Name: Mac Baler
Class Year: 2015
Major: Computer Science and Japanese
Campus Activities: Senior Admissions Fellow, President of Masque & Triangle, Astronomy Teaching Assistant

Mac Baler is a senior Alumni Memorial Scholar and used his AMS scholars grant for a project that is both an intellectual interest and a personal passion, fostered throughout his four years at Colgate University. Mac has a love for Japan and the Japanese language, and he used his AMS grant and capstone project as an opportunity to delve more deeply into this passion.

Mac’s first time in Japan was during the fall of his Junior year on a program at a school called Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. Although he started studying Japanese during his sophomore year, he hadn’t had any prior language experience. Mac fell in love with Japanese, which was the impetus for his decision to study abroad in Japan.

His semester abroad “was the most unbelievable experience, really.” Mac did a home-stay with a family for four months, explored various parts of the country, and was immersed in Japanese. Mac said that he believed his experience was so wonderful because “Between that family and the students and people that I met, it was so unreal how welcoming they were, not only my host family but also the students that I met, I felt like I belonged.”

Once he returned to Colgate, Mac knew that he needed to return to Japan. After a summer of brainstorming with advisors and professors in the Japanese department, he realized that his passion for the Japanese language could be the foundation for an interesting project. “I think that this is something that I realized while I was in Japan, it was fascinating to me because I had friends learning English while I was learning Japanese.”

In tandem with his professors, Mac decided to do a linguistics research project, which would be focused on youth language, or slang, in Japan. Japan has a unique culture of slang, which is highly geographically specific. “When people ask me about it I explain, in the US if you live in Boston, you say ‘wicked,’ and if you go to California people will still know what you mean. But in Japan that’s not true. So, with such massive dialectical differences the youth language is really interesting.”

Mac’s travel and research in Japan, which he conducted during winter break of 2015, was funded by his AMS grant, and afford him the opportunity to investigate the current state of youth language in Japan. Ultimately, Mac hopes to help other students interested in learning Japanese on their language journey. “I think that as someone who is learning Japanese as a foreign language, and as someone who was really excited to go to Japan, and didn’t have any language prep, there was no way that I would be prepared for youth slang or dialect and how that would change. I thought if I could provide a guide for students interested in learning Japanese that would be a valuable resource. I think it is vital to be able to speak with youth, especially if you’re going to be going to a school there.”

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View of New Orleans. Photo by Ewa Protasiuk.

The following post was contributed by Ewa Protasiuk ’15, a Biology major and PCON minor. Ewa recently used her AMS Grant to attend the International Studies Association conference in New Orleans. Along the way, she reflected on the synergies of travel and the promise of academic inquiry.

This is a post about a trip that almost didn’t happen. (Thank you, February 2015 weather!) But luckily, it did.

After two canceled flights and a delay, I made it to New Orleans for the International Studies Association’s Annual Convention. This conference brought together scholars from the discipline of International Relations. This is not my discipline; but as a Peace and Conflict Studies minor with an interest in how (or perhaps whether?) academic scholarship can be anti-oppressive on a variety of fronts, several presentations and discussions interested me. They covered themes such as feminist takes on militarism, “Queering/Querying Global Political Economy” (as one roundtable discussion was titled), the relationship between silence and agency, and how collages (yes, as in the art form) can open up different ways of thinking about political science. (Check out Saara Särmä’s dissertation collages if this intrigues you.) I also attended talks with my advisor in Peace and Conflict Studies, Susan Thomson, and met several of her colleagues, friends, and fellow Canadians.

While the discussions formally organized by the conference were certainly thought-provoking, I also thought a lot about the conference itself–as an entity with its own culture, set of power dynamics, and materialities. I’ve also been thinking about the meaning of my travel between New York State and New Orleans, and many different dynamics I saw at play just in those few days. A few scattered anecdotes:

• While flying to the conference, delayed in Charlotte, I sat down at my gate among a number of people–apparently strangers, apparently white–who were sharing a conversation about their military experiences. The tone of the conversation was overwhelmingly positive.
• While at the conference, held predominantly in a Hilton hotel on the riverfront of New Orleans, not far from the famed French Quarter, I heard only one panelist acknowledge that we are on Native American land.
• While flying back to New York, sitting at the gate, delayed yet again, I got into conversation with a woman who used to live in New Orleans but who, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, moved to Central New York. She has traveled back to New Orleans as often as she could over the past ten years with devotion.

Pieces of the what scholars talk about during academic conferences are evident in the everyday—things with big names like militarism, environmental racism, and settler colonialism. What do conferences have to do with resistance to these things? I am a big-time, largely unapologetic nerd. I love school. I love research. I say this even as a second-semester senior with a matter of weeks left at Colgate. But there is some disconnect between the world I find at the conference, and the world I find at the airport. One I want to explore further.

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Alumni Memorial Scholar Kelsey Bash ’15 at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Lourdes, France.

Alumni Memorial Scholar Kelsey Bash ’15, a Molecular Biology major, used her AMS Grant to travel the world during the winter of 2014-15. Her project, titled “The Transculturation of Marian Apparitions,” examined how the appearance of the Virgin Mary was expressed in Catholic communities around the globe. As a practicing Catholic herself, Kelsey found rich meaning on both a personal and intellectual level throughout her study. What follows are photographs and a written report describing her experience at each site.

During the Christmas season of miracles, I was able to go on a miraculous around-the-world journey using an AMS Grant. The goal of my project was to consider the transculturation of the Catholic Church through the lens of Marian apparitions, and it was also a pilgrimage of great self-discovery. I was blessed to visit five countries and six Marian sites over the course of three weeks and will reflect on each separately before making some general conclusions.

Firstly, some background information may be helpful. A Marian apparition is defined by the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a particular person or persons. There have been thousands of reported apparitions of Mary in the 2,000 years since her assumption, with more apparitions reported in the 20th century than in any other. While there is some controversy among believers and in the Church, with only 9 apparitions receiving official Vatican approval, the fruits of the apparitions are evident. Countless miracles, healings, and conversions have resulted from Mary’s appearances.

Convent where a wooden statue of Mary spoke and wept 101 times in the 70s.

My trip started in Akita, Japan, at the Convent Seitai Hoshikai where Mary appeared to a Sister Agnes Sasagawa in 1973. Sr. Agnes, previously deaf, heard a “voice of indescribable beauty” coming from a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and received three messages from the Virgin. The statue then wept 101 times from 1975 to 1981, with over 500 witnesses. I was blessed to spend time alone (January being an unpopular time for pilgrimage) with the miraculous statue in the convent chapel. Kneeling before Mary two feet away, I could feel the warmth of her graces, but also the urgency in her call to pray for the conversion of sinners as relayed by Sr. Agnes.

Next, I embarked for Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the most visited and most controversial apparition sites, with Mary still reportedly appearing to some of the visionaries today. In 1981, Mary appeared to 6 Bosnian children with a call to conversion and prayer and with 10 secrets regarding the end of the world. Mary told the visionaries that she would continue to appear to them daily until revealing the 10th secret and presently two visionaries continue to receive daily apparitions while the others receive monthly or yearly messages, many of which are made public online.

Statue of Our Lady, Queen of Peace on Apparition Hill.

I arrived in Medjugorje on the eve of the Feast of Mary, Mother of God on January 1st, just in time to join the hoards of devout pilgrims for a midnight vigil. I stood outside for the vigil, watching the Croatian mass on a large screen and occasionally being able to peak in through the crowded doorway (despite having arrived two hours early). Each subsequent service I attended–indeed, there were masses and services in many languages throughout the entire day–was similarly packed. Entering into such an international and devout Body of Christ was an absolute blessing. Medjugorje also offered many intimate encounters with Mary as I prayed my way up the steep and snowy Cross Mountain and up the holy Apparition Hill. I also encountered the commercialism of religious pilgrimage sites in Medjugorje as I walked by (and into, admittedly) tens of shops selling rosaries, prayer cards, medals, and the like.

Mary led me to Paris next, to the chapel at Rue du Bac. Mary appeared in this chapel at the convent of the Sisters of Charity in 1830 to a new novice, Catherine Laboure. Since her mom died during Catherine’s childhood, Catherine had always had a special devotion to Mary and wished nothing more than to see her. This was realized when she was led to the chapel by a young boy, presumably her Guardian Angel, who told her “Come to the chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you.”

In the chapel, Catherine heard the rustle of a silk dress and saw a beautiful lady sit down in the Priest’s chair. Mary comforted Catherine and told her of things that would come to pass in France in the next 40 years. She also charged Catherine with a mission—one that she explained to Catherine during a second apparition on November 27th. Catherine was to oversee the production of a medal emulating Mary as she appeared to Catherine and with a beautiful symbol on the back.  The medal was cast in 1831 and millions distributed within a few years. It quickly became known as the “Miraculous Medal” due to the many conversions and cures it led to. Catherine’s identity as the visionary was not revealed until just before her death in 1876.  Catherine was canonized in 1947 and her body was found to be incorrupt. It lies today in the chapel where I was blessed to pray before it.

Indeed, it was miraculous that Mary led me to the chapel just before it closed for two weeks the next day. The chapel at Rue du Bac had an air of Grace unlike anywhere I have ever been. Kneeling before the chair where Mary sat with St. Catherine’s incorrupt body to my right, glancing up at the beautiful statue of Mary, I could feel Mary’s graces pouring down upon me. I was struck by the glorious way the rays pouring out of Mary’s hands pointed directly to Our Lord in the tabernacle situated beneath the statue, confirming Mary’s promise to lead us to Christ.

Chapel at Rue du Bac, Paris, where Mary appeared to St. Catherina Laboure with the image of the Miraculous Medal.

After a quick stop in Paris, I headed to the Pyrenes foothills to Lourdes, France. Mary appeared in 1858 to a 14-year old peasant, Bernadette, in a grotto when she was fetching water. Mary appeared as a young girl of 16 or 17 dressed in a white robe with a blue ribbon at the waist and a white veil on her head. She was carrying rosary beads. Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times that year with messages of hope and of a need for penitence. Mary caused a miraculous spring to come up from the dry ground that still flows today. At this Grotto, Mary told Bernadette “Que soy era Immaculada Counception,” I am the Immaculate Conception, confirming the Catholic teaching of Mary as Immaculate. Thousands of miracles have been approved in Lourdes, France, and it is once of the largest Catholic pilgrimmage sites for healing.

I was blessed to have a couple of quiet days at Lourdes during the off-season for pilgrimages. I participated in French and English mass in the various chapels and the rosary basilica, bathed in the baths at Lourdes, went to confession, visited the childhood home of Bernadette, and explored all that the beautiful basilica had to offer. My time is Lourdes was a time of penitence and beauty.

I ended my journey at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. It was a huge coming home for me, as I have always had a special devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and being in North America revering the Patroness of the Americas in a language I spoke was a huge blessing. Guadalupe certainly was not an afterthought as it is the most well known apparition and the most visited Marian shrine in the world with 10 million pilgrims visiting it each year. I spent four days in Mexico City and went to the Basilica each day. The Basilica was built on the site where Mary appeared to a poor farmer, Juan Diego, in 1531. The young Aztec woman asked Juan to have a basilica built on Tepeyac Hill where she greeted him. The Bishop did not believe Juan Diego and asked for a sign.  Mary told Juan to pick Castilian roses on the hill—Spanish flowers growing in Mexico, in December. Juan brought the roses to the Bishop and when he unrolled his garment, his “Tilma,” carrying them, the roses fell to the ground and a miraculous image of Mary was on the Tilma. The Bishop fell in veneration and had a basilica built. People quickly came to revere Our Lady, and within 7 years, 8 million Aztecs had converted—the apparition is largely responsible for the Christianization of Latin America. The image of Our Lady remains on the Tilma today, completely unchanged, after nearly 500 years on a fabric that disintegrates after 20 years. Again, thousands of miracles have been attributed to Our Lady of Guadalupe. The basilica remains a very popular pilgrimage site today.

One of many processions to the Basilica with pilgrim groups carrying large floats of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I was able to partake in many pilgrim activities, attending many masses, walking up and down the Tepeyac and enjoying the bustling commercialism. The number of pilgrims at the Basilica was unparalleled, with groups coming hourly for mass—held from 6am till 6pm with hundreds of pilgrims in each. By happenstance, I was visiting on the day of the annual pilgrimage and enjoyed mass in the square with thousands of Mexicans who had gathered from all of the parishes in Mexico City with the Archbishop and Cardinal. Mexico City felt like home, and Mary was my dear mother fully embracing me.

Annual Pilgrimage Mass with the Archbishop, thousands of pilgrims in the square between the new and old basilicas for mass.

As an added bonus to my trip, I discovered one more apparition site near Mexico City on the final day of my trip. Tlaxcala, Mexico is a city a couple of hours by bus from Mexico City. Mary appeared there in 1541 to Juan Bernardino and brought forth a healing spring of water to cure the villagers from the plague. She also told him to tell the Franciscan monks that she would provide a statue of herself for them. One night in the forest, flames lit all the trees on fire, but the trees did not burn and one in particular stood out. The Franciscans marked it, returned the next day, split it open, and found a statue of the Virgin Mary inside. The statue sits today in the Church of Our Lady of Ocotlán, where I was blessed to spend a day.

Miraculous wooden Statue of Our Lady of Ocotlán that was found inside a tree after a lightening storm.

Mary is known by many different titles, and I encountered her in Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Tlaxcala. Most Catholics have a devotion to one particular image of Mary largely depending on the image they’ve encountered most. However, in all of the images, we are worshiping the same woman, the Mother of God. And, indeed, there is a large intertwining of Marian images across cultures. The patroness of the Americas, and absolutely fundamental in Latin American Catholicism, Our Lady of Guadalupe earned a spot in nearly all of the churches in Mexico. Additionally, though, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was frequently in other countries as well. Indeed, there was a large icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe at a side chapel in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego at a central altar right next to the basilica in Lourdes. Conversely, the grotto at Lourdes was replicated in many churches in Mexico.  I also noticed many consistencies in the images of Mary. Mary’s hands were always formed in prayer, she was frequently carrying a rosary, the sun and the moon were featured largely in the images, and all of the images were consistent with Scripture. From all of this, I received the sense that one can pick whichever image of Mary most resonates with them to revere, but that one MUST pick one. The tradition of the Church, the role of Mary as the Co-Redemptress and Mediatrix of Grace, the writings of the Popes, and in Mary’s messages themselves, emphasize that utmost importance that we honor Mary.

Church of Our Lady of Ocotlán, Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Many people question why Mary appears when she does and how she picks to whom to appear; I found myself asking similar questions of Mary, and also of myself, during my pilgrimage. Why had I been blessed with such an opportunity to discover Mary? Indeed, it seemed nothing short of a miracle to have received an AMS research grant to explore Marian apparitions. I am over-joyed to share the answer I received. While Mary manifests herself differently in each culture, just like Christ who she constantly points her children to, Mary is for ALL, including me!

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The following text and pictures were contributed by Nam Nguyen Vu ’18, an Alumni Memorial Scholar, who attended the AMS trip to New York City during February/March of 2015.

Is there a better way to celebrate the fact that you’re one of the lucky Colgate students chosen for the Alumni Memorial Scholars (AMS) program, than by going to New York City with other AMS students?

On February 28, 2015, a group of 17 AMS students traveled to the Rockefeller Archive center, a premier center for research on philanthropy and civil society. Sound boring? Not in the least. We were welcomed personally by James Smith – the Director of Research and Education – on a Saturday morning (yep we were that privileged!). And guess what, he is a Colgate AMS alumnus, too.

We had a wonderful lunch, and after exchanging quick introductions with the archive staff, we were taken on a tour of the vault, where precious materials acquired over tens and hundreds of years are kept. Imagine all the documents researchers have to request days or weeks in advance. We examined all of them closely—including posters, books, letters, receipts, minutes, and research proposals, some written by Nobel laureates and world-renowned scientists. (And, for some reason, there was a wedding cake, too!) The tour really helped us, and especially me, understand how an archive works and what it holds in store. Since all AMS students all researchers-in-training, this information could be really handy someday.

The best part of our visit was a workshop on scholar rescue programs organized by the archive staff. We all became judges, charged with determining who was most in danger–and who could be saved, brought to the United States. These were real scenarios from WWII, reconstructed from primary source documents held in the vault. At times, we found ourselves surprised to read letters of support written by famous people, like Albert Einstein (yes, THE Albert Einstein). But every portfolio was so compelling that our group decided to rescue people based on the level of immediate danger they faced. In the end, we were amazed to read about these high profile researchers who eventually got to the US and who contributed so much to the intellectual life of American universities during and after the war. After a whole day of learning, we ate dinner. Nothing fancy, just some really good Italian food with the best company, including the research assistants at the archive. The first day was successful.

On the second day, we went on a tour of art and architecture at Rockefeller Center. We learned all sorts of history, including how the center was built, and how Diego Rivera painted one of his masterpieces on the wall of the Center – only to see it ripped from the walls for portraying Lenin. Did you know Mr. Rockefeller was so upset with one of the sculptures that he would only use the main entrance to avoid seeing it? There are always so many interesting things to learn.

If you think we only went on tours, you’re wrong, because we were given plenty of time to explore the city on our own. Free time in NYC is never wasted. After all, it was so much fun. I had a chance to learn, to find out so much more cool things, and to bond with my fellow AMS. We sang, we danced, we rapped to Drake and Nicki Minaj and belted out Beyonce. And we are still potential researchers! Thank you Peter and Robert for all your effort to pull this off. You guys are awesome.

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During the winter of 2014-15, Mac Baler ’15 used his AMS Grant to study the geography of youth language in Japan. Following Yanagita Kunio’s theory of “peripheral zones,” Baler wondered whether important cultural centers still drive the creation of new words, phrases, and dialects. “There are a few Japanese resources investigating youth language as a whole,” he wrote, “though one is pressed to find data cataloguing this youth language by region.” What follows is Baler’s report, detailing both his experience on the ground in Japan and some preliminary results.

This past winter break, through my AMS independent research grant, I was able to return to Japan to conduct linguistic surveys concerning the current state of, and dialectical variants on, Japanese youth language. Since the day I left Japan, at the end of my semester studying abroad at Kansai Gaidai University (関西外国語大学) in Osaka, Fall 2013, I vowed to return. I knew it wasn’t さようなら (sayonara), meaning goodbye, but, as youth would say, またね (mata ne), meaning, literally, “again, yeah?” – casual parting words between friends, akin to “see you later.” Even here, in the form of saying goodbye, youth language appears.

In my time studying abroad, I discovered the phenomenon of Japanese youth language, and the vast variety, and quick turnaround, it possesses. As my university pulls students from all over Japan, it became common to talk with friends about the Japanese slang or dialect used in their hometown, and vice-versa, as I was learning their language, and they learning mine. Upon returning to Colgate, I spent time pondering different possibilities for a thesis in Japanese, and in discussing possible books to translate with my Professor, my interest in youth language shone through, and a book titled 「若者言葉に耳をすませば」(“If We Lend An Ear To Youth Language”) came up. Upon reading through this book, I realized that there are those who are interested in these same kinds of language trends or word usage as I was, and that I could perhaps return to Japan and do some sort of survey on the current state of youth language, in comparison with this book’s results from 2007, focusing in on certain aspects I discovered in the book in which I had a particular interest. Simultaneously, I discovered that the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs does national public opinion polls on Japanese language and usage, showing even more native interest in such things. In these polls, and in the youth language book, there were bits touching on how such language varied by region. This particularly sparked my interest, and related directly to that which I experienced firsthand while studying abroad. The area in which I was, the Kansai region (south-central region of Japan’s main island), is famous for its dialect, which everyone in the nation knows, and through my interactions with students, my host family, etc., I was able to recognize it and pick it up. When talking with friends from Tokyo, across the country from Kansai, or looking at a textbook, such dialectical words did not appear. I therefore sought out to expand on these experiences I had while in Japan, and return, conducting surveys on Japanese youth language, and if, and if so, how, it changes depending on where you are in the country.

I find it necessary to give a brief background concerning Japanese trends and a bit of interesting yet informative history concerning the birth of certain geographic dialectical trends. In general, Japan is unbelievably trend-conscious, and fad-driven. Whether it be fashion, popular media, etc., youth are up with the trends. Furthermore, these trends are always in flux, changing unbelievably quickly. It turns out that these trends apply to youth language as well. As for dialects, there is a notably large number despite Japan’s size. Interestingly enough, they’re quite distinct from one another, yet their origin is often under debate. However, for linguists, one school of thought concerning the dissemination of dialects prevails. In the early 1900s, Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese folklore study, traveled throughout Japan, noting the different dialectical words for “snail” used throughout the country’s regions. He discovered that the distribution of these dialectical words formed concentric circles throughout the country, with their center/source point located at the nation’s former capital, Kyoto, in the Kansai region.

Centered at Kyoto, each consecutive ripple zone contained the same word for “snail,” and share similar language trends.

From this, he proposed his方言周圏論“Peripheral-zones Dialect Theory,” stating that synonyms or “buzz-words” are created in influential, cultural centers (i.e. the nation’s capital), and general propagate beyond, over time, extending out in a ripple-like fashion. This not only portrays the frequency with which slang words are created in Japan, so fast that words are rippling across the nation, but also how different the language can grow to be. This same ripple concept was the basis of a television segment and eventual book (1996), which charted what word people used to mean “fool” or “idiot,” focusing on two main words – baka, used often in standard “Tokyo” Japanese, and aho, a word seemingly of Kansai dialect. As expected, the results were a ripple, focused on the old capital of Kyoto in the Kansai Region, with similar words exiting in concentric circles disseminating outward.

Upon my discovering this survey, I remembered the frequent use of the word aho by my Japanese friends from Kansai, or by my host-family, but not by others from outside the region.

With this foundation in mind, I set out to create a survey asking people what kind of youth language they’re currently using, in aim to see not only the current state of youth language, in 2014/5, compared to that of prior years, but to also see if respondents’ answers would vary depending upon their birthplace / region in which they currently live. I therefore went to Japan over winter break, from late December to mid-January, spending a little less than a week in the Tokyo area, and almost two weeks in the Kansai region (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, etc.), conducting my surveys. This was truly made possible via the help of contacts I had in Japan – Colgate alumni, prior Colgate language interns, my host family, and most of all, the various friends I made while studying abroad, with whom I had remained close.

As for the survey itself, I created one version that could be distributed in person, via paper, and online as well. I created some unique questions of my own, based some off of topics in the youth language book mentioned before, and mimicked some asked in the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs national polls, to allow for the possibility of seeing a difference in results over time. The question types ranged from multiple choice (“Which of the following emphasis words do you use most often?”), to fill-ins (“If you had to pick a youth word you wish would go away/out of fashion, what would it be?”), to short answer (“Why do you think there is such variety in current youth language usage patterns?”), etc. I also asked birth location and current residential location in order to guarantee an accurate knowledge of participant geographical influence.

Time for results! I was able to garner 97 responses in total. I’ll now provide a brief synopsis of the results or interesting takeaway from each question.

It turned out that a whopping 91.6% use shortened, abbreviated adjectival forms, and don’t mind when others use them either. Only a few said that they don’t use them, but don’t mind when others do, and only one person claimed to using them themselves, but admittedly caring when others do. This large majority that do use these stumped adjectival forms was not influenced by location – both in and outside of Kansai they are used. As for emphasis words, it was clear that meccha (“ridiculously”) took the cake, with a leading 42.3% of participants choosing it. Interestingly enough, though to not much surprise, 36 out of the 41 who chose meccha live in Kansai – this extreme usage was something I picked up on while at university there. Regarding imported words, two words pulled ahead – misuru, coming from “miss,” meaning to fail or not achieve, came in with 42.3%, and chekkusuru, coming from “check,” meaning to check or confirm, registered at 26.8%. Somewhat surprisingly, though, it seemed that 35 of the 41 who picked misuru were from Kansai, something I had not expected. I also asked whether one uses aho or baka, mimicking the survey done in the late nineties, mentioned above. As expected, the large majority who picked aho either currently live or were born in the Kansai area, and, in contrast, a large majority of those who picked baka live or were born outside of Kansai.

Lastly, the two more open response questions. Concerning responses to the question that asked, which youth language words or phrases do you wish would go away, almost 30% of them opposed variants of using the word or “death” or “to die” in sentences, as in telling people to “go die,” or using death to express extent, as in “so hot I’m going to die,” or “this was so bad I want to die,” etc. This sentiment appeared both in and out of Kansai. Multiple responses also expressed their dislike of the over-abbreviating of words or phrases. Lastly, some responses were opposed to those who overuse certain words, saying the same word in all situations, as well as against the certain words that are overused. In regards to the question which asked participants why they think there are so many various usages of youth language, there were some quite interesting response trends. First of all, 65 of the 97 respondents chose to answer this question, higher than any other open response, non-multiple choice question. Some respondents stated that, simply, youth language allows them, in the sake of brevity, to just get their point across faster, or and do have more fun doing so, freshening up the same old same old. Similarly, some said that they want to be able to express themselves easily, and in a way that they desire. Furthermore, there was a clear trend in responses saying that they desired to communicate with their peers effectively, not needing to explain everything, yet relying on these words used within their in-groups to strengthen a sense of feeling, belonging, and camaraderie. Relating to the intense trend or consumerist driven Japanese society, a handful of respondents stated that as they’re so driven by fads, and words can be fads too, they want to try and start using new words, create their own trends, and be seen as cool or unique. In a more negative light, some said that such slang is the result of the internet or texting, especially concerning abbreviations. There was also a surprising amount of responses pointing to globalization or westernization as the cause, with people being overly sensitive to influence from outside Japan, and thereby creating language trends accordingly. Lastly, a few respondents stated that, as youth have a limited vocabulary compared to that of adults, youth need to modify the few words they know and use in order to create variety and nuance, in order to convey more complex emotions.

Sustenance for my travels!

So… what now? My senior high honors thesis project has stemmed out of this. After spending some time looking through「若者言葉に耳をすませば」(“If We Lend An Ear To Youth Language”), I realized that not only did I love the book, but now with first-hand experience under my belt, I wanted to share the knowledge in this book with even non-Japanese speakers. I therefore have decided to translate the book (it seems I shall be able to finish half of it) for my thesis, planning to finish the translation after graduation. I plan to perhaps incorporate the above-mentioned results of the survey into my thesis translation introduction, providing up-to-date examples of Japanese youth language, but, even if they don’t fit, they have provided invaluable background info to the material I’m translating, and was supremely interesting in the very least!

Also, why does this matter? Well, for those who have learned or are learning another language, and have studied abroad in that language’s native region, you may already know the answer. There is clearly a disconnect between textbook or formal learning of a language, and the on-the-ground, real-time colloquialisms, slang, etc. Furthermore, as “youth,” if one wants to try to talk to their newfound peers in their peers’ language, it will be quite the struggle if all of the youth language words go over one’s head. It is for this reason that I feel so strongly about investigating, keeping tabs on, and translating this rapidly changing information on youth language in Japan. If we are to continue to bridge gaps in this ever-globalizing world, the youth of today need to be able to communicate effectively, and comfortably, having a shared youth language to promote camaraderie.

This project has truly had an impact on me. I learned how to create a proper research proposal requesting grant money; I was given a gateway to discover my newfound interest in societal linguistics; and I was able to birth my thesis project. This project has certainly not been the end of my interactions with Japanese youth language or Japan in general – it has been a fresh beginning for opportunity! Remember, as the Japanese youth would say, it’s not さようなら (sayonara, goodbye), but rather, またね (mata ne, again yeah?).

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