This multimedia project explores the lives of Chinese and Taiwanese migrants living in South Africa and how language, culture, community and marginalisation have come to shape their identities and to visually represent them in a way that is not prevalent in mainstream media. It uses two visual mediums – photography and video interviews – to understand these migrants’ experiences, how they perceive themselves and how they think society perceives them. Data analysis consisted of a process of coding the video interviews and structural analysis of the visuals. Rising worldwide migration has simultaneously increased the spread of diasporic communities. China’s positionality as an economic powerhouse and the influx of East Asian migrants to South Africa in recent years has shone a light on this minority population group. However, much of what is known about them tends to be through forms of mass media which perpetuates stereotypical representations. This paper draws on various literature including acculturation, diasporic communities, representation, languaging and xenophobia to explore the lives of East Asian migrants living in South Africa and search for more empowered forms of representation.

The Go-Tsuchimikado Shinkan-bon ~ Izumi Shikibu Shū is a 15th century manuscript of 150 poems by the 10th/11th century poet, Izumi Shikibu. This thesis includes translations for all 150 poems with detailed translation notes and an examination of the arrangement of the poems. It seems likely that the Shinkan-bon would have been organized in a sequence that links poems together in such a way as to create a larger poetical work for the collection as a whole. Sequences are developed through a natural progression of temporal and spatial elements in the poems, as well as connections through mood, theme, imagery, associations, and the repetition of words. This method of anthology arrangement had been common in Japanese literature for hundreds of years prior to the assumed date of creation for the Shinkan-bon in the early 13th century. Three sections of the Shinkan-bon were examined in this thesis to determine if there was continuity between the poems. The first section is made up of the first twenty-five seasonal poems, running from spring to winter. This section does show continuity between some of the poems but does not contain an over-all sequence. The second section is made up of fifteen poems in the middle of the collection and the third section is made up of the final ten poems in the Shinkan-bon. There is no sequencing in the second and third sections, and thus it can be determined that the Shinkan-bon collection has no sequential significance to its order, and that the poems are organized by another method.

In the late 18th century an artist named Torii Kiyotsune 鳥居清経inherited and mastered a style of ukiyo-e that was soon to go out of fashion. Few of his prints survived and he left little impression on Japanese art history, despite his association with such a prominent school as the Torii. Yet the very association may have contributed to his obscurity. The assumption that Kiyotsune was primarily an ukiyo-e artist led to the overshadowing of his work in another arena, popular books known as kusazōshi. In fact he was quite prolific in that medium, illustrating over 130 kibyōshi, as well as works in other genres. Analysis of one of his kibyōshi, Kaminari no hesokuigane 雷之臍喰金, shows that there is still much to be learned about him and his contributions to early modern Japanese visual culture. Through an analysis of Kaminari no hesokuigane this thesis also explores the unique set of characteristics that distinguishes kibyôshi from other forms of visual-verbal narratives such as comics or illustrated books. Moreover it argues that, despite their having served as cheap, disposable fiction in their time, kibyōshi can serve as an informative lens through which to examine how the ordinary inhabitants of Edo identified with their city, creating a culture of their own and developing the Edokko type that has survived into the modern era.

Task-based language teaching has received increasing attention in second language acquisition research over the past decade (Révész, 2007). However, the target form comprises conveyance of meaning in task-based classroom to some degree. In the area of Chinese acquisition as a second language the role of recasts and explicit feedback has not been the subject of much investigation, as two types of technique to compensate learners’ attention on form. Few empirical studies have explored their short-term and long-term effects on Chinese language acquisition in task-based classroom. To test the conclusions of some research about corrective feedback in the area of SLA, the present study examined the effects of these two techniques respectively. The study employed an immediate-test and posttest design. The participants were 53 adult, beginning level Chinese language learners who study Chinese as a second language, naturally assigned to one of the two comparison groups and a control group. The comparison groups differed as to whether they received recasts or explicit feedback while completing communicative tasks. The control group also practiced the tasks; however, they received neither recasts nor explicit feedback from their instructors in the process and they participated in the testing sessions. Results analysis of collected data yielded three main findings. First, learners receiving explicit feedback immediately outperformed those who received recasts for certain structures. Second, learners receiving explicit feedback sometimes yielded some long-term advantages over those who did not receive any feedback, followed by the recast group even after a period of time. Third, the performance of the participants varied according to the complexity of the target forms. The results imply that explicit feedback and recasts can facilitate the production of certain target language forms in beginning Chinese communicative class. The effects of explicit feedback and recasts depend on the chosen forms. It is congruent with Long’s (1998) and Ellis’s (2007) speculation that the roles of various feedbacks differ according to different linguistic features. It also provides further evidence for Leeman’s (2000) conclusion that recasts may be differentially effective when the learnabililty of the target linguistic feature vary. Finally, the findings lend some support to the insight derived from Long that focus-on-form should be integrated into task-based language teaching (Long, 1996, 2000; Long & Robinson, 1998).

There are four major patterns of the plural forms of personal pronouns in Modern Chinese, which are: Same Wording, Suffixation (Multisyllabic and Monosyllabic Suffixations), Sound Combination (Coda Suffix and New Wording), and Tonal Changes. Same Wording was the original plural pattern since the singular form was also used as plural form in Old Chinese. Suffixation was already appeared in Middle Chinese. Author suspects that Suffixation was a concept inspired by non-Han languages such as the Buddhist Sanskrit. Each Chinese dialect chose a way to represent this concept based on its dialectal characteristic, thus there are many dialects in China. For example, the [men] suffix in many northern dialects are phonologically and semantically related to the Tang dynasty suffixes, while the m- initial might has been originated in Tang dynasty dialects, the -n ending might be a result of Altaic language influences. Northern dialects have a simpler pattern due to the influence of Altaic languages, in comparison, the plural pattern of southern dialects are more complex due to the contact with Miao, Yao, Zhuang languages.

The Heyang dialect has many distinct phonological features, which make it quite different from its adjacent dialects. The phonological features of the Heyang dialect are systematically studied, and the historical strata are revealed. Diverse historical strata exist in the current system of the Heyang dialect. In the Heyang dialect, there are phonological features which belong to the stratum of the Northwestern dialect during the Tang and Song dynasties. These features include: the Middle Chinese voiced obstruents are all aspitrated; the -ŋ ending is lost in the colloquial readings of Dang (宕) and Geng (梗) rhyme groups; the division III hekou syllables in Zhi (止) and Yu (遇) rhyme groups merge; and the division III and IV hekou finals of Xie (蟹) rhyme group are xiyin. The initials yi (疑) and wei (微) in the Heyang dialect are pronounced the same as they are in the Zhongyuan yinyun. The kaikou contrasted with the hekou finals in Guo (果) rhyme group when they combined with velar and glottal initials, the division I contrasted with division II finals of Xiao (效) rhyme group in the Heyang dialect. Those phonological phenomena belong to the historical stratum of the Zhongyuan yinyun. The Heyang dialect was further compared with the Meixian dialect, a representive of the Hakka dialect group. The two dialects share so many phonological characteristics. The relation between the two dialects is even closer than that between the Heyang dialect and Mandarin, in some essential aspects, which strongly suggests that the Heyang dialect may be rooted from the Zhongyuan dialects during the Tang and Song dynasty.

The end of the Second World War and Japan’s surrender are the established paradigm for understanding postwar Japanese society. The formulation of the new Constitution and the establishment of the postwar democracy mark a major historical turnaround for Japan. Since he debuted as a writer in 1958, Ōe Kenzaburō’s (1935 - ) published literary works are closely related to the postwar history of Japan. Ōe has been an outspoken supporter of the pacifist Constitution and “postwar democracy.” Ōe’s stories about the war are characterized by a realistic depiction at the same time as always narrating his stories in an imaginary world. In his works the past history and the future are intricately combined in the depiction of contemporary society. By doing so, Ōe creates an ambiguous image of contemporary Japan. Ōe’s main question in his early works is the achievement of shutaisei both in postwar Japanese society and Japanese literature. The main protagonists as well as the author protest against the emperor-centered history. They attempt to illustrate another history from their own viewpoint.

This paper addresses the issues inherent in comics translation, with specific regard to the translation of Japanese manga into English. In North America, the norms of manga translation have undergone several radical shifts in the past few decades, with strong preference being shown alternately for domesticating and foreignizing translations. Such paradigm shifts suggest differences between readerships, which have a strong influence on translators’ and publishers’ decisions. This understanding of the current translation situation then provides the backdrop for a novel method of translation that is centered around an initial textual analysis, which is itself rooted in a form-focused understanding of the comics medium. This understanding of the medium also sheds light on some of the translation issues specific to the Japanese context, particularly those of flopping and treatment of onomatopoeia. At all points in the translation process, the translator must keep in mind that comics is a medium that utilizes multiple overlapping, intertwining sign-systems, which can only be translated effectively when considered in relation to one another. The paper concludes with two short manga translations, which represent the culmination of these ideas.

This essay analyzes Zhang Dai’s life and his major literary work, and argues that the expression of self is the core of his writings. By contextualizing Zhang Dai’s work in the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, this essay explains the hidden motives of Zhang Dai to justify, preserve and identify his self through literary practice, suggests that this explosion of self-expression is not only a literary response to the historical event of dynastic transition, but also a reflection of the cultural and literary trends of the 17th century. This essay also provides close readings and genre study to Zhang Dai’s poems, prose and biographical writings, and demonstrates how the expression of the writer’s self works in different types of literary genres.

There is a book printed in Chinese by Yeh Mung Tau during the reign of Kan Lung 1736 to 1796 in which he states that he found these documents in a Buddhist Monastery though he was unable to find the originals. The title of this book is the T'al Shang Ken-Ying Pien Chih Chiang Treatise of the Exalted one on Response and Retribution, with Commentery. It is a collection of treatises which deals with the same subjects as the teachings of Lao Tzu. Ce of the treatises in that voluse is entitled T'ai Shang Ch'u Paa Hun (A), the Precious Teachings of the Exalted One. It is not stated whether it was or was not written by Leo Tau but It is in the was category of 11tereture as the Tao Te Ching (道德經), end to a recognized generally in China.