time in Japan can be a version of Dictee that knocks us out. I believe that we can 'open' tai yaku hon to someone, somewhere, with slight transformations, to help tai yaku hon, parallel texts, show its own critical dynamism.

▼　Moran Kim (金牡蘭)
　　　　　　　　　　
Irish Drama and the Construction of Korean National Identity: A Case of Chi-jin Yu　

　　The purpose of this presentation is to show the process in which Korean national identity was constructed by translating Irish drama. In the early 20C Korea, which was under the control of Japan, Irish drama attracted many intellectuals' attention. Until recently, such a boom of Irish drama was attributed to the historical circumstance where the Korean people tended to identify their predicament with the like hardships of the Irish people, who was under the British reign. However, we also need to take a notice of the fact that it was the popularity of Irish drama in Japan, particularly in the academic sphere of English literature, which made the boom possible.
　　In order to explore this ironical situation which informed the introduction of Irish drama in Korea, this presentation will focus on Yu Chi-jin, who was once educated in Japan, and took an active part in the theatrical movement after coming back to Korea. His first drama The Mud Hut is known as an adaptation of Juno and the Paycock written by Sean O’Casey, the leading dramatist in contemporary Ireland. Once we read closely the texts surrounding the drama, such as advertisements and reviews of the drama, as well as the adapted text itself, we could make the two following points. One is that the adaptation was itself the process of identifying Korea with Ireland rather than a result or a reflection of that identification. The other is that the discourse on Irish drama in Korea worked as the place for constructing ideal national identity. In so doing, we will be able to relocate the Korean strategy to construct their identity in broader geopolitical context.


▼　Kyu-hyung Cho

Can the Emergency Period be an Emergent Period?
: An Overview of the Trends and Prospects of English Language and Literature Education in Korea

　　The Departments of English Language and Literature at the universities in Korea are at a crucial juncture where they need to redefine their educational, academic, and social role. This may be viewed as a crisis but it may also serve as an opportunity to effectively recast the English Departments. The increasing amount of international exchange in Korea since the 1980's has shifted the importance of the medium of communication from mainly the written to the spoken, particularly everyday English. With the introduction of English conversation instruction to preschoolers around 1990, English conversation has become an obsession to many Koreans. The English Departments at the universities have come to the point where the demand for practical English and the major field of study must be harmoniously bridged.
　　As the university English education is heavily based upon students’intellectual and emotional maturity, content-based English can be an excellent means for university English classes. English education at universities in particular should be more desirable when it is geared by individual motivations rather than social necessities. It can elaborate the reading and interpretation of English literary texts as an essential part in developing students’ more systematic and creative thinking over English proficiency. Expanding the textual canon and employing multimedia teaching methods in the English department helps students to express a variety of their own view-points and perspectives. But a number of leading professors, mostly teaching with non-canonical or new texts, have expressed a concern over the condition of canonical works being excluded in the classroom. This paper observes that we are entering into a time where the canon and so-called multicultural texts are becoming harmoniously interdependent in research and teaching scenes. This paper also suggests the necessity of dialogic relation between linguistics and literature within the English Department along with that of renewed communication among the departments of Western and Eastern languages and literature. 


▼　Sema Taskin

English Departments in Turkey: Past, Present and Future

　　The introduction of English language and literature programmes in the Turkish Republic is the outcome of the Kemalist (i.e. Ataturk’s) vision of a national culture. Ataturk hoped that the new national culture would emcompass the nation’s creative legacy as well as values of world civilisation, and thereby emphasise personal and universal humanist ideals. Successive Ministries of Education introduced a systematic approach to foreign language education. Several university departments of foreign languages- known as philology departments at the time- were established, and with government support produced an impressive output of research and publication, together with new curricula based on western models.
　　Since 1990s, there has been a new set up to co-exist with the programmes of English language and literature, and that is the introduction of British Studies MA and Ph D programmes in some universities. Students have been given the kind of theoretical, social and political knowledge in order for them to make informed cultural comparisons, not only studying literary texts but also other types of texts.

▼　Li Hsin-ying

Forty Years of English Literary Studies in Taiwan

　　A historical review of the development of Western literary studies in Taiwan over the past 40 years shows that the local academia has maintained close ties to the U.S. Over half of our scholars have some form of American training in their background, often thanks to scholarships and exchange programs provided by the 　U.S. government. As a result, the island’s English departments have mainly modeled their programs on the American example, and the local academic community has likewise studied the American scene closely in its research activities. Local literary research in the past 40 years has basically passed through three stages: the earliest decade, influenced by New Criticism, emphasized the intrinsic virtues of canonical writers; the following two decades, probably led by a generation of comparative literature scholars, showed great interest in comparing Western literature to Chinese cultural products and philosophical thoughts; and the recent decade, with a new generation of critical theorists, has been cultivating a new awareness of canon re-formation and politicized readings. The number of literary studies has also grown exponentially over the past 40 years, in sync with the rapid expansion of Taiwan’s higher education in recent decades. In the English departments, however, American literature scholars still outnumber those devoted to British literature, most likely a legacy of U.S. cultural diplomacy.

▼　C. S. Lim

English Studies in Malaysia

　　The paper will begin by sketching the contours of English Studies in the Department of English at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur as the oldest and most comprehensive English department in Malaysia. The history of the department will be traced from its beginnings in the University of Malaya in Singapore through its establishment as a separate entity in Kuala Lumpur. The trajectory of the development of English studies will be tracked through the years of growth and then decline when a mistaken model of English language teaching in schools was seen to be viable without recourse to literature. This disastrous development in language educatioin eventually resulted in the dramatic shrinking of the pool of competent potential students for the Department of English at the university. Postgraduate teaching has fortunately fared much better and has been an important raison d’etre for the department in the lean years. The present revival of literary study in Malaysia that again places literature at the heart of the language syllabus in Malaysian schools will be discussed.
　　This paper will go on to survey the various universities in Malaysia with literature programmes not amounting to full-fledged departments of English or having sections of academic programmes with specifically focused curricula within a larger context of schools of humanities.
　　It will end with some thoughts on the various models of English Studies in Malaysia with comparative glances at other departments/programmes in Southeast Asia and the possible future of Departments of English Studies in the region. I will look briefly at the contexts of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines in this conclusion.

▼　Felicia Chan

“English” versus “Literature”: The Place of English Literary Studies in Singapore

　　English literature occupies an ambivalent position in the socio-cultural make-up of Singapore, largely because of the way its study is constructed as separate from the study of the English language, for reasons based on Singapore’s social and political history. Following independence from Britain, Singapore continued to rely on English as its lingua franca in a bid to ensure racial and social harmony amongst its diverse peoples. And yet, while much is made of the need to learn English in the public arena, less attention is given to English literature, and this is reflected in the marginal status the subject occupies in its various tertiary institutions. Thus, rather than attempt a historiography of English Literary Studies in Singapore, this paper aims to consider the separation of the two subjects in the discourse on English, and the implications their division has for a nation still keen on fashioning its own cultural identity.
　　

▼　Poonam Trivedi

English Literary Studies in India: ‘handcuffed to history’

　　To investigate the role and position of English Literary Studies in Asia today, one needs to begin with an examination of the historical imperatives and their ideological implications that were instrumental in the construction and development of this academic discipline. Colonialism played salient role in the emergence and spread of English Studies. Its contradictions and paradoxes are nowhere more apparent than in India where a subject people took to the colonizer’s language only to turn it back on them. The freedom struggle was fostered through the acquisition and study of the English language and its texts. After independence, Indian writers have won the Booker for the best fiction in English. Today, there is an urgent need to reckon with the globalising impetus of international English. 
　　The second point of debate is the seeming language versus literature opposition. Literature has been used for the study of language, but no literary study is possible without language. Departments of English have to find new ways of negotiating this dual function of linguistic and literary pedagogy. Further, this convergence of attention to both language and literature becomes particularly necessary when the discipline expands to include texts from other literatures in English translation.
　　Finally, “Asia” as a site and arena of attention needs to be defined. Is it a mere geographic convenience, a political entity or a cultural construct? Is it or can it be a monolith? Or do we try to elucidate the commonalities to offset the differences in the encounters of the peoples of Asia with English?


▼　Ｔｅｄ Motohashi (本橋哲也)

“History and Studies of English Literature at a Japanese University: A Case of Cultural Studies”

　　During the course of 2003, the plight of Tokyo Metropolitan University was highlighted not only among the students and academics working at Japanese universities but also among the general public and media in this country, since the current Tokyo governor Ishihara made a sudden announcement at a press conference on August 1 declaring his intention of restructuring a large part of the University, which according to Ishihara was not making sufficient contributions, academically as well as financially, to the general good of Tokyo citizens to whom the University was accountable.  The proposed “reform” was drastic and wide-ranging, from direct appointment of a right-wing chairperson of the board of directors, stripping the professors of their rights of self-determination, dramatic rise in tuition fees, to changing the shape of the entire departmental system.
　　The reform was of course a part of and concurrent with the global trend of “neo-liberalistic” logic of market expansion into the sphere of education (a corollary of the so-called trinity of neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism, neo-nationalism), but it was the department of literature that bore the brunt of this particular policy, as the departments that have specialized in several “national” literatures (English, French, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) was largely abolished and scrapped into one massive “urban culture department”?whatever it is supposed to mean?with the loss of nearly half the current teaching staff.  It is no more viable, according to the reform plan, to teach and study English literature in one organically structured group of people who specialize in the language and culture of the English speaking regions in the world.
　　By trying to contextualize this academic incident in one Japanese city in the contemporary history of crises of education, this paper proposes to open a debate over the public value of studies of literature.  It will argue for the viability of cultural studies and their approach towards these particular crises, and examine all the more crucial tension between pedagogy and performativity in the sphere of education and studies of English literature in Japan.




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