An Ethnography of a Community Speech Event: Observing and Participating in a Japanese University Entrance Ceremony

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Organizing Japanese Social Behavior
• Describing a Community Speech Event
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• References
  

Abstract

This paper takes an anthropological approach to interpreting the words of greeting offered by the president of a college at a recent Japanese university entrance ceremony. Of course, in a very literal sense, the fourteen-minute speech given by the academic was part of a larger event—the commencement exercises-- but also, in a linguistic sense, it was a “speech event”. This small-scale linguistic study is organized around Watson-Gegeo’s (1988) four principles of ethnographic research: ? a guiding theoretical framework, ? a description of the speech event, individual linguistic behaviour vis a vis the larger group that is the speech community, ? a holistic explanation of cultural and linguistic phenomena, relating the parts to the whole, and ? comparison at an abstract level across settings.

In analysing this speech event I argue that the deictic anchor point in Japanese is not the “I” of Indo-European languages but rather the collectively defined vantage point represented as uchi.

1. Introduction

This paper takes an anthropological approach to interpreting the words of greeting offered by the president of a college at a recent Japanese university entrance ceremony. Of course, in a very literal sense, the fourteen-minute speech given by the academic was part of a larger event—the commencement exercises-- but also, in a linguistic sense, it was a “speech event” (i.e., “an act of human communication (Spolsky 1998, p. 125)”). Practically the ethnographic description of this speech event will take a sociolinguistic bent employing methodologies from the fields of interactional sociolinguistics (Schiffrin 1996) as well as ethnography of speaking (Hymes 1962) (alias ethnography of communication (Saville-Troike 1996)). However, an attempt will be made to bring these sociolinguistic approaches into the anthropological arena. The interpretation of this linguistic performance will seek less to pattern, correlate and define the behavior in terms of social grouping than to seek to “uncover the meaning behind the use, misuse or non-use of language exhibited” (Foley 1997), p. 3). With this goal in mind, this small-scale linguistic study will be organized around Watson-Gegeo’s (1988) four principles of ethnographic research: a guiding theoretical framework, a description of the speech event, individual linguistic behaviour vis a vis the larger group that is the speech community, ? a holistic explanation of cultural and linguistic phenomena, relating the parts to the whole, and ? comparison at an abstract level across settings.

This paper begins with a discussion in some detail of a guiding framework-- theoretical issues surrounding the notion of Japanese social order as “situated”(Bachnik 1994). Most important for the purposes of this study is the centrality of the pair of relational terms, uchi/soto (“inside/outside”), to recent anthropological analyses of Japanese culture (see Bachnik, p.7). For anthropologists, these terms imply what linguists term “deictic location practices” (Wetzel 1994) rather than a more fixed social framework.

This discussion of anthropological and linguistic theory will be followed by a justification of the ethnographic methodology undertaken in this particular piece of research. Also in this section, the descriptive ethnography of this speech event will be placed into the group context of the speech community and related back holistically to the aforementioned prescriptive model of linguistic indexing—uchi/soto. Finally, in the last section, there is a reiteration of the idea that the deictic anchor point in Japanese is not the “I” of Indo-European languages but rather the collectively defined vantage point represented as uchi. Included in the final section is the suggestion for further ethnographic research to compare, in a cross-setting way, this discussion of a socially located approach to culture and communication-- both the “small cultures” (Holliday 1999) within Japanese society as well as “etic” (Pike 1967) comparison of “small culture” across societies.

2. Organizing Japanese Social Behavior

2.1 The Uchi/Soto Model

The model upon which the investigation of this paper rests is the mapping of cultural practices in Japan on a horizontal plane of social organization using the relational terms uchi (“inside”) and soto (“outside”). Much of the literature on Japan has followed a vertical model of hierarchy and subordination made famous by Benedict (1946) and later developed in detail with Nakane’s (1970) work 30 years ago, a book subtitled tateshakai (“vertical society”) in the original Japanese version. This idea of a hierarchical ranking of society (based on factors such as age, sex, and status) was crudely, and unfortunately, appropriated and reinterpreted by many of the pop literature and books by ‘experts’ on Japan that describe the “the uniqueness of Japanese ‘culture’” ad nauseam, a genre of discussion labeled nihonjinron that has been viewed critically, needless to say, by many academics (see, e.g., Dale 1986; Mouer and Sugimoto 1990; Befu 1992).

The focus on descriptions of Japanese society that are less concerned with an emphasis on “borders” and more sensitive to the situational context, or “boundaries” (Barth 1969), is a recent and important trend in the academic literature on Japanese society (e.g., Hendry, 1989, 1993; Bachnik 1994). The use of the relational, “boundary” terms uchi/soto was a central thesis in Lebra’s (1976) treatment of situational context in her description of Japanese culture and behavior. More recently these terms have been used to identify principles and patterns of social structuring that are not only sensitive to situational and contextual variables in interaction, but at the same time transcend context in finding meaning in the organization of Japanese self, society, and language.

Bachnik (1994, p.8) delineates the ? circularity of Nakane’s (1970) “situationalism” argument as a structural principle— how can “situationalism” explain anything about the context if it requires context to mean what it means?— as well as ? Nakane’s (1970) portrayal of rigid group “bordering” and fixedness in her vertical system model and ? the overemphasis on a Western egocentric perspective in Nakane’s description of situational context. In an attempt to expand more effectively on the “kernel of truth” in earlier explanations of Japanese social organizations, Bachnik and others (Bachnik 1994) have “informed much recent scholarship on Japan” (Brenneis 1994, p. ix). They did so by exploring the significance of the relational terms uchi/soto, while at the same time considering these terms not as a fixed social framework but as deictic locational practices (Wetzel 1994).

The appeal of this explanation of social behavior is two-fold. First, such a model addresses concerns of culturist reductionism. ‘Culture’ too often refers to “prescribed ethnic, national, and international entities” (Holliday 1999, p. 237), a “large culture” paradigm that is vulnerable to stereotyping. In contrast, by defining linguistic deixis in Japanese in relational terms, the focus is on “small culture” and “thus more to do with activities taking place within a group than with the nature of the group itself” (Holliday 1999, p. 250). Secondly, this approach makes a “compelling case for considering space as socially, situationally, and flexibly defined” (Brenneis 1994, p. xi) and in doing so has cross-cultural implications that extend beyond Japan.

2.2 Deixis & Identity in Japan

2.2.1 Linguistic Indexing
This ethnography has as a purpose the investigation into what Wetzel (1994) calls the “linguistic indexing of uchi and soto” (p. 74). The explanatory power of the in-group/out-group—uchi/soto—distinction cannot be ignored in analyses of not only Japanese social relations, but, more specifically, in linguistic behavior as well. Wetzel argues that in this model, uchi becomes the “central anchor” (p. 74) for a person’s identity in Japanese society. Evidence from Japanese language and behavior overwhelming indicates that Japanese deixis is centered not on an ego of the Western sort, but rather a “situationally dependent uchi with fluid boundaries” (Wetzel 1994, p. 75).

2.2.2 Deixis
Lyons’ definition of deixis is: “The location and identification of persons, objects, events, processes, and activities being talked about, or referred to, in relation to the spaciotemporal context created and sustained by the act of utterance and participation in it, typically, of a single speaker and at least some addressee” (Lyons 1977, p. 636). Since his definition is largely based on the idea that “ego” is the deictic anchor, much of the philosophical discussion of these linguistic phenomena explores the nature of “I.” Bachnik (1994, p. 11) points out, however, that in Japan, where she argues the basic unit of society is not the individual self but uchi, the deictic anchor point is not clear. Wetzel (1994) makes a convincing argument that because the central theses of most discussions of personal pronouns, anaphora, and ellipsis take as a given that the “the central deictic distinctions of Japanese are the same as those of English and Indo-European, and that those distinctions are reflected in nominal elements… [they fail] to do justice to the system underlying these elements, and more seriously miss key generalizations about them” (p. 79).

2.2.3 Social Deixis
Levinson (1983) describes linguistic phenomena for which sociocultural distinctions play a descriptive role as “social deixis”—“the encoding of social distinctions that are relevant to participant roles, particularly aspects of the social relationship holding between the speaker and some referent” (p. 63). Wetzel (1994, p.79) points out that while Japanese polite forms and verbs of giving and receiving encode social uchi/soto distinctions and thus can be characterized as social deictic phenomena, Levinson still assumes that the speaker, ergo “ego,” is the deictic anchor. Furthermore, she (Wetzel, 1994) points out how if “we define uchi, and not ego, as the deictic anchor point, it has profound implications for our analysis of language… [and] we can erase the division that Levinson has drawn between deixis and social deixis.”

2.3.4 Research Question

In her data of conversation analysis, Wetzler (1994) illustrates convincingly that rather than pronominal indexing the deictic nature of both the Japanese verbs of giving and receiving as well as the polite forms provide a more accurate picture of the speaker’s location in uchi/soto. Japanese verb forms conjugate for uchi/soto in much the same fashion as Indo-European languages conjugate for person. What about a formal speech event, not a conversation?
Much of Wetzel’s (1994) argument that uchi is the deictic anchor point in Japanese is based on convincing linguistic evidence—both grammatical and conversational. In the following ethnographic data, support for her argument will be tested. Can this model be extrapolated and supported in a formal speech event “speech event”?

3. Describing a Community Speech Event: Observing and Participating in a Japanese College Entrance Ceremony

3.1 Rationale for Participant-Observation
The structured, formal interview creates an “observer’s paradox” that Labov (1966, p. 91-92) himself admits exists—how can researchers observe the way people speak when they are not being observed? The rationale for a participant-observation approach answers this question with two sets of hypotheses, as explicated by Wilson (1977, p. 253): ? naturalistic settings give researchers the most complete understanding of the actors since human behavior is so complexly influenced by the context in which it occurs and, ? a researcher seeking to understand accurately social behavior must go beyond mere observable facts and find ways to understand latent meaning for the participants, while maintaining an “outsider” objectivity. The difficulty of balancing the dynamic tension between this researcher’s subjective role as participant (faculty member obligingly attending the event) and the role of observer (researcher as stranger) was outweighed by the strength of the two hypotheses mentioned above.

Of the four types of data that Grimshaw (1989) explains as being available to the ethnographer of communication-- ? ‘natural’ speech observed in natural settings (e.g., data collected through participant-observation), ? ‘natural’ speech observed in contrived settings (e.g., data collected through ethnographic interviews), ? elicited speech and/or rules about that speech or other behavior as reported by informants (e.g., questionnaires or surveys), and ? historical or literary materials—for the purposes of the research question under study, the first type of data is most appropriate, if only because of the present lack of such ethnographic data. What better way for the author to further understand Japanese deixis than by “taking the role of his subjects… [and recreating] in his own imagination and experience the thoughts and feelings which are in the minds of those he studies” (Bruyn 1966, p. 12)? Furthermore, logistically the author was in a unique position to collect such data, as “insider”-- a foreign bilingual teacher, tenured at a Japanese university.

3.2 Data Collection
Deborah Shriffin (1996, p.320-321) points out in her explanation of interactional sociolinguistic analyses that detailed study requires high quality video recordings of naturalistic (not elicited) speech events for two fundamental reasons: this method both allows for repeated viewing and listening to the data as well as accuracy in identifying contextualization cues. On April 4, 1999 the author attended his second entrance ceremony at a Japanese institution as a participant-observer (the first being the previous year’s exercises). In addition to mental observation and later written notation, the event was recorded on video tape using a professional video camera mounted on a tripod and shot remotely from a balcony above the stage where the “performance” took place. The audio portion of the video program was recorded directly from the public address soundboard to ensure clearest quality.

Later, the author then painstakingly transcribed one portion of the hour-long video of the ceremony—a fourteen-minute speech given by the president of the college. This transcription was then checked for accuracy by two different ‘native’ Japanese speakers before the author began the task of translation into English (see Appendix 3) . The Japanese was then further transcribed into a romanized version (see Appendix 2) and then this “anglicized” transcription was placed in chart form, sentence by sentence, together with the translation, and numbered for easy reference (see Appendix 1). This broad, undetailed, transcription system was chosen because conventions to capture prosodic information were not important to this study, not least because the presentation style—“aloud reading”-- of the speech was a mode of animating spoken words that was not especially rich in prosody and, well, decidedly unanimated (Goffman 1981, p. 171-172).

3.3 Data Presentation
Hymes (in Spolsky 1998, p. 14-15), suggested that any speech event is constituted by distinct factors each associated with different functions. It is around this model of an ethnography of speaking that the data collected from the college president’s performance will be presented.

3.3.1 “Setting”—the Japanese university as uchi
Edo College of Commerce1 (ECC) has an enrollment of approximately 2800 undergraduates and 50–60 management masters and doctoral students. Although the school is located in the metropolis of Tokyo and has a 100-year history, it is not a well-known university and many Tokyoites are not familiar with the name ECC. There are two undergraduate departments, commerce and management, with 50 tenured lecturers and over 100 adjunct faculty.

The school year begins on April 1st in Japan, and ECC has the tradition, as do most colleges in this country, of holding an entrance ceremony before the start of the first semester classes. This is a very formal event and is in many ways similar in appearance and setting to the graduation ceremony held two weeks prior in March, at the end of the previous school year. Since the ECC campus is rather small (about 4 acres) and school facilities are limited, both events are held in the largest room at the school-- the gymnasium. The basketball backboards are raised, a stage is erected at one side of the room, and the ‘auditorium’ is filled with rows of folding chairs. The event begins with the playing of Kimigayo, the ‘unofficial’ Japanese national anthem, and ends with the ECC school song, both played from recordings broadcast over the gym PA speakers. Full professors take turns in rotation acting as MC for the commencement and graduation ceremonies.

3.3.2 “Speaker”-- uchi
The speaker for this speech event was the ECC president. The president is a 70 year-old male, retired from publishing industry to start a second career as a university professor ten years ago. In Japan this amakudari2 path is common for men of his relatively high age and stature. Since Professor Ueno3 had recently been voted into the presidency by the general faculty meeting, this was his first entrance ceremony as president, and the first time the author had witnessed and listened to a speech by this new president of the college. Although the focus of this paper is on the president’s speech, at the ceremony the Chair of the Board of Directors of the College, himself an ECC alumnus, also gave a speech of similar length.

3.3.3 “Hearer” – uchi/soto
As this was a public event, of sorts, there were a variety of “hearers.” Most important, of course, were the approximately 700 attending students, nearly all first year, divisible into two groups—undergraduates and graduate students. The students were dressed in rather formal wear (the men in suits and the women, for the most part, in dresses or kimono) and sat in rows of approximately 50 students across facing the stage. The undergraduate students sat in folding chairs grouped in the center of the auditorium, while the graduate students, relatively few in number (less than 50) were in a group off to the right of the stage. Especially important to this discussion is the fact that the audience was divided physically into to two groups—sitting in the front of the auditorium were the incoming students , or uchi, while the parents and family members, the soto, were relegated to the rear of the gymnasium. Another relevant observation is the conspicuous absence of any non-tenured faculty—a nevertheless indispensable part of any Japanese university.4 Adjunct lecturers (or hijookinkooshi) are positioned as soto members of the college and, as such, abide by unwritten rules of non-participation in formal institutional events (including faculty and departmental meetings).
The fifty members of the faculty and board of trustees in attendance sat in a double row of chairs set flanking the stage, left and right, and facing the “audiences.” Although the chairs were placed on two levels slightly below the height of the podium, in effect the appearance was as if the faculty and board members were sitting “on stage”—clearly designating them spatially as uchi. An argument could be made that because of the spatial proximity, the faculty and board were functionally more a part of “Speaker” than “Hearer,” with the President representing the spokesperson for the “Speaker(s).”

3.3.4 “Message Form”-- Deixis
The message form of the president’s speech was in a polite register of language, as could be expected at such a formal event. For example, in the opening sentence5 of his speech, he employs the two of the most common forms of politeness in Japanese speech—the honorific go prefixing the noun aisatsu, “greeting(s), as well as the humbling form of the verb “to say” (mooshiagemasu) used with the polite ending, -masu. The speech was given in an “aloud reading” form, the president read verbatim employing neither “memorization” nor “fresh talk” delivery strategies (Goffman, 1981, p. 171-173).

For the purposes of analyzing the message form, deixis specifically, a return to the picture of the nominal is necessary. Of particular interest is the pronoun formwareware (see Appendix 1, lines 4a, 12a, 17a, and 18a, and footnote #8 below) as well as the nominal hongaku (see Appendix 1, lines 4a, 5a6, 6a, 7a, 8a, 35a) both strong indicators, in this case, of uchi. Hongaku, or literally “this, our school” has a strong ‘uchi’ connotation. President Ueno never uses the proper name, Edo College of Commerce, in his fourteen-minute speech but relies, rather, on hongaku.7
3.3.5 “Topic” and “Channel”
After an extended introduction and timely “stage-setting,” Prof. Ueno allotted the greatest portion of his speech to two points of uchi advice aimed at the incoming students—? the proposal that each student begin to take stock of and expand their “personal assets” and ? a plead for students to follow basic rules and heed common courtesy during their college days.

Obviously the channel of this speech event was the president’s own voice amplified by the gymnasium PA system. As such, his voice was clearly understood by all those in attendance, though the reverberation did cause some comprehension difficulty for the author, for whom Japanese is an L2.

4 Conclusion

In describing “The Lecture,” Goffman (1981) explains how the “textual self” is the “sense of the person that seems to stand behind the textual statements made and which incidentally gives these statements authority” (p.173). The incidental authority in this situation is the location of Professor Ueno in his uchi role as president of an institution of higher learning. Goffman asserts that in expressing the textual self, “pronominal explicitness need not occur” (1981, p. 174). In the language exhibited in this speech event, this subtlety especially exists in the use of the collective, or uchi, form of “We”-- wareware8-- as well as the concurrent, and conspicuous, absence of reference to the first person, in any of its forms in Japanese.9

Lyons’ (1977) description of deixis assumes that the “grammatical” person is of most concern—first-person being primary, second- and third-person being derivative. But, as Wetzel (1994, p. 76) points out, the question remains of whether “person and all that it implies is a term that can be applied to Japanese…” This is also evident in the ethnographic data presented here. For example, in line 4a (Appendix 1) the phrase “wareware kyooshokuin ichido”—“on behalf of the teachers and administration”—is a locational device used to clearly emphasize the collective uchi voice. Japanese linguists have assumed the centrality of person in attempts to explain deixis in Japan with lists of first- and second-person forms.

With this speech event, President Ueno is further positioned as the representative of the collective institutional ‘face’, the uchi, as he performs the role of accepting incoming students into the ‘ECC family.’ His advisory tone of the event “topic” speaks of a sempai-kohai10 attitude toward the uchi audience, the incoming first-year students. In effect, the ceremony is adding officiality to the admission of “freshers” to the “club” of (potential) alumni (“O.B.”11). This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that a number of tenured faculty and administrative staff, and many who sit on the Board, are themselves graduates of ECC.

This paper has attempted to relate the ethnographic data culled from an entrance ceremony speech to a larger framework of uchi and soto, a relationship of linguistic practice to cultural meaning in a socially located approach to culture and communication. Looking at the larger “etic” picture, comparisons can be made to Wolfowitz’s (1991) challenge of traditional fixed hierarchichal models of Javanese language style, arguing for a reorientation of language use in terms of social space as well as Watson-Gegeo and White’s (1990) focus on the important role of situation and events in molding not only behavior but also local knowledge of personal experience in Polynesia and Melanesia.

Does this uchi/soto model of deictical anchoring hold water? Further ethnographic research to compare both temporally and situationally Japanese language use is in order. One suggestion, for example, would be to further compare in detail the language of entrance ceremony across time. Another avenue for exploration would be analyses of different forms of formalized speech events, for example a committee or general faculty meeting, among the same speech community that is ECC.

5 Appendices

5.1 Appendix 1—Japanese Speech with English translation

Edo College of Commerce
Commencement Exercises (Entrance Ceremony)
April 4, 1999
Message from the College President

1a. Ee…Harutakenawa no kyoo, ee Heesee juunendo no nyuugakushiki ni atari hitokotoba goaisatsu mooshiagemasu.

1b. Today, in the midst of spring, I offer a word of greeting for these 1999 Commencement Exercises.

2a. Shinnyuusee, narabini daigakuin no insei konokaijyoo ni goresseki no gofukee no katagata arui wa gokazoku no katagata , makoto ni omedetoo gozaimasu.
Newly admitted undergraduate and graduate students, parents and other family members joining us here today, I offer a sincere “Congratulations!”

3a. Ee… tokuni goresseki no gofukee no katagata wa kyoo made desu ne , gokuroo goshien wo kokoro kara keei wo arawashitai toomotte orimasu.

3b. Yes, especially to those parents in attendance, I would like to express my heartfelt respect for your support and endurance.

4a. De…wareware kyooshokuin ichidoo, zaigakusee sore kara doosoosei no shosenpai agete minasangata wo hongaku ni omukae surukoto wo kokorokara kangei suru shidai de arimasu.

4b. In addition, on behalf of the teachers and administration, the upperclassmen & women as well as numerous alumni seniors, this is the time and place to offer all new students a warm welcome to our school today.

5a. Ee…kyoo kara maa yonenkan , daigakuinsei ni totte wa , ninenkan arui wa sanenkan , hongakuen no desu ne kyanpasu wo beesu ni shita juujitsu shita tanoshii gakuenseikatsu wo , okutte itadakukoto wo kitaishite orimasu.

5b. During the next four years-- two or possibly three years for the graduate students-- with this institution's campus as your base, I sincerely hope that you will fully enjoy your college life.

6a. Tochuu de zasetsu surukoto naku hongaku ni hairareta shoshin wo tsuranuite mokuhyoo tassee ni shooshin site moraitai to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

6b. I would encourage you to press on and attain the goals you originally set for yourselves upon entering this school, without getting discouraged along the way.

7a. Maa , minasan wa 20 seeki saigo no toshi ni hongaku ni hairi sorekara zaigakuchuu ni desu ne , atarashii 21seeki wo mukaeru toiu maa kinen subeki kyanpasuraifu wo sugosukoto ni narimasu.

7b. Yes, you are all entering this school in the last year of the 20th century and while students at this school you will spend, shall we say, a "commemorative" campus life here.

8a. Sara ni, hongaku wa sooritsu 100shuunen wo 21seeki no hajime ni mukaerukoto ni narimasu.

8b. Furthermore, this school will celebrate its hundredth year in the beginning of the 21st century.

9a. Kooiu sono jidai no kawarime, kinensubeki jidai ni gakuseeseekatsu wo okuru toiukoto wa, minasan no desu ne shoorai no nagaijinsee no naka de hitotsu no kinensubeki omoide ni naru no dewa nai ka to iu fuu ni kitaishite orimasu.

9b. I expect that having been a student during this watershed in history-- this time of commemoration-- will probably become one special memory to cherish in your long lives.

10a. Maa, mukashi kara seeki no kawarime niwa desu ne ookina hendoo ga okoru to iu koto ga yoku iwaremasu.
10b. Well, it has often been said since ancient times that at the turning of a century great change occurs.

11a. Konnichi masashiku desu ne sekai mo soshite tokuni nihon wa desu ne , ironna imi de ookina hendoo ni mimawarete orimasu

11b. Certainly in the world today, and especially Japan, change is pervasive.

12a. Seejiteki nimo keizaiteki nimo shakaiteki nimo sara ni wareware jishin no naka nimo desu ne , iroirona henkaku toiu mono ga desu ne sore ni taioo surukoto wo semarareteiru wakw de arimasu

12b. Politically, economically, socially, and even individually within all of our own lives, various reforms are occurring, shall we say, and the corresponding repercussions are being felt.

13a. Toku ni keizaiteki niwa desu ne , nagai fukyoo , kore made ni nai nagai fukyoo toiu mono wo keiken shi gyoosee no kaikaku arui ha sangyookai no goozousenkan nadonado wo jitsugen subeku desu ne , maa ippoo de wa taihen na risutora no arashi ga fukiareteiru to iu koto de arimasu

13b. Especially economically, we are experiencing a long recession, longer than ever before, and bureaucratic administrative reforms and industrial structural reorganization and the like will have to be implemented.Yes, the storm of harsh corporate restructuring is blowing fiercely.

14a. Tokuni shuushin koyoo toka desu ne , nenkoo joretsu to itta nihon no shisutemu ga kanzen ni houkai shinai mademo desune , sono shuusei to iu mono wo ooku shuusee suru koto wo semarareteite, konoseedo ni desu ne , itsu made mo anteeteki ni taeru wake ni wa ikanai yoo na soo iu henka no jidai ni , ikiteiru toiufuu ni omoimasu.

14b. Even if the Japanese institutions of so-called "life-long employment" and "seniority promotion" do not exactly collapse, there is nonetheless compelling pressure for tremendous modification and revision. I believe that we have reached an era of historical change in which institutions can not continue to safely bear the pressure.

15a. Motto ooki na mondai ha iwayuru kooreika shakai aruiha shoushika shakai toiu kore made ni keeken shita koto no nai supiido de kooshita jidai ga hishihishi to oshiyosete kite imasu

15b. The even larger problems of society's advancing age and low birthrate are bearing down on us with a speed never before experienced.

16a. Sarani ookiku me wo tenjimasu to desu ne sekai wa desune, taihen na sono chikyuu kankyoo mondai toiu atarashii mondai , atarashii shiren ni chokumen shite orimasu.

16b. In addition, if we turn our eyes even more, we can see that the world is being confronted and tested with a new problem, a serious global environmental problem.

17a. Chikyuu kankyoo mondai wa tan ni chikyuu zentai de aru bakari denaku, sudeni wareware no seekatsu no mijikana tokoro nimo sematte kiteiru wakede arimasu.

17b. The global environment problem is not just one effecting the entire earth, but at the same time is also challenging us in our daily lives.

18a. Kooshita samazamana henkaku ni tomonau mondai wo korera wo desu ne , doo kaishaku shi doo kaiketsu shi doo taioo shite yuku ka sore ga wareware wo fukumemashite, minasan desu ne kaiketsu wo semararete iru mondai ka to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

18b. These changes bring various problems and how we interpret, solve, and deal with them is, I believe, an issue that we are all being forced to solve together.

19a. De, sooshita henka no koko ni tsukimashite wa desu ne , maa, chishiki no men dewa koko ni inarabu shosenseegata ga sorezore senmon no ekisupaato de arimasu.

19b. And, as far as knowledge of these different changes, the professors sitting here in front of you have specialized expertise.

20a. Soo itta senseekara desu ne, koo iu mondai e no rikai e iwaba no hinto wo ataete kureru to iu koto wo oyakusoku dekimasu shi, sore wo rikai shite hoshii to omoimasu.

20b. I promise you that these teachers will be able to provide you with hints, shall we say, toward a better understanding of these problems.

21a. Shikashi, korera no mondai wo jibun de kangae sore kara rikai shi sara ni ketsudan shi koodoo shite yuku no wa minasangata jishin no mondai de arimasu.

21b. With that being said, it is your challenge to ponder and understand these problems then commit and act.

22a. De sono koodoo no shikata , rikai no shikata wo kono gakuen ni oite manande ikitai to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

22b. I would hope that at this school you will take the opportunity to learn how to understand and how to act upon this understanding.

23a. Soko de, kyoo wa watashi kara hitotsu no minasan ni teian wo shitai to omotte orimasu

23b. With this in mind, I would like to make one proposal to you all today.

24a. Sore wa nanika to iuto, shokun sorezore hitorihitori ga desu ne jibunjishin no naka ni jibun no shisanhyoo , iwaba , jibun ga dore kurai desune jibun no zaisan wo motteiru ka to iu shisanhyoo wo desu ne , kyoo kara tsukutte hoshii to omoimasu

24b. That is, within each and every one of your lives, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to build today a balance sheet, of sorts, in a word a balance sheet that describes how many personal assets you each have.

25a. Mochiron, moo sude ni minasan wa desu ne ichibu no kata wa , eiken da to ka sore kara joohoo shori to ka arui wa sono ta desu ne ikutsu ka no boki kaikei wo fukumemashite desu ne ikutsu ka no shikaku to iu mono wo motte irareru koto to omoimasu

25b. Of course, some of you already have a certain number of qualifications including such tests as the STEP (Standardized Test of English Proficiency), Information Management, and Bookkeeping.

26a. Sorera wa kono shisanhyoo no hitotsu no koomoku de arimasu

26b. These are all singular items in your balance sheet.

27a. Soo shita jibun no shisanhyoo wo jibunjishin desu ne, kangaenagara hitotsu hitotsu umeawaseteitte hoshii to omoimasu

27b. I hope you will take the initiative to little by little to balance this balance sheet.

28a. Osoraku genzai, mada shokun no desu ne shisanhyoo wa hijoo ni kuuran ga ooi to omoimasu

28b. I suspect that all of your sheets still have quite a few blank columns.

29a. Sono kuuran wo desu ne, korekara yonenkan kakete hitotsu hitotsu ume, yutaka na mono ni shiteyuku

29b. In the next four years, you should fill in these blanks one by one to create a rich document.

30a. To iu koto de, kyuukyokuteki ni wa desu ne, ittai jibun wa nani ga dekiru no ka jibun no miryoku wa nan na no ka toiu koto wo desu ne, sono shisanhyoo wo mitsukeru koto ni yotte hakken shimashite, sore wo motte, sore ga yutaka ni nareba naruhodo jibun jishin ni jishin ga tsuite mairimasu kara , sono jishin wo motte gakugyoo ni sennen , arui wa , sono ta gakuen raifu ni hitsuyoo na koto wo jibun no mokuhyoo ni mukatte susunde itte moraitai to omoimasu.

30b. In a way, by staring hard at this balance sheet you will discover your actual capabilities and captivating qualities. As this balance becomes richer and richer, you will gain in confidence. With this confidence and devotion in your studies-- necessities during your college days-- I hope that you will make progress toward your goals.

31a. Ima, ima made wa desu ne , gakureki to ka , sore kara soshiki toka katagaki toka ittamono ga desu ne, hijoo ni antei shita jibun jishin no chikara da to iu fuu ni iwarete kite orimasu.

31b. Until now, it has been assumed that such things as organizations, titles, and educational credentials are what give you confidence in who you are, your identity.

32a. Shikashi, kore kara no henka no hageshii shakai no naka dewa desu ne, soo itte gakureki to ka doko no kaisha de aru to ka, nani nani kachoo de aru to ka soo itta kata gaki, soshiki, soo itta mono wa kanarazu shimo tsuuyoo shinaku naru hazu de arimasu.

32b. However, in the midst of intense societal change, these academic credentials-- what company you belong to, what section you are chief of-- these titles within organizations will definitely lose currency.

33a. Tayoru beki mono wa, jibun ga tsukuriageta shisanhyoo, sono naka kara dore dake no mono wo minorasete ikeru ka to iu koto ni aru daroo ka to omoimasu.

33b. I believe that this balance sheet that you have made up, this alone-- and its corresponding worth to you in helping form your own identity-- is something that you can rely on.

34a. Sono shisanhyoo sae shikkari motteireba donna henka ga kitemo, donna tokoro e ittemo desu ne osorerukoto naku jibun jishin wo ikashi tsutsukeru koto ga dekiru node wa nai ka to iu fuu ni kangaete orimasu.

34b. So long as you take care of this balance sheet, no matter what changes occur, no matter where you may go, I feel that you will be able to take care of yourselves and make the most of the situation.

35a. Sono shisanhyoo wo dekiru dake houfu ni koomoku no ooku wo desu ne, motsukoto ni yotte kono hongaku wo sotsugyoo shite moraitai na to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

35b. As best you can I would encourage you then to hold when you graduate from this school a balance sheet that covers as an abundant assortment of subjects as possible.

36a. De kyoo kara jibun no shisanhyoo wo zehi tsukutte oite moraitai.

36b. Therefore, from today I would like you to promise to start your own balance sheet.

37a. De hitotsu hitotsu, sono naka ni jibun de kakiireteitte hoshii to omoimasu.

37b. Fill this in, line by line, on your own.

38a. Sono naka ni wa, tsumari , jibun wa nani ga dekiru ka, arui wa jibun ga kore made yattekita tatoeba , borantia ni shiro , sore kara hijyoo ni yutaka na yuujin kankei, sore kara sensee to no shinrai dekiru sensee nado no yutaka na komyunikeeshon soo itta mono mo sono shisanhyoo no naka ni kazoeagete kinyuu shiteitte ii to omoimasu.

38b. In this sheet, when all is said and done, your accomplishments reveal what you are capable of. In addition, other assets, such as volunteer work, especially rich relationship with friends, communication with professors you trust, these sort of things I think are fine to count up and enter onto your sheet.

39a. Izureni shimashitemo, sooitta shisanhyoo wo desu ne dekiru dake yutaka ni sono tsukuriagete morau koto wo watashi toshite wa , kiboo suru shidai de arimasu.

39b. In any event, it is my personal hope that you will make up as rich a balance sheet as possible.

40a. Maadaigaku to iu tokoro wa, kore made no minasan no desu ne, koo koo seikatsu to chigatte taihen jiyuu de aru shi jikan mo yutaka de arimasu.

40b. A university is a place where, unlike during your high school years, you have a lot of freedom and spare time.

41a. Sono jikan wo doo tsukau ka wa shokun jishin no kore kara no seikatsu ni ikizama ni kakatte kuru to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

41b. I believe that how you all use your own time will greatly effect your life as a whole.

42a. Shikashi , soo itta jiyuu no naka de gakumon wo suru koto ga daigaku seikatsu no mottomo ookina meritto de arimasu.

42b. Studying in such a free atmosphere is the largest merit of college life.

43a. Shikashi, soo wa ittemo sono jiyuu wa desu ne kakujitsu ni ruuru to iu mono ga atte hajimete shin no jiyuu to iu mono ga umareru daroo to iu fuu ni omoimasu.

43b. I think, however, that with that being said, this freedom certainly has "rules" without which true freedom can not live.

44a. Maa mukashi, keizaigaku no desu ne sensee de ‘furiidoriku banhayaku’ to iu sensee ga orimasu.

44b. Well, there was once an economist by the name of Friedrich von Hayek (b. 1899, Vienna; Nobel Prize in Economics, 1974).

45a. Sono sensee wa desu ne, ‘hoo no moto no jiyuu’ to iu tetsugaku wo tenkai shita koto ga arimasu.

45b. This professor formed a philosophy he called "The Constitution of Liberty."

46a. Tsumari, jiyuu to iu mono wa tan ni jibun katte na jibun katte ni koodoo suru soo itta jiyuu dake ja nakute , kanarazu sokoni ha ruuru ‘hou’ to iu mono ga sonzai shinakereba naranai , denakereba shin no jiyuu wa erarenai to iu koto wo toita mono de arimasu

46b. In other words, "liberty" is not simply the freedom of selfishly doing as you please. He argued that there always must be a rule, a "law," that exists and if it does not, true freedom will never be realized.

47a. Maa daigaku seikatsu no naka ni wa desu ne, kihonteki na ruuru to iu mono ga ikutsu ka arimasu

47b. Well, during your college life there are some basic rules.
48a. Sorera ni tsuite wa desu ne, maa, gensoku nari desu ne , arui wa sono ta komakai kitei mo tashoo arimasu kedo, kihonteki ni wa kono daigaku ni okeru ruuru to iu no wa, tonikaku yakusoku wo mamoru koto.

48b. There are a few minor school rules and regulations, but your basic college rule is to simply "keep your promises."

49a. Sorekara sono naka ni wa desu ne jikan wo mamoru toka, sore kara tatoeba, kyooshitsu ni oite otagai ni shigo wo shite wa naranai toka desu ne soo itta mono wo desu ne, ruuru toshite kakuritsu shinakereba naranai.

49b. Within this, we must establish, for example, the promises of not being late as well as not chatting amongst yourselves during lessons.

50a. Soreha, itte mireba jibuntachi no nakama arui wa, shosensee ni tai suru , arui wa goryooshin ni taisuru omoi to iu mono kara hassuru mono daroo to omoimasu

50b. I think that if you consider these you will see that such rules originate from common courtesy between you and your friends, teachers, and parents.

51a. Soo shita omoiyari wo desu ne, fukaku mi ni tsuke, arui wa , hirogeru koto ni yotte, sono ruuru no moto ni okeru jiyuu to iu hani ga desu ne yori fukaku yori takai mono ni naru daroo to omoimasu.
51b. The more that this thoughtfulness spreads and becomes a habit, the more that the foundation of this rule, freedom, will grow in the size of its capacity.

52a. Maa kore kara desu ne, ee… shokun wa otagai ni desu ne yoku rikai shiai, sore kara, sensee tachi to no arui ha kyoo shokuin tomo desu ne komyunikeeshon wo yutaka ni shite akarui sore kara juujitsu shita gakuen seekatsu wo sugoshite morau koto wo, setsu ni kiboo shite kyoo no watashi no ohanashi ni kaesasete itadakitai to omoimasu
52b. If you allow me, I would like to close my talk today by expressing my sincere hope that you will spend four exciting and joyful years here at college, communicating fully with the college professors and staff and gaining a greater understanding of each other.

5.4 Appendix 4—Note on Romanization of Japanese
The transcription in this paper uses a hybrid romanization system. The consonants follow the Hepburn system of romanization while the symbols are doubled to indicate vowel length.

Short Vowels Long Vowels
The symbol: aiueo approximates:totsitputpetdodo The symbol: aaiiuueeoo approximates:fathersheetroothaycoat

Adapted from (Horvat 2000) p.66

References

Bachnik, J. (1994). Introduction:uchi/soto: Challenging our conceptions of self, social order, and language. Situated Meaning : Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language. J. Bachnik & C. J. Quinn, Ed. Princeton, Princeton University Press: 3-37.

Bachnik, J. & Quinn, C. J., Ed. (1994). Situated Meaning : Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Barth, F. (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Prospect Heights, Illinois, Waveland Press.

Befu, H. (1992). Symbols of nationalism and nihonjinron. Ideology and Practice in Modern Japan. R. Goodman and K. Refsing, Ed. London, Routledge: 26-46.

Benedict, R. (1946). The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Brenneis, D. L. (1994). Foreword: Situated Meaning. Situated Meaning : Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language. J. Bachnik & C. J. Quinn, Ed. Princeton, Princeton University Press: ix-xiv.

Bruyn, S. T. (1966). The Human Perspective in Sociology : The Methodology of Participant Observation. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.

Dale, P. N. (1986). The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. New York, St Martin's Press.

Foley, W. A. (1997). Anthropological Linguistics : an introduction. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers.

Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.

Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.

Grimshaw, A. D. (1989). Data and data use in an analysis of communicative events. Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. R. S. Bauman & J. Sherzer, Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: xxvii, 501.

Hendry, J. (1989). “To Wrap or not to wrap: politeness and penetration in ethnographic inquiry.” Man: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 24: 620-635.

Hendry, J. (1993). Wrapping Culture : Politeness, Presentation, and Power in Japan and Other Societies. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Holliday, A. (1999). “Small cultures.” Applied Linguistics 20(2): 237-264.

Horvat, A. (2000). Japanese Beyond Words. Berkeley, Stone Bridge Press.

Hymes, D. (1962). The ethnography of speaking. Anthropology and Human Behavior. T. S. Gladwin & W. C. Sturtevant, Ed. Washington D.C., Anthropological Society of Washington: 13-53.

Labov, W. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington DC, Center for Applied Linguistics.

Lebra, T. S. (1976). Japanese Patterns of Behavior. Honolulu, University Press of Hawaii.

Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Martin, S. (1975). A Reference Grammar of Japanese. New Haven, Yale University Press.

Miller, R. A. (1967). The Japanese Language. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

Mouer, R. E. and Y. Sugimoto (1990). Images of Japanese Society : a Study in the Social Construction of Reality. London, Kegan Paul International.

Nakane, C. (1970). Japanese Society. Berkeley,, University of California Press.

Pike, K. L. (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. The Hague, Mouton.

Saville-Troike, M. (1996). The ethnography of communication. Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. S. L. H. McKay & N. Hornberger, Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 351-382.

Schiffrin, D. (1996). Interactional sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. S. L. H. McKay & N. Hornberger, Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 307-328.

Spolsky, B. (1998). Sociolinguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Suzuki, T. (1978). Japanese and the Japanese. Tokyo, Kodansha.

Watson-Gegeo, K. A. (1988). "Ethnography in ESL: defining the essentials." TESOL Quarterly 22(4): 574-592.

Watson-Gegeo, K. A. and G. M. White, Eds. (1990) Disentangling: Conflict Discourse in Pacific Societies. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Wetzel, P. J. (1994). A movable self: the linguistic indexing of uchi and soto. Situated Meaning : Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language. J. Bachnik & C. J. Quinn, Ed. Princeton, Princeton University Press: 73-87.

Wilson, S. (1977). “The use of ethnographic techniques in educational research.” Review of Educational Research 47(1): 245-265.

Wolfowitz, C. (1991). Language Style and Social Space: Stylistic Choice in Suriname Javanese. Urbana, Ill., University of Illinois Press.