Reynolds, Katsue A.

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Murakami shosetsu ni okeru "onna kotoba": Women’s language in the novels of Murakami Haruki

( 2014-05-06) れいのるず秋葉, かつえ ; Reynolds, Katsue A.

村上春樹の初期の作品は、仮想世界の物語である。固有名がないこと、会話文の過剰なステレオタイプ化が、非現実性を醸し出している。『ノルウエイの森」は作家自身の世界との関わり方についての転換とともに起こった、小説手法の転換であった。言語学的に言えば、『固有名消去」と「会話文の過剰なステレオタイプ化』から『固有名回復」と『会話文の現実接近」への、意識的な転換であった。

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Calling for Anti-Shogun Movement - Inventing Modern Self in Letter Writing -

( 2014-05-02) れいのるず秋葉, かつえ ; Reynolds, Katsue A.

The change from the feudal period to modern times via the Meiji Restoration (1868) was the most turbulent and complex in the history of Japan, and many details of the change remain unexplained. This paper will shed new light on this social change by bringing attention to the seemingly sudden appearance of boku, a male first person pronoun,1 in the emerging culture of letter writing. It was after a century of civil wars ended in1600 and a centralized feudalism was established that samurai members and richer commoners learned writing. Letter writing became a social phenomenon of the time. It played an important role in disseminating information and awakening Japanese intellectuals to what was happening outside the country. In fear of western military power, a growing trend towards the anti- Shogun movement led to an extremely radical change in the social structure from a strictly hierarchized feudalism to a modern democracy. In the process of such fundamental social change, language inevitably played a crucial role in forming and accommodating new meanings and new ideologies. All the samurai self- referencing words that had previously been borrowed from Chinese were strongly associated with various power relationships between communicants, and they were extremely incongruent with the self of the new breed of samurai intellectuals. Samurai intellectuals adopted boku, a Chinese word with a nuance of solidarity, in the letters exchanged in the movement. Letter writing was a crucial tool for networking among anti-Shogun activists, just like the Jasmine Revolutions calling for pro-democracy online in China and other places today.

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Discourse and Social Change --from "personal" to "political"

(Tokyo: Gendai Nihongo Kenkyuukai, 1999-12) れいのるず秋葉, かつえ ; Reynolds, Katsue A.

This study attempts to understand the contemporary problems for Japanese women from a feminist point of view by analyzing the media discourse that dealt with a series of political incidents triggered by the confession of a former geisha. It was an event most compellingly revealing the conflicting powers in the process of change from the tradition of uniquely Japanese patriarchy to the post-patriarchy. It shows that the division constructed during the feudal era between two women classes, ordinary family women and sexual women, is still deeply ingrained in the mind of the Japanese people, women and men, that the contradiction is particularly complex when a woman of the lower women class asserts gender equality. Her confession played a crucial role in the national politics, leading to the historical defeat of the conservative party in the national election and the quick resignation of the Prime Minister. I analyze the discursive texts available through mass media and discuss the uniquely complex problems of women of contemporary Japan.

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性差別のない新しい英語をーー国際化時代の英語教育に望むこと [Non-Sexist 'English' in Classroom--What Is Expected in English Education in the International Age]

( 2012-03-23) れいのるず秋葉, かつえ ; Reynolds, Katsue A.