Awareness Raising of English Loanwords in Japanese

要旨

Everyday Japanese contains raany instances of ERglish soundlng loanwords, which are transcrlbed in written Japanese in the katakana syl}abary.This paper atterflpts to discover students awareness of how weli the loanwords relate to the original word in English or not.The ability to distiRguish between ERglish words, Japanese Engiish words and wrong English' is Bo hindraRce to Japanese learRers of English in their moRoliRggal classroom, as they can iRsert these loanwords iRto their coRversations ilt the sure kRowledge that they will be uRderstood, whatever its origiRal native English usage.However, these matters become extremely relevant when students have to converse wkh English speakers who have no l<nowledge of Japanese (native aRd noR-JapaRese speaking non-native speal<ers of English).bodikon', mansion' or even orthodox' ( : old-fashioned, simple, style) are unlikely to be uRderstood in the intended way by noR-Japanese speakers, although they may commonly conceived to be. Airns of the researchThis paper is a preliminary study based on English loanwords collected by Japanese Universlty stgdents over the summer of 1999.At first, I was interested in seeing how aware students were of the kind of English that frequently appears in JapaRese society.We caR find it in advertising ("Fbr beautzlfatl human lij27"-KaRebo TV commercial), or l'm wishing yoztr heart'-religious poster at a railway station), on photo albums (Children has wonde7ful dreams, with Pleasant smile.'-Nakabayashicorporatio"), on food pacl<ets (Deliciousness is in fall bloom'), oR buildiRgs (Ruins'-the Rame of a Rew apartment block in Kyoto), on items of clothing and in countless other situatioRs.As it is so widespread, I woRdered about the effect (if any) it was haviRg on the English of the students I teach.How aware are tlte studeRts of this kind of ERglish?Can they distinguish between it and the correct' English they learn at schooi?How about tlke words and expressions of ERg}ish origln they hear aRd use in everyday life: do they mal<e any judgements about its appropriateness or accuracy?Gradually, I started to focus on ERglish loanvLrords in Japanese, and decided to get tvvTo of rny classes to do some research oR this matter duriRg the summer vacation.Specifically,

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