Is Cohesive Writing Coherent? A Case Study of Japanese English

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1982
Authors
Easton, Barbara Jo
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University of Hawaii at Manoa. Department of English as a Second Language.
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This longitudinal case study of Japanese English discourse raises questions about the nature of "English" and argues for blending as an explanation for characteristic Japanese English patterns of organization. The primary data come from a series of four major paprs written by a multilingual Japanese informant, Yumiko, interacting "in Enlish" with American university professors in Hawaii. What seems to be characterisitc Japanese indirectness and emphasis on cohesion occus both in the patterning of overall organization (with four basic parts rather than three), especially in the first draft, and in the use of initial collectives (i.e. conjunctions and adverbial phrases at the beginnings of sentences). The American readers have difficulty viewing writing as being coherent when it is based on cultural expectation that differ from theirs.
Description
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japanese english, blending, connectives, cultural expectations
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24 pages
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University of Hawai'i Working Papers in English as a Second Language 1(2)
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