Language Awareness: Use/Misuse of Loan-words in the English Language in Japan

We can understand Chris Wada's intention after reading the article, but a native speaker might have interpreted the headline in a completely different way, i.e. Mr Wada wants the students to get out of Temple University right away because of something bad that they did! The word 'ticket' is misused again in a non-native-like fashion in the second paragraph. We can't be sure if these were the speaker's actual words or an editorial mistake, in either case, a more careful choice of words would have enhanced the passage. In the same issue (p6), however, there is a perfectly acceptable headline:

Let's hope the editorial staff pursues a more consistent editing policy. The English language newspapers in Japan provide a good model of a better use of English idioms and puns. It seems that the lower the caliber of the newspaper, the more frequent use of the above because, I assume, the editors believe that this is what its main reading audience, the international community in Japan, favors. To take just one example:

An EFL learner would have difficulty interpreting this headline. One would have to be familiar not only with the referential meaning of 'ponytail' but also of the pun on the phrase 'tale of woe' which may be unfamiliar to even some native speakers. There is another play on words with the phrase 'fights for his hair' which is usually 'fights for his life'. We teachers must try to direct our students' attention also to the representational meanings of words, providing them with variations of vocabulary usage as the occasion arises. The English language newspapers in Japan would be an excellent source of teaching materials for this purpose.

As I mentioned above, the misuse of English loan-words is a problem which EFL teachers in Japan are constantly faced with, in and out of the classroom. There is a useful dictionary to help the native English speaker living in Japan (Webb, 1990) in which loan-words are categorized as follows:

1. compound words which do not exist in English, for example: en-suto ('engine stop'), gattsu-poozu ('guts pose'), gooru-in (goal in'), etc.
2. shortened words, for example: katsu ('cutlet'), hoomu (platform'), waa-puro ('word processor'), etc.
3. words whose pronunciation is very different from the pro- nunciation of the original English word, for example: biniiru ('vinyl'), shinnaa ('thinner'), kaabu ('curb'), etc.
4. words whose meaning or usage is different from the original English word, for example: manshon ('mansion'), saidaa ('cider'), sutairu ('style'), charenji ('challenge'), etc.
5. words derived from English words which are not common, for example, kurakushon ('klaxon'), maikurobasu ('microbus), mootaa-puuru (motorpool'), etc.
6. words derived from British English words which are not used in America, for example: bonnetto ('bonnet' of a car), seroteepu ('sellotape'), supana ('spanner'), etc.
7. words borrowed from European languages other than English, for example: abekku (French 'avec'), zemi (German, 'Seminar'), koppu (Dutch 'kop'), etc. (p7-8).

This latter point, I feel, provides the most headaches for the EFL teacher. Our students recognize the word as a loanword but are familiar only with its colloquial meaning and usage in Japanese. For example, the item chaamu-pointo (charm point) is commonly used among my junior college female students to refer to an attractive quality of a person's physical makeup, for example:

        Kanojo no chaamu-pointo wa?
        Her charm point is what? (literal translation)

The students most often assume that the use of the loanword in the English translation would be acceptable and are surprised to learn that this is not the case. Acceptable substitutes must then be taught to undo the damage, for example, 'What is her most attractive feature?' or 'What do you find attractive about her?', etc. Occurrences of this misuse of loan-words are prevalent in both oral and written work in the EFL classroom. The foreigner, on the other hand, must learn the above loan- words as part of the target language( Japanese) to be able to communicate successfully.

For both the EFL student and the native English speaker learning Japanese, I feel that Webb's dictionary is a valuable tool.

Let's look at one entry in detail:

    naisu-midoru  (nice-middle)
    well-dressed, attractive middle-aged man

    Furansu ryooriten ni wa wakai onna no ko
    o tsureta naisumidoru ga imashita.

    In the French restaurant a young girl
    brought by a nice-middle was there.
    (my literal translation)

    There was an attractive middle-aged man with
    a young woman in  the French restaurant.
    (Webb's acceptable English translation).

Students who are familiar with this word would use it in an English sentence, as in my translation above, disregarding the impossible English syntactical arrangement. By providing many more examples of the correct adjectival function of this word, hopefully, students would come to an 'awareness' of the proper usage. In the slogans which were cited in the introduction, the English words are used in a similar indiscriminate manner and produce just an effect rather than any kind of communication, just as the agency president said. This may be the desired outcome of the advertising company, but a nightmare for the language teacher.

3. A pedagogical solution

Junko: I think Mary's charm point is her beautiful hair.
Andy: Charm point? If you're referring to Mary's most attractive feature, her hair, then I certainly agree.
Junko: Yes, right. She also has a very charming personality.
Andy: Yes, she does.

In constructing this dialogue, I have tried to incorporate the model described by Varonis and Gass (1985) in which there is a "negotiation exchange" between interlocutors indicating a misunderstanding. The model (p151) is worth quoting here:

"Our model consists of four primes: (1) a trigger (T), which stimulates or invokes incomplete understanding on the part of the hearer; (2) an indicator(I), which is the hearer's signal that understanding has not been complete; (3) a response (R), which is the original speaker's attempt to clear up the unaccepted input (this is often referred to as a repair); and (4) a reaction to the response(RR), an optional element that signals either the hearer's acceptance or continued difficulty with the speaker's repair.

The example in 1 above, which we repeat here, illustrates all these elements.

    1. NNS1: My father now is retire. --T
       NNS2: retire?-- I
       NNS1: yes. -- R
       NNS2: oh yeah. -- RR "

Their data show how an indicator of incomplete comprehension is often expressed "by echoing a word or phrase of the previous utterance" (p154).

In my original dialogue above, the NS's difficulty with the NNS's use of charm point is indicated by echoing the loanword in question form. As a language awareness exercise for my students, I would have them first listen to the dialogue and try to pick out the misused loanword and the manner in which it was repaired by the NS. They could then look at the transcript and, using the model mentioned above (after an explanation from the teacher), place the symbols for trigger(T), indicator(I), response(R), and reaction to response(RR) at the appropriate places, for example:

Junko: I think Mary's charm point(T) is her beautiful hair.
Andy: Charm point?(I) If you're referring to her most attractive feature, her hair, then I certainly agree.
Junko: Yes, right.(R) She also has a very charming personality.
Andy: Yes, she does.(RR)

I think the above exercise would help focus students' attention on the use/misuse of loan-words in their own speech, especially on the indications of misunderstanding or acceptance in an exchange with a NS. The alternative, correct usage (most attractive feature) would hopefully develop their awareness of the necessity to know the many variations of a certain lexical item. This type of dialogue is a more realistic exchange than the dialogues which appear in most EFL textbooks in which there always seems to be complete understanding which is an unrealistic occurrence.

Although the native English-speaking population of Japan represents only a small percentage of the consumer market I think a bit more 'language awareness' on the part of the slogan creators would make the products more appealing to the international community. As McCarthy and Carter p115) state, it is impossible to "separate culture from linguistic expression"; one cannot just stick English words into a Japanese context without concern for the appropriateness of the linguistic result.

References

McCarthy MJ, Carter R 1994 Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching . Longman.

Webb J 1990 A Guide to Modern Japanese Loanwords . The Japan Times